Epitaph. PHILIPP MELANCTHON. OCCIDIT Omnigenâ venerandus laude Lutherus Occidit Israel præstans auriga Lutherus, INTRODUCTION. "My fixed principle is, that a Christianity without a church exercising spiritual authority is vanity and dissolution. And my belief is, that when Popery is rushing in on us like an inundation, the nation will find it so. I say, Popery; for this, too, I hold for a delusion, that Romanism, or Roman Catholicism, is separable from Popery. Almost as readily could I suppose a circle without a centre."-Aids to Reflection, p. 224. Fourth ed. * * * * * * Among the dogmas, or articles of belief, that contradistinguish the Roman from the Reformed churches, the most important, and, in their practical effects and consequences, the most pernicious, I cannot but regard as refracted and distorted truths, profound ideas sensualized into idols, or, at the lowest rate, lofty and affecting imaginations, safe while they remained general and indefinite, but debased and rendered noxious by their application in detail. When I contemplate the whole system as it affects the great fundamental principles of morality, the terra firma, as it were, of our humanity ; then trace its operation in the sources and conditions of national strength and well-being; and, lastly, consider its woful influences on the innocence and sanctity of the female mind and imagination, on the faith and happiness, the gentle fragrancy and unnoticed ever-present verdure of domestic life, I can with difficulty avoid applying to it what the rabbins fable of the fratricide Cain-that the firm earth trembled wherever he strode, and the grass turned black beneath his feet."-Coleridge on the Idea, &c. &c., p. 131, 132. THE following pages are an attempt to reflect in a poetical form, by a series of mental tableaux, some of the prominent features and prevailing expressions b in the life, character, and work, of the fearless Luther. Though each view be divided and distinct, yet it is hoped, that in the spirit of its resulting effect, the poem will be found combined into the unity of a moral whole. How far, or not, the writer may have succeeded, in a style of thought and structure of plan somewhat out of the popular track, -must be left to the candour and criticism of others to decide. Whatever may be the reception of these pages, they are at least submitted to the public eye with unaffected deference; and with the entire conviction that, if proved to be meritless, their failure must be ascribed to the incapacity of the author, and not to any deficiency of interest in the subject. Luther, in the lion-hearted daring of his conduct, and in the robust and rugged grandeur of his faith, may well be considered as the Elijah of the Reformation; while his life, by the stern and solemn realities of its experiences, and the almost ideal evolutions of events by which it was accompanied,constitutes, indeed, the embodied poem of European Protestantism. But, as with others who make or move the history of mankind, Luther must be contemplated under that twofold aspect, which is answerable to the twofold region, where the moral features of manhood are expressed, or betrayed. In the one, we meet those external palpabilities which |