CHAPTER XXIV.

On the summit of the Wartburg the dawn was near an hour earlier than at Eisenach, which was situated at its base. Notwithstanding, the anxious friends of Martin Luther had anticipated the summons of the matin bell, and were all convened and wakeful before he made his appearance.

The chapelry had been quickly made out of one of the halls of the castle. Only one temporary and rude desk was placed for the priest, and all this, its novelty, was increased when that priest entered. Father Martin Luther, instead of wearing his shaven crown, had allowed the hair of his head and beard to grow luxuriantly. His cassock and surplice, and other monastic habiliments, had been exchanged for the steel cuirass, the long heavy sword, the plumed casque, the spurs and boots of the man-at-arms.* So that, sooth to say, in spite of the devotional conditions of that moment, when his audience were prepared for all solemnity of feeling, by the circumstances and perils of their meeting, and by their personal reverence for the great * Audin.

confessor of their faith, every one of them felt it to be an effort properly to compose himself.

However, this sense of the strange incongruity in both the furniture of the transient church and the costume of the minister soon faded before the gravity and the earnestness of Martin Luther: first, as he preferred to Almighty God several of the most aweinspiring Collects of the Church Catholic: and then, when he began to address themselves.

That audience was such an one as has seldom been brought together. There one might have seen knights and esquires, famed for their rank and for their warlike prowess. Also, intermingling with them, and in contrast to their burnished mail and the glittering scabbards of their swords, one might have seen men dressed, either in black serge as ecclesiastics, or in sober russet-brown as burghers. And, in addition to that natural collectedness of feature which is imposed by the bare act of worshipping the Eternal, one might have seen an uncustomary look of determination, as if they anticipated from the preacher some stern practical resolve.

Martin Luther, as we have mentioned already, had been betrayed into unduly impassioned language on the night before. His keen eye had detected the painful impression which that language had then made upon his hearers; and, while he lay upon his couch and pondered over it, he had mourned before God on account of his impetuosity.

Nevertheless, deeply humbled though he felt when

in the silence of the night he found himself alone with the Author of all truth and charity, he could not recognize the fitness of being as lowly in his admissions before men.

66

"You ask me," he demanded of his audience

you ask me to be gentler in my language, to exercise a greater restraint upon my tongue: I perfectly understand what you mean. But is there anything in common between the Christian and the hypocrite? The Christian faith is an open, a public, a sincere faith; it sees things as they really are, it proclaims them to be what they really are. My opinion is, that we ought to unmask all hypocrites and ill-doe rs; that we ought to spare none of them, to excuse none of them, to shut our eyes to none of their proceedings, so that truth may remain free and manifest, as on a broad, open field. field. Cursed be he that doeth the Lord's work deceitfully,' says Jeremiah. It is one thing to praise or extenuate vice, and another to set about its cure with kindness and gentleness. Before all things it is essential to declare, aloud and unequivocally, what is just and what is unjust; afterwards, when our hearer is thoroughly imbued with that lesson, we should soothe him and assist him, despite of-nay all the more for any weaknesses whereunto he may fall back. 6 Brethren, comfort ye the feeble-minded,' says St. Paul. I trust that no one will ever have cause to charge me with any want of charity or patience towards the feeble-minded."

Whilst he was uttering these half-quieting, half

exciting words, the Reformer was watching their influence upon his hearers. In his doing so, it must be recollected that his position and official object were far removed above those of an ordinary orator, who while he is framing his sentences, and adapting to each of them its appropriate cadence, looks around him with the purpose of ascertaining whether there follows either listlessness or applause. His eyes roved in no quest of admiration, neither in any fear of contradiction. What he spoke he believed and he felt to be the truth; yet, though caring but little as to what conseqences might follow, he watched every movement among his audience.

an

Each of those movements stirred him up to increasing passionateness; for the mailed men-atarms shook themselves, as if preparing for a combat, although the words of the speaker who addressed them had been conciliatory. Likewise even the murmurs of the listening burghers were in defiance of not himself, but of his foes.

The preacher caught the infection :

"I really ought," Luther resumed, " in justice to myself, to address you in far harsher language. My love is ready to die for you; but touch my faith, and you touch the apple of my eye. Jest at, or honour the love, as you think fit; but the faith, the Word, this you should adore, this you should look upon as the Holy of Holies. I pray you earnestly to Ask anything of our love; but fear, dread our faith.

do so.

"Poor, lost brother that I am! here have I lighted up another great flame; here have I again lit another great hole in the Papists' pockets. What will be become of me by-and-by? Whence will the Romans collect together enough sulphur, pitch, and firewood, to burn the poisonous heretic? Kill! kill!' cry they kill that heresiarch who seeks to overthrow the whole Church, who seeks to rouse all Christendom against us!' I hope, that in due season, if I be only worthy of such an end, I may attain it, and that in me these men may fulfil the measure of their anger; but it is not yet time-my hour has not yet come. I have first to make this race of vipers still more furious against me, and thoroughly to earn the death they desire to inflict upon me."*

However, after this ebullition of what was too personal in feeling, Martin Luther's more Christian emotions came to check him with their mildness.

66

His highness
God help me

"But let me close this my brief address to you, my brethren," he added, after a long pause, " and they shall be in the words I have, only a day ago, received from the Cardinal Archbishop of Mayence. has written these very words himself. honestly to adopt them on my own account! I acknowledge fully that I have great need of the assistance of God, poor, weak sinner that I am, sinning each day of my life, and wandering aside from the right path. Well do I know that without God's help I can do nothing, vile dust of the earth that I am.'"

* Luther's Werke, 113.