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gate the characters of those who have been agents in the most important movements of the society of the past-but more than curious, highly instructive is it to the Christian student, to find that the two minds, from whom the emancipating forces of the Reformation originated, were the one by the many ancient superstitions that remained within him, the other by his constitutional caution - apparently ineligible for the enterprise. Luther loved the Church of Rome; Luther clung to the Church of Rome. To leave it, and, much more, to oppose it, was to desert and to abjure feelings and associations that were parts and parcels of his own being. Thence it was that he never voluntarily left his Church -he waited until she expelled him. So, likewise, though from another source, was it with Melancthon. All his subsequent life showed how his disposition was to balance probabilities for and against a doctrine, and to hold himself in dispassionate attention while the beam of that balance was quivering; how, warm though he was in the most vital affections of the human heart, he could coldly, unselfishly, watch the inclinations of that balance. Then, too, he was a scholar-far more than Luther was. To him, the great intercommunity of men of letters presented, at that day, an infinitely more attractive polity than any formed by theology could proffer. The illustrious Erasmus was playing fair dalliance with the Popedom; and that Popedom was putting forth its most lavish energies to revive those very sciences and arts, and

VOL. II.

forms of literature, to which Melancthon was SO wedded.

Then, again, the innumerable conflicts of thought among the ancients, of which his vast learning apprized him; his familiarity with arguments, for and against, any special conclusion; his broad, unprofessional survey of human nature, thencefrom inferring painful estimates as to the power and weakness of moral convictions; these, all these, accustomed him to a feeling of reluctance and incertitude.

"A wandering star!" he exclaimed, rushing forwards to raise his half-conscious friend. “A wandering star! Perchance so-yet, dear Father Martin, thou hast moved out of thine orbit only that thou mightest get the nearer to the beauty, and the light, and the purity, of the Sun of Righteousness! A wandering star! Say, rather, a force centripetal hath called thee off from thy path, Father!"

The suddenness of revulsion from horror and despair to a condition of peace and confidence was, throughout his whole life, a striking feature in Martin Luther's constitution. It may be thought by his enemies to have arisen from his facility in assuming the most opposite extremes. It is thought by his friends (and we are sure their decision is more truthful, and historically more comprehensible) that his mind, being overcharged with vigour, thus naturally displayed its forces. The chamois hunter proves his vigour by the spring with which he bounds across a fissure on the ice-field; just in inverse proportion to his momentary alarm and de

spondency, while he was lying exhausted and depressed, upon the lip of the gorge that had stopped

his progress.

Martin Luther's reaction of feeling was just as full proof of bravery.

Melancthon was, at first, thunderstruck, as the friend whom he revered so deeply, and towards the deep permanent convictions of whose mind he had felt such homage, now rose from the floor, and with a placid face replied to him:

"A wandering star! yet and yet to wander, Philip. Bless thee-but late I bethought myself to be some comet, or rather some momentary fire-work, charged with sulphur and from the pit of hell, wheeling along, whirling, now taking a curve into space infinite, anon starting off at some interminable tangent, yet doomed at last to blackness and darkness for ever!"

Luther shuddered, then smiled. Strange paradox! And Melancthon could not reconcile it with his own habits of consecutive emotion.

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But, Philip, thou hast told me of the whitherward of my course. Blessed-glorious Christ! thou Sun of the Universe-Sun of all mind-the Light that lighteneth every man that cometh into the world; shall I, instead of being a shooting-star, be attracted towards thine insufferable glory? Welcome-oh, welcome, thy brightness infinite and ineffable !”

This paradox-this paroxysm-this leap from woe to joy, from despair to confidence, from mental paralysis to mental vitality-all these present a study for

the psychologist. They are true, however; and they are true, moreover, in conjunction with high intellectual power, sagacity, and uprightness.

After the above excitement had passed away, other Reformers entered. We postpone the interview to the following chapter.

CHAPTER III.

IT was in one of the cells of the monastery of the Augustinians that Martin Luther received his friends. First, there came Staupitz, the venerable Vicar-General -the mild, conciliating man who, while he had trained even Luther himself in love of personal purity, and in all his bold emotions against the general corruptions of the Church, was, nevertheless, the advocate of order and ecclesiastical submission. He tottered, for his age and infirmities, arising from his long and anxious life, had made him feeble. Learned he was; yet learned chiefly in patristic studies, which he had ever subordinated to Holy Scripture, and had ever controlled and modified by his individual aspirations after Christian goodness.

Martin Luther advanced to meet him with the reverence which his age and office demanded, combined with grateful affection for the person and the paternal and holy counsel of his Vicar-General.

Staupitz was followed by Gaspar Cruciger,* that

*Note 2.

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