Part 29

The chapter of the Augustinian Order in Thuringia and Misnia has met here within this last month, to consider the question of the irrevocable nature of monastic vows. They have come to the decision that in Christ there is neither layman nor monk; that each is free to follow his conscience.

_Christmas Day_, 1521.

This has been a great day with us.

Archdeacon Carlstadt announced, some little time since, that he intended, on the approaching Feast of the Circumcision, to administer the holy sacrament to the laity under the two species of bread and wine. His right to do this having been disputed, he hastened the accomplishment of his purpose, lest it should be stopped by any prohibition from the court.

To-day, after his sermon in the City Church, in which he spoke of the necessity of replacing the idolatrous sacrifice of the mass by the holy supper, he went to the altar, and, after pronouncing the consecration of the elements in German, he turned towards the people, and said solemnly,--

"Whosoever feels heavy laden with the burden of his sins, and hungers and thirsts for the grace of God, let him come and receive the body and blood of the Lord."

A brief silence followed his words, and then, to my amazement, before any one else stirred, I saw my timid, retiring mother slowly moving up the aisle, leading my father by the hand. Others followed; some with reverent, solemn demeanour, others perhaps with a little haste and over-eagerness. And as the last had retired from the altar, the archdeacon, pronouncing the general absolution, added solemnly,--

"Go, and sin no more."

A few moments' pause succeeded, and then, from many voices here and there, gradually swelling to a full chorus, arose the Agnus Dei,--

"Lamb of God, who takest away the sin of the world, have mercy on us. Give us peace."

We spent the Christmas, as usual, in my father's house. Wondering, as I did, at my mother's boldness, I did not like to speak to her on the subject; but, as we sat alone in the afternoon, while our dear father, Gottfried, Christopher and the children had gone to see the skating on the Elbe, she said to me,--

"Else, I could not help going. It seemed like the voice of our Lord himself saying to me, '_Thou_ art heavy laden-come!' I never understood it all as I do now. It seemed as if I _saw_ the gospel with my eyes,--saw that the redemption is finished, and that now the feast is spread. I forgot to question whether I repented, or believed, or loved enough. I saw through the ages the body broken and the blood shed for me on Calvary; and now I saw the table spread, and heard the welcome, and I could not help taking your father's hand and going up at once."

"Yes, dear mother, you set the whole congregation the best example!" I said.

"I!" she exclaimed. "Do you mean that I went up before any one else? What! before all the holy men, and doctors, and the people in authority? Else, my child, what have I done? But I did not think of myself, or of any one else. I only seemed to hear His voice calling me; and what could I do but go? And, indeed, I cannot care now how it looked! Oh, Else," she continued, "it is worth while to have the world thus agitated to restore this feast again to the Church; worth while," she added with a trembling voice, "even to have Fritz in prison for this. The blessed Lord has sacrificed himself for us, and we are living in the festival. He died for sinners. He spread the feast for the hungry and thirsty. Then those who feel their sins most must be not the last but the first to come. I see it all now. That holy sacrament is the gospel for me."

_February_ 10, 1522.

The whole town is in commotion.

Men have appeared among us who say that they are directly inspired from heaven; that study is quite unnecessary--indeed, an idolatrous concession to the flesh and the letter; that it is wasting time and strength to translate the Holy Scriptures, since, without their understanding a word of Greek or Hebrew, God has revealed its meaning to their hearts.

These men come from Zwickau. Two of them are cloth-weavers; and one is Muenzer, who was a priest. They also declare themselves to be prophets. Nicholas Storck, a weaver, their leader, has chosen twelve apostles and seventy-two disciples, in imitation of our Lord. And one of them cried in awful tones, to-day through the streets,--

"Woe, woe to the impious governers of Christendom! Within less then seven years the world shall be made desolate. The Turk will overrun the land. No sinner shall remain alive. God will purify the earth by blood, and all the priests will be put to death. The saints will reign. The day of the Lord is at hand. Woe! woe!"

Opinions are divided throughout the university and the town about them. The Elector himself says he would rather yield up his crown and go through the world a beggar than resist the voice of the Lord. Dr. Melancthon hesitated, and says we must try the spirits whether they be of God. The Archdeacon Carlstadt is much impressed with them, and from his professorial chair even exhorts the students to abandon the vain pursuits of carnal wisdom, and to return to earn their bread, according to God's ordinance, in the sweat of their brow. The master of the boys' school called, from the open window of the school-room, to the citizens to take back their children. Not a few of the students are dispersing, and others are in an excitable state, ready for any tumult. The images have been violently torn from one of the churches and burnt. The monks of the Convent of the Cordeliers have called the soldiers to their aid against a threatened attack.

Gottfried and others are persuaded that these men of Zwickau are deluded enthusiasts. He says, "The spirit which undervalues the word of God cannot be the Spirit of God."

But among the firmest opponents of these new doctrines is, to our surprise, our charitable mother. Her gentle, lowly spirit seems to shrink from them as with a heavenly instinct. She says, "The Spirit of God humbles--does not puff up."

When it was reported to us the other day that Nicholas Storck had seen the angel Gabriel in the night, who flew towards him and said to him, "As for thee, thou shalt be seated on my throne!" the mother said,--

"It is new language to the angel Gabriel, to speak of _his_ throne. The angels in old times used to speak of the throne of God."

And when another said that it was time to sift the chaff from the wheat, and to form a Church of none but saints, she said,--

"That would never suit me then. I must stay outside, in the Church of redeemed sinners. And did not St. Paul himself say, as Dr. Luther told us, 'Sinners, of whom I am chief?'"

"But are you not afraid," some one asked her, "of dishonouring God by denying his messengers, if, after all, these prophets should be sent from him?"

"I think not," she replied quietly. "Until the doctors are sure, I think I cannot displease my Saviour by keeping to the old message."

My father, however, is much excited about it; he sees no reason why there should not be prophets at Wittemberg as well as at Jerusalem; and in these wonderful days, he argues, what wonders can be too great to believe?

I and many others long exceedingly for Dr. Luther. I believe, indeed, Gottfried is right, but it would be terrible to make a mistake; and Dr. Luther always seems to see straight to the heart of a thing at once, and storms the citadel, while Dr. Melancthon is going round and round, studying each point of the fortifications.

Dr. Luther never wavers in opinion in his letters, but warns us most forcibly against these delusions of Satan. But then people say he has not seen or heard the "prophets." One letter can be discussed and answered long before another comes, and the living eye and voice are much in such a conflict as this.

What chief could lead an army on to battle by letters?

_February_ 26, 1522.

Our dove of peace has come back to our home; our Eva! This evening, when I went over with a message to my mother, to my amazement I saw her sitting with her hand in my father's, quietly reading to him the twenty-third psalm, while my grandmother sat listening, and my mother was contentedly knitting beside them.

It seemed as if she had scarcely been absent a day, so quietly had she glided into her old place. It seemed so natural, and yet so like a dream, that the sense of wonder passed from me as it does in dreams, and I went up to her and kissed her forehead.

"Dear Cousin Else, is it you!" she said. "I intended to have come to you the first thing to-morrow."

The dear, peaceful, musical voice, what a calm it shed over the home again!

"You see you have all left Aunt Cotta," she said, with a slight tremulousness in her tone, "so I am come back to be with her always, if she will let me."

There were never any protestations of affection between my mother and Eva, they understand each other so completely.

_February_ 28.

Yes, it is no dream. Eva has left the convent, and is one of us once more. Now that she has resumed all her old ways, I wonder more than ever how we could have got on without her. She speaks as quietly of her escape from the convent, and her lonely journey across the country, as if it were the easiest and most every-day occurrence. She says every one seemed anxious to help her and take care of her.

She is very little changed. Hers was not a face to change. The old guileless expression is on her lips--the same trustful, truthful light in her dark soft eyes; the calm, peaceful brow, that always reminded one of a sunny, cloudless sky, is calm and bright still; and around it the golden hair, not yet grown from its conventual cutting, clusters in little curls which remind me of her first days with us at Eisenach. Only all the character of the face seems deepened, I cannot say shadowed, but penetrated with that kind of look which I fancy must always distinguish the face of the saints above from those of the angels,--those who have suffered from those who have only sympathized; that deep, tender, patient, trusting, human look, which is stamped on those who have passed to the heavenly rapturous "_Thy will be done_," through the agony of "_Not my will, but Thine_."

At first Gretchen met her with the kind of reverent face she has at church; and she asked me afterwards, "Is that really the Cousin Eva in the picture?" But now there is the most familiar intimacy between them, and Gretchen confidingly and elaborately expounds to Cousin Eva all her most secret plans and delights. The boys, also, have a most unusual value for her good opinion, and appear to think her judgment beyond that of ordinary women; for yesterday little Fritz was eagerly explaining to her the virtues of a new bow that had been given him, formed in the English fashion.

She is very anxious to set nine young nuns, who have embraced the Lutheran doctrine, free from Nimptschen. Gottfried thinks it very difficult, but by no means impracticable in time.

Meanwhile, what a stormy world our dove has returned to!--the university well-nigh disorganized; the town in commotion; and no German Bible yet in any one's hands, by which, as Gottfried says, the claims of these new prophets might be tested.

Yet it does not seem to depress Eva. She says it seems to her like coming out of the ark into a new world; and, no doubt, Noah did not find everything laid out in order for him. She is quite on my mother's side about the prophets. She says, the apostles preached not themselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. If the Zwickau prophets preach him, they preach nothing new; and if they preach themselves, neither God nor the angel Gabriel gave them that message.

Our great sorrow is Fritz's continued imprisonment. At first we felt sure he would escape, but every month lessens our hopes, until we scarcely dare speak of him except in our prayers. Yet daily, together with his deliverance, Gottfried and I pray for the return of Dr. Luther, and for the prosperous completion of his translation of the German Bible, which Gottfried believes will be the greatest boon Dr. Luther has given, or can ever give, to the German people, and through them to them Christendom.

_Saturday_, _March_ 8, 1522.

The great warm heart is beating amongst us once more!

Dr. Luther is once more dwelling quietly in the Augustinian cloister, which he left for Worms a year ago. What changes since then! He left us amid our tears and vain entreaties not to trust his precious life to the treacherous safe-conduct which had entrapped John Huss to the stake.

He returns unscathed and triumphant--the defender of the good cause before emperor, prelates, and princes--the hero of our German people.

He left citizens and students for the most part trembling at the daring of his words and deeds.

He returns to find students and burghers impetuously and blindly rushing on the track he opened, beyond his judgment and convictions.

He left, the foremost in the attack, timidly followed as he hurried forward, braving death alone.

He returns to recall the scattered forces, dispersed and divided in wild and impetuous pursuit.

Will, then, his voice be as powerful to recall and reorganize as it was to urge forward?

He wrote to the Elector, on his way from the Wartburg, disclaiming his protection--declaring that he returned to the flock God had committed to him at Wittemberg, called and constrained by God himself, and under mightier protection than that of an elector! "The sword," he said, "could not defend the truth. The mightiest are those whose faith is mightiest. Relying on his master, Christ, and on him alone, he came."

Gottfried says it is fancy, but already it seems to me I see a difference in the town--less bold, loud talking, than the day before yesterday; as in a family of eager, noisy boys, whose father is amongst them again. But after to-morrow, we shall be able to judge better. He is to preach in the city pulpit.

_Monday_, _March_ 10, 1522.

We have heard him preach once more. Thank God, those days in the wilderness, as he called it, have surely not been lost days for Dr. Luther.

As he stood again in the pulpit, many among the crowded congregation could not refrain from shedding tears of joy. In that familiar form and truthful, earnest face, we saw the man who had stood unmoved before the emperor and all the great ones of the empire--alone, upholding the truth of God.

Many of us saw, moreover, with even deeper emotion, the sufferer who, during those last ten months, had stood before an enemy more terrible than pope or emperor, in the solitude of the Wartburg; and while his own heart and flesh were often well-nigh failing in the conflict, had never failed to carry on the struggle bravely and triumphantly for us his flock; sending masterly replies to the University of Paris; smiting the lying traffic with indulgences, by one noble remonstrance, from the trembling hands of the Archbishop of Mainz; writing letter after letter of consolation or fatherly counsel to the little flock of Christ at Wittemberg; and, through all, toiling at that translation of the Word of God, which is the great hope of our country.

But older, tenderer, more familiar associations, mastered all the others when we heard his voice again--the faithful voice that had warned and comforted us so long in public and in private. To others, Dr. Luther might be the hero of Worms, the teacher of Germany, the St. George who had smitten the dragon of falsehood: to us he was the true, affectionate pastor; and many of us, I believe, heard little of the first words of his sermon, for the mere joy of hearing his voice again, as the clear, deep tones, vibrated through the silent church.

He began with commending our faith. He said we had made much progress during his absence. But he went on to say, "We must have more than faith--we must have love. If a man with a sword in his hand happens to be alone, it matters little whether he keep it in the scabbard or not; but if he is in the midst of a crowd, he must take care to hold it so as not to hurt any one.

"A mother begins with giving her infant milk. Would it live if she gave it first meat and wine?

"But, thou, my friend, hast, perhaps had enough of milk! It way be well for thee. Yet let thy weaker, younger brother take it. The time was when thou also couldst have taken nothing else.

"See the sun! It brings us two things--light and heat. The rays of light beam directly on us. No king is powerful enough to intercept those keen, direct, swift rays. But heat is radiated back to us from every side. Thus, like the light, faith should ever be direct and inflexible; but love, like the heat, should radiate on all sides, and meekly adapt itself to the wants of all.

"The abolition of the mass, you say," he continued, "is according to Scripture. I agree with you. But in abolishing it, what regard had you for order and decency? You should have offered fervent prayers to God, public authority should have been applied to, and every one would have seen then that the thing came from God.

"The mass is a bad thing; God is its enemy: it ought to be abolished; and I would that throughout the whole world it were superceded by the supper of the gospel. But let none tear any one away from it with violence. The matter ought to be committed to God. It is His Word that must act, and not we. And wherefore? do you say? Because I do not hold the hearts of men in my hand as the potter holds the clay in his. Our work is to speak; God will act. Let us preach. The rest belongs to him. If I employ force, what do I gain? Changes in demeanour, outward shows, grimaces, shams, hypocrisies. But what becomes of sincerity of heart, of faith, of Christian love? All is wanting where these are wanting; and for the rest I would not give the stalk of a pear.

"What we want is the heart; and to win that, we must preach the gospel. Then the word will drop to-day into one heart, to-morrow into another, and will so work that each will forsake the mass. God effects more than you and I and the whole world combined could attempt. He secures the heart; and when that is won, all is won.

"I say not this in order to re-establish the mass. Since it has been put down, in God's name let it remain so. But ought it to have been put down in the way it has been? St. Paul, on arriving at the great city of Athens, found altars there erected to false gods. He passed from one to another, made his own reflections on all, but touched none. But he returned peaceably to the Forum, and declared to the people that all those gods were mere idols. This declaration laid hold on the hearts of some, and the idols fell without Paul's touching them. I would preach, I would speak, I would write, but I would lay constraint on no one; for faith is a voluntary thing. See what I have done! I rose in opposition to the pope, to indulgences, and the Papists; but I did so without tumult or violence. I pressed before all things the word of God; I preached, I wrote; I did nothing else. And while I was asleep, or seated at table in conversation with Amsdorf and Melancthon, over our Wittemberg beer, that Word which I had been preaching was working, and subverted the popedom as never before it was damaged by assault of prince or emperor. I did nothing; all was done by the Word. Had I sought to appeal to force, Germany might by this time have been steeped in blood. And what would have been the result? Ruin and desolation of soul and body. I therefore kept myself quiet, and left the Word to force its own way through the world. Know you what, the devil thinks when he sees people employ violence in disseminating the gospel among men? Seated with his arms crossed behind hell fire, Satan says, with a malignant look and hideous leer, 'Ah, but these fools are wise men, indeed, to do my work for me!' But when he sees the Word go forth and engage alone on the field of battle, then he feels ill at ease; his knees smite against each other, he shudders and swoons away with terror."

Quietly and reverently, not with loud debatings and noisy protestations of what they would do next, the congregation dispersed.

The words of forbearance came with such weight from that daring, fearless heart, which has braved the wrath of popedom and empire above for God, and still braves excommunication and ban!

_Wednesday_, _March_ 11.

Yesterday again Dr. Luther preached. He earnestly warned us against the irreverent participation in the holy sacrament. "It is not the external eating, which makes the Christian," he said; "it is the internal and spiritual eating, which is the work of faith, and without which all external things are mere empty shows and vain grimaces. Now this faith consists in firmly believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; that having charged himself with our sins and our iniquities, and having borne them on the cross, he is himself the sole, the all-sufficient expiation; that he ever appears before God; that he reconciles us to the Father, and that he has given us the sacrament of his body in order to strengthen our faith in that unutterable mercy. If I believe these things, God is my defender: with him on my side, I brave sin, death, hell, and demons; they can do me no harm, nor even touch a hair of my head. This spiritual bread is the consolation of the afflicted, the cure of the sick, the life of the dying, food to the hungry, the treasure of the poor. He who is not grieved by his sins, ought not, then, to approach this altar. What would he do there? Ah, did our conscience accuse us, did our heart feel crushed at the thought of our shortcomings, we could not then lightly approach the holy sacrament."

There were more among us than the monk Gabriel Didymus (a few days since one of the most vehement of the violent faction, now sobered and brought to his right mind), that could say as we listened, "Verily it is as the voice of an angel."

But, thank God, it is not the voice of an angel, but a human voice vibrating to every feeling of our hearts--the voice of our own true, outspoken Martin Luther, who will, we trust, now remain with us to build up with the same word which has already cleared away so much.

And yet I cannot help feeling as if his absence had done its work for us as well as his return. If the hands of violence can be arrested now, I cannot but rejoice they have done just as much as they have.

Now, let Dr. Luther's principle stand. Abolish nothing that is not directly prohibited by the Holy Scriptures.

_March_ 30.

Dr. Luther's eight discourses are finished, and quiet is restored to Wittemberg. The students resume their studies, the boys return to school; each begins with a lowly heart once more the work of his calling.

No one has been punished. Luther would not have force employed either against the superstitious or the unbelieving innovators. "Liberty," he says, "is of the essence of faith."

With his tender regard for the sufferings of others we do not wonder so much at this.

But we all wonder far more at the gentleness of his words. They say the bravest soldiers make the best nurses of their wounded comrades. Luther's hand seems to have laid aside the battle-axe, and coming among his sick and wounded and perplexed people here, he ministers to them gently as the kindest woman--as our own mother could, who is herself won over to love and revere him with all her heart.

Not a bitter word has escaped him, although the cause these disorders are risking is the cause for which he has risked his life.

And there are no more tumults in the streets. The frightened Cordelier monks may carry on their ceremonies without terror, or the aid of soldiery. All the warlike spirits are turned once more from raging against small external things, to the great battle beginning everywhere against bondage and superstition.