swer all this.

of repentance, &c.” Luther is exceedingly put to it to an"God speaks to us on this fashion," he says, solely to convict us of our powerlessness, if we do not implore his assistance. Satan said, 'Thou art free to act.' Moses said Act;' in order to convict us before Satan of our inability to act." A cruel and seemingly silly answer; equivalent to tying our legs, and then bidding us walk, and punishing us every time we fall. Recoiling from the consequences which Erasmus either deduces or hints at, Luther rejects every system of interpretation for the Scripture, and yet finds himself obliged to have recourse to interpretation in order to escape the conclusions of his adversary. For instance, he explains, the "I will harden Pharaoh's heart," as follows: "God does evil in us, that is to say, through us, not through any defect in himself, but through the effect of our vices; for we are sinners by nature, whilst God can only do good. By virtue of his omnipotence, he carries us along with him in his course of action, but, although good itself, he cannot prevent an evil instrument from producing evil."

It must have been glorious for Erasmus to behold the triumphant enemy of papacy writhing under his blows, and clutching to oppose him a weapon so dangerous to him who employs it. The more Luther struggles, the more he takes advantage; the more he pushes his victory, the deeper he sinks into immorality and fatalism, even to being constrained to admit that Judas could do no other than betray Christ. Deep and lasting, therefore, was Luther's recollection of this quarrel. He did not deceive himself with regard to his triumph: he had not discovered the solution of the terrible problem; he felt this in his De Servo Arbitrio (On the Bondage of the Will); and to his latest day, the name of him who had beaten him down to the most immoral consequences of the doctrine of grace, is mixed up in his writings and sermons, with curses upon the blasphemers of Christ.

He was, most of all, angered by Erasmus's apparent moderation; who, not daring to attack the foundations of the edifice of Christianity, seemed desirous of destroying it slowly, stone by stone. This shifting and equivocation did not suit Luther's energy. "Erasmus," he says, "that amphibolous king, who sits quietly on the throne of amphibology, mocks us with his ambiguous words, and claps his hands when he sees

us entangled in his insidious figures, like a quarry in the nets. Taking it as an opportunity for his rhetoric, he falls upon us with loud cries, tearing, flogging, crucifying, throwing all hell at our head, because, he says, we have understood in a slanderous, infamous, and Satanic sense, words which he, nevertheless, wished to be so understood. See him advance, creeping like a viper, to tempt simple souls, like the serpent that beguiled Eve into doubt, and infused into her suspicion of God's commands." Whatever Luther may say, this dispute occasioned him so much anxiety and trouble, that he at last declined battle, and prevented his friends from replying for him: "If I fight with dirt, conqueror or conquered, I am always defiled." "I would not," he writes to his son John, "for a thousand florins find myself in God's presence in the danger in which Jerome will stand, still less in Erasmus's place. If I recover health and strength I will fully and freely bear witness to my God against Erasmus. I will not sell my dear little Jesus. I daily draw nearer to the grave; and, before I descend into it, wish to bear witness to my God with my lips, and without putting forth a single leaf as my shield. As yet I have hesitated, and have said to myself, Shouldst thou kill him what would be his fate?' I killed Münzer, and his death is a load round my neck. But I killed him because he sought to kill my Christ." Preaching on Trinity Sunday, doctor Martin Luther says: I pray all of you who have seriously at heart the honor of Christ and of the Gospel, to be the enemies of Erasmus. . . One day, doctor Luther exclaimed to doctors Jonas and Pomeranus, with energetic earnestness: 'My dying prayers to you would be 'Scourge this serpent.' When I shall recover, with God's aid, I will write against him, and kill him. We have endured his mockery of us, and having taken us by the throat; but now, that he seeks to do the same by Christ, we will array ourselves against him. . . . It is true, that crushing Erasmus is crushing a bug; but my Christ, whom he mocks, is nearer to me than Erasmus's being in danger." "If I live, I will, with God's aid, purge the Church of his ordure. 'Tis Erasmus who has given birth to Crotus, Egranus, Witzeln, Ecolampadius, Campanus, and other visionaries or Epicureans. Be it thoroughly understood, I will no more recognize him as a member of the Church." Looking one day at a portrait of Erasmus, Luther

66

de

said: "Erasmus, as his countenance proves, is a crafty, signing man, who has laughed at God and religion; he uses fine words, as 'dear Lord Christ, the word of salvation, the holy sacraments,' but holds the truth to be a matter of indifference. When he preaches, it rings false like a cracked pot. He has attacked the papacy, and is now drawing his head out of the noose."

CHAPTER V.

A.D. 1526-1529.

Luther's Marriage.-His Poverty, Discouragement, Despair, Sickness. -Belief in the Approaching End of the World.

THE firmest souls would have found it difficult to bear up against such a succession of shocks; and Luther's visibly failed after the crisis of the year 1525. His part had been changed, and most distressingly. Erasmus's opposition was the signal for the estrangement of men of letters, who, at the first, had so powerfully aided Luther's cause. He had allowed the De Libero Arbitrio to remain without any serious reply. The great innovator, the people's champion against Rome, saw himself outstripped by the people, and, in the war of the peasants, cursed by the people; so that one cannot be surprised at the discouragement which overwhelmed him at this period. (In this prostration of his mind, the flesh regained its empire; he married.) The two or three succeeding years are a sort of eclipse for Luther; in which we find him for the most part preoccupied with worldly cares, that cannot, however, fill up the void he experiences. At last, he succumbs. A grand physical crisis marks the end of this period of atony. He is aroused from his lethargy by the dangers that threaten Germany; which is invaded by Soliman (A.D. 1529), and threatened in its liberty and its faith at the diet of Augsburg, by Charles the Fifth. (A.D. 1530.)

"Since God has created woman such as to require of ne

cessity to be near man, let us ask no more, God is on our side. So, let us honor marriage, as an honorable and divine institution. This mode of life is the first which it pleased God to ordain, is that which he has constantly maintained, is the last which he will glorify over every other. Where were kingdoms and empires when Adam and the patriarchs lived in marriage? Out of what other kind of life do all states proceed? Albeit, man's wickedness has compelled the magistracy to usurp it for the most part, so that marriage has become an empire of war, whilst, in its purity and simplicity, it is the empire of peace." (Jan. 17th, 1525.) "You tell me, my dear Spalatin, that you wish to renounce the court, and your office. My advice to you is, to remain, except you leave to marry. For my part, I am in God's hand, a being whose heart he can change and change back, whom he can slay, or call to life, at each moment, and at every hour. Neverthe

less, in the state in which my heart has ever been, and still is, I shall not take a wife: not that I do not feel my flesh and my sex; I am neither wood nor stone, but my mind inclines not to marriage whilst I am daily expecting the heretic's death and punishment." (Nov. 30th, 1524.) "You need not be surprised that I, qui sic famosus sum amator (who am so notorious a lover), do not marry. You should rather be surprised that I, who have written so much upon marriage, and have constantly had so much to do with women, have not long since been changed into a woman rather than marrying one. Still, if you will regulate yourself by my example, it should be allpowerful with you to learn that I have had three spouses at the same time, and have loved them so much as to lose two, who are about to take other husbands. The third, I hardly detain by the left hand, and she is slipping from me.' (April 16th, 1525.)

To Amsdorff. "Hoping to have my life spared for some time yet, I have not liked to refuse giving my father the hope of posterity. Besides, I have chosen to practise what I have preached, since so many others have shown themselves afraid to practise what is so clearly announced in the Gospel. I follow God's will; and am not devoured with a burning, immoderate love for my wife, but simply love her." (June 21st, 1525.)

His bride, Catherine von Bora, was a young girl of noble

birth, who had escaped from her convent; was twenty-four years of age, and remarkably beautiful. It appears that she had been previously attached to a young student of Nuremberg, Jerome Baumgartner; and Luther wrote to him (Oct. 12th, 1524).-"If you desire to obtain your Catherine von Bora, make haste before she is given to another, whose she almost is. Still, she has not yet overcome her love for you. For my part, I should be delighted to see you united." He writes to Stiefel, a year after his marriage (Aug. 12th 1526). "Catharine, my dear rib, salutes you. She is, thanks to God, in the enjoyment of excellent health. She is gentle, obedient, and complying in all things, beyond my hopes. I would not exchange my poverty for the wealth of Croesus." Luther, in truth, was at this time extremely poor. Preoccupied with household cares, and anxiety about his future family, he turned his thoughts to acquiring a handicraft. "If the world will no longer support us in return for preaching the word, let us learn to live by the labor of our own hands.” Could he have chosen, he would no doubt have preferred one of the arts which he loved-the art of Albert Durer, and of his friend Lucas Cranach-or music, which he called a science inferior to theology alone; but he had no master. So he became turner. "Since our barbarians here know nothing of art or science, my servant Wolfgang and I have taken to turning." He commissioned Wenceslaus Link to buy him tools at Nuremberg. He also took to gardening and building. "I have planted a garden," he writes to Spalatin, "and have built a fountain, and have succeeded tolerably in both. Come, and be crowned with lilies and roses.' (Dec. 1525.) In April, 1527, on being made a present of a clock by an abbot of Nuremberg, "I must," he says, in acknowledging its receipt, "I must become a student of mathematics in order to comprehend all this mechanism, for I never saw anything like it.” A month afterwards he writes, "The turning tools are come to hand, and the dial with the cylinder and the wooden clock. I have tools enough for the present, except you meet with some newly-invented ones, which can turn of themselves, whilst my servant snores or stares at the clouds. I have already taken my degree in clockmaking, which is prized by me as enabling me to tell the hour to my drunkards of Saxons, who pay more attention to their glasses than the hours, and