LUTHER AND THE REFORMATION:

THE

LIFE-SPRINGS

OF

OUR LIBERTIES. 

BY

JOSEPH A. SEISS, D. D. , PASTOR OF THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY COMMUNION, PHILADELPHIA

AUTHOR OF

"A MIRACLE IN STONE, " "VOICES FROM BABYLON, " ETC. ETC. 

[Illustration: JOSEPH A. SEISS. ]

CHARLES C. COOK, 150 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. 

Copyright, 1883, BY PORTER & COATES. 

PREFACE. 

The first part of this book presents the studies of the Author inpreparing a Memorial Oration delivered in the city of New York, November 10, 1883, on the four hundredth anniversary of the birth ofMartin Luther. The second part presents his studies in a likepreparation for certain Discourses delivered in the city ofPhiladelphia at the Bi-Centennial of the founding of the Commonwealthof Pennsylvania. There was no intention, in either case, to make abook, however small in size. But the utterances given on theseoccasions having been solicited for publication in permanent shape forcommon use, and the two parts being intimately related in theexhibition of the most vital springs of our religious and civilfreedom, it has been concluded to print these studies entire andtogether in this form, in hope that the same may satisfy all suchdesires and serve to promote truth and righteousness. 

Throughout the wide earth there has been an unexampled stir withregard to the life and work of the great Reformer, and thesepresentations may help to show it no wild craze, but a just andrational recognition of God's wondrous providence in the constitutionof our modern world. 

And to Him who was, and who is, and who is to come, the God of allhistory and grace, be the praise, the honor, and the glory, worldwithout end!

THANKSGIVING DAY, 1883. 

CONTENTS. 

LUTHER AND THE REFORMATION pp. 7-134. 

Human Greatness, 9. --_The Papacy_, 12. --Efforts at Reform, 14. --Timeof the Reformation, 17. --Frederick the Wise, 18. --Reuchlin, 19. --Erasmus, 21. --Ulric von Hütten, 23. --Ulrich Zwingli, 24. --Melanchthon, 24. --John Calvin, 25. --Luther the Chosen Instrument, 27. --His Origin, 28. --Early Training, 29. --_Nature of theReformation_, 32. --Luther's Spiritual Training, 34. --Development forhis Work, 39. --Visit to Rome, 42. --Elected Town-Preacher, 45. --Made aDoctor, 45. --His Various Labors, 48. --Collision with the Hierarchy, 49. --The Indulgence-Traffic, 50. --Tetzel's Performances, 54. --Lutheron Indulgences, 57. --Sermon on Indulgences, 59. --Appeal to theBishops, 62. --_The Ninety-five Theses_, 63. --Effect of the Theses, 65. --Tetzel's End, 68. --Luther's Growing Influence, 68. --Appeal to thePope, 69. --Citation to Rome, 70. --Appears before Cajetan, 71. --Cajetan's Failure, 72. --Progress of Events, 74. --_The LeipsicDisputation_, 75. --Results of the Debate, 76. --Luther'sExcommunication, 78. --Answer to the Pope's Bull, 81. --_The Diet ofWorms_, 83. --Doings of the Romanists, 85. --Luther Summoned to theDiet, 87. --Luther at the Diet, 90. --Refuses to Retract, 92. --HisCondemnation, 95. --Carried to the Wartburg, 95. --_Translation of theBible_, 96. --His Conservatism, 98. --Growth of the Reformation, 100. --_Luther's Catechisms_, 103. --Protestants and War, 103. --_TheConfession of Augsburg_, 105. --League of Smalcald, 109. --Luther'sLater Years, 111. --_His Personale_, 114. --His Great Qualities, 119. --His Alleged Coarseness, 123. --His Marvelous Achievements, 126. --His Impress upon the World, 127. --His Enemies and Revilers, 131. 

THE FOUNDING OF PENNSYLVANIA, pp. 135-206. 

I. THE HISTORY AND THE MEN. 

Beginning of Colonization in America, 137. --Movements in Sweden, 138. --Swedish Proposals, 143. --Was Penn Aware of these Plans?145. --The Swedes in Advance of Penn, 147. --_The Men of those Times_, 151. --Gustavus Adolphus, 152. --Axel Oxenstiern, 155. --Peter Minuit, 157. --William Penn, 159. --Estimate of Penn, 161. --Penn and theIndians, 162. --Penn's Work, 168. --The Greatness of Faith, 169. 

II. THE PRINCIPLES ENTHRONED. 

Man's Religious Nature, 173. --_Our State the Product of Faith_, 174. --Gustavus and the Swedes, 176. --The Feelings of William Penn, 178. --_Recognition of the Divine Being_, 180. --Enactments on theSubject, 183. --Importance of this Principle, 185. --_ReligiousLiberty_, 187. --Persecution for Opinion's Sake, 189. --Spirit of theFounders of Pennsylvania, 190. --Constitutional Provisions, 193. --_Safeguards to True Liberty_, 194. --Laws on Religion and Morals, 197. --Forms of Government, 200. --_A Republican State_, 202. --The LastTwo Hundred Years, 203. 

LUTHER AND THE REFORMATION. 

A rare spectacle has been spreading itself before the face of heavenduring these last months. 

Millions of people, of many nations and languages, on both sides ofthe ocean, simultaneously engaged in celebrating the birth of a mereman, four hundred years after he was born, is an unwonted scene in ourworld. 

Unprompted by any voice of authority, unconstrained by any command ofpower, we join in the wide-ranging demonstration. 

In the happy freedom which has come to us among the fruits of thatman's labors we bring our humble chaplet to grace the memory of onewhose worth and services there is scarce capacity to tell. 

HUMAN GREATNESS. 

Some men are colossal. Their characters are so massive, and theirposition in history is so towering, that other men can hardly gethigh enough to take their measure. An overruling Providence so endowsand places them that they affect the world, turn its course into newchannels, impart to it a new spirit, and leave their impress on allthe ages after them. Even humble individuals, without titles, crowns, or physical armaments, have wrought themselves into the very life ofthe race and built their memorials in the characteristics of epochs. 

History tells of a certain Saul of Tarsus, a lone and friendless man, stripped of all earthly possessions, forced into battle with auniverse of enthroned superstition, encompassed by perils whichthreatened every hour to dissolve him, who, pressing his way overmountains of difficulty and through seas of suffering, and dying amartyr to his cause, gave to Europe a living God and to the nationsanother and an everlasting King. 

We likewise read of a certain Christopher Columbus, brooding in lowlyretirement upon the structure of the physical universe, ridiculed, frowned on by the learned, repulsed by court after court, yetlaunching out into the unknown seas to find an undiscoveredhemisphere, and opening the way for persecuted Liberty to cradle thegrand empire of popular rule amid the golden hills of a new andindependent continent. 

And in this category stands the name of MARTIN LUTHER. 

He was a poor, plain man, only a doctor of divinity, without placeexcept as a teacher in a university, without power or authority exceptin the convictions and qualities of his own soul, and with noimplements save his Bible, tongue, and pen; but with him the agesdivided and human history took a new departure. 

Two pre-eminent revolutions have passed over Europe since thebeginning of the Christian era. The one struck the Rome and rule ofemperors; the other struck the Rome and rule of popes. The one broughtthe Dark Ages; the other ended them. The one overwhelmed the dominionof the Cæsars; the other humiliated a more than imperial dominionreared in Cæsar's place. Alaric, Rhadagaisus, Genseric, and Attilawere the chief instruments and embodiment of the first; _MartinLuther_ was the chief instrument and embodiment of the second. The onewrought bloody desolation; the other brought blessed renovation, underwhich humanity has bloomed its happiest and its best. 

THE PAPACY. 

Since Phocas decreed the bishop of Rome the supreme head of the Churchon earth there had grown up strange power which claimed to decidebeyond appeal respecting everybody and everything--from affairs ofempire to the burial of the dead, from the thoughts of men here to theestate of their souls hereafter--and to command the anathemas of Godupon any who dared to question its authority. It held itself divinelyordained to give crowns and to take them away. Kings and potentateswere its vassals, and nations had to defer to it and serve it, on painof _interdicts_ which smote whole realms with gloom and desolation, prostrated all the industries of life, locked up the very graveyardsagainst decent sepulture, and consigned peoples and generations to anirresistible damnation. It was omnipresent and omnipotent in civilizedEurope. Its clergy and orders swarmed in every place, all sworn toguard it at every point on peril of their souls, and themselves heldsacred in person and retreat from all reach of law for any crime savelack of fealty to the great autocracy. [1] The money, the armies, thelands, the legislatures, the judges, the executives, the police, theschools, with the whole ecclesiastical administration, reaching evento the most private affairs of life, were under its control. And atits centre sat its absolute dictator, unanswerable and supreme, thealleged Vicar of God on earth, for whom to err was deemed impossible. 

Think of a power which could force King Henry IV. , the heir of a longline of emperors, to strip himself of every mark of his station, puton the linen dress of a penitent, walk barefooted through the winter'ssnow to the pope's castle at Canossa, and there to wait three days atits gates, unbefriended, unfed, and half perishing with cold andhunger, till all but the alleged Vicar of Jesus Christ were moved withpity for his miseries as he stood imploring the tardy clemency ofHildebrand, which was almost as humiliating in its bestowal as in itsreservation. 

Think of a power which could force the English king, Henry II. , towalk three miles of a flinty road, with bare and bleeding feet, toCanterbury, to be flogged from one end of the church to the other bythe beastly monks, and then forced to spend the whole night insupplications to the spirit of an obstinate, perjured, and defiantarchbishop, whom four of his over-zealous knights, without his orders, had murdered, and whose inner garments, when he was stripped toreceive his shroud, were found alive with vermin!

Think of a power which, in defiance of the sealed safe-conduct of theempire, could seize John Huss, one of the worthiest and most learnedmen of his time, and burn him alive in the presence of the emperor!

Think of a power which, by a single edict, caused the deliberatemurder of more than fifty thousand men in the Netherlands alone!

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Many assumed the clerical character for no other reason than thatit might screen them from the punishment which their actions deserved, and the monasteries were full of people who entered them to be secureagainst the consequences of their crimes and atrocities. --Rymer's_Foedera_, vol. Xiii. P. 532. 

EFFORTS AT REFORM. 

To restrain and humble this gigantic power was the desideratum ofages. For two hundred years had men been laboring to curb and tame it. From theologians and universities, from kings and emperors, fromprovinces and synods, from general councils, and even the College ofCardinals--in every name of right, virtue, and religion--appeal afterappeal and solemn effort after effort were made to reform the Romancourt and free the world from the terrible oppression. Wars on warswere waged; provinces on provinces were deluged with blood;coalitions, bound by sacred oaths, were formed against the gianttyranny. And yet the hierarchy managed to maintain its assumptions andto overwhelm all remedial attempts. Whether made by individuals orsecular powers, by councils or governments, the result was the same. The Pontificate still triumphed, with its claims unabridged, itsdominion unbroken, its scandals uncured. 

A general council sat at Constance to reform the clergy in head andmembers. It managed to rid itself of three popes between whomChristendom was divided, when the emperor moved that the work ofreform proceed. But the cardinals said, How can the Church reformitself without a head? So they elected a pope who was to lead reform. Yet a day had hardly passed before they found themselves in atraitor's power, who reaffirmed all the acts of the iniquitous JohnXXIII. , who had just been deposed for his crimes, and presentlyendowed him with a cardinal's hat!

When this pope, Martin V. , died, the cardinals thought to remedy theirprevious mistake. They would secure their reforms before electing apope. So they erected themselves into a standing senate, withoutwhich no future pope could act. And they each took solemn oath, beforeGod and all angels, by St. Peter and all apostles, by the holysacrament of Christ's body and blood, and by all the powers that be, if elected, to conform to these arrangements and to use all the rightsand prerogatives of the sublime position to put in force the reformsconceded to be necessary. 

But what are oaths and fore-pledges to candidates greedy for office?The tickets which elected the new pope had hardly been counted when heabsolved himself from all previous obligations, disowned the senate ofcardinals he had helped to erect, began his career with violence androbbery, plundered the cities and states of Italy, religiouslyviolated all compacts but those which favored his absolute supremacy, brought to none effect the reform Council of Basle, deceived Germanywith his specious and hollow concessions, averted the improvements hehad sworn to make, and by his perfidy and cunning managed to retain insubordination to the old régime nearly the whole of that Christendomwhich he had outraged!

In spite of the efforts of centuries, this super-imperial power heldby the throat a struggling world. 

To break that gnarled and bony hand, which locked up everything in itsgrasp; to bring down the towering altitude of that olden tyranny, whose head was lifted to the clouds; to strike from the soul itsclanking chains and set the suffering nations free; to champion theinborn rights of afflicted humanity, and conquer the ignorance andimposture which had governed for a thousand years, --constituted thework and office of the man the four hundredth anniversary of whosebirth half the civilized world is celebrating to-day. 

TIME OF THE REFORMATION. 

It has been said that when this tonsured Augustinian came upon thestage almost any brave man might have brought about the impendingchanges. The Reformers before the Reformation, though vanquished, hadindeed not lived in vain. The European peoples were outgrowing feudalvassalage, and moving toward nationalization and separation betweenthe secular and ecclesiastical powers. Travel, exploration, anddiscovery had introduced new subjects of human interest andcontemplation. Schools of law, medicine, and liberal education werebeing established and largely attended. The common mind was losingfaith in the professions and teachings of the old hierarchy. Freeinquiry was overturning the dominion of authority in matters ofthought and opinion. The intellect of man was beginning to recoverfrom the nightmare of centuries. A mightier power than the sword hadsprung up in the art of printing. In a word, the world was gravid witha new era. But it was not so clear who would be able to bring itsafely to the birth. 

There were living at the time many eminent men who might be thought offor this office had it not been assigned to Luther. Reuchlin, Erasmus, Hütten, Sickingen, and others have been named, but the list might beextended, and yet no one be found endowed with the qualities toaccomplish the work that was needed and that was accomplished. 

FREDERICK THE WISE. 

The Saxon Elector, Frederick the Wise, was the worthiest, mostpopular, and most influential ruler then in Europe. He could have beenemperor in place of Charles V. Had he consented to be. The history ofthe world since his time might have been greatly different had heyielded to the general desire. His principles, his attainments, hiswisdom, and his spirit were everything to commend him. He founded theUniversity of Wittenberg in hope that it would produce preachers whowould leave off the cold subtleties of Scholasticism and theuncertainties of tradition, and give discourses that would possess thenerve and power of the Gospel of God. He sought out the best and mostpious men for his advisers. He was the devoted friend of learning, truth, and virtue. By his prudence and foresight in Church and Statehe helped the Reformation more than any other man then in power. Hadit not been for him perhaps Luther could not have succeeded. But itwas not in the nature of things for the noble Elector to give us sucha Reformation as that led by his humble subject. It is useless tospeculate as to what the Reformation might have become in his hands;but it certainly could never have become what we rejoice to know itwas, while the probabilities are that we would now be fighting thebattles which Luther fought for us three and a half centuries ago. 

REUCHLIN. 

Reuchlin was a learned and able man, and deeply conscious of the needof reform. When the Greek Argyrophylos heard him read and explainThucydides, he exclaimed, "Greece has retired beyond the Alps. " He wasthe first Hebrew scholar of Germany, and served to restore the HebrewScriptures to the knowledge of the Church. He held that popes coulderr and be deceived. He had no faith in human abnegations forreconciliation with God. He saw no need for hierarchical mediations, and discredited the doctrine of Purgatory and masses for the dead. Hebravely defended the cause of learning against the ignorant monks, whom he hated and held up to merciless ridicule. He was a brilliantand persuasive orator. He was an associate and counselor of kings. Hegave Melanchthon to the Reformation, and did much to promote it. Luther recognized in him a great light, of vast service to the Gospelin Germany. But Reuchlin could never have accomplished theReformation. The vital principles of it were not sufficiently rootedin him. He was a humanist, whose sympathies went with the republic ofletters, not with the wants of the soul and the needs of the people. When he got into trouble he appealed to the pope. And though he livedto see Luther in agonizing conflict with the hierarchy of Rome, herefrained from making common cause with him, and died in connectionwith the unreformed Church, whose doctrines he had questioned andwhose orders he had so unsparingly ridiculed. 

ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM. 

Erasmus was a notable man, great in talent and of great service inpreparing the way for the Reformation. He turned reviving learning tothe study of the Word. He produced the first, and for a long time theonly, critical edition of the New Testament in the original, to whichhe added a Latin translation and notes. He paraphrased the Epistle tothe Romans--that great Epistle on which above all, the Reformationmoved. Though once an inmate of a monastery, he abhorred the monks andexposed them with terrible severity. He had more friends, reputation, and influence than perhaps any other private man in Europe. And he wasdeep in the spirit of opposition to the scandalous condition of thingsin the Church. But he never could have given us the Reformation. Hesaid all honest men sided with Luther, and as an honest man his placewould have been by Luther's side; but he was too great a coward. "If Ishould join Luther, " said he, "I could only perish with him, and I donot mean to run my neck into the halter. Let popes and emperorssettle matters. "--"Your Holiness says, Come to Rome; you might as welltell a crab to fly. If I write calmly against Luther, I shall becalled lukewarm; if I write as he does, I shall stir up a hornet'snest.... Send for the best and wisest men in Christendom, and followtheir advice. "--"Reduce the dogmas necessary to be believed to thesmallest possible number. On other points let every one believe as helikes. Having done this, quietly correct the abuses of which the worldjustly complains. "

So wrote Erasmus to the pope and to the archbishop of Mayence. Suchwas his ideal of reformation--a thing as impossible to bring intopractical effect as its realization would have been absurd. It is easyto tell a crab to fly, but will he do it? As well propose to convertinfallibility with a fable of Æsop as to count on bringingregeneration to the hierarchy by such counsels. 

The waters were too deep and the storms too fierce for the vacillatingErasmus. He did some excellent service in his way, but all hiscounsels and ideas failed, as they deserved. Once the idol of Europe, he died a defeated, crushed, and miserable man. "Hercules could notfight two monsters at once, " said he, "while I, poor wretch! havelions, cerberuses, cancers, scorpions, every day at my sword'spoint.... There is no rest for me in my age, unless I join Luther; andthat I cannot, for I cannot accept his doctrines. Sometimes I am stungwith desire to avenge my wrongs; but my heart says, Will you in yourspleen raise hand against your mother who begot you at the font? Icannot do it. Yet, because I bade monks remember their vows; because Itold persons to leave off their wranglings and read the Bible; becauseI told popes and cardinals to look to the apostles and be more likethem, --the theologians say I am their enemy. "

Thus in sorrow and in clouds Erasmus passed away, as would the entireReformation in his hands. 

ULRIC VON HÜTTEN. 

Ulric von Hütten, soldier and knight, equally distinguished in lettersand in arms, and called the Demosthenes of Germany, was a zealousfriend of reform. He had been in Rome, and sharpened his darts fromwhat he there saw to hurl them with effect. All the powers of satireand ridicule he brought to bear upon the pillars of the Papacy. Hehelped to shake the edifice, and his plans and spirit might haveserved to pull it down had he been able to bring Europe to his mind;but it would only have been to bury society in its ruins. 

ULRICH ZWINGLI. 

Ulrich Zwingli is ranked among Reformers, and he was energetic inbehalf of reform. But he fell a victim to his own mistakes, and withhim would have perished the Reformation also had it depended upon him. Even had he lived, his radical and rationalistic spirit, his narrowand fiery patriotism, his shallow religious experience, and hiseagerness to rest the cause of Reformation on civil authority and thesword, would have wrecked it with nine-tenths of the European peoples. 

MELANCHTHON. 

Philip Melanchthon was a better and a greater man, and did theReformation a far superior service. Luther would have been muchdisabled without him, and Germany has awarded him the title of its"Preceptor. " But no Reformation could have come if the fighting ordirecting of its battles had been left to him. Even with the greatLuther ever by his side, he could hardly get loose from Rome andretain his wholeness, and when he was loose could hardly maintain hislegs upon the ground that had been won. 

CALVIN. 

John Calvin was a man of great learning and ability. Marked has beenhis influence on the theology and government of a large portion of theReformed churches. But the Reformation was twelve years old before hecame into it. It had to exist already ere there could be a Calvin, while his repeated flights to avoid danger prove how inadequate hiscourage was for such unflinching duty as rendered Luther illustrious. He was a cold, hard, ascetic aristocrat at best, more cynical, stern, and tyrannical than brave. The organization for the Church and civilgovernment which he gave to Geneva was quite too intolerant andinquisitorial for safe adoption in general or to endure the test ofthe true Gospel spirit. Under a régime which burnt Servetus forheresy, threw men into prison for reading novels, hung and beheadedchildren for improper behavior toward parents, whipped and banishedpeople for singing songs, and dealt with others as public blasphemersif they said a word against the Reformers or failed to go to church, the cause of the Reformation could never have commanded acceptance bythe nations, or have survived had it been received. The famous "BlueLaws" of the New England colonies have had to be given up as a scandalupon enlightened civilization; but they were largely transcribed fromCalvin's code and counsels, including even the punishing of witches. For the last two hundred years the Calvinistic peoples have beenreforming back from Calvin's rules and spirit, either to a betterfoundation for the perpetuation and honor of the Church or to arationalistic skepticism which lets go all the distinctive elements ofthe genuine Christian Creed--the natural reaction from the hard andoverstrained severity of a legalistic style of Christianity. 

With all the great service Calvin has rendered to theological scienceand church discipline, there was an unnatural sombreness about him, which linked him rather with the Middle Ages and the hierarchical rulethan with the glad, free spirit of a wholesome Christian life. Attwenty-seven he had already drawn up a formula of doctrine andorganization which he never changed and to which he ever held. Therewas no development either in his life or in his ideas. The evangelicelements of his system he found ready to his hand, as thought out byLuther and the German theologians. They did not originate or grow withhim. And had the Reformation depended upon him it could never havebecome a success. So too with any others that might be named. 

LUTHER THE CHOSEN INSTRUMENT. 

We may not limit Providence. The work was to be done. Every interestof the world and of the kingdom of God demanded it. And if there hadbeen no Luther at hand, some one else would have been raised up toserve in his place. But there _was_ a Luther, and, as far as humaninsight can determine, he was the only man on earth competent toachieve the Reformation. And he it was who did achieve it. 

Looked at in advance, perhaps no one would have thought of him forsuch an office. He was so humbly born, so lowly in station, sodestitute of fortune, and withal so honest a Papist, that not theslightest tokens presented to mark him out as the chosen instrument tograpple with the magnitudinous tyranny by which Europe was enthralled. 

But "God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound thethings that are mighty. " Moses was the son of a slave. The founder ofthe Hebrew monarchy was a shepherd-boy. The Redeemer-King of the worldwas born in a stable and reared in the family of a village carpenter. And we need not wonder that the hero-prophet of the modern ages wasthe son of a poor toiler for his daily bread, and compelled to singupon the street for alms to keep body and soul together whilestruggling for an education. 

It has been the common order of Providence that the greatest lightsand benefactors of the race, the men who rose the highest above thelevel of their kind and stood as beacons to the world, were not suchas would have been thought of in advance for the mighty services whichrender their names immortal. And that the master spirit of the greatReformation was no exception all the more surely identifies thatmarvelous achievement as the work of an overruling God. 

LUTHER'S ORIGIN. 

Luther was a Saxon German--a German of the Germans--born of that bloodout of which, with but few exceptions, have sprung the ruling powersof the West since the last of the old Roman emperors. He came out ofthe bosom of the freshest, strongest, and hardiest peoples thenexisting--the direct descendants of those wild Cimbrian and Teutonictribes who, even in their heathenism, were the most virtuous, brave, and true of all the Gentiles. 

Nor was he the offspring of enfeebled, gouty, aristocratic blood. Hewas the son of the sinewy and sturdy yeomanry. Though traditionreports one of his remote ancestors in something of imperial placeamong the chieftains of the semi-savage tribes from which he wasdescended, when the period of the Reformation came his family was inlike condition with that of the house of David when the Christ wasborn. His father and grandfather and great-grandfather, he sayshimself, were true Thuringian peasants. 

LUTHER'S EARLY TRAINING. 

In the early periods of the mediæval Church her missionaries came tothese fiery warriors of the North and followed the conquests ofCharlemagne, to teach them that they had souls, that there is a livingand all-knowing God at whose judgment-bar all must one day stand togive account, and that it would then be well with the believing, brave, honest, true, and good, and ill with cowards, profligates, andliars. It was a simple creed, but it took fast hold on the Germanicheart, to show itself in sturdy power in the long after years. 

This creed, in unabated force, descended to Luther's parents, andlived and wrought in them as a controlling principle. They were alsostrict to render it the same in their children. 

_Hans Luther_ was a hard and stern disciplinarian, unsparing in theenforcement of every virtue. 

_Margaret Luther_[2] was noted among her neighbors as a model woman, and was so earnest in her inculcations of right that she preferred tosee her son bleed beneath the rod rather than that he should do aquestionable thing even respecting so small a matter as a nut. 

From his childhood Luther was thus trained and attempered to fearGod, reverence truth and honesty, and hate hypocrisy and lies. Possibly his parents were severer with him than was necessary, but itwas well for him, as the prospective prophet of a new era, to learnabsolute obedience to those who were to him the representatives ofthat divine authority which he was to teach the world supremely toobey. 

But no birth, or blood, or parental drilling, or any mere humanculture, could give the qualities necessary to a successful Reformer. The Church had fallen into all manner of evils, because it had driftedaway from the apostolic doctrine as to how a man shall be just withGod; which is the all-conditioning question of all right religion. There could then be no cure for those evils except by the bringing ofthe Church back to that doctrine. But to do anything effectual towardsuch a recovery it was pre-eminently required that the Reformerhimself should first be brought to an experimental knowledge of whatwas to be witnessed and taught. 

On two different theatres, therefore, the Reformation had to bewrought out: first, in the Reformer's own soul, and then on the fieldof the world outside of him. 

FOOTNOTES:

[2] The maiden name of Margaret Luther, the mother of Martin, was_Margaret Ziegler_. There has been a traditional belief that her namewas Margaret Lindeman. The mistake originated in confounding Luther'sgrandmother, whose name was _Lindeman_, with Luther's mother, whosename was _Ziegler_. Prof. Julius Köstlin, in his _Life of Luther_, after a thorough examination of original records and documents, givesthis explanation. 

WHAT THE REFORMATION WAS. 

It is hard to take in the depth and magnitude of what is called TheGreat Reformation. It stands out in history like a range of Himalayanmountains, whose roots reach down into the heart of the world andwhose summits pierce beyond the clouds. 

To Bossuet and Voltaire it was a mere squabble of the monks; to othersit was the cupidity of secular sovereigns and lay nobility graspingfor the power, estates, and riches of the Church. Some treat of it asa simple reaction against religious scandals, with no great depths ofprinciple or meaning except to illustrate the recuperative power ofhuman society to cure itself of oppressive ills. Guizot describes itas "a vast effort of the human mind to achieve its freedom--a greatendeavor to emancipate human reason. " Lord Bacon takes it as thereawakening of antiquity and the recall of former times to reshape andfashion our own. 

Whatever of truth some of these estimates may contain, they fall farshort of a correct idea of what the Reformation was, or wherein laythe vital spring of that wondrous revolution. Its historic andphilosophic centre was vastly deeper and more potent than either orall of these conceptions would make it. Many influences contributed toits accomplishment, but its inmost principle was unique. The realnerve of the Reformation was religious. Its life was somethingdifferent from mere earthly interests, utilities, aims, or passions. _Its seat was in the conscience. _ Its true spring was the soul, confronted by eternal judgment, trembling for its estate before divineAlmightiness, and, on pain of banishment from every immortal good, forced to condition and dispose itself according to the clearrevelations of God. It was not mere negation to an oppressivehierarchy, except as it was first positive and evangelic touching thedirect and indefeasible relations and obligations of the soul to itsMaker. Only when the hierarchy claimed to qualify these directrelations and obligations, thrust itself between the soul and itsRedeemer, and by eternal penalties sought to hold the conscience boundto human authorities and traditions, did the Reformation protest andtake issue. Had the inalienable right and duty to obey God rather thanman been conceded, the hierarchy, as such, might have remained, thesame as monarchical government. But this the hierarchy negatived, condemned, and would by no means tolerate. Hence the mighty contest. And the heart, sum, and essence of the whole struggle was themaintenance and the working out into living fact of this directobligation of the soul to God and the supreme authority of His clearand unadulterated word. 

SPIRITUAL TRAINING. 

How Luther came to these principles, and the fiery trials by whichthey were burnt into him as part of his inmost self, is one of themost vital chapters in the history. 

His father had designed him for the law. To this end he had gonethrough the best schools of Germany, taken his master's degree, andwas advancing in the particular studies relating to his intendedprofession, when a sudden change came over his life. 

Religious in his temper and training, and educated in a creed whichworked mainly on man's fears, without emphasizing the only basis ofspiritual peace, he fell into great terrors of conscience. Severaloccurrences contributed to this: (1) He fell sick, and was likely todie. (2) He accidentally severed an artery, and came near bleeding todeath. (3) A bosom friend of his was suddenly killed. All this madehim think how it would be with him if called to stand before God injudgment, and filled him with alarm. Then (4) he was one day overtakenby a thunderstorm of unwonted violence. The terrific scene presentedto his vivid fancy all the horrors of a mediæval picture of the LastDay, and himself about to be plunged into eternal fire. Overwhelmedwith terror, he cried to Heaven for help, and vowed, if spared, todevote himself to the salvation of his soul by becoming a monk. Hisfather hated monkery, and he shared the feeling; but, if it would savehim, why hesitate? What was a father's displeasure or the loss of allthe favors of the world to his safety against a hopeless perdition?

Call it superstition, call it religious melancholy, call it morbidhallucination, it was a most serious matter to the young Luther, andout of it ultimately grew the Reformation. False ideas underlay theresolve, but it was profoundly sincere and according to the ideas ofages. It was wrong, but he could not correct the error until he hadtested it. And thus, by what he took as the unmistakable call of God, he entered the cloister. 

Never man went into a monastery with purer motives. Never a man wentthrough the duties, drudgeries, and humiliations of the novitiate ofconvent-life with more unshrinking fidelity. Never man endured morepainful mental and bodily agonies that he might secure for himself anassured spiritual peace. Romanists have expressed their wonder that sopure a man thought himself so great a sinner. But a sinner he was, aswe all; and to avert the just anger of God he fasted, prayed, andmortified himself like an anchorite of the Thebaid. And yet no peaceor comfort came. 

A chained Bible lay in the monastery. He had previously found a copyof it in the library of the university. Day and night he read it, along with the writings of St. Augustine. In both he found the samepictures of man's depravity which he realized in himself, but God'sremedy for sin he had not found. In the earnestness of his studies theprescribed devotions were betimes crowded out, and then he punishedhimself without mercy to redeem his failures. Whole nights and daystogether he lay upon his face crying to God, till he swooned in hisagony. Everything his brother-monks could tell him he tried, but allthe resources of their religion were powerless to comfort him or tobeget a righteousness in which his anguished soul could trust. 

It happened that one of the exceptionally enlightened andspiritual-minded monks of his time, _John Staupitz_, was then thevicar-general of the Augustinians in Saxony. On his tour of inspectionhe came to Erfurt, and there found Luther, a walking skeleton, moredead than alive. He was specially drawn to the haggard young brother. The genial and sympathizing spirit of the vicar-general made Lutherfeel at home in his presence, and to him he freely opened his wholeheart, telling of his feelings, failures, and fears--his heartaches, his endeavors, his disappointments, and his despair. And God put theright words into the vicar-general's mouth. 

"Look to the wounds of Jesus, " said he, "and to the blood he shed foryou, and there see the mercy of God. Cast yourself into the Redeemer'sarms, and trust in his righteous life and sacrificial death. He lovedyou first; love him in return, and let your penances andmortifications go. "

The oppressed and captive spirit began to feel its burden lightenunder such discourse. God a God of love! Piety a life of love!Salvation by loving trust in a God already reconciled in Christ! Thiswas a new revelation. It brought the sorrowing young Luther to thestudy of the Scriptures with a new object of search. He read andmeditated, and began to see the truth of what his vicar said. Butdoubts would come, and often his gloom returned. 

One day an aged monk came to his cell to comfort him. He said he onlyknew his Creed, but in that he rested, reciting, "_I believe in theforgiveness of sins_. "--"And do I not believe that?" saidLuther. --"Ah, " said the old monk, "you believe in the forgiveness ofsins for David and Peter and the thief on the cross, but you do notbelieve in the forgiveness of sins _for yourself_. St. Bernard saysthe Holy Ghost speaks it to your own soul, _Thy_ sins are forgiven_thee_. "

And so at last the right nerve was touched. The true word of God'sdeliverance was brought home to Luther's understanding. He waspenitent and in earnest, and needed only this great Gospel hope tolift him from the horrible pit and the miry clay. As a light fromheaven it came to his soul, and there remained, a comfort and a joy. The glad conclusion flashed upon him, never more to be shaken, "IfGod, for Christ's sake, takes away our sins, then they are not takenaway by any works of ours. "

The foundation-rock of a new world was reached. 

Luther saw not yet what all this discovery meant, nor whither it wouldlead. He was as innocent of all thought of being a Reformer as anew-born babe is of commanding an army on the battlefield. But theGospel principle of deliverance and salvation for his oppressed andanxious soul was found, and it was found for all the world. The anchorhad taken hold on a new continent. In essence the Great Reformationwas born--born in Luther's soul. 

LUTHER'S DEVELOPMENT. 

More than ten years passed before this new principle began to work offthe putrid carcass of mediæval religion which lay stretched over thestifled and suffocating Church of Christ. There were yet many stepsand stages in the preparation for what was to come. But from that timeforward everything moved toward general regeneration by means of thatmarrow doctrine of the Gospel: _Salvation by loving faith in the meritand mediation of Jesus alone_. 

Staupitz counseled the young monk to study the Scriptures well andwhatever could aid him in their right understanding, and gave ordersto the monastery not to interfere with his studies. 

On May 2, 1507, he was consecrated to the priesthood. 

Within the year following, at the instance of Staupitz, Frederick theWise appointed him professor in the new University of Wittenberg. 

May 9, 1509, he took his degree of bachelor of divinity. From thattime he began to use his place to attack the falsehoods of theprevailing philosophy and to explore and expose the absurdities ofScholasticism, dwelling much on the great Gospel treasure of God'sfree amnesty to sinful man through the merits and mediation of JesusChrist, on which his own soul was planted. 

Staupitz was astounded at the young brother's thorough mastery of thesacred Word, the minuteness of his knowledge of it, and the power withwhich he expounded and defended the great principles of the evangelicfaith. So able a teacher of the doctrines of the cross must at oncebegin to preach. Luther remonstrated, for it was not then the customfor all priests to preach. He insisted that he would die under theweight of such responsibilities. "Die, then, " said Staupitz; "God hasplenty to do for intelligent young men in heaven. "

A little old wooden chapel, daubed with clay, twenty by thirty feet insize, with a crude platform of rough boards at one end and a smallsooty gallery for scarce twenty persons at the other, and propped onall sides to keep it from tumbling down, was assigned him as hiscathedral. Myconius likens it to the stable of Bethlehem, as thereChrist was born anew for the souls which now crowded to it. And whenthe thronging audiences required his transfer to the parish church, itwas called the bringing of Christ into the temple. 

The fame of this young theologian and preacher spread fast and far. The common people and the learned were alike impressed by hisoriginality and power, and rejoiced in the electrifying clearness ofhis expositions and teachings. The Elector was delighted, for he beganto see his devout wishes realized. Staupitz, who had drunk in the morepious spirit of the Mystic theologians, shared the same feeling, andsaw in Luther's fresh, biblical, and energetic preaching what he feltthe whole Church needed. "He spared neither counsel nor applause, " forhe believed him the man of God for the times. He sent him toneighboring monasteries to preach to the monks. He gave him everyopportunity to study, observe, and exercise his great talents. He evensent him on a mission to Rome, more to acquaint him with that city, which he longed to see, than for any difficult or pressing businesswith the pope. 

LUTHER'S VISIT TO ROME. 

Luther performed the journey on foot, passing from monastery tomonastery, noting the extravagances, indolence, gluttony, andinfidelity of the monks, and sometimes in danger of his life, bothfrom the changes of climate and from the murderous resentments of someof these cloister-saints which his rebukes of their vices engendered. 

When Rome first broke upon his sight, he hailed it reverently as thecity of saints and holy martyrs. He almost envied those whose parentswere dead, and who had it in their power to offer prayers for therepose of their souls by the side of such holy shrines. But when hebeheld the vulgarities, profanities, paganism, and unconcealedunbelief which pervaded even the ecclesiastical circles of that city, his soul sunk within him. 

There was much to be seen in Rome; and the Roman Catholic writers findgreat fault with Luther for being so dull and unappreciative as tomove amid it without being touched with a single spark of poetic fire. They tell of the glory of the cardinals, in litters, on horseback, inglittering carriages, blazing with jewels and shaded with gorgeouscanopies; of marble palaces, grand walks, alabaster columns, giganticobelisks, villas, gardens, grottoes, flowers, fountains, cascades; ofchurches adorned with polished pillars, gilded soffits, mosaic floors, altars sparkling with diamonds, and gorgeous pictures frommaster-hands looking down from every wall; of monuments, statues, images, and holy relics; and they blame Luther that he could gaze uponit all without a stir of admiration--that he could look upon thesculpture and statuary and see nothing but pagan devices, the godsDemosthenes and Praxiteles, the feasts and pomps of Delos, and theidle scenes of the heathen Forum--that no gleam from the crown ofPerugino or Michael Angelo dazzled his eyes, and no strain of Virgilor of Dante, which the people sung in the streets, attracted hisear--that he was only cold and dumb before all the treasures andglories of art and all the grandeur of the high dignitaries of theChurch, seeing nothing, feeling nothing, exclaiming over nothing butthe licentious impurities of the priests, the pagan pomps of thepontiff, the profane jests of the ministers of religion, the bareshoulders of the Roman ladies. 

Luther was not dead to the æsthetic, but to see faith andrighteousness thus smothered and buried under a godless Epicurean lifewas an offence to his honest German conscience. It looked to him as ifthe popes had reversed the Saviour's choice, and accepted the devil'sbid for Christ to worship him. From what his own eyes and ears had nowseen and heard, he knew what to believe concerning the state of thingsin the metropolis of Christendom, and was satisfied that, as surely asthere is a hell, the Rome of those days was its mouth. [3]

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Bellarmine, an honored author of the Roman Church, one competentto judge concerning the state of things at that time, and notover-forward to confess it, says: "For some years before the Lutheranand Calvinistic heresies were published there was not (as contemporaryauthors testify) any rigor in ecclesiastical judicatories, anydiscipline with regard to morals, any knowledge of sacred literature, any reverence for divine things: THERE WAS ALMOST NO RELIGIONREMAINING. "--_Bellarm. _, Concio xviii. , Opera, tom. Vi. Col. 296, edit. Colon. , 1617, apud _Gerdesii Hist. Evan. Renovati_, vol. I. P. 25. 

LUTHER AS TOWN-PREACHER. 

On his return the Senate of Wittenberg elected him town-preacher. Inthe cloister, in the castle chapel, and in the collegiate church healternately exercised his gifts. Romanists admit that "his success wasgreat. He said he would not imitate his predecessors, and he kept hisword. For the first time a Christian preacher was seen to abandon theSchoolmen and draw his texts and illustrations from the writings ofinspiration. He was the originator and restorer of expositorypreaching in modern times. "

The Elector heard him, and was filled with admiration. An oldprofessor, whom the people called "the light of the world, " listenedto him, and was struck with his wonderful insight, his marvelousimagination, and his massive solidity. And Wittenberg sprang intogreat renown because of him, for never before had been heard in Saxonysuch a luminous expositor of God's holy Word. 

LUTHER MADE A DOCTOR. 

On all hands it was agreed and insisted that he should be made adoctor of divinity. The costs were heavy, for simony was the order ofthe day and the pope exacted high prices for all church promotions;but the Elector paid the charges. 

On the 18th of October, 1512, the degree was conferred. It was noempty title to Luther. It gave him liberties and rights which hisenemies could not gainsay, and it laid on him obligations and dutieswhich he never forgot. The obedience to the canons and the hierarchywhich it exacted he afterward found inimical to Christ and the Gospel, and, as in duty bound, he threw it off, with other swaddling-bands ofPopery. But there was in it the pledge "to devote his whole life tothe study, exposition and defence of the Holy Scriptures. " This heaccepted, and ever referred to as his sacred charter and commission. Nor was it without significance that the great bell of Wittenberg wasrung when proclamation of this investiture was made. As the ringing ofthe bell on the old State-house when the Declaration of Independencewas passed proclaimed the coming liberties of the American colonies, so this sounding of the great bell of Wittenberg when Luther was madedoctor of divinity proclaimed and heralded to the nations of the earththe coming deliverance of the enslaved Church. God's chosen servanthad received his commission, and the better day was soon to dawn. 

 * * * * *

Henceforth Luther's labors and studies went forward with a new impulseand inspiration. Hebrew and Greek were thoroughly mastered. TheFathers of the Church, ancient and modern, were carefully read. Thesystems of the Schoolmen, the Book of Sentences, the Commentaries, theDecretals--everything relating to his department as a doctor oftheology--were examined, and brought to the test of Holy Scripture. 

In his sermons, lectures, and disquisitions the results of theseincessant studies came out with a depth of penetration, a clearness ofstatement, a simplicity of utterance, a devoutness of spirit, and aconvincing power of eloquence which, with the eminent sanctity of hislife, won for him unbounded praise. The common feeling was that theearth did not contain another such a doctor and had not seen his equalfor many ages. Envy and jealousy themselves, those green-eyed monsterswhich gather about the paths of great qualities and successes, seemedfor the time to be paralyzed before a brilliancy which rested on suchhumility, conscientiousness, fidelity, and merit. 

LUTHER'S LABORS. 

Years of fruitful labor passed. The Decalogue was expounded. Paul'sletter to the Romans and the penitential Psalms were explained. Thelectures on the Epistle to the Galatians were nearly completed. But nobook from Luther had yet been published. 

In 1515 he was chosen district vicar of the Augustinian monasteries ofMeissen and Thuringia. It was a laborious office, but it gave him newexperiences, familiarized him still more with the monks, brought himinto executive administrations, and developed his tact in dealing withmen. 

One other particular served greatly to establish him in the hearts ofthe people. A deadly plague broke out in Wittenberg. Citizens weredying by dozens and scores. At a later period a like scourge visitedGeneva, and so terrified Calvin and his ministerial associates thatthey appealed to the Supreme Council, entreating, "Mighty lords, release us from attending these infected people, for our lives are inperil. " Not so Luther. His friends said, "Fly! fly!" lest he shouldfall by the plague and be lost to the world. "Fly?" said he. "No, no, my God. If I die, I die. The world will not perish because a monk hasfallen. I am not St. Paul, not to fear death, but God will sustainme. " And as an angel of mercy he remained, ministering to the sick anddying and caring for the orphans and widows of the dead. 

COLLISION WITH THE HIERARCHY. 

Such was Luther up to the time of his rupture with Rome. He knewsomething of the shams and falsities that prevailed, and he hadassailed and exposed many of them in his lectures and sermons; but tolead a general reformation was the farthest from his thoughts. Indeed, he still had such confidence in the integrity of the Roman Church thathe did not yet realize how greatly a thorough general reformation wasneeded. Humble in mind, peaceable in disposition, reverent towardauthority, loving privacy, and fully occupied with his daily studiesand duties, it was not in him to think of making war with powers whoseclaims he had not yet learned to question. 

But it was not possible that so brave, honest, and self-sacrificing aman should long pursue his convictions without coming into collisionwith the Roman high priesthood. Though far off at Wittenberg, andtrying to do his own duty well in his own legitimate sphere, it sooncame athwart his path in a form so foul and offensive that it forcedhim to assault it. Either he had to let go his sincerest convictionsand dearest hopes or protest had to come. His personal salvation andthat of his flock were at stake, and he could in no way remain a trueman and not remonstrate. Driven to this extremity, and struck at forhis honest faithfulness, he struck again; and so came the battle whichshook and revolutionized the world. 

THE SELLING OF INDULGENCES. 

Luther's first encounter with the hierarchy was on the traffic inindulgences. It was a good fortune that it there began. That trafficwas so obnoxious to every sense of propriety that any vigorous attackupon it would command the approval of many honest and pious people. The central heresy of hierarchical religion was likewise embodied init, so that a stab there, if logically followed up, would necessarilyreach the very heart of the oppressive monster. And Providencearranged that there the conflict should begin. 

Leo X. Had but recently ascended the papal throne. Reared amid lavishwealth and culture, he was eager that his reign should equal that ofSolomon and the Cæsars. He sought to aggrandize his relatives, tohonor and enrich men of genius, and to surround himself with costlysplendors and pleasures. These demanded extraordinary revenues. Theprojects of his ambitious predecessors had depleted the papal coffers. He needed to do something on a grand scale in order adequately toreplenish his exchequer. 

As early as the eleventh century the popes had betimes resorted to theselling of pardons and the issuing of free passes to heaven onconsideration of certain services or payments to the Church. FromUrban II. To Leo X. This was more or less in vogue--first, to getsoldiers for the holy wars, [4] and then as a means of wealth to theChurch. If one wished to eat meat on fast-days, marry withinprohibited degrees of relationship, or indulge in forbidden pleasures, he could do it without offence by rendering certain satisfactionsbefore or after, which satisfactions could mostly be made by paymentsof money. [5] In the same way he could buy remission of sins ingeneral, or exemption for so many days, years, or centuries from thepains of Purgatory. Bulls of authority were given, in the name of theFather, Son, and Holy Ghost, to issue certificates of exemption fromall penalties to such as did the service or paid the equivalent. Immense incomes were thus realized. Even to the present this facileinvention for raising money has not been entirely discontinued. Papalindulgences can be bought to-day in the shops of Spain and elsewhere. 

Leo seized upon this system with all the vigor and unscrupulousnesscharacteristic of the Medici. Had he been asked whether he reallybelieved in these pardons, he would have said that the Church alwaysbelieved the pope had power to grant them. Had he spoken his real mindin the matter, he would have said that if the people chose to be suchfools, it was not for him to find fault with them. And thus, underplea of raising funds to finish St. Peter's, he instituted a grandtrade in indulgences, and thereby laid the capstone of hierarchicaliniquity which crushed the whole fabric to its base. 

The right to sell these wares in Germany was awarded to Albert, thegay young prince-archbishop of Mayence. He was over head and ears indebt to the pope for his pallium, and Leo gave him this chance to getout. [6] Half the proceeds of the trade in his territory were to go tohis credit. But the work of proclaiming and distributing the pardonswas committed to _John Tetzel_, a Dominican prior who had longexperience in the business, and who achieved "a forlorn notoriety inEuropean history" by his zeal in prosecuting it. 

FOOTNOTES:

[4] In the famous Bull of Gregory IX. , published in 1234, that popeexhorts and commands all good Christians to take up the cross and jointhe expedition to recover the Holy Land. The language is: "The serviceto which mankind are now invited is an effectual atonement for themiscarriages of a negligent life. The discipline of a regular penancewould have discouraged many offenders so much that they would have hadno heart to venture upon it; but the holy war is a compendious methodof discharging men from guilt and restoring them to the divine favor. Even if they die on their march, the intention will be taken for thedeed, and many in this way may be crowned without fighting. "--Given inCollier's _Eccl. _, vol. I. 

[5] The Roman Chancery once put forth a book, which went through manyeditions, giving the exact prices for the pardon of each particularsin. A deacon guilty of murder was absolved for twenty pounds. Abishop or abbot might assassinate for three hundred livres. Anyecclesiastic might violate his vows of chastity for the third part ofthat sum, etc. , etc. --See Robertson's _Charles V. _

[6] The pallium, or pall, was a narrow band of white wool to go overthe shoulders in the form of a circle, from which hung bands ofsimilar size before and behind, finished at the ends with pieces ofsheet lead and embroidered with crosses. It was the mark of thedignity and rank of archbishops. Albert owed Pope Leo X. Forty-fivethousand thalers for his right and appointment to wear thearchbishop's pallium. 

It was in this way that the Roman Church was accustomed to sell outbenefices as a divine right. Even _expectative graces_, or mandatesnominating a person to succeed to a benefice upon the first vacancy, were thus sold. Companies existed in Germany which made a business ofbuying up the benefices of particular sections and districts andretailing them at advanced rates. The selling of pardons was simply alower kind of simoniacal bartering which pervaded the wholehierarchical establishment. 

TETZEL'S PERFORMANCES. 

Tetzel entered the towns with noise and pomp, amid waving of flags, singing, and the ringing of bells. Clergy, choristers, monks, and nunsmoved in procession before and after him. He himself sat in a gildedchariot, with the Bull of his authority spread out on a velvet cushionbefore him. 

The churches were his salesrooms, lighted and decorated for theoccasion as in highest festival. From the pulpits his boisterousoratory rang, telling the virtues of indulgences, the wonderful powerof the keys, and the unexampled grace of which he was the bearer fromthe holy lord and father at Rome. 

He called on all--robbers, adulterers, murderers, everybody--to drawnear, pay down their money, and receive from him letters, duly sealed, by which all their sins, past and future, should be pardoned and doneaway. 

Not for the living only, but also for the dead, he proposed full andinstantaneous deliverance from all future punishments on the paymentof the price. And any wretch who dared to doubt or question the savingpower of these certificates he in advance doomed to excommunicationand the wrath of God. [7]

Catholic divines have labored hard to whitewash or explain away thisstupendous iniquity; but, with all they have said or may say, suchwere the presentations made by the hawkers of these wares and such wasthe text of the diplomas they issued. 

A dispensation or indulgence was nothing more nor less than apretended letter of credit on Heaven, drawn at will by the pope out ofthe superabundant merits of Christ and all saints, to count so much onthe books of God for so many murders, robberies, frauds, lies, slanders, or debaucheries. As the matter practically worked, a moreprofane and devilish traffic never had place in our world than thatwhich the Roman hierarchy thus carried on in the name of the TriuneGod. 

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Many of the sayings which Tetzel gave out in his addresses to thepeople have been preserved, and are amply attested by those wholistened to his harangues. 

"I would not, " said he, "exchange my privileges for those of St. Peterin heaven. He saved many by his sermons; I have saved more by myindulgences. "

"Indulgences are the most precious and sublime of all the gifts ofGod. "

"No sins are so great that these pardons cannot cover them. "

"Not for the living only, but for the dead also, there is immediatesalvation in these indulgences. "

"Ye priests, nobles, tradespeople, wives, maidens, young men! thesouls of your parents and beloved ones are crying from the depthsbelow: 'See our torments! A small alms would deliver us; and you cangive it, and you will not. '"

"O dull and brutish people, not to appreciate the grace so richlyoffered! This day heaven is open on all sides, and how many are thesouls you might redeem if you only would! Your father is in flames, and you can deliver him for ten groschen, and you do it not! Whatpunishment must come for neglecting so great salvation! You shouldstrip your coat from your back, if you have no other, and sell it topurchase so great grace as this, for God hath given all power to thepope. "

"The bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul, with those of many blessedmartyrs, lie exposed, trampled on, polluted, dishonored, and rottingin the weather. Our most holy lord the pope means to build the churchto cover them with glory that shall have no equal on the earth. Shallthose holy ashes be left to be trodden in the mire?"

"Therefore bring your money, and do a work most profitable to departedsouls. Buy! buy!"

"This red cross with the pope's arms has equal virtue with the Crossof Christ. "

"These pardons make cleaner than baptism, and purer than Adam was inhis innocence in Paradise. "

In the certificates which Tetzel gave to those who bought thesepardons he declared that "by the authority of Jesus Christ, and of hisapostles Peter and Paul, and of the most holy pope, I do absolve theefirst from all ecclesiastical censures, in whatever manner they havebeen incurred, and then _from all thy sins, transgressions, andexcesses, however enormous soever they may be_. I remit to you allpunishment which you deserve in Purgatory on their account, and Irestore you to the holy sacraments of the Church, union with thefaithful, and to that innocence and purity possessed at baptism; _sothat when you die the gates of punishment shall be shut and the gatesof the happy Paradise shall be opened; and if your death shall bedelayed, this grace shall remain in full force when you are at thepoint of death_. "

The sums required for these passports to glory varied according to therank and wealth of the applicant. For ordinary indulgence a king, queen, or bishop was to pay twenty-five ducats (a ducat being about adollar of our money); abbots, counts, barons, and the like werecharged ten ducats; other nobles and all who enjoyed annual incomes offive hundred florins were charged six ducats; and so down to half aflorin, or twenty-five cents. 

But the commissioner also had a special scale for taxes on particularsins. Sodomy was charged twelve ducats; sacrilege and perjury, nine;murder, seven or eight; witchcraft and polygamy, from two to six;taking the life of a parent, brother, sister, or an infant, from oneto six. 

LUTHER ON INDULGENCES. 

Luther was on a tour of inspection as district vicar of theAugustinians when he first heard of these shameful doings. As yet heunderstood but little of the system, and could not believe it possiblethat the fathers at Rome could countenance, much less appoint andcommission, such iniquities. Boiling with indignation for the honor ofthe Church, he threatened to make a hole in Tetzel's drum, and wroteto the authorities to refuse passports to the hucksters of theseshameful deceptions. 

But Tetzel soon came near to Wittenberg. Some of Luther's parishionersheard him, and bought absolutions. They afterward came to confession, acknowledging great irregularities of life. Luther rebuked theirwickedness, and would not promise them forgiveness unless contrite fortheir sins and earnestly endeavoring to amend their evil ways. Theyremonstrated, and brought out their certificates of plenary pardon. "Ihave nothing to do with your papers, " said he. "God's Word says youmust repent and lead better lives, or you will perish. "

His words were at once carried to the ears of Tetzel, who fumed withrage at such impudence toward the authority of the Church. He ascendedthe pulpit and hurled the curses of God upon the Saxon monk. 

 * * * * *

Thus an honest pastor finds some of his flock on the way to ruin, andtries to guide them right. He is not thinking of attacking Rome. He isready to fight and die for holy Mother Church. His very protests arein her behalf. He is on his own rightful field, in faithful pursuit ofhis own rightful duty. Here the erring hierarchy seeks him out andattacks him. Shall he yield to timid fears and weak advisers, keepsilence in his own house, and let the souls he is placed to guardbecome a prey to the destroyer? Is he not sworn to defend God's holyWord and Gospel? What will be his eternal fate and that of his peopleshould he now hold his peace?

SERMON ON INDULGENCES. 

Without conferring with flesh and blood his resolve was made--aresolve on which hung all the better future of the world--a resolve totake the pulpit against the lying indulgences. 

For several days he shut himself in his cell to make sure of hisground and to elaborate what he would say. With eminent modesty andmoderation his sentences were wrought, but with a perspicuity andclearness which no one could mistake. A crowded church awaited theirdelivery. He entered with his brother-monks, and joined in all theservice with his usual voice and gravity. Nothing in his countenanceor manner betrayed the slightest agitation of his soul. It was asolemn and momentous step for himself and for mankind that he wasabout to take, but he was as calmly made up to it as to any other dutyof his life. The moment came for him to speak; _and he spoke_. 

"I hold it impossible, " said he, "to prove from the Holy Scripturesthat divine justice demands from the sinner any other penance orsatisfaction than a true repentance, a change of heart, a willingsubmission to bear the Saviour's cross, and a readiness to do whatgood he can. 

"That indulgences applied to souls in Purgatory serve to remit thepunishments which they would otherwise suffer is an opinion devoid ofany foundation. 

"Indulgences, so far from expiating or cleansing from sin, leave theman in the same filth and condemnation in which they find him. 

"The Church exacts somewhat of the sinner, and what it on its ownaccount exacts it can on its own account remit, but nothing more. 

"If you have aught to spare, in God's name give it for the building ofSt. Peter's, but do not buy pardons. 

"If you have means, feed the hungry, which is of more avail thanpiling stones together, and far better than the buying of indulgences. 

"My advice is, Let indulgences alone; leave them to dead and sleepyChristians; but see to it that ye be not of that kind. 

"Indulgences are neither commanded nor approved of God. They excite noone to sanctification. They work nothing toward salvation. 

"That indulgences have virtue to deliver souls from Purgatory I do notbelieve, nor can it be proven by them that teach it; the Church saysnothing to that effect. 

"What I preach to you is based on the certainty of the HolyScriptures, which no one ought to doubt. "

So Luther preached, and his word went out to the ends of the earth. Itwas no jest, like Ulric von Hütten's _Epistles of Obscure Men_, orlike the ridicule which Reuchlin and Erasmus heaped upon the stupidmonks. It raised no laugh, but penetrated, like a rifle-shot, into thevery heart of things. 

Those who listened were deeply affected by the serious boldness of thepreacher. The audience was with him in conviction, but many trembledfor the result. "Dear doctor, you have been very rash; what troublemay come of this!" said a venerable father as he pulled the sleeve ofLuther's gown and shook his head with misgivings. "If this is notrightly done in God's name, " said Luther, "it will come to nothing; ifit is, let come what will. "

It was honest duty to God, truth, and the salvation of men that movedhim. Cowardly policy or timid expediency in such a matter was totallyforeign to his soul. 

In a few days, the substance of the sermon was in print. Tetzel ravedover it. Melanchthon says he burnt it in the market-place ofJüterbock. In the name of God and the pope he bade defiance to itsauthor, and challenged him by fire and water. Luther laughed at himfor braying so loud at a distance, yet declining to come to Wittenbergto argue out the matter in close lists. 

APPEAL TO THE BISHOPS. 

Anxious to vindicate the Church from what he believed to be anunwarranted liberty in the use of her name, Luther wrote to the bishopof Brandenburg and the archbishop of Mayence. He made his points, andappealed to these his superiors to put down the scandalous falsitiesadvanced by Tetzel. They failed to answer in any decisive way. The onetimidly advised silence, and the other had too much pecuniary interestin the business to notice the letter. 

Thus, as a pastor, Luther had taken his ground before his parishionersin the confessional. As a preacher he had uttered himself in earnestadmonition from the pulpit. As a loyal son he had made hispresentation and appeal to those in authority over him. Was he right?or was he wrong? No commanding answer came, and there remained oneother way of testing the question. As a doctor of divinity he couldlawfully, as custom had been, demand an open and fair discussion ofthe matter with teachers and theologians. And upon this he nowresolved. 

THE NINETY-FIVE THESES. 

He framed a list of propositions on the points in question. They werein Latin, for his appeal was to theologians, and not yet to the commonheart and mind of Germany. To make them public, he took advantage of agreat festival at Wittenberg, when the town was full of visitors andstrangers, and nailed them to the door of the new castle church, October 31, 1517. 

These were the famous _Ninety-five Theses_. They were plainly-wordedstatements of the same points he had made in the confessional and inhis sermon. They contained no assault upon the Church, no arraignmentof the pope, no personal attack on any one. Neither were they given asnecessarily true, but as what Luther believed to be true, and the realtruth or falsity of which he desired to have decided in the only wayquestions of faith and salvation can be rightly decided. 

The whole matter was fairly, humbly, and legitimately put. "I, MartinLuther, Augustinian at Wittenberg, " he added at the end, "herebydeclare that I have written these propositions against indulgences. Iunderstand that some, not knowing what they affirm, are of opinionthat I am a heretic, though our renowned university has not condemnedme, nor any temporal or spiritual authority. Therefore, now again, asoften heretofore, I beg of one and all, for the sake of the trueChristian faith, to show me the better way, if peradventure they havelearned it from above, or at least to submit their opinion to thedecision of God and the Church; for I am not so insane as to set up myviews above everything and everybody, nor so silly as to accept thefables invented by men in preference to the Word of God. "

It is from the nailing up of these _Theses_ that the history of theGreat Reformation dates; for the hammer-strokes which fixed thatparchment started the Alpine avalanche which overwhelmed the pride ofRome and broke the stubborn power which had reigned supreme for athousand years. 

EFFECT OF THE THESES. 

As no one came forward to discuss his Theses, Luther resolved topublish them to the world. 

In fourteen days they overspread Germany. In a month they ran throughall Christendom. One historian says it seemed as if the angels of Godwere engaged in spreading them. 

At a single stroke, made in modesty and faith, Luther had become themost noted person in Germany--the man most talked of in all theworld--the mouthpiece of the best people in Christendom--the leader ofa mighty revolution. 

Reuchlin read, and thanked God. 

Erasmus read, and rejoiced, only counseling moderation and prudence. 

The Emperor Maximilian read, and wrote to the Saxon Elector: "Takecare of the monk Luther, for the time may come when we will need him. "

The bishop of Wurzburg read, and was filled with gladness, and wroteto the Elector Frederick to hold on to Luther as a preacher of thetruth of God. 

The prior of Steinlausitz read, and could not suppress his joy. "Seehere, " said he to his monks: "the long-waited-for has come; he tellsthe truth. _Berg_ means mountain, and _Wittenberg_ is the mountainwhither all the world will come to seek wisdom, and will find it. "

A student of Annaberg read, and said, "This Luther is the reaper in mydream, whom the voice bade me follow and gather in the bread of life;"and from that hour he was a fast friend of Luther and his cause, andbecame the distinguished Myconius. 

The pope himself read the Theses, and did not think unfavorably oftheir author. He saw in Luther a man of learning and brilliant genius, and that pleased him. The questions mooted he referred to a meremonkish jealousy--an unsober gust of passion which would soon blowover. He did not then realize the seriousness which was in the matter. His sphere was heathen art and worldly magnificence, not searchinginto the ways of God's salvation. 

The great German heart was moved, and the brave daring of him whosevoice was thus lifted up against the abominations which were drainingthe country to fill the pope's coffers was hailed with enthusiasm. Had Luther been a smaller man he would have been swept away by hisvast and sudden fame. 

But not all was sunshine. Erasmus wittily said, Luther committed twounpardonable sins: he touched the pope's crown and the monks' bellies. Such effrontery would needs raise a mighty outcry. 

Prierias, the master of the sacred palace, pronounced Luther aheretic. Hochstrat of Cologne, Reuchlin's enemy, clamored for fire toburn him. The indulgence-venders thundered their anathemas, promisinga speedy holocaust of Luther's body. The monasteries took on the formof so many kennels of enraged hounds howling to each other across thespiritual waste. And even some who pronounced the Theses scripturaland orthodox shook their heads and sought to quash such dangerousproceedings. 

But Luther remained firm at his post. He honestly believed what he hadwritten, and he was not afraid of the truth. If the powers of theworld should come down upon him and kill him, he was prepared for theslaughter. In all the mighty controversy he was ever ready to servethe Gospel with his life or with his death. 

TETZEL'S END. 

Tetzel continued to bray and fume against him from pulpit and press, denouncing him as a heresiarch, heretic, and schismatic. By Wimpina'said he issued a reply to Luther's sermon, and also counter-theses onLuther's propositions. But the tide was turning in the sea of humanthinking. Luther's utterances had turned it. The people were ready totear the mountebank to pieces. Two years later he imploringlycomplained to the pope's nuncio, Miltitz, that such fury pursued himin Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland that he was nowhere safe. Even the representative of the pope gave the wretch no sympathy. WhenLuther heard of his illness he sent him a letter to tell him that hehad forgiven him all. He died in Leipsic, neglected, smitten in soul, and full of misery, July 14, 1519. 

LUTHER'S GROWING INFLUENCE. 

Six months after the nailing up of the Theses, Luther was the hero ofa general convention of the Augustinians in Heidelberg. He theresubmitted a series of propositions on philosophy and theology, whichhe defended with such convincing clearness and tact that he won forhimself and his university great honor and renown. Better still, fourlearned young men who there heard him saw the truth of his positions, and afterward became distinguished defenders of the Reformation. 

His cause, meanwhile, was rapidly gaining friends. His replies toTetzel, Prierias, Hochstrat, and Eck had gone forth to deepen thefavorable impression made by the Ninety-five Theses. Truth had oncemore lifted up its head in Europe, and Rome would find it no child'splay to put it down. The skirmish-lines of the hierarchy had been metand driven in. The tug of serious battle was now to come. 

HIS APPEAL TO THE POPE. 

Luther made the advance. He wrote out explanations (or"_Resolutions_") of his Theses, and sent them, with a letter, to thepope. With great confidence, point, and elegance, but with equalsubmissiveness and humility, he spoke of the completeness of Christfor the salvation of every true believer, without room or need forpenances and other satisfactions; of the evilness of the times, andthe pressing necessity for a general reform; of the damagingcomplaints everywhere resounding against the traffic in indulgences;of his unsuccessful appeals to the ecclesiastical princes; and of theunjust censures being heaped upon him for what he had done, entreatingHis Holiness to instruct his humble petitioner, and condemn orapprove, kill or preserve, as the voice of Christ through him mightbe. He then believed that God's sanction had to come through the highclergy and heads of the Church. Many good Christians had approved hisTheses, but he did not recognize in that the divine answer to histestimony. He said afterward: "I looked only to the pope, thecardinals, the bishops, the theologians, the jurisconsults, the monks, the priests, from whom I expected the breathing of the Spirit. " He hadnot yet learned what a bloody dragon claimed to impersonate the Lambof God. 

CITATION TO ANSWER FOR HERESY. 

While, in open frankness, Luther was thus meekly committing himself tothe powers at Rome, _they_ were meditating his destruction. Insidiously they sought to deprive him of the Elector's protection, and answered his humble and confiding appeal with a citation to appearbefore them to answer for heresy. 

Things now were ominous of evil. Wittenberg was filled withconsternation. If Luther obeyed, it was evident he would perish likeso many faithful men before him; if he refused, he would be chargedwith contumacy and involve his prince. One and another expedient wereproposed to meet the perplexity; but to secure a hearing in Germanywas all Luther asked. 

To this the pope proved more willing than was thought. He was not sureof gaining by the public trial and execution of a man so deeplyplanted in the esteem of his countrymen, and by bringing him before aprudent legate he might induce him to retract and the trouble beended; if not, it would be a less disturbing way of getting possessionof the accused man. Orders were therefore issued for Luther to appearbefore Cardinal Cajetan at Augsburg. 

LUTHER BEFORE CAJETAN. 

On foot he undertook the journey, believed by all to be a journey tohis death. But Maximilian, then in the neighborhood of Augsburg, gavehim a safe-conduct, and Cajetan was obliged to receive him withcivility. He even embraced him with tokens of affection, thinking towin him to retraction. Luther was much softened by these kindlymanifestations, and was disposed to comply with almost anything ifnot required to deny the truth of God. 

The interviews were numerous. Luther was told that it was useless tothink that the civil powers would go to war for his protection; andwhere would he then be? His answer was: "I will be, as now, under thebroad heavens of the Almighty. " Remonstrances, entreaties, threatenings, and proposals of high distinction were addressed to him;but he wanted no cardinal's hat, and for nothing in Rome's power wouldhe consent to retract what he believed to be the Gospel truth tillshown wherein it was at variance with the divine Word. Cajetan'sarguments tripped and failed at every point, and he could onlyreiterate that he had been sent to receive a retraction, not to debatethe questions. Luther as often promised this when shown from theScriptures to be in the wrong, but not till then. 

CAJETAN'S MORTIFICATION. 

Foiled and disappointed in his designs, and astounded and impatientthat a poor monk should thus set at naught all the prayers and powersof the sovereign of Christendom, the cardinal bade him see his faceno more until he had repented of his stubbornness. 

At this the friends of the Reformer, fearing for his safety, clandestinely hurried him out of Augsburg, literally grappling him upfrom his bed only half dressed, and brought him away to hisuniversity. He had answered the pope's summons, and yet was free!

Cajetan was mortified at the result, and was upbraided for hisfailure. In his chagrin he wrote angrily to the Elector not to soilhis name and lineage by sheltering a heretic, but to surrender Lutherat once, on pain of an interdict. The Elector was troubled. Luther hadnot been proven a heretic, neither did he believe him to be one; buthe feared collision with the pope. 

Luther said if he were in the Elector's place he would answer thecardinal as he deserved for thus insulting an honest man; but, not tobe an embarrassment to his prince, he agreed to leave the Elector'sdominions if he said so. But Frederick would not surrender hisdistinguished subject to the legate, neither would he send him out ofthe country. It is hard to say which was here the nobler man, Lutheror his illustrious protector. 

PROGRESS OF EVENTS. 

The minds of men by this time were much aroused, and Luther's causegrew and strengthened. The learned Melanchthon, Reuchlin's relativeand pupil, was added to the faculty at Wittenberg, and became Luther'schief co-laborer. The number of students in the university swelled tothousands, including the sons of noblemen and princes from all parts, who listened with admiration to Luther's lectures and sermons andspread his fame and doctrines. And the feeling was deep and generalthat a new and marvelous light had arisen upon the world. [8]

It was now that Maximilian died (Jan. 17, 1519), and Charles V. , hisgrandson, a Spanish prince of nineteen years, succeeded to his place. The Imperial crown was laid at the feet of the Elector Frederick, Luther's friend, but he declined it in favor of Charles, only exactinga solemn pledge that he would not disturb the liberties of Germany. Civil freedom is one of the glorious fruits of the Reformation, andhere already it began to raise barricades against despotic power. 

FOOTNOTES:

[8] A writer of the Roman Church, in a vein of somewhat mingledsarcasm and seriousness, remarks: "The university had reason to beproud of Luther, whose oral lectures attracted a multitude ofstrangers; these pilgrims from distant quarters joined their hands andbowed their heads at the sight of the towers of the city, like othertravelers before Jerusalem. Wittenberg was like a new Zion, whence thelight of truth expanded to neighboring kingdoms, as of old from theHoly City to pagan nations. "

THE LEIPSIC DISPUTATION. 

Up to this time, however, there had been no questioning of the divinerights claimed by the hierarchy. Luther was still a Papist, andthought to grow his plants of evangelic faith under the shadow of theUpas of ecclesiasticism. He had not yet been brought to see how hisAugustinian theology concerning sin and grace ran afoul of the entireround of the mediæval system and methods of holiness. It was only thefamous Leipsic Disputation between him and Dr. John Eck that showedhim the remoter and deeper relations of his position touchingindulgences. 

This otherwise fruitless debate had the effect of making the natureand bearings of the controversy clear to both sides. Eck nowdistinctly saw that Luther must be forcibly put down or the wholepapal system must fall; and Luther was made to realize that he mustsurrender his doctrine of salvation through simple faith in Christ orbreak with the pope and the hierarchical system. 

Accepting the pontifical doctrines as true, Eck claimed the victory, because he had driven Luther to expressions at variance with thosedoctrines. On the other hand, Luther had shown that the pontificalclaims were without foundation in primitive Christianity or the HolyScriptures; that the Papacy was not of divine authority or of theessence of the Church; that the Church existed before and beyond thepapal hierarchy, as well as under it; that the only Head of theuniversal Christian Church is Christ himself; that wherever there istrue faith in God's Word, there the Church is, whatever the form ofexternal organization; that the popes could err and had erred, andcouncils likewise; and that neither separately nor together could theyrightfully decree or ordain contrary to the Scriptures, the onlyinfallible Rule. 

To all this Eck could make no answer except that it was Hussism overagain, which the Council of Constance had condemned, and that, fromthe standpoint of the hierarchy, Luther was a heretic and ought to bedealt with accordingly. 

RESULTS FROM THE DEBATE. 

Luther now realized that the true Gospel of God's salvation and thepontifical system were vitally and irreconcilably antagonistic; thatthe one could never be held in consistency with the other; and thatthere must come a final break between him and Rome. This muchdepressed him. He showed his spiritual anguish by his deep dejection. But he soon rose above it. If he had the truth of God, as he verilybelieved, what were the pope and all devils against Jehovah? And so hewent on lecturing, preaching, writing, and publishing with hisgreatest power, brilliancy, and effectiveness. 

Some of the best and most telling products of his pen now went forthto multitudes of eager readers. The glowing energy of his faith actedlike a spreading fire, kindling the souls of men as they seldom havebeen kindled in any cause in any age. His _Address to the Nobility_electrified all Germany, and first fired the patriotic spirit ofUlrich Zwingli, the Swiss Reformer. His book on _The BabylonianCaptivity of the Church_ sounded a bugle-note which thrilled throughall the German heart, gave Bugenhagen to the Reformation, and sent ashudder through the hierarchy. [9] Already, at Maximilian's Diet atAugsburg to take measures against the Turk, a Latin pamphlet wasopenly circulated among the members which said that the Turk to beresisted was living in Italy; and Miltitz, the pope's nuncio andchamberlain, confessed that from Rome to Altenberg he had found thosegreatly in the minority who did not side with Luther. 

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Glapio, the confessor of Charles V. , stated to Chancellor Brück atthe Diet of Worms: "The alarm which I felt when I read the first pagesof the _Captivity_ cannot be expressed; they might be said to belashes which scourged me from head to foot. "

LUTHER'S EXCOMMUNICATION. 

But the tempest waxed fiercer and louder every day. Luther's growinginfluence the more inflamed his enemies. Hochstrat had induced twouniversities to condemn his doctrines. In sundry places his books wereburned by the public hangman. Eck had gone to Italy, and was "movingthe depths of hell" to secure the excommunication of the prejudgedheretic. And could his bloodthirsty enemies have had their way, thiswould long since have come. But Leo seems to have had more respect forLuther than for them. Learning and talent were more to him than anydoctrines of the faith. The monks complained of him as too much givento luxury and pleasure to do his duty in defending the Church. Perhaps he had conscience enough to be ashamed to enforce his trafficin paper pardons by destroying the most honest and heroic man inGermany. Perhaps he did not like to stain his reign with so foul arecord, even if dangerous complications should not attend it. Whateverthe cause, he was slow to respond to these clamors for blood. Eck hadalmost as much trouble to get him to issue the Bull of Luther'sexcommunication as he had to answer Luther's arguments in the LeipsicDiscussion. But he eventually procured it, and undertook to enforceit. 

And yet, with all his zealous personal endeavors and high authority, he could hardly get it posted, promulged, or at all respected inGermany. His parchment thunder lost its power in coming across theAlps. Miltitz also was in his way, who, with equal authority from thepope, was endeavoring to supersede the Bull by attempts atreconciliation. It came to Wittenberg in such a sorry plight thatLuther laughed at it as having the appearance of a forgery by Dr. Eck. He knew the pope had been bullied into the issuing of it, but this wasthe biting irony by which he indicated the character of the men bywhom it was moved and the pitiable weakness to which such thunders hadbeen reduced. 

But it was a Bull of excommunication nevertheless. Luther and hisdoctrines were condemned by the chief of Christendom. [10] Multitudeswere thrown into anxious perturbation. If the strong arm of theemperor should be given to sustain the pope, who would be able tostand? Adrian, one of the faculty of Wittenberg, was so frightenedthat he threw down his office and hastened to join the enemy. 

Amid the perils which surrounded Luther powerful knights offered todefend him by force of arms; but he answered, "_No_; by _the Word_ theworld was conquered, by _the Word_ the Church was saved, and by _theWord_ it must be restored. " The thoughts of his soul were not on humanpower, but centred on the throne of Him who lives for ever. It wasChrist's Gospel that was in peril, and he was sure Jehovah would notabandon his own cause. 

Germany waited to see what he would do. Nor was it long kept insuspense. 

FOOTNOTES:

[10] The Bull was issued June 15, 1520. It specified forty-onepropositions out of Luther's works which it condemned as heretical, scandalous, and offensive to pious ears. It forbade all persons toread his writings, upon pain of excommunication. Such as had any ofhis books in their possession were commanded to burn them. He himself, if he did not publicly recant his errors and burn his books withinsixty days, was pronounced an obstinate heretic, excommunicated anddelivered over to Satan. And it enjoined upon all secular princes, under pain of incurring the same censure, to seize his person anddeliver him up to be punished as his crimes deserved; that is to beburnt as a heretic. 

LUTHER AND THE POPE'S BULL. 

In a month he discharged a terrific volley of artillery upon thePapacy by his book _Against the Bull of Antichrist_. 

In thirteen days later he brought formal charges against thepope--_first_, as an unjust judge, who condemns without giving ahearing; _second_, as a heretic and apostate, who requires denial thatfaith is necessary; _third_, as an Antichrist, who sets himselfagainst the Holy Scriptures and usurps their authority; and _fourth_, as a blasphemer of the Church and its free councils, who declares themnothing without himself. 

This was carrying the war into Africa. Appealing to a future generalcouncil and the Scriptures as superior to popes, he now called uponthe emperor, electors, princes, and all classes and estates in thewhole German empire, as they valued the Gospel and the favor ofChrist, to stand by him in this demonstration. 

And, that all might be certified in due form, he called a notary andfive witnesses to hear and attest the same as verily the solemn actand deed of Martin Luther, done in behalf of himself and all who stoodor should stand with him. 

Rome persisted in forcing a schism, and this was Luther's bill ofdivorcement. 

Nay, more; as Rome had sealed its condemnation of him by burning hisbooks, he built a stack of fagots on the refuse piles outside theElster Gate of Wittenberg, invited thither the whole university, andwhen the fires were kindled and the flames were high, he cast intothem, one by one, the books of the canon law, the Decretals, theClementines, the Papal Extravagants, and all that lay at the base ofthe religion of the hierarchy! And when these were consumed he tookLeo's Bull of excommunication, held it aloft, exclaiming with a loudvoice, "Since thou hast afflicted the saints of God, be thou consumedwith fire unquenchable!" and dashed the impious document into theflames. 

Well done was that! Luther considered it the best act of his life. Itwas a brave heart, the bravest then living in this world, that daredto do it. But it was done then and for ever. Wittenberg looked onwith shoutings. The whole modern world of civilized man has ever sincebeen looking on with thrilling wonder. And myriads of the sons of Godand liberty are shouting over it yet. 

The miner's son had come up full abreast with the triple-crowneddescendant of the Medici. The monk of Wittenberg had matched theproudest monarch in the world. Henceforth the question was, Which ofthem should sway the nations in the time to come?

THE DIET OF WORMS. 

The young emperor sided with the religion of the pope. The venerableElector Frederick determined to stand by Luther, at least till hiscase was fairly adjudged. He said it was not just to condemn a goodand honest man unheard and unconvicted, and that "_Justice must takeprecedence even of the pope_. "

Conferences of state now became numerous and exciting, and the effortsof Rome to have Luther's excommunication recognized and enforced weremany and various, but nothing short of a Diet of the empire couldsettle the disturbance. [11]

Such a Diet was convoked by the young emperor for January, 1521. Itwas the first of his reign, and the grandest ever held on German soil. Philip of Hesse came to it with a train of six hundred cavaliers. Theelectors, dukes, archbishops, landgraves, margraves, counts, bishops, barons, lords, deputies, legates, and ambassadors from foreign courtscame in corresponding style. They felt it important to show theirconsequence at this first Diet, and were all the more moved to bethere in force because the exciting matter of Reform was specified asone of the chief things to be considered. The result was one of themost august and illustrious assemblies of which modern history tells, and one which presented a spectacle of lasting wonder that a poor lonemonk should thus have moved all the powers of the earth. 

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Audin, in his _Life of Luther_, says: "A monk who wore a cassockout at the elbows had caused to the most powerful emperor in the worldgreater embarrassments than those which Francis I. , his unsuccessfulrival at Frankfort, threatened to raise against him in Italy. With thecannon from his arsenal at Ghent and his lances from Namur, Charlescould beat the king of France between sunrise and sunset; but lancesand cannon were impotent to subdue the religious revolution, which, like some of the glaciers which he crossed in coming from Spain, acquired daily a new quantity of soil. "--Vol. I. Chap. 25. Again, inchap. 30, he says of the emperor: "The thought of measuring hisstrength with the hero of Marignan was far from alarming him, but astruggle with the monk of Wittenberg disturbed his sleep. He wishedthat they should try to overcome his obstinacy. "

DOINGS OF THE ROMANISTS. 

For three months the Diet wrangled over the affair of Luther withoutreaching anything decided. The friends of Rome were the chief actors, struggling in every way and hesitating at nothing to induce the Dietand the emperor to acknowledge and enforce the pope's decree. But theinfluence of the German princes, especially that of the ElectorFrederick, stood in the way; Charles would not act, as he had no rightto act, without the concurrence of the states, and the princes ofGermany held it unjust that Luther should be condemned on chargeswhich had never been fairly tried, on books which were not proven tobe his, and especially since the sentence itself presented conditionswith reference to which no answer had been legally ascertained. 

To overcome these oppositions different resorts were tried. Leo issueda second Bull, excommunicating Luther absolutely, anathematizing himand all his friends and abettors. The pope's legate called for moneyto buy up influence for the Romanists: "We must have money. Send usmoney. Money! money! or Germany is lost!" The money came; but theReformer's friends could not be bought with bribes, however much theagents of Rome needed such stimulation. 

Trickery was brought into requisition to entrap Luther's defenders bya secret proposal to compromise. Luther was given great credit andright, except that he had gone a little too far, and it was onlynecessary to restrain him from further demonstrations. Rome compromisewith a man she had doubly excommunicated and anathematized! Rome maketerms with an outlaw whom she had infallibly doomed to eternalexecration! Yet with these proposals the emperor's confessorapproached Chancellor Brück. But the chancellor's head was too clearto be caught by such treachery. 

Then it was moved to refer the matter to a commission of arbitrators. This met with so much favor that the pope's legate, Aleander, wasalarmed lest Luther should thereby escape, and hence set himself withunwonted energy to incite the emperor to decisive measures. 

Charles was persuaded to make a demonstration, but demanded that thelegate should first "convince the Diet. " Aleander was the most famousorator Rome had, and he rejoiced in his opportunity. He went beforethe assembly in a prepared speech of three hours in length to show upLuther as a pestilent heretic, and the necessity of getting rid of himand his books and principles at once to prevent the world from beingplunged into barbarism and utter desolation. He made a deep impressionby his effort. It was only by the unexpected and crushing speech ofDuke George of Saxony, Luther's bitter personal enemy, that the trainof things, so energetically wrought up, was turned. 

Not in defence of Luther, whom he disliked, but in defence of theGerman nation, he piled up before the door of the hierarchy such anoverwhelming array of its oppressions, robberies, and scandals, andexposed with such an unsparing hand the falsities, profligacies, cupidity, and beastly indecencies of the Roman clergy and officials, that the emperor hastened to recall the edict he had already signed, and yielded consent for Luther to be called to answer for himself. 

LUTHER SUMMONED. 

In vain the pope's legate protested that it was not lawful thus tobring the decrees of the sovereign pontiff into question, or pleadedthat Luther's daring genius, flashing eyes, electric speech, andthrilling spirit would engender tumult and violence. On March 6th theemperor signed a summons and safe-conduct for the Reformer to appearin Worms within twenty-one days, to answer concerning his doctrinesand writings. 

So far the thunders of the Vatican were blank. 

With all the anxious fears which such a summons would naturallyengender, Luther resolved to obey it. 

The pope's adherents fumed in their helplessness when they learnedthat he was coming--coming, too, under the safe-conduct of the empire, coming to have a hearing before the Diet!--_he_ whom the infallibleVicar of Heaven had condemned and anathematized! Whither was the worlddrifting?

Luther's friends trembled lest he should share the fate of Huss; hisenemies trembled lest he should escape it; and both, in their severalways, tried to keep him back. 

Placards of his condemnation were placed before him on the way, andspectacles to indicate his certain execution were enacted in hissight; but he was not the man to be deterred by the prospect of beingburnt alive if God called for the sacrifice. 

Lying fraud was also tried to seduce and betray him. Glapio, theemperor's confessor, who had tried a similar trick upon the ElectorFrederick, conceived the idea that if Von Sickingen and Bucer could bewon for the plot, a proposal to compromise the whole matter amicablymight serve to beguile him to the château of his friend at Ebernburgtill his safe-conduct should expire, and then the liars could throwoff the mask and dispose of him with credit in the eyes of Rome. Theglib and wily Glapio led in the attempt. Von Sickingen and Bucer wereentrapped by his bland hypocrisy, and lent themselves to the executionof the specious proposition. But when they came to Luther with it, heturned his back, saying, "If the emperor's confessor has anything tosay to me he will find me at Worms. "

But even his friends were alarmed at his coming. It was feared that hewould be destroyed. The Elector's confidential adviser sent a servantout to meet him, beseeching him by no means to enter the city. "Gotell your master, " said Luther, "I will enter Worms though as manydevils should be there as tiles upon its houses!" And he did enter, with nobles, cavaliers, and gentry for his escort, and attendedthrough the streets by a larger concourse than had greeted the entryof the emperor himself. [12]

FOOTNOTES:

[12] "The reception which he met with at Worms was such as he mighthave reckoned a full reward of all his labors if vanity and the loveof applause had been the principles by which he was influenced. Greater crowds assembled to behold him than had appeared at theemperor's public entry; his apartments were daily filled with princesand personages of the highest rank; and he was treated with all therespect paid to those who possess the power of directing theunderstanding and sentiments of other men--a homage more sincere, aswell as more flattering, than any which pre-eminence in birth orcondition command. "--Robertson's _Charles V. _, vol. I. P. 510. 

LUTHER AT THE DIET. 

Charles hurried to convene his council, saying, "Luther is come; whatshall we do with him?"

A chancellor and bishop of Flanders urged that he be despatched atonce, and this scandalous humiliation of the Holy See terminated. Hesaid Sigismund had allowed Huss to be burned, and no one was bound tokeep faith with a heretic. But the emperor was more moral than theteachings of his Church, and said, "Not so; we have given our promise, and we ought to keep it. "

On the morrow Luther was conducted to the Diet by the marshal of theempire. The excited people so crowded the gates and jammed about thedoors that the soldiers had to use their halberds to open a way forhim. An instinct not yet interpreted drew their hearts and allied themwith the hero. From the thronged streets, windows, and housetops camevoices as he passed--voices of petition and encouragement--voices ofbenediction on the brave and true--voices of sympathy and adjurationto be firm in God and in the power of his might. It was Germany, Scandinavia, England, Scotland, and Holland; it was the Americas andhundreds of young republics yet unborn; it was the whole world of allafter-time, with its free Gospel, free conscience, free speech, freegovernment, free science, and free schools, --uttering themselves inthose half-smothered voices. Luther heard them and was strengthened. 

But there was no danger he would betray the momentous trust. Thatmorning, amid great rugged prayers which broke from him like massiverock-fragments hot and burning from a volcano of mingled faith andagony, laying one hand on the open Bible and lifting the other toheaven, he cast his soul on Omnipotence, in pledge unspeakable to obeyonly his conscience and his God. Whether for life or death, his heartwas fixed. 

A few steps more and he stood before Imperial majesty, encompassed bythe powers and dignitaries of the earth, so brave, calm, and true aman that thrones and kings looked on in silent awe and admiration, andeven malignant scorn for the moment retreated into darkness. Since Hewho wore the crown of thorns stood before Pontius Pilate there had notbeen a parallel to this scene. [13]

FOOTNOTES:

[13] A Romanist thus describes the picture: "When the approach ofLuther was heard there ensued one of those deep silences in which theheart alone, by its hurried pulsations, gives sign of life. Attentionwas diverted from the emperor to the monk. On the appearance of Lutherevery one rose, regardless of the sovereign's presence. It inspiredWerner with one of the finest acts of his tragedy.... Heine hasglorified the appearance at Worms. The Catholic himself loves tocontemplate that black gown in the presence of those lords and baronscaparisoned in iron and armed with helmet and spear, and is moved bythe voice of 'that young friar' who comes to defy all the powers ofthe earth. "--Audin's _Life of Luther_. 

"All parties must unite in admiring and venerating the man who, undaunted and alone, could stand before such an assembly, andvindicate with unshaken courage what he conceived to be the cause ofreligion, of liberty, and of truth, fearless of any reproaches butthose of his own conscience, or of any disapprobation but that of hisGod. "--Roscoe's _Life of Leo X. _, vol. Iv. P. 36. 

Luther himself, afterward recalling the event, said: "It must indeedhave been God who gave me my boldness of heart; I doubt if I couldshow such courage again. "

LUTHER'S REFUSAL TO RECANT. 

A weak, poor man, arraigned and alone before the assembled powers ofthe earth, with only the grace of God and his cause on which to lean, had demand made of him whether or not he would retract his books orany part of them, _Yes_ or _No_. But he did not shrink, neither did hefalter. "Since Your Imperial Majesty and Your Excellencies require ofme a direct and simple answer, I will give it. To the pope or councilsI cannot submit my faith, for it is clear that they have erred andcontradicted one another. Therefore, unless I am convinced by proofsfrom Holy Scripture or by sound reasons, and my judgment by this meansis commanded by God's Word, _I cannot and will not retract anything_:for a Christian cannot safely go contrary to his conscience. " And, glancing over the august assembly, on whose will his life hung, headded in deep solemnity, those immortal words: "HERE I STAND. ICAN DO NO OTHERWISE. SO HELP ME GOD! AMEN. "[14]

Simple were the facts. Luther afterward wrote to a friend: "I expectedHis Majesty would bring fifty doctors to convict the monk outright;but it was not so. The whole history is this: Are these your books?_Yes. _--Will you retract them? _No. _--Well then, begone. "

He said the truth, but he could not then know all that was involved inwhat he reduced to such a simple colloquy. With that _Yes_ and _No_the wheel of ages made another revolution. The breath which spoke themturned the balances in which the whole subsequent history ofcivilization hung. It was the _Yes_ and _No_ which applied the brakesto the Juggernaut of usurpation, whose ponderous wheels had beencrushing through the centuries. It was the _Yes_ and _No_ whichevidenced the reality of a power above all popes and empires. It wasthe _Yes_ and _No_ which spoke the supreme obligation of the humansoul to obey God and conscience, and started once more the pulsationsof liberty in the arteries of man. It was the _Yes_ and _No_ whichdivided eras, and marked the summit whence the streams began to formand flow to give back to this world a Church without a pope and aState without an Inquisition. 

Charles had the happiness at Worms to hear the tidings that FernandoCortes had added Mexico to his dominions. The emancipated peoples ofthe earth in the generations since have had the happiness to know thatat Worms, through the inflexible steadfastness of Martin Luther, Godgave the inspirations of a new and better life for them!

FOOTNOTES:

[14] "With this noble protest was laid the keystone of theReformation. The pontifical hierarchy shook to its centre, and thegreat cause of truth and regenerate religion spread with electricspeed. The marble tomb of ignorance and error gave way, as it were, ofa sudden; a thousand glorious events and magnificent discoveriesthronged upon each other with pressing haste to behold andcongratulate the mighty birth, the new creation, of which they werethe harbingers, when, with a steady and triumphant step, the peerlessform of human intellect rose erect, and, throwing off from itsfreshening limbs the death-shade and the grave-clothes by which it wasenshrouded, ascended to the glorious resurrection of that noontidelustre which irradiates the horizon of our own day, rejoicing like agiant to run his race. "--John Mason Good's _Book of Nature_, p. 321. 

LUTHER'S CONDEMNATION. 

After Luther and his friends left Worms the emperor issued an edictputting him and all his adherents under the ban of the empire, forbidding any one to give him food or shelter, calling on all whofound him to arrest him, commanding all his books to be burned, andordering the seizure of his friends and the confiscation of theirpossessions. 

It was what Germany got for putting an Austro-Spanish bigot on theImperial throne. 

LUTHER IN THE WARTBURG. 

But the cause of Rome was not helped by it. Luther's person was madesafe by the Elector, who arranged a friendly capture by which he wasconcealed in the Wartburg in charge of the knights. 

No one knew what had become of him. His mysterious disappearance wasnaturally referred to some foul play of the Romanists, and the feelingof resentment was intense and deep. Indeed, Germany was now bent onthrowing off the religion of the hierarchy. No matter what it may oncehave been, no matter what service it may have rendered in helpingEurope through the Dark Ages, it had become gangrened, perverted, rotten, offensive, unbearable. The very means Rome took to defend itincreased revolt against it. It had come to be an oppressive lie, andit had to go. No Bulls of popes or edicts of emperors could alter thedecree of destiny. 

And a great and blessed fortune it was that Luther still lived toguide and counsel in the momentous transition. But Providence hadendowed him for the purpose, and so preserved him for its execution. What was born with the Theses, and baptized before the Imperial Dietat Worms, he was now to nourish, educate, catechise, and prepare forglorious confirmation before a similar Diet in the after years. 

TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE. 

While in the Wartburg he was forbidden to issue any writings. Leisurewas thus afforded for one of the most important things connected withthe Reformation. Those ten months he utilized to prepare for Germanyand for the world a translation of the Holy Scriptures, which itselfwas enough to immortalize the Reformer's name. Great intellectualmonuments have come down to us from the sixteenth century. It was anage in which the human mind put forth some of its noblestdemonstrations. Great communions still look back to its Confessions astheir rallying-centres, and millions of worshipers still render theirdevotions in the forms which then were cast. But pre-eminent over allthe achievements of that sublime century was the giving of God's Wordto the people in their own language, which had its chief centre andimpulse in the production of Luther's _German Bible_. Well has it beensaid, "He who takes up that, grasps a whole world in his hand--a worldwhich will perish only when this green earth itself shall pass away. "

It was the Word that kindled the heart of Luther to the work ofReformation, and the Word alone could bring it to its consummation. With the Word the whole Church of Christ and the entire fabric of ourcivilization must stand or fall. Undermine the Bible and you underminethe world. It is the one, true, and only Charter of Faith, Liberty, and salvation for man, without which this race of ours is a hopelessand abandoned wreck. And when Luther gave forth his German Bible, itwas not only a transcendent literary achievement, which created andfixed the classic forms of his country's language, [15] but an act ofsupremest wisdom and devotion; for the hope of the world is for evercabled to the free and open Word of God. 

FOOTNOTES:

[15] Chevalier Bunsen says; "It is Luther's genius applied to theBible which has preserved the only unity which is, in our days, remaining to the German nation--that of language, literature, andthought. There is no similar instance in the known history of theworld of a single man achieving such a work. "

LUTHER'S CONSERVATISM. 

Up to the time of Luther's residence in the Wartburg nothing had beendone toward changing the outward forms, ceremonies, and organizationof the Church. The great thing with him had been to get the inward, central doctrine right, believing that all else would then naturallycome right in due time. But while he was hidden and silent certainfanatics thrust themselves into this field, and were on the eve ofprecipitating everything to destruction. Tidings of the violentrevolutionary spirit which had broken out reached him in his retreatand stirred him with sorrowful indignation, for it was the mostdamaging blow inflicted on the Reformation. 

It is hard for men to keep their footing amid deep and vast commotionsand not drift into ruinous excesses. Storch, and Münzer, andCarlstadt, and Melanchthon himself, were dangerously affected by thewhirl of things. Even good men sometimes forget that society cannot beconserved by mere negations; that wild and lawless revolution cannever work a wholesome and abiding reformation; that the perpetuity ofthe Church is an historic chain, each new link of which depends onthose which have gone before. 

There was precious gold in the old conglomerate, which needed to bediscriminated, extracted, and preserved. The divine foundations werenot to be confounded with the rubbish heaped upon them. There wasstill a Church of Christ under the hierarchy, although the hierarchywas no part of its life or essence. The Zwickau prophets, with theirnew revelations and revolts against civil authority; the Wittenbergiconoclasts, with their repudiation of study and learning and allproper church order; and the Sacramentarians, with their insidiousrationalism against the plain Word, --were not to be entrusted withthe momentous interests with which the cause of the Reformation wasfreighted. And hence, at the risk of the Elector's displeasure and atthe peril of his life, Luther came forth from his covert to withstandthe violence which was putting everything in jeopardy. 

Grandly also did he reason out the genuine Gospel principles againstall these parties. He comprehended his ground from centre tocircumference, and he held it alike against erring friends andmenacing foes. The swollen torrent of events never once obscured hisprophetic insight, never disturbed the balance of his judgment, nevershook his hold upon the right. With a master-power he held revolutionsand wars in check, while he revised and purified the Liturgy and Orderof the Church, wrought out the evangelic truth in its applications toexisting things, and reared the renewed habilitation of the pure Wordand sacraments. 

GROWTH OF THE REFORMATION. 

It was now that Pope Leo died. His glory lasted but eight years. Hissuccessor, Adrian VI. , was a moderate man, of good intentions, thoughhe could not see what evil there was in indulgences. He exhortedGermany to get rid of Luther, but said the Church must be reformed, that the Holy See had been for years horribly polluted, and that theevils had affected head and members. He was in solemn earnest thistime, and began to change and purify the papal court. To some this wasas if the voice of Luther were being echoed from St. Peter's chair, and Adrian suddenly died, no man knows of what, [16] and Clement VII. , a relative of Leo X. , was put upon the papal throne. 

In 1524 a Diet was convened at Nuremberg with reference to these samematters. Campeggio, the pope's legate, thought it prudent to make hisway thither without letting himself be known, and wrote back to hismaster that he had to be very cautious, as the majority of the Dietconsisted of "great Lutherans. " At this Diet the Edict of Worms wasvirtually annulled, and it was plain enough that "great Lutherans" hadbecome very numerous and powerful. 

Luther himself had become of sufficient consequence for Henry VIII. , king of England, to write a book against him, for which the pope gavehim the title of "Defender of the Faith, " and for which Luther repaidhim in his own coin. Erasmus also, long the prince of the wholeliterary world, was dogged into the writing of a book against thegreat Reformer. Poor Erasmus found his match, and was overwhelmed withthe result. He afterward sadly wrote: "My troops of friends are turnedto enemies. Everywhere scandal pursues me and calumny denies my name. Every goose now hisses at Erasmus. "

In 1525, Luther's friend and protector, the Elector Frederick, died. This would have been a sad blow for the Reformation had there been noone of like mind to take his place. But God had the man in readiness. "Frederick the Wise" was succeeded by his brother, "John theConstant. "

In Hesse, in Holland, in Scandinavia, in Prussia, in Poland, inSwitzerland, in France, _everywhere_, the Reformation advanced. DukeGeorge of Saxony raged, got up an alliance against the growing cause, and beheaded citizens of Leipsic for having Luther's writings in theirhouses. Eck still howled from Ingolstadt for fire and fagots. Thedukes of Bavaria were fierce with persecutions. The archbishop ofMayence punished cities because they would not have his priests forpastors. The emperor from Spain announced his purpose to crush andexterminate "the wickedness of Lutheranism. " But it was all in vain. The sun had risen, the new era had come!

Luther now issued his _Catechisms_, which proved a great and gloriousaid to the true Gospel. Henceforth the children were to be bred up inthe pure faith. Matthesius says: "If Luther in his lifetime hadachieved no other work but that of bringing his two Catechisms intouse, the whole world could not sufficiently thank and repay him. "

A quarrel between the emperor and the pope also contributed to theprogress of the Reformation. A Diet at Spire in 1526 had interposed acheck to the persecuting spirit of the Romanists, and grantedtoleration to those of Luther's mind in all the states where hisdoctrines were approved. The respite lasted for three years, untilCharles and Clement composed their difference and united to wreaktheir wrath upon Luther and his adherents. 

FOOTNOTES:

[16] The death of Adrian VI. , on the 14th of September, 1523, was asubject of general rejoicing in Rome. There was a crown of flowershung to the door of his physician, with a card appended which read, "_To the savior of his country_. "

PROTESTANTS AND WAR. 

A second Diet at Spire, in 1529, revoked the former act of toleration, and demanded of all the princes and estates an unconditionalsurrender to the pope's decrees. This called forth the heroic_Protest_ of those who stood with Luther. They refused to submit, claiming that in matters of divine service and the soul's salvationconscience and God must be obeyed rather than earthly powers. It wasfrom this that the name of _Protestants_ originated--a name which halfthe world now honors and accepts. 

The signers of this Protest also pledged to each other their mutualsupport in defending their position. Zwingli urged them to make warupon the emperor. He himself afterward took the sword, and perished byit. Calvin, Cranmer, Knox, and even the Puritan Fathers as far as theyhad power and occasion, resorted to physical force and the civil armto punish the rejecters of their creed. Luther repudiated all suchcoercion. The sword was at his command, but he opposed its use for anypurposes of religion. All the weight of his great influence was givento prevent his friends from mixing external force with what shouldever have its seat only in the calm conviction of the soul. He thuspractically anticipated Roger Williams and William Penn and the mostlauded results of modern freedom--not from constraint ofcircumstances and personal interests, but from his own clear insightinto Gospel principles. Bloody religious wars came after he was dead, the prospect of which filled his soul with horror, and to which hecould hardly give consent even in case of direst necessity forself-defence; but it is a transcendent fact that while he lived theywere held in abeyance, most of all by his prayers and endeavors. Hefought, indeed, as few men ever fought, but the only sword he wieldedwas "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. "

THE CONFESSION OF AUGSBURG. 

And yet another Imperial Diet was convened with reference to thesereligious disturbances. It was held in Augsburg in the spring of 1530. The emperor was in the zenith of his power. He had overcome his Frenchrival. He had spoiled Rome, humbled the pope, and reorganized Italy. The Turks had withdrawn their armies. And the only thing in the way ofa consolidated empire was the Reformation in Germany. To crush thiswas now his avowed purpose, and he anticipated no great hardship indoing it. He entered Augsburg with unwonted magnificence and pomp. Hehad spoken very graciously in his invitation to the princes, but itwas in his heart to compel their submission to his former Edict ofWorms. It behoved them to be prepared to make a full exhibit of theirprinciples, giving the ultimatum on which they proposed to stand. 

Luther had been formulating articles embodying the points adhered toin his reformatory teachings. He had prepared one set for the MarburgConference with the Swiss divines. He had revised and elaborated theseinto the Seventeen Articles of Schwabach. He had also prepared anotherseries on abuses, submitted to the Elector John at Torgau. All thesewere now committed to Melanchthon for careful elaboration intocomplete style and harmony for use at the Diet. Luther assisted inthis work up to the time when the Diet convened, and what remained tobe done was completed in Augsburg by Melanchthon and the Lutherandivines present with him. Luther himself could not be there, as he wasa dead man to the law, and by command of his prince was detained atCoburg while the Diet was in session. 

The first act of the emperor was to summon the protesting princesbefore him, asking of them the withdrawal of their Protest. This theyrefused. They felt that they had constitutional right, founded on thedecision of Spire, to resist the emperor's demand; and they did notintend to surrender the just principles put forth in their nobleProtest. They celebrated divine service in their quarters, led bytheir own clergy, and refused to join in the procession at the Romanfestival of Corpus Christi. This gave much offence, and for the sakeof peace they discontinued their services during the Diet. 

At length they were asked to make their doctrinal presentation. Melanchthon had admirably performed the work assigned him in themaking up of the Confession, and on the 25th day of June, 1530, thedocument, duly signed, was read aloud to the emperor in the hearing ofmany. 

The effect of it upon the assembly was indescribable. Many of theprejudices and false notions against the Reformers were effectuallydissipated. The enemies of the Reformation felt that they had solemnrealities to deal with which they had never imagined. Others said thatthis was a more effectual preaching than that which had beensuppressed. "Christ is in the Diet, " said Justus Jonas, "and he doesnot keep silence. God's Word cannot be bound. " In a word, the worldnow had added to it one of its greatest treasures--the renowned andimperishable AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 

Luther was eager for tidings of what transpired at the Diet. And whenthe Confession came, as signed and delivered, he wrote: "I thrill withjoy that I have lived to see the hour in which Christ is preached byso many confessors to an assembly so illustrious in a form sobeautiful. "

Even Reformed authors, from Calvin down, have cheerfully added theirtestimony to the worth and excellence of this magnificentConfession--the first since the Athanasian Creed. A late writer ofthis class says of it that "it best exhibits the prevailing genius ofthe German Reformation, and will ever be cherished as one of thenoblest monuments of faith from the pentecostal period ofProtestantism. "

The Romanists attempted to answer the noble Confession, but would notmake their Confutation public. Compromises were proposed, but theycame to naught. The Imperial troops were called into the city and thegates closed to intimidate the princes, but it resulted in greateralarm to the Romanists than to them. The confessors had taken theirstand, and they were not to be moved from it. The Diet ended with thedecision that they should have until the following spring to determinewhether they would submit to the Roman Church or not, and, if not, that measures would then be taken for their extermination. 

THE LEAGUE OF SMALCALD. 

The emperor's edict appeared November 19th, and the Protestant princesat once proceeded to form a league for mutual protection againstattempts to force their consciences in these sacred matters. It waswith difficulty that the consent of Luther could be obtained for what, to him, looked like an arrangement to support the Gospel by the sword. But he yielded to a necessity forced by the intolerance of Rome. Aconvention was held at Smalcald at Christmas, 1530, and there wasformed the _League of Smalcald_, which planted the politicalfoundations of Religious Liberty for our modern world. 

By the presentation of the great Confession of Augsburg, along withthe formation of the League of Smalcald, the cause of Luther becameembodied in the official life of nations, and the new era of Freedomhad come safely to its birth. Long and terrible storms were yet to bepassed, but the ship was launched which no thunders of emperors orpopes could ever shatter. [17]

When the months of probation ended, France had again becometroublesome to the emperor, and the Turks were renewing theirmovements against his dominions. He also found that he could not counton the Catholic princes for the violent suppression of theProtestants. Luther's doctrines had taken too deep hold upon theirsubjects to render it safe to join in a war of extermination againstthem. 

The Zwinglians also coalesced with the Lutherans in presenting aunited front against the threatened bloody coercion. The SmalcaldLeague, moreover, had grown to be a power which even the emperor couldnot despise. He therefore resolved to come to terms with theProtestant members of his empire, and a peace--at least a truce--wasconcluded at Nuremberg, which left things as they were to wait until ageneral council should settle the questions in dispute. 

FOOTNOTES:

[17] "The Reformation of Luther kindled up the minds of men afresh, leading to new habits of thought and awakening in individuals energiesbefore unknown to themselves. The religious controversies of thisperiod changed society, as well as religion, and to a considerableextent, where they did not change the religion of the state, theychanged man himself in his modes of thought, his consciousness of hisown powers, and his desire of intellectual attainment. The spirit ofcommercial and foreign adventure on the one hand and, on the other theassertion and maintenance of religious liberty, having their source inthe Reformation, and this love of religious liberty drawing after itor bringing along with it, as it always does, an ardent devotion tothe principle of civil liberty also, were the powerful influencesunder which character was formed and men trained for the great work ofintroducing English civilization, English law, and, what is more thanall, Anglo-Saxon blood, into the wilderness of North America. "--DanielWebster, _Works_, vol. I. P. 94. 

LUTHER'S LATER YEARS. 

Luther lived nearly fifteen years after this grand crowning of histestimony, diligently laboring for Christ and his country. The mostbrilliant part of his career was over, but his labors still were greatand important. Indeed, his whole life was intensely laborious. He wasa busier man than the First Napoleon. His publications, as reckoned upby Seckendorf, amount to eleven hundred and thirty-seven. Large andsmall together, they number seven hundred and fifteen volumes--one forevery two weeks that he lived after issuing the first. Even in thelast six weeks of his life he issued thirty-one publications--morethan five per week. If he had had no other cares and duties but tooccupy himself with his pen, this would still prove him a veryHercules in authorship. [18]

But his later years were saddened by many anxieties, afflictions, andtrials. Under God, he had achieved a transcendent work, and hisconfidence in its necessity, divinity, and perpetuity never failed;but he was much distressed to see it marred and damaged, as it was, bythe weaknesses and passions of men. 

His great influence created jealousies. His persistent conservatismgave offence. Those on whom he most relied betimes imperiled his causeby undue concessions and pusillanimity. The friends of the Reformationoften looked more to political than Christian ends, or were morecarnal than spiritual. Threatening civil commotions troubled him. Ultra reform attacked and blamed him. The agitations about a generalcouncil, which Rome now treacherously urged, and meant to pack for itsown purposes, gave him much anxiety. It was with reference to such acouncil that one other great document--_The Articles ofSmalcald_--issued from his pen, in which he defined the true and finalProtestant position with regard to the hierarchy, and the fundamentalorganization of the Church of Christ. His bodily ailments also becamefrequent and severe. 

Prematurely old, and worn out with cares, labors, and vexations--thecommon lot of great heroes and benefactors--he began to long for theheavenly rest. "I am weary of the world, " said he, "and it is time theworld were weary of me. The parting will be easy, like a travelerleaving his inn. "

He lived to his sixty-third year, and peacefully died in the faith heso effectually preached, while on a mission of reconciliation at theplace where he was born, honored and lamented in his death as few menhave ever been. His remains repose in front of the chancel in thecastle church of Wittenberg, on the door of which his own hand hadnailed the Ninety-five Theses. [19]

FOOTNOTES:

[18] "Never before was the human mind more prolific. " "Luther holds ahigh and glorious place in German literature. " "In his manuscripts wenowhere discover the traces of fatigue or irritation, no embarrassmentor erasures, no ill-applied epithet or unmanageable expression; and bythe correctness of his writing we might imagine he was the copyistrather than the writer of the work. "--So says _Audin_, his RomanCatholic biographer. 

Hallam's flippant and disparaging remarks on Luther, contained in his_Introduction to the Literature of Europe_, are simply outrageous, "stupid and senseless paragraphs, " evidencing a presumption on thepart of their author which deserves intensest rebuke. "Hallam knowsnothing about Luther; he himself confesses his inability to read himin his native German; and this alone renders him incapable of judgingintelligently respecting his merits as a writer; and, knowing nothing, it would have been honorable in him to say nothing, at least to saynothing disparagingly. And, by the way, it seems to us that writing ahistory of European literature without a knowledge of German is muchlike writing a history of metals without knowing anything of iron andsteel.... Luther's language became, through his writings, and has eversince remained, the language of literature and general intercourseamong educated men, and is that which is now understood universally tobe meant when _the German_ is spoken of. His translation of the Bibleis still as much the standard of purity for that language as Homer isfor the Greek. "--_Dr. Calvin E. Stowe. _

[19] "Nothing can be more edifying than the scene presented by thelast days of Luther, of which we have the most authentic and detailedaccounts. When dying he collected his last strength and offered up thefollowing prayer: 'Heavenly Father, eternal, merciful God, thou hastrevealed to me thy dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Him I have taught, him I have confessed, him I love as my Saviour and Redeemer, whom thewicked persecute, dishonor, and reprove. Take my poor soul up tothee!'

"Then two of his friends put to him the solemn question: 'ReverendFather, do you die in Christ and in the doctrine you have constantlypreached?' He answered by an audible and joyful '_Yes_;' and, repeating the verse, 'Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit, ' heexpired peacefully, without a struggle. "--_Encyc. Britannica. _

PERSONALE OF LUTHER. 

The personal appearance of this extraordinary man is but poorly givenin the painted portraits of him. Written descriptions inform us thathe was of medium size, handsomely proportioned, and somewhat darklycomplected. His arched brows, high cheek-bones, and powerful jaws andchin gave to his face an outline of ruggedness; but his features wereregular, and softened all over with benevolence and every refinedfeeling. He had remarkable eyes, large, full, deep, dark, andbrilliant, with a sort of amber circle around the pupil, which madethem seem to emit fire when under excitement. His hair was dark andwaving, but became entirely white in his later years. His mouth waselegantly formed, expressive of determination, tenderness, affection, and humor. His countenance was elevated, open, brave, and unflinching. His neck was short and strong and his breast broad and full. 

Though compactly built, he was generally spare and wasted fromincessant studies, hard labor, and an abstemious life. 

Mosellanus, the moderator at the Leipsic Disputation, describes himquite fully as he appeared at that time, and says that "his body wasso reduced by cares and study that one could almost count his bones. "He himself makes frequent allusion to his wasted and enfeebled body. His health was never robust. He was a small eater. Melanchthon says:"I have seen him, when he was in full health, absolutely neither eatnor drink for four days together. At other times I have seen him, formany days, content with the slightest allowance, a salt herring and asmall hunch of bread per day. "

Mosellanus further says that his manners were cultured and friendly, with nothing of stoical severity or pride in him--that he was cheerfuland full of wit in company, and at all times fresh, joyous, inspiring, and pleasant. 

Honest naturalness, grand simplicity, and an unpretentious majesty ofcharacter breathed all about him. An indwelling vehemency, a powerfulwill, and a firm confidence could readily be seen, but calm andmellowed with generous kindness, without a trace of selfishness orvanity. He was jovial, free-spoken, open, easily approached, and athome with all classes. 

Audin says of him that "his voice was clear and sonorous, his eyebeaming with fire, his head of the antique cast, his hands beautiful, and his gesture graceful and abounding--at once Rabelais and Fontaine, with the droll humor of the one and the polished elegance of theother. "

In society and in his home he was genial, playful, instructive, andoften brilliant. His _Table-Talk_, collected (not always judiciously)by his friends, is one of the most original and remarkable ofproductions. He loved children and young people, and brought upseveral in his house besides his own. He had an inexhaustible flow ofready wit and good-humor, prepared for everybody on all occasions. Hewas a frank and free correspondent, and let out his heart in hisletters, six large volumes of which have been preserved. 

He was specially fond of music, and cultivated it to a high degree. Hecould sing and play like a woman. [20] "I have no pleasure in anyman, " said he, "who despises music. It is no invention of ours; it isthe gift of God. I place it next to theology. "

He was himself a great musician and hymnist. Handel confesses that hederived singular advantage from the study of his music; and Coleridgesays: "He did as much for the Reformation by his hymns as by histranslation of the Bible. " To this day he is the chief singer in aChurch of pre-eminent song. Heine speaks of "those stirring songswhich escaped from him in the very midst of his combats andnecessities, like flowers making their way from between rough stonesor moonbeams glittering among dark clouds. " _Ein feste Burg_ welledfrom his great heart like the gushing of the waters from the smittenrock of Horeb to inspirit and refresh God's faint and doubting peopleas long as the Church is in this earthly wilderness. There is a mightysoul in it which lifts one, as on eagles' wings, high and triumphantover the blackest storms. And his whole life was a brilliantly enactedepic of marvelous grandeur and pathos. [21]

FOOTNOTES:

[20] Mattähus Ratzenberger, in a passage of his biography preserved inthe _Bibliotheca Ducalis Gothana_, says: "Lutherus had also thiscustom: as soon as he had eaten the evening meal with his tablecompanions he would fetch out of his little writing-room his _partes_and hold a _musicam_ with those of them who had a mind for music. Greatly was he delighted when a good composition of the old masterfitted the responses or _hymnos de tempore anni_, and especially didhe enjoy the _cantu Gregoriana_ and chorale. But if at times heperceived in a new song that it was incorrectly copied he set it againupon the lines (that is, he brought the parts together and rectifiedit _in continenti_). Right gladly did he join in the singing when_hymnus_ or _responsorium de tempore_ had been set by the _Musicus_ toa _Cantum Gregorianum_, as we have said, and his young sons, Martinusand Paulus, had also after table to sing the _responsoria de tempore_, as at Christmas, _Verbum caro factum est_, _In principio erat verbum_;at Easter, _Christus resurgens ex mortuis_, _Vita sanctorum_, _Victimæpaschali laudes_, etc. In these _responsoria_ he always sang alongwith his sons, and in _cantu figurali_ he sang the alto. "

The alto which Luther sang must not be confounded with the alto partof to-day. Here it means the _cantus firmus_, the melody around whichthe old composers wove their contrapuntal ornamentation. 

Luther was the creator of German congregational singing. 

[21] Luther's first poetic publication seems to have been certainverses composed on the martyrdom of two young Christian monks, whowere burned alive at Brussels in 1523 for their faithful confession ofthe evangelical doctrines. A translation of a part of this compositionis given in D'Aubigné's _History of the Reformation_ in thesebeautiful and stirring words:

 "Flung to the heedless winds or on the waters cast, Their ashes shall be watched, and gathered at the last; And from that scattered dust, around us and abroad, Shall spring a plenteous seed of witnesses for God. 

 "Jesus hath now received their latest living breath, Yet vain is Satan's boast of victory in their death. Still, still, though dead, they speak, and trumpet-tongued proclaim To many a wakening land the One availing Name. "

Audin, though a Romanist, says: "The hymns which he translated fromthe Latin into German may be unreservedly praised, as also those whichhe composed for the members of his own communion. He did not travestythe sacred Word nor set his anger to music. He is grave, simple, solemn, and grand. He was at once the poet and musician of a greatnumber of his hymns. "

HIS GREAT QUALITIES. 

Luther's qualities of mind, heart, and attainment were transcendent. Though naturally meek and diffident, when it came to matters of dutyand conviction he was courageous, self-sacrificing, and brave beyondany mere man known to history. Elijah fled before the threats ofJezebel, but no powers on earth could daunt the soul of Luther. Eventhe apparitions of the devil himself could not disconcert him. 

Roman Catholic authors agree that "Nature gave him a German industryand strength and an Italian spirit and vivacity, " and that "nobodyexcelled him in philosophy and theology, and nobody equaled him ineloquence. "

His mental range was not confined to any one set of subjects. In themidst of his profound occupation with questions of divinity and theChurch "his mind was literally world-wide. His eyes were for everobservant of what was around him. At a time when science was hardlyout of its shell he had observed Nature with the liveliest curiosity. He studied human nature like a dramatist. Shakespeare himself drewfrom him. His memory was a museum of historical information, anecdotesof great men, and old German literature, songs, and proverbs, to thelatter of which he made many rich additions from his own genius. Scarce a subject could be spoken of on which he had not thought and onwhich he had not something remarkable to say. "[22] In consultationsupon public affairs, when the most important things hung in peril, hiscontemporaries speak with amazement of the gigantic strength of hismind, the unexampled acuteness of his intellect, the breadth andloftiness of his understanding and counsels. 

But, though so great a genius, he laid great stress on sound andthorough learning and study. "The strength and glory of a town, " saidhe, "does not depend on its wealth, its walls, its great mansions, itspowerful armaments, but in the number of its learned, serious, kind, and well-educated citizens. " He was himself a great scholar, farbeyond what we would suspect in so perturbed a life, or what he caredto parade in his writings. He mastered the ancient languages, andinsisted on the perpetual study of them as "the scabbard which holdsthe sword of the Spirit, the cases which enclose the precious jewels, the vessels which contain the old wine, the baskets which carry theloaves and the fishes for the feeding of the multitude. " Hisassociates say of him that he was a great reader, eagerly perusing theChurch Fathers, old and new, and all histories, well retaining what heread, and using the same with great skill as occasion called. 

Melanchthon, who knew him well, and knew well how to judge of men'spowers and attainments, said of him: "He is too great, too wonderful, for me to describe. Whatever he writes, whatever he utters, goes tothe soul and fixes itself like arrows in the heart. _He is a miracleamong men. _"

Nor was he without the humility of true greatness. Newton's comparisonof himself to a child gathering shells and pebbles on the shore, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before him, hasbeen much cited and lauded as an illustration of the modesty of truescience. But long before Newton had Luther said of himself, in themidst of his mighty achievements, "Only a little of the first fruitsof wisdom--only a few fragments of the boundless heights, breadths, and depths of truth--have I been able to gather. "

He was a man of amazing _faith_--that mighty principle which looks atthings invisible, joins the soul to divine Omnipotence, and launchesout unfalteringly upon eternal realities, and which is ever the chieffactor in all God's heroes of every age. He dwelt in constant nearnessand communion with the Eternal Spirit, which reigns in the heavens andraises the willing and obedient into blessed instruments of itself forthe actualizing of ends and ideals beyond and above the common courseof things. With his feet ever planted on the promises, he could layhis hands upon the Throne, and thus was lifted into a sublimity ofenergy, endurance, and command which made him one of the phenomenalwonders of humanity. He was a very Samson in spiritual vigor, andanother Hannah's son in the strength and victory of his prayers. 

Dr. Calvin E. Stowe says: "There was probably never created a morepowerful human being, a more gigantic, full-proportioned MAN, in thehighest sense of the term. All that belongs to human nature, all thatgoes to constitute a MAN, had a strongly-marked development in him. Hewas a _model man_, one that might be shown to other beings in otherparts of the universe as a specimen of collective manhood in itsmaturest growth. "

As the guide and master of one of the greatest revolutions of time welook in vain for any one with whom to compare him, and as arevolutionary orator and preacher he had no equal. Richter says, "Hiswords are half-battles. " Melanchthon likens them to thunderbolts. Hewas at once a Peter and a Paul, a Socrates and an Æsop, a Chrysostomand a Savonarola, a Shakespeare and a Whitefield, all condensed inone. 

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Froude supplemented. 

HIS ALLEGED COARSENESS. 

Some blame him for not using kid gloves in handling the ferociousbulls, bears, and he-goats with whom he had to do. But what, otherwise, would have become of the Reformation? His age was savage, and the men he had to meet were savage, and the matters at staketouched the very life of the world. What would a Chesterfield or anAddison have been in such a contest? Erasmus said he had horns, andknew how to use them, but that Germany needed just such a master. Heunderstood the situation. "These gnarled logs, " said he, "will notsplit without iron wedges and heavy malls. The air will not clearwithout lightning and thunder. "[23]

But if he was rough betimes, he could be as gentle and tender as amaiden, and true to himself in both. He could fight monsters all day, and in the evening take his lute, gaze at the stars, sing psalms, andmuse upon the clouds, the fields, the flowers, the birds, dissolved inmelody and devotion. Feared by the mighty of the earth, the dictatorand reprimander of kings, the children loved him, and his great heartwas as playful among them as one of themselves. If he was harsh andunsparing upon hypocrites, malignants, and fools, he called things bytheir right names, and still was as loving as he was brave. Since KingDavid's lament over Absalom no more tender or pathetic scene hasappeared in history or in fiction than his outpouring of paternal loveand grief over the deathbed, coffin, and grave of his young andprecious daughter Madeleine. "I know of few things more touching, "says Carlyle, "than those soft breathings of affection, soft as achild's or a mother's, in this great wild heart of Luther;" and adds:"I will call this Luther a true Great Man; great in intellect, incourage, affection, and integrity; one of our most lovable andprecious men. Great not as a hewn obelisk, but as an Alpine mountain, so simple, honest, spontaneous; not setting up to be great at all;there for quite another purpose than being great. Ah, yes, unsubduablegranite, piercing far and wide into the Heavens; yet, in the clefts ofit, fountains, green, beautiful valleys with flowers. A rightSpiritual Hero and Prophet; once more, a true Son of Nature and Fact, for whom these centuries, and many that are yet to come, will bethankful to Heaven. "

FOOTNOTES:

[23] "It must be observed that the coarse vituperations which shockthe reader in Luther's controversial works were not peculiar to him, being commonly used by scholars and divines of the Middle Ages intheir disputations. The invectives of Valla, Filelfo, Poggio, andother distinguished scholars against each other are notorious; andthis bad taste continued in practice long after Luther down to theseventeenth century, and traces of it are found in writers of theeighteenth, even in some of the works of the polished and courtlyVoltaire. "--_Cyclopædia of Soc. For Diffus. Of Useful Knowledge. _

HIS MARVELOUS ACHIEVEMENTS. 

A lone man, whose days were spent in poverty; who could withstand themighty Vatican and all its flaming Bulls; whose influence evoked andswayed successive Diets of the empire; whom repeated edicts from theImperial throne could not crush; whom the talent, eloquence, andtowering authority of the Roman hierarchy assailed in vain; whom theattacks of kings of state and kings of literature could not disable;to offset whose opinions the greatest general council the Church ofRome ever held had to be convened, and, after sitting eighteen years, could not adjourn without conceding much to his positions; and whosename the greatest and most enlightened nations of the earth hail withglad acclaim, --necessarily must have been a wonder of a man. [24]

To begin with a minority consisting of one, and conquer kingdoms withthe mere sword of his mouth; to bear the anathemas of Church and theban of empire, and triumph in spite of them; to refuse to fall downbefore the golden image of the combined Nebuchadnezzars of his time, though threatened with the burning fires of earth and hell; to turniconoclast of such magnitude and daring as to think of smiting thething to pieces in the face of principalities and powers to whom itwas as God--nay, to attempt this, _and to succeed in it_, --here wassublimity of heroism and achievement explainable only in the will andprovidence of the Almighty, set to recover His Gospel to a perishingrace. [25]

FOOTNOTES:

[24] "In no other instance have such great events depended upon thecourage, sagacity, and energy of a single man, who, by his sole andunassisted efforts, made his solitary cell the heart and centre of themost wonderful and important commotion the world ever witnessed--whoby the native force and vigor of his genius attacked and successfullyresisted, and at length overthrew, the most awful and sacred authoritythat ever imposed its commands on mankind. "--A letter prefixed toLuther's _Table-Talk_ in the folio edition of 1652. 

[25] "To overturn a system of religious belief founded on ancient anddeep-rooted prejudices, supported by power and defended with no lessart than industry--to establish in its room doctrines of the mostcontrary genius and tendency, and to accomplish all this, not byexternal violence or the force of arms, are operations whichhistorians the least prone to credulity and superstition ascribe tothat divine providence which with infinite ease can bring about eventswhich to human sagacity appear impossible. "--Robertson's _Charles V. _

HIS IMPRESS UPON THE WORLD. 

To describe the fruits of Luther's labors would require the writing ofthe whole history of modern civilization and the setting forth of thenoblest characteristics of this our modern world. [26]

On the German nation he has left more of his impress than any otherman has left on any nation. The German people love to speak of him asthe creative master of their noble language and literature, the greatprophet and glory of their country. There is nothing so consecrated inall his native land as the places which connect with his life, presence, and deeds. 

But his mighty impress is not confined to Germany. "He grasped theiron trumpet of his mother-tongue and blew a blast that shook thenations from Rome to the Orkneys. " He is not only the central figureof Germany, but of Europe and of the whole modern world. Take Lutheraway, with the fruits of his life and deeds, and man to-day wouldcease to be what he is. 

Frederick von Schlegel, though a Romanist, affirms that "it was uponhim and his soul that the fate of Europe depended. " And on the fateof Europe then depended the fate of our race. 

Michelet, also a Romanist, pronounces Luther "the restorer of libertyin modern times;" and adds: "If we at this day exercise in all itsplenitude the first and highest privilege of human intelligence, it isto him we are indebted for it. "

"And that any faith, " says Froude, "any piety, is alive now, even inthe Roman Church itself, whose insolent hypocrisy he humbled intoshame, is due in large measure to the poor miner's son. "

He certainly is to-day the most potently living man who has lived thisside of the Middle Ages. The pulsations of his great heart are feltthrough the whole _corpus_ of our civilization. 

"Four potentates, " says the late Dr. Krauth, "ruled the mind of Europein the Reformation: the emperor, Erasmus, the pope, and Luther. Thepope wanes; Erasmus is little; the emperor is nothing; but Lutherabides as a power for all time. His image casts itself upon thecurrent of ages as the mountain mirrors itself in the river whichwinds at its foot. He has monuments in marble and bronze, and medalsin silver and gold, but his noblest monument is the best love of thebest hearts, and the brightest and purest impression of his image hasbeen left in the souls of regenerated nations. "

Many and glowing are the eulogies which have been pronounced upon him, but Frederick von Schlegel, speaking from the side of Rome, gives itas his conviction that "few, even of his own disciples, appreciate himhighly enough. " Genius, learning, eloquence, and song have volunteeredtheir noble efforts to do him justice; centuries have added theirlight and testimony; half the world in its enthusiasm has urged on theinspiration; but the story in its full dimensions has not yet beenadequately told. The skill and energy of other generations will yet betaxed to give it, if, indeed, it ever can be given apart from theilluminations of eternity. [27]

FOOTNOTES:

[26] "From the commencement of the religious war in Germany to thePeace of Westphalia scarce anything great or memorable occurred in theEuropean political world with which the Reformation was notessentially connected. Every event in the history of the world in thisinterval, if not directly occasioned, was nearly affected, by thisreligious revolution, and every state, great or small, remotely orimmediately felt its influence. "--Schiller's _Thirty Years' War_, vol. I. P. 1. 

[27] "Luther was as wonderful as he was great. His personal experiencein divine things was as deep as his mind was mighty, large, andunbounded. Though called by the Most High, and continued by hisappointment, in the midst of papal darkness, idolatry, and error, withno companions but the saints of the Bible, nor any other light but thelamp of the Word to guide his feet, his heaven-taught soul wasministerially furnished with as rich pasture for the sheep of Christ, as awful ammunition for the terror and destruction of the enemies bywhich he and they were perpetually surrounded. The sphere of hismighty ministry was not bounded by his defence of the truth againstthe great and powerful. No! He was as rich a pastor, as terrible awarrior. He fed the sheep in the fattest pastures, while he destroyedthe wolves on every side. Nor will those pastures be dried up or lostuntil time, nations, and the churches of God shall be no more. "--Dr. Cole's _Pref. To Luther on Genesis_. 

HIS ENEMIES AND REVILERS. 

Rome has never forgotten nor forgiven him. She sought his life whileliving, and she curses him in his grave. Profited by his labors beyondwhat she ever could have been without him, she strains and chokes withanathemas upon his name and everything that savors of him. Herchildren are taught from infancy to hate and abhor him as they hopefor salvation. Many are the false turns and garbled forms in which herwriters hold up his words and deeds to revenge themselves on hismemory. Again and again the oft-answered and exploded calumnies arerevived afresh to throw dishonor on his cause. Even while the freepeoples of the earth are making these grateful acknowledgments of thepriceless boon that has come to them through his life and labors, press and platform hiss with stale vituperations from the old enemy. And a puling Churchism outside of Rome takes an ill pleasure infollowing after her to gather and retail this vomit of malignity. 

Luther was but a man. No one claims that he was perfection. But ifthose who sought his destruction while he lived had had no greaterfaults than he, with better grace their modern representatives mightindulge their genius for his defamation. At best, as we might suppose, it is the little men, the men of narrow range and narrow heart--mendwarfed by egotism, bigotry, and self-conceit--who see the most ofthese defects. Nobler minds, contemplating him from loftierstandpoints, observe but little of them, and even honor them above theexcellencies of common men. "The proofs that he was in some thingslike other men, " says Lessing, "are to me as precious as the mostdazzling of his virtues. "[28]

And, with all, where is the gain or wisdom of blowing smoke upon adiamond? The sun itself has holes in it too large for half a dozenworlds like ours to fill, but wherein is that great luminary therebyunfitted to be the matchless centre of our system, the glorious sourceof day, and the sublime symbol of the Son of God?

If Luther married a beautiful woman, the proofs of which do notappear, it is what every other honest man would do if it suited himand he were free to do it. 

If he broke his vows to get a wife, of which there is no evidence, when vows are taken by mistake, tending to dishonor God, workunrighteousness, and hinder virtuous example and proper life, theyought to be broken, the sooner the better. 

And, whatever else may be alleged to his discredit, and whoever mayarise to heap scandal on his name, the grand facts remain that it waschiefly through his marvelous qualities, word, and work that thetowering dominion of the Papacy was humbled and broken for ever; thatprophets and apostles were released from their prisons once more topreach and prophesy to men; that the Church of the early times wasrestored to the bereaved world; that the human mind was set free toread and follow God's Word for itself; that the masses of neglectedand downtrodden humanity were made into populations of live andthinking beings; and that the nations of the earth have becomerepossessed of their "inalienable rights" of "life, liberty, and thepursuit of happiness. "

 "And let the pope and priests their victor scorn, Each fault reveal, each imperfection scan, And by their fell anatomy of hate His life dissect with satire's keenest edge; Yet still may Luther, with his mighty heart, Defy their malice. Far beyond _them_ soars the soul They slander. From his tomb there still comes forth A magic which appalls them by its power; And the brave monk who made the Popedom rock Champions a world to show his equal yet!"

FOOTNOTES:

[28] "It was by some of these qualities which we are now apt to blamethat Luther was fitted for accomplishing the great work which heundertook. To rouse mankind when sunk in ignorance and superstition, and to encounter the rage of bigotry armed with power, required theutmost vehemence of zeal as well as temper daring toexcess. "--Robertson's _Charles V. _

THE FOUNDING OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

I. THE HISTORY AND THE MEN. 

It was in 1492, just nine years after Luther's birth, that theintrepid Genoese, Christopher Columbus, under the patronage ofFerdinand, king of Spain, made the discovery of land on this side ofthe Atlantic Ocean. A few years later the distinguished Florentine, Americus Vespucius, set foot on its more interior coasts, describedtheir features, and imprinted his name on this Western Continent. Butit was not until more than a century later that permanent settlementsof civilized people upon these shores began to be made. 

During the early part of the seventeenth century several suchsettlements were effected. A company of English adventurers plantedthemselves on the banks of the James River and founded Virginia(1607). The Dutch of Holland, impelled by the spirit of mercantileenterprise, established a colony on the Hudson, and founded whatafterward became the city and State of New York (1614). Then ashipload of English Puritans, flying from religious oppression, landedat Plymouth Rock and made the beginning of New England (1620). Alittle later Lord Baltimore founded a colony on the Chesapeake andcommenced the State of Maryland (1633). But it was not until 1637-38that the first permanent settlement was made in what subsequentlybecame the State of Pennsylvania. 

MOVEMENTS IN SWEDEN. 

From the year 1611 to 1632 there was upon the throne of Sweden one ofthe noblest of kings, a great champion of religious liberty, thelamented and ever-to-be-remembered GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

In his profound thinking to promote the glory of God and the good ofmen his attention rested on this vast domain of wild lands in America. He knew the sorrows and distresses which thousands all over Europewere suffering from the constant and devastating religious wars, andthe purpose was kindled in his heart to plant here a colony as thebeginning of a general asylum for these homeless and persecutedpeople, and determined to foster the same by his royal protection andcare. 

"To this end he sent forth letters patent, dated Stockholm, 2d ofJuly, 1626, wherein all, both high and low, were invited to contributesomething to the company according to their means. The work wascompleted in the Diet of the following year (1627), when the estatesof the realm gave their assent and confirmed the measure. Those whotook part in this company were: His Majesty's mother, thequeen-dowager Christina, the Prince John Casimir, the Royal Council, the most distinguished of the nobility, the highest officers of thearmy, the bishops and other clergymen, together with the burgomastersand aldermen of the cities, as well as a large number of the peoplegenerally. For the management and working of the plan there wereappointed an admiral, vice-admiral, chapman, under-chapman, assistants, and commissaries, also a body of soldiers dulyofficered. "[29] And a more beneficent, brilliant, and promisingarrangement of the sort was perhaps never made. The devout kingintended his grand scheme "for the honor of God, " for the welfare ofhis subjects and suffering Christians in general, and as a means "toextend the doctrines of Christ among the heathen. "

But when everything was complete and in full progress to go intoeffect, King Gustavus Adolphus was called to join and lead the alliedarmies of the Protestant kingdoms of Germany against the endeavors ofthe papal powers to crush out the cause of evangelical Christianityand free conscience. [30]

For the ensuing five years the attention and energies of Sweden werepreoccupied, first with the Polish, and then with these wars, and thecolonization scheme was interrupted. 

Then came the famous battle of Lützen, 1632, bringing glorious victoryover the gigantic Wallenstein, but death to the victor, the royalAdolphus. [31]

Only a few days before that dreadful battle he spoke of hiscolonization plan, and commended it to the German people at Nurembergas "the jewel of his kingdom;" but with the king's death the companydisbanded. 

We could almost wish that Gustavus had lived to carry out his humaneand magnificent proposals with reference to this colony as well as forEurope; but his work was done. What America lost by his death she morethan regained in the final success and secure establishment of theholy cause for which he sacrificed his life. 

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Acrelius's _History_, p. 21. 

[30] "When he now beheld that the cause of Protestantism was menacedmore seriously than ever throughout the whole of Germany, he took thedecisive step, and, formally declaring war against the emperor, he, onthe 24th of June, 1630, landed on the coast of Pomerania with fifteenthousand Swedes. As soon as he stepped upon shore he dropped on hisknees in prayer, while his example was followed by his whole army. Truly he had undertaken, with but small and limited means, a great andmighty enterprise. " "The Swedes, so steady and strict in theirdiscipline, appeared as protecting angels, and as the king advancedthe belief spread far and near throughout the land that he was sentfrom heaven as its preserver. "--_History of Germany_, by Kohlrausch, pp. 328, 329. 

"Bavaria and the Tyrol excepted, every province throughout Germany hadbattled for liberty of conscience, and yet the whole of Germany, notwithstanding her universal inclination for the Reformation, hadbeen deceived in her hopes: a second Imperial edict seemed likely tocrush the few remaining privileges spared by the edict ofrestitution.... Gustavus, urged by his sincere piety, resolved to takeup arms in defence of Protestantism and to free Germany from the yokeimposed by the Jesuits. "--Menzel's _History of Germany_, vol. Ii. Pp. 345, 346. 

"The party of the Catholics were carrying all before them, andeverything seemed to promise that Ferdinand (the Roman Catholicemperor) would become absolute through the whole of Germany, andsucceed in that scheme which he seemed to meditate, of entirelyabolishing the Protestant religion in the empire. But this miserableprospect, both of political and religious thraldom, was dissolved bythe great Gustavus Adolphus being invited by the Protestant princes ofGermany to espouse the cause of the Reformed religion, being himselfof that persuasion. "--Tytler's _Univ. Hist. _, vol. Ii. P. 451. 

[31] The death of Gustavus Adolphus is thus described by Kohlrausch:"The king spent the cold autumnal night in his carriage, and advisedwith his generals about the battle. The morning dawned, and a thickfog covered the entire plain; the troops were drawn up inbattle-array, and the Swedes sang, accompanied with trumpets anddrums, Luther's hymn, _Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott_ ('A mightyfortress is our God'), together with the hymn composed by the kinghimself, _Verzage nicht, du Häuflein klein_ ('Fear not the foe, thoulittle flock'). Just after eleven o'clock, when the sun was emergingfrom behind the clouds, and after a short prayer, the king mounted hishorse, placed himself at the head of the right wing--the left beingcommanded by Bernard of Weimar--and cried, 'Now, onward! May our Goddirect us!--Lord, Lord! help me this day to fight for the glory of thyname!' and, throwing away his cuirass with the words, 'God is myshield!' he led his troops to the front of the Imperialists, who werewell entrenched on the paved road which leads from Lützen to Leipsic, and stationed in the deep trenches on either side. A deadly cannonadesaluted the Swedes, and many here met their death; but their placeswere filled by others, who leaped over the trench, and the troops ofWallenstein retreated. 

"In the mean time, Pappenheim came up with his cavalry from Halle, andthe battle was renewed with the utmost fury. The Swedish infantry fledbehind the trenches. To assist them, the king hastened to the spotwith a company of horse, and rode in full speed considerably inadvance to descry the weak points of the enemy; only a few of hisattendants, and Francis, duke of Saxe-Lauenberg, rode with him. Hisshort-sightedness led him too near a squadron of Imperial horse; hereceived a shot in his arm, which nearly precipitated him to theground; and just as he was turning to be led away from the tumultuousscene he received a second shot in the back. With the exclamation, 'MyGod! my God!' he fell from his horse, which also was shot in the neck, and was dragged for some distance, hanging by the stirrup. The dukeabandoned him, but his faithful page tried to raise him, when theImperial horsemen shot him also, killed the king, and completelyplundered him. " Pappenheim was also mortally wounded, Wallensteinretreated, and the victory was with the Swedes, but their noble kingwas no more. 

THE SWEDISH PROPOSAL. 

The plan of this illustrious king was to found here upon the Delawarea free state under his sovereign protection, where the laborer shouldenjoy the fruit of his toil, where the rights of conscience should bepreserved inviolate, and which should be open to the whole Protestantworld, then and for long time engaged in bloody conflict with thepapal powers for the maintenance of its existence. Here all were to besecure in their persons, their property, and their religiousconvictions. It was to be a place of refuge and peace for thepersecuted of all nations, of security for the honor of the wives anddaughters of those fleeing from sword, fire, and rapine, and fromhomes made desolate by oppressive war. It was to be a land ofuniversal liberty for all classes, the soil of which was never to beburdened with slaves. [32] And in all the colonies of America there wasnot a more thoroughly digested system for the practical realizationof these ideas than that which the great Gustavus Adolphus had thusarranged. 

Nor did it altogether die with his death. His mantle fell upon one ofthe best and greatest of men. Axel Oxenstiern, his friend and primeminister, and his successor in the administration of the affairs ofthe kingdom, was as competent as he was zealous to fulfill the wiseplans and ideas of the slain king, not only with reference to Swedenand Europe, but also with regard to the contemplated colony inAmerica. 

Having taken the matter into his own hands, on the 10th of April, 1633, only a few months after Gustavus's death, Oxenstiern renewed themovement which had been laid aside, and repeated the offer to Germanyand other countries, inviting general co-operation in the nobleenterprise. 

Peter Minuit, a member of a distinguished family of Rhenish Prussia, who had been for years the able director and president of the Dutchmercantile establishment on the Hudson, presented himself in Sweden, and entered into the matter with great energy and enthusiasm. And bythe end of 1637 or early in 1638 two ships were seen entering andascending the Delaware, freighted with the elements and nucleus ofthe new state, such as Gustavus had projected. 

These ships, under Minuit, landed their passengers but a few milessouth of where Philadelphia now stands, and thus made the firstbeginning of what has since become the great and happy Commonwealth ofPennsylvania. 

This was _six years before Penn was born_. 

FOOTNOTES:

[32] The description of the features of this plan is taken fromGeijer's _Svenska Folkets Historia_, vol. Iii. P. 128, given by Dr. Reynolds in his Introduction to Israel Acrelius's _History of NewSweden_, published by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. It wasfirst propounded by Gustavus Adolphus in 1624. Also referred to in_Argonautica Gustaviana_, pp. 3 and 22. 

WAS PENN AWARE OF THESE PLANS?

How far William Penn was illuminated and influenced by the ideas ofthe great and wise Gustavus Adolphus in reference to the founding of afree state in America as an asylum for the persecuted and sufferingpeople of God in the Old World, is nowhere told; but there is reasonto believe that he knew of them, and took his own plans from them. 

A few facts bearing on the point may here be noted. 

One peculiarly striking is, that the same plan and principles withreference to such a colonial state which Penn brought hither in the_Welcome_ in 1682 were already matured and widely propounded by theillustrious Swedish king more than half a century before theypractically entered Penn's mind. 

Another is, that these proposals and principles were generallypromulgated throughout Europe--first by Gustavus and those associatedwith him in the matter, and then again by Oxenstiern, in Germany, Holland, and other countries. 

Still another is, that in 1677 Penn made a special tour of threemonths through Holland and various parts of Germany, visiting andconferring with many of the most pious and devoted people, includingdistinguished men and women, and clergy and laity of high standing, information, and influence. He made considerable stay in Frankfort, where he says both Calvinists and Lutherans received him with gladnessof heart. He visited Mayence, Worms, Mannheim, Mulheim, Düsseldorf, Herwerden, Embaden, Bremen, etc. , etc. , concerning which the editor ofhis _Life and Writings_ says he had "interesting interviews with manypersons eminent for their talents, learning, or social position. "Among them were such as Elizabeth, Princess Palatine, niece of CharlesI. Of England and the daughter of the king of Bohemia, the specialfriend of Gustavus Adolphus, who died of horror on hearing thatGustavus was slain; Anna Maria, countess of Hornes; the countess andearl of Falkenstein and Brück; the president of the council of stateat Embaden; the earl of Donau, and the like; among all of which it ishardly possible that he should have failed to meet with the proposalswhich had gone out over all Protestant Europe from the throne ofSweden. Nor is there any evidence that William Penn had thought offounding a free Christian state in America until immediately after hisreturn to England from this tour on the Continent. 

Furthermore, the plans of Gustavus respecting his projected colony onthe Delaware were well understood in official circles in Englanditself, especially in London, from 1634. John Oxenstiern, brother ofthe great chancellor, was at that time Swedish ambassador in London, and in that year he obtained from King Charles I. A renunciation andcession to Sweden of all claims of the English to the country on theDelaware growing out of the rights of first discovery, and for thevery purposes of this colonial free state and asylum first projectedby the Swedish king. 

THE SWEDES IN ADVANCE OF PENN. 

We are left to our own inferences from these facts. But, however muchor little Penn may have been directly influenced and guided by whatGustavus Adolphus had conceived and elaborated on the subject, thewise and noble conception which he brought with him for practicalrealization in 1682 was known to the European peoples for more thanfifty years before he laid hold on it. The same had also been one ofthe chief sources of the inspiration of Lord Baltimore in the foundingof the colony of Maryland, of which Penn was not ignorant. And thesame, not unknown to him, had already begun to be realized here inwhat is now called Pennsylvania full forty-four years before hisarrival. 

Shipload after shipload of sturdy and devoted people, mostly Swedes, animated with the same grand ideas, had here been landed. And sosuccessfully had they battled with the perils and hardships of thewilderness, and so justly had they treated and arranged to dwell inpeace and love with the wild inhabitants of the forests, that whenPenn came he found everything prepared to his hand. The Swedes alonealready numbered about one thousand strong. They had conquered thewild woods, built them homes, and opened plantations; and "the eye ofthe stranger could begin to gaze with interest upon the signs ofpublic improvement, ever regularly advancing, from the region ofWilmington to that of Philadelphia. "

When Penn landed he found a town and court-house at New Castle, and atown and place of public assemblage at Upland, and a Christian andfree people in possession of the territory, with whom it was necessaryfor him to treat before his charter could avail for the planting ofhis colony. The land to which the Swedes had acquired title (byEngland's release to Sweden of all claim from right of discovery, bycharter from Sweden, by purchase from the Indians, first under Minuit, the first governor, and then under his successor, Governor Printz, andby other purchases or agreements) was the west bank of the DelawareRiver from Cape Henlopen to Trenton Falls, and thence westward to thegreat fall in the Susquehanna, near the mouth of the Conewaga Creek, which included nearly the whole of Eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware. 

The fortunes of war, in Europe and between the colonies, in course oftime complicated the titles to one and another portion of thisterritory, but the Swedes and Dutch occupied and held the mostprominent parts of it by right of actual possession when and afterPenn's charter was granted. 

PENN'S CHARTER AND ARRIVAL. 

But when Penn arrived he brought with him letters patent from CharlesII. , king of England, to this same district of country and the wildsindefinitely beyond it, having also obtained from his friend, theking's brother, the duke of York, full releases of the claims vestedin him to the "Lower Counties, " which now form the State of Delaware. 

Penn was accompanied by from sixty to seventy colonists--all thatsurvived the scourge which visited them in their passage across thesea. He landed first at New Castle, of which the Dutch of New York hadby conquest obtained possession. To them he made known his grants andhis plans, and succeeded in securing their acquiescence in them. 

Thence he came to Upland (Chester), the head-quarters of the Swedes, who "received their new fellow-citizens with great friendliness, carried up their goods and furniture from the ships, and entertainedthem in their own houses without charge. " His proposals with regard tothe establishment of a united commonwealth they also received withmuch favor. And immediately thereupon he convened a general assemblyof the citizens, which sat for three days, by which an act was passedfor the consolidation of the various interests and parties on theground, a code of general regulations adopted, and the necessaryfeatures of a common government enacted; all of which together formedthe basis of our present commonwealth. 

HOW PENNSYLVANIA WAS NAMED. 

The name which Penn had chosen for the territory of his grant was_Sylvania_, but the king prefixed the name of Penn and called it_Penn's_ Silvania (_Penn's Woods_), in honor of the recipient'sfather, Sir William Penn, a distinguished officer in the British navy. Penn sought to have the title changed so as to leave his own name out, as he thought it savored too much of personal vanity; but his effortsdid not avail. And thus our great old commonwealth took the name of_Pennsylvania_, and the city of Philadelphia was laid out and named byPenn himself as its capital. 

THE MEN OF THOSE TIMES. 

In dwelling upon the founding of our happy commonwealth it is pleasantto contemplate how enlightened and exalted were the men whomProvidence employed for the performance of this important work. 

Many are apt to think ours the age of culminated enlightenment, dignity, wisdom, and intelligence, and look upon the fathers of twoand three hundred years ago as mere pigmies, just emerging from an eraof barbarism and ignorance, not at all to be compared with the proudwiseacres of our day. Never was there a greater mistake. Theshallowness and flippancy of the leaders and politicians of this lastquarter of the nineteenth century show them but little more thanschool-boys compared with the sturdy, sober-minded, deep-principled, dignified, and grand-spirited men who discovered and opened thiscontinent and laid the foundations of our country's greatness. Andthose who were most concerned in the founding of our own commonwealthsuffer in no respect in comparison with the greatest and the best. 

GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

I have named the illustrious GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS as the man, above all, who first conceived, sketched, and propounded the grandidea of such a state. What other colonies reached only through variedexperiments and gradual developments, Pennsylvania had clear andmature, in ideal and in fact, from the very earliest beginning; andthe royal heart and brain of Sweden were its source. 

Gustavus Adolphus was born a prince in the regular line of Sweden'sancient kings. His grandfather, Gustavus Vasa, was a man of thoroughculture, excellent ability, and sterling moral qualities. When inGermany he was an earnest listener to Luther's preaching, became hisfriend and correspondent, a devout confessor and patron of theevangelic faith, and the wise establisher of the Reformation in hiskingdom. 

Adolphus inherited all his grandfather's high qualities. He was theidol of his father, Charles IX. , and was devoutly trained fromearliest childhood in the evangelic faith, educated in thoroughprincely style, familiarized with governmental affairs from the timehe was a boy, and developed into an exemplary, wise, brave, anddevoted Christian man and illustrious king. 

He ascended the throne when but seventeen years of age, extricated hiscountry from many internal and external troubles, organized for it anew system, and became the hero-sovereign of his age. He was one ofthe greatest of men, in cabinet and in field as well as in faith andhumble devotion. He was a broad-minded statesman and patriot, one ofthe most beloved of rulers, and a philanthropist of the purest orderand most comprehensive views. That evangelical Christianity whichLuther and his coadjutors exhumed from the superincumbent rubbish ofthe Middle Ages was dearer to him than his throne or his life. Thepure Gospel of Christ was to him the most precious of humanpossessions. For it he lived, and for it he died. One of hisdeep-souled hymns, sung along with Luther's _Ein Feste Burg_ at thehead of his armies in his campaigns for Christian liberty, has itsplace in our Church-Book to-day. And the bright peculiar star whichappeared in the heavens at the time he was born fitly heralded hisroyal career. 

Cut off in the midst of a succession of victories in the thirty-eighthyear of his age, the influence of his mind nevertheless served to giveanother constitution to the Germanic peoples, established the rightand power of evangelical Christianity to be and to be unmolested onthe earth, and confirmed a new element in the development and progressof the European races and of mankind. With the loftiest conceptions ofhuman life, a thorough acquaintance with the agencies which govern theworld, a mind in all respects in thorough subjection to anenlightened Christian conscience, a magnanimity and liberality ofsentiment far in advance of his age, and an untarnished devotion whichmarked his history to its very end, his name stands at the head of thelist of illustrious Christian kings and human benefactors. [33]

FOOTNOTES:

[33] Count Galeazzo Gualdo, a Venetian Roman Catholic, who spent someyears in both the Imperial and the Swedish armies, says of GustavusAdolphus that "he was tall, stout, and of such truly royal demeanorthat he universally commanded veneration, admiration, love, and fear. His hair and beard were of a light-brown color, his eye large, but notfar-sighted. Eloquence dwelt upon his tongue. He spoke German, thenative language of his mother, the Swedish, the Latin, the French, andthe Italian languages, and his discourse was agreeable and lively. There never was a general served with so much cheerfulness anddevotion as he. He was of an affable and friendly disposition, readilyexpressing commendation, and noble actions were indelibly fixed uponhis memory; on the other hand, excessive politeness and flattery hehated, and if any person approached him in that way he never trustedhim. "

AXEL OXENSTIERN. 

AXEL OXENSTIERN, his friend, companion, and prime minister, was of like mind and character with himself. He was high-born, religiously trained, and thoroughly educated in both theology and lawin the best schools which the world then afforded. He was Sweden'sgreatest and wisest counselor and diplomatist, liberal-minded, true-hearted, dignified, and devout. In religion, in patriotism, in earnest doing for the profoundest interests of man, he was one withhis illustrious king. He negotiated the Peace of Kmered with Denmark, the Peace of Stolbowa with Russia, and the armistice with Poland. Heaccompanied his king in the campaigns in Germany, having charge of alldiplomatic affairs and the devising of ways and means for the supportof the army in the field, whilst the king commanded it. He won novictories of war, but he was a choice spirit in creating the means bywhich some of the most valuable of such victories were achieved, andconducted those victories to permanent peace. 

When Gustavus Adolphus fell at Lützen a sacrifice to religiousliberty, the whole administration of the kingdom was placed inOxenstiern's hands. The congress of foreign princes at Heilbronnelected him to the headship of their league against the papal power ofAustria; and it was his wisdom and heroism alone which held the leaguetogether unto final triumph. Bauer, Torstensson, and Von Wrangle werethe flaming swords which finally overwhelmed that power, but the brainwhich brought the fearful Thirty Years' War to a final close, andestablished the evangelical cause upon its lasting basis of securityby the Peace of Westphalia (1648), was that of Axel Oxenstiern, thevery man who sent to Pennsylvania its original colonists as thefounders of a free state. 

PETER MINUIT. 

A kindred spirit was PETER MINUIT, the man whom Oxenstiernselected and commissioned to accompany these first colonists to thewest bank of the Delaware, and to act as their president and governor. He too was a high-born, cultured, large-minded Christian man. He wasan honored deacon in the Walloon church at Wesel. Removing to Holland, his high qualities led to his selection by the Dutch West IndiaCompany as the fittest man to be the first governor anddirector-general of the Dutch colonies on the Hudson. His greatefficiency and public success in that capacity made him the subject ofjealousies and accusations, resulting in his recall after five or sixyears of the most effective administration of the affairs of thosecolonies. Oxenstiern had the breadth and penetration to understand hisreal worth, and appointed him the first governor of the New Swedenwhich since has become the great State of Pennsylvania. He lived lessthan five years in this new position, and died in Fort Christina, which he built and held during his last years of service on earth. Hewas a wise, laborious, and far-seeing man, consecrated with all hispowers to the formation of a free commonwealth on this then wildterritory. His name has largely sunk away from public attention, asthe work of the Swedes in general in the founding and fashioning ofour commonwealth; but he and they deserve far better than has beenawarded them. 

A few years ago (1876) some movement was for the first time made toerect a suitable monument to the memory of Minuit. Surely the founderof the greatest city in this Western World, and of the colonialpossessions of two European nations, and the first president andgovernor of the two greatest States in the American Union, ranks amongthe great historic personages of his period; and his high qualities, noble spirit, and valuable services demand for him a gratefulrecognition which has been far too slow in coming. There is a debtowing to his name and memory which New York, Pennsylvania, and theAmerican people have not yet duly discharged. 

And to these grand men, first of all, are we under obligation ofeverlasting thanks for our free and happy old commonwealth. 

WILLIAM PENN. 

But without WILLIAM PENN to reinforce and more fully executethe noble plans, ideas, and beginnings which went before him, thingsperhaps never would have come to the fortunate results which he wasthe honored instrument in bringing about. 

This man, so renowned in the history of our State, and so speciallyhonored by the peculiar Society of which he was a zealous apostle, wasrespectably descended. His grandfather was a captain in the Englishnavy, and his father became a distinguished naval officer, who reachedhigh promotion and gave his son the privileges of a good education. 

Penn was for three years a student in the University of Oxford, untilexpelled, with others, for certain offensive non-conformities. He wasnot what we would call religiously trained, but he was endowed with astrong religious nature, even bordering on fanaticism, so that heneeded only the application of the match to set his whole being aglowand active with the profoundest zeal, whether wise or otherwise. Andthat match was early applied. 

When England had reached the summit of delirium under her usurpingProtector, Oliver Cromwell, there arose, among many other sects fullof enthusiastic self-assertion, that of the Quakers, who were chieflycharacterized by a profound religious, and oft fanatical, oppositionto the Established Church, as well as to the Crown. Coming in contactwith one of their most zealous preachers, young Penn was inflamed withtheir spirit and became a vigorous propagator of their particularstyle of devotion. 

As the Quaker tenets respected the state as well as religion, the boldavowal of them brought him into collision with the laws, and severaltimes into prison and banishment. But, so far from intimidating him, this only the more confirmed him in his convictions and fervency. Byhis familiarity with able theologians, such as Dr. Owen and BishopTillotson, as well as from his own studies of the Scriptures, he wasdeeply grounded in the main principles of the evangelic faith. Indeed, he was in many things, in his later life, much less a Quaker than manywho glory in his name, and all his sons after him found theirreligious home in the Church of England, which, to Quakers generally, was a very Babylon. But he was an honest-minded, pure, and culturedChristian believer, holding firmly to the inward elements of theorthodox faith in God and Christ, in revelation and eternal judgment, in the rights of man and the claims of justice. If some of his friendsand representatives did not deal as honorably with the Swedes inrespect to their prior titles to their improved lands as right andcharity would require, it is not to be set down to his personalreproach. And his zeal for his sect and his genuine devotion to Godand religious liberty, together with a large-hearted philanthropy, were the springs which moved him to seize the opportunity whichoffered in the settlement of his deceased father's claim on thegovernment to secure a grant of territory and privilege to form a freestate in America--first for his own, and then for all other persecutedpeople. 

AN ESTIMATE OF PENN. 

It may be that Penn has been betimes a little overrated. He has, anddeserves, a high place in the history of our commonwealth, but he wasnot the real founder of it; for its foundations were laid years beforehe was born and more than forty years before he received his charter. He founded Pennsylvania only as Americus Vespucius discovered America. Neither was he the author of those elements of free government, equalrights, and religious liberty which have characterized ourcommonwealth. They were the common principles of Luther and theReformation, and were already largely embodied for this veryterritory[34] long before Penn's endeavors, as also, in measure, inthe Roman Catholic colony of Maryland from the same source. 

Nor was he, in his own strength, possessed of so much wise forethoughtand profound legislative and executive ability as that with which heis sometimes credited. But he was a conscientious, earnest, andGod-fearing man, cultured by education and grace, gifted withadmirable address, sincere and philanthropic in his aims, and guidedand impelled by circumstances and a peculiar religious zeal whichProvidence overruled to ends far greater than his own intentions orthoughts. 

FOOTNOTES:

[34] See sketch of the plan of Gustavus Adolphus for his colony, page143, and the instructions given to Governor Printz in 1642. 

PENN AND THE INDIANS. 

What is called Penn's particular policy toward the Indians, and themeans of his successes in that regard, existed in practical forcescores of years before he arrived. His celebrated treaties with them, as far as they were fact, were but continuations and repetitionsbetween them and the English, which had long before been made betweenthem and the Swedes, who did more for these barbarian peoples than he, and who helped him in the matter more than he helped himself. 

We are not fully informed respecting all the first instructions givento Governor Minuit when he came hither with Pennsylvania's originalcolony in 1637-38, but there is every reason to infer that theystrictly corresponded to those given to his successor, GovernorPrintz, five years afterward, on his appointment in 1642, about whichthere can be no question. Minuit entered into negotiations with theIndians the very first thing on his landing, and purchased from them, as the rightful proprietors, all the land on the western side of theriver from Henlopen to Trenton Falls; a deed for which was regularlydrawn up, to which the Indians subscribed their hands and marks. Postswere also driven into the ground as landmarks of this treaty, whichwere still visible in their places sixty years afterward. 

In the appointment and commission of Governor Printz it was commandedhim to "bear in mind the articles of contract entered into with thewild inhabitants of the country as its rightful lords. " "The wildnations bordering on all other sides the governor shall understand howto treat with all humanity and respect, that no violence, or wrong bedone them; but he shall rather at every opportunity exert himself thatthe same wild people may gradually be instructed in the truths andworship of the Christian religion, and in other ways brought tocivilization and good government, and in this manner properly guided. Especially shall he seek to gain their confidence, and impress upontheir minds that neither he, the governor, nor his people andsubordinates, are come into those parts to do them any wrong orinjury. "

This policy was not a thing of mere coincidence. It was the expressstipulation and command of the throne of Sweden, August 15, 1642, which was two years before William Penn was born; and "this policy wassteadily pursued and adhered to by the Swedes during the whole time oftheir continuance in America, as the governors of the territory ofwhich they had thus acquired the possession; and the consequences wereof the most satisfactory character. They lived in peace with theIndians, and received no injuries from them. The Indians respectedthem, and long after the Swedish power had disappeared from the shoresof the Delaware they continued to cherish its memory and speak of itwith confidence and affection. "[35]

Governor Printz arrived in this country in 1642, and with him cameRev. John Campanius as chaplain and pastor of the Swedish colony. Hisgrandson, Thomas Campanius Holm, many years after published numerousitems put on record by the elder Campanius, in which it appears thatthe commands to Printz respecting the Indians were very scrupulouslycarried out. 

According to these records, the Indians were very familiar at thehouse of the elder Campanius, and he did much to teach andChristianize them. "He generally succeeded in making them understandthat there is one Lord God, self-existent and one in three Persons;how the same God made the world, and made man, from whom all other menhave descended; how Adam afterward disobeyed, sinned against hisCreator, and involved all his descendants in condemnation; how Godsent his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ into the world, who was bornof the Virgin Mary and suffered for the saving of men; how he diedupon the cross, and was raised again the third day; and, lastly, how, after forty days, he ascended into heaven, whence he will return at afuture day to judge the living and the dead, " etc. And so muchinterest did they take in these instructions, and seemed so welldisposed to embrace Christianity, that Campanius was induced to studyand master their language, that he might the more effectually teachthem the religion of Christ. He also translated into the Indianlanguage the Catechism of Luther, perhaps the very first book ever putinto the Indian tongue. 

Campanius began his work of evangelizing these wild people four yearsbefore Eliot, who is sometimes called "the morning star of missionaryenterprise, " but who first commenced his labors in New England only in1646. Hence Dr. Clay remarks that "the Swedes may claim the honor ofhaving been the first missionaries among the Indians, at least inPennsylvania. "[36] "It was, _in fact, the Swedes who inaugurated thepeaceful policy of William Penn_. This was not an accidentalcircumstance in the Swedish policy, but was deliberately adopted andalways carefully observed. "[37]

When Mr. Rising became governor of the Swedish colony he invited tenIndian chiefs, or kings, to a friendly conference with him. It washeld at Tinicum, on the Delaware, June 17, 1654, when the governorsaluted them, in the name of the Swedish queen, with assurances ofevery kindness toward them, and proposed to them a firm renewal of theold friendship. Campanius has given a minute account of thisconference, and recites the speech in which one of the chiefs, namedNaaman, testified how good the Swedes had been to them; that theSwedes and Indians had been in the time of Governor Printz as one bodyand one heart; that they would henceforward be as one head, like thecalabash, which has neither rent nor seam, but one piece without acrack; and that in case of danger to the Swedes they would ever serveand defend them. It was at the same time further arranged and agreedthat if any trespasses were committed by any of their people upon theproperty of the Swedes, the matter should be investigated by menchosen from both sides, and the person found guilty "should bepunished for it as a warning to others. "[38] This occurred whenWilliam Penn was but ten years of age, and twenty-eight years beforehis arrival in America. 

And upon the subject of the help which the Swedes rendered to Penn inhis dealings with these people in the long after years, Acreliuswrites: "The Proprietor ingratiated himself with the Indians. TheSwedes acted as his interpreters, especially Captain Lars (Lawrence)Kock, who was a great favorite among the Indians. He was sent to NewYork to buy goods suitable for traffic. He did all he could to givethem a good opinion of their new ruler" (p. 114); and it was by meansof the aid and endeavors of the Swedes, more than by any influence ofhis own, that Penn came to the standing with these people to which heattained, and on which his fame in that regard rests. 

FOOTNOTES:

[35] Introduction to Acrelius's _History_. 

[36] _Swedish Annals_, p. 26. 

[37] Dr. Reynolds's _Introduction to Acrelius_, p. 14. 

[38] See Acrelius's _History_, pp. 64, 65, and Clay's _SwedishAnnals_, pp. 24, 25. 

PENN'S WORK. 

But still, as a man, a colonist, a governor, and a friend of the race, we owe to William Penn great honor and respect, and his arrival hereis amply worthy of our grateful commemoration. The location andframing of this goodly city, and a united and consolidatedPennsylvania established finally in its original principles of commonrights and common freedom, are his lasting monument. If he was notthe spring of our colonial existence, he was its reinforcement by astrong and fortunate stream, which more fully determined the channelof its history. If the doctrine of liberty of conscience and religion, the principles of toleration and common rights, and the embodying ofthem in a free state open to all sufferers for conscience' sake, didnot originate with him, he performed a noble work and contributed apowerful influence toward their final triumph and permanentestablishment on this territory. And his career, taken all in all, connects his name with an illustrious service to the cause of freedom, humanity, and even Christianity, especially in its more practical andethical bearings. 

THE GREATNESS OF FAITH. 

Such, then, were the men most concerned in founding and framing ourgrand old commonwealth. They were men of faith, men of thoroughculture, men of mark by birth and station, men who had learned tograpple with the great problem of human rights, human happiness, humanneeds, and human relations to heaven and earth. They believed in God, in the revelation of God, in the Gospel of Christ, in theresponsibility of the soul to its Maker, and in the demands of aliving charity toward God and all his creatures. And their religiousfaith and convictions constituted the fire which set them in motionand sustained and directed their exertions for the noble ends which itis ours so richly to enjoy. Had they not been the earnest Christiansthat they were, they never could have been the men they provedthemselves, nor ever have thought the thoughts or achieved theglorious works for ever connected with their names. 

We are apt to contemplate Christian faith and devotion only in itsmore private and personal effects on individual souls, the light andpeace it brings to the true believer, and the purification and hope itworks in the hearts of those who receive it, whilst we overlook itsforce upon the great world outside and its shapings of the facts andcurrents of history. We think of Luther wrestling with his sins, despairing and dying under the impossible task of working out forhimself an availing righteousness, and rejoice with him in the lightand peace which came to his agonized soul through the grand andall-conditioning doctrine of justification by simple faith in anall-sufficient Redeemer; but we do not always realize how the breakingof that evangelic principle into his earnest heart was theincarnation of a power which divided the Christian ages, brought theworld over the summit of the water-shed, and turned the gravitation ofthe laboring nations toward a new era of liberty and happiness. And sowe refer to the spiritual training of a Gustavus Adolphus and an AxelOxenstiern in the simple truths of Luther's Catechism and the restoredGospel, and to the opening of the heart of a William Penn to theexhortations of Friend Loe to forsake the follies of the corrupt worldand seek his portion with the pure in heaven, and mark the unfoldingsof their better nature which those blessed instructions wrought;whilst we fail to note that therein lay the springs and germs whichhave given us our grand commonwealth and established for us the freeinstitutions of Church and State in which we so much glory andrejoice. 

Ah, yes; there is greatness and good and blessing untold for man andfor the world in the personal hearing, believing, and heeding of theWord and testimony of God. No man can tell to what new impulses inhuman history, or to what new currents of benediction and continentsof national glory, it may lead for souls in the school of Christ toopen themselves meekly to the inflowings of Heaven's free grace. Itwas the sowing of God's truth and the planting of God's Spirit inthese men's hearts that most of all grew for us our country and ourblessed liberties. 

II. THE PRINCIPLES ENTHRONED. 

The religious element in man is the deepest and most powerful in hisnature. It is that also which asserts and claims the greatestindependence from external constraints. It is therefore the height ofunwisdom, not to say tyranny, for earthly magistracy to interfere bypenalty and sword with the religious opinions and movements of thepeople, so long as civil authority and public order are not invadedand the rights of others are not infringed. In such cases it is alwaysbest to combat only with the Word of God. If of men it will come tonaught, and if of God it cannot be suppressed. Reaction against wrongsdone to truth and right is sure to come, and will push through torevolution and victory in spite of all unrighteous power. It is vainfor any human governments to think to chain up the honest convictionsof the soul. God made it free, and sooner or later it will be free, inspite of everything. 

It was largely the weight and current of such reaction againstarbitrary interference with the religious convictions and freeconscience of man that furnished the impulse to the original peoplingof our State and country, and gave shape to the constitution and lawsof this commonwealth for the last two hundred years. Nor will ourinquiries and showings with regard to the founding of Pennsylvania becomplete without something more respecting the leading principleswhich governed in that fortunate movement. 

OUR STATE THE PRODUCT OF FAITH. 

I. It is a matter of indisputable fact that the founding of ourcommonwealth was one of the direct fruits of the revived Gospel ofChrist. But a little searching into the influences most active in thehistory is required to show that it was religious conviction andfaith, more than anything else, that had to do with the case. 

Changes had come. Luther had found the Bible chained, and set it free. Apostolic Christianity had reappeared, and was re-uttering itself withgreat power among the nations. Its quickening truths and growingvictories were undermining the gigantic usurpations and falsehoodswhich for ages had been oppressing our world. Conscience, illuminatedand revived by the Word of God, had risen up to assert its rights offree judgment and free worship, and resentful power had drawn thesword to put it down. Continental Europe was being deluged with bloodand devastated by relentless religious wars to crush out the evangelicfaith, whose confessors held up the Bible over all popes and secularpowers, and would not consent to part with their inalienable charterfrom the throne of Heaven to worship God according to his Word. Andamid these woeful struggles the good providence of the Almighty openedup to the attention of the nations the vast new territories of thisWestern World. 

From various motives, indeed, were the several original colonies ofAmerica founded. Some of the colonists came from a spirit ofadventure. Some came for territorial aggrandizement and nationalenrichment. Some came as mercantile speculators. And each of theseconsiderations may have entered somewhat into the most of thesecolonization schemes. But it was mainly flight from oppression onaccount of religious convictions which influenced the first colony ofNew England, and a still freer religious motive induced thecolonization of Pennsylvania. 

All the men most concerned in the matter were profoundly religiousmen and thorough and active believers in revived Christianity; and itwas most of all from these religious feelings and impulses that theyacted in the case. 

GUSTAVUS AND THE SWEDES. 

The first presentation to the king of Sweden, by William Usselinx, touching the planting of a colony on the west bank of the Delaware, looked to the establishment of a trading company with unlimitedtrading privileges; and the argument for it was the great source ofrevenue it would be to the kingdom. But when Gustavus Adolphus enteredinto the subject and gave his royal favor to it, quite other motivesand considerations came in to determine his course. As the historyrecords, and quite aside from the prospect of establishing his powerin these parts of the world, "the king, whose zeal for the honor ofGod was not less ardent than for the welfare of his subjects, _availedhimself of this opportunity to extend the doctrines of Christ amongthe heathen_, "[39] and to this end granted letters patent, in which itwas further provided that a free state should be formed, guaranteeingall personal rights of property, honor, and religion, and forming anasylum and place of security for the persecuted people of all nations. And when these gracious intentions of the king were revived after hisdeath, the same ideas and provisions were carefully maintained, specially stipulating (1) for every human respect toward theIndians--to wit, that the governors of the colony should deal justlywith them as the rightful lords of the land, and exert themselves atevery opportunity "that the same wild people may be instructed in thetruths and worship of the Christian religion, and in other waysbrought to civilization and good government, and in this mannerproperly guided;" (2) "above all things to consider and see to it thatdivine service be duly maintained and zealously performed according tothe unaltered Augsburg Confession;" and (3) to protect those of adifferent confession in the free exercise of their own forms. [40]

It is plain, therefore, that the spirit of religion, the spirit ofevangelical missions, the spirit of Christian charity, and the spiritof devotion to the protection of religious liberty and freedom ofconscience were the dominating motives on the part of those whofounded the first permanent settlement on the territory ofPennsylvania. 

FOOTNOTES:

[39] _History of New Sweden_, by Israel Acrelius, p. 21. 

[40] Rehearsed in the commission to Governor Printz, 1642, sections 9and 26. 

THE FEELINGS OF WILLIAM PENN. 

Bating somewhat the missionary character of the enterprise, the samemay be said of William Penn and his great reinforcement to what hadthus been successfully begun long before his time. He was himself avery zealous preacher of religion, though more in the line of protestagainst the world and the existing Church than in the line of positiveChristianity and the conversion and evangelization of the heathen. Hehad himself been a great sufferer for his religious convictions, alongwith the people whose cause he had espoused and made his own. Hiscontrolling desire was to honor and glorify God in the founding of acommonwealth in which those of his way of thinking might have a securehome of their own and worship their Creator as best agreed with theirfeelings and convictions, without being molested or disturbed;offering at the same time the same precious boon to others in likeconstraints willing to share the lot of his endeavors. 

The motives of Charles II. In granting his charter were, first ofall, to discharge a heavy pecuniary claim of Penn against thegovernment on account of his father; next, to honor the memory andmerits of the late Admiral Penn; and, finally, at the same time, to"favor William Penn in his laudable efforts to enlarge the Britishempire, to promote the trade and prosperity of the kingdom, and toreduce the savage nations by just and gentle measures to the love ofcivilized life and the Christian religion. " Penn's idea, as stated byhis memorialist, was "to obtain the grant of a territory on the westside of the Delaware, in which he might not only furnish an asylum toFriends (Quakers), and others who were persecuted on account of theirreligious persuasion, but might erect a government upon principlesapproaching much nearer the standard of evangelical purity than anywhich had been previously raised. "

His own account of the matter is: "For my country I eyed the Lord inobtaining it; and more was I drawn inward to look to him, and to oweit to his hand and power, than to any other way. I have so obtainedit, and desire to keep it, that I may not be unworthy of his love, butdo that which may answer his kind providence and serve his truth andpeople, that an example may be set up to the nations. There may beroom there, though not here, for such an holy experiment. " "I dotherefore desire the Lord's wisdom to guide me and those that may beconcerned with me, that we may do the thing that is truly wise andjust. "

And with these aims and this spirit he invited people to join him, came to the territory which had been granted him, conferred with theSwedish and Dutch colonists already on the ground, and together withthem established the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 

RECOGNITION OF THE DIVINE BEING. 

II. Accordingly, also, the chief corner-stone in the constitutionalfabric of our State was the united official acknowledgment of thebeing and supremacy of one eternal and ever-living God, the Judge ofall men and the Lord of nations. 

The self-existence and government of Almighty God is the foundation ofall things. Nothing _is_ without him. And the devout and dutifulrecognition of him and the absolute supremacy of his laws are thebasis and chief element of everything good and stable in humanaffairs. He who denies this or fails in its acknowledgment is so farpractically self-stultified, beside himself, outside the sphere ofsound rationality, and incapable of rightly understanding or directinghimself or anything else. Nor could those who founded our commonwealthhave been moved as they were, or achieved the happy success they did, had it not been for their clear, profound, and practicalacknowledgment of the being and government of that good and almightyOne who fills immensity and eternity, and from whom, and by whom, andto whom are all things. 

Some feel and act as if it were an imbecility, or a thing only for theweak, timid, and helpless, to be concerned about an Almighty God. Butgreater, braver, and more manly men did not then exist than those whowere most prominent and active in founding and framing ourcommonwealth; and of all men then making themselves felt in theaffairs of our world, they were among the most honest and devout inthe practical confession of the eternal being and providence ofJehovah. 

The great Gustavus Adolphus and the equally great Axel Oxenstiern heldand confessed from their deepest souls and in all their thoughts anddoings that there is an eternal God, infinite in power, wisdom, andgoodness, the Creator, Preserver, and Judge of all things, visible andinvisible, and that on him and his favor alone all good andprosperity in this world and the next depends. This they ever formallyand devoutly set forth in all their state papers and in all theirundertakings and doings, whether as men or as rulers. The sound ofsongs and prayers to this almighty and ever-present God was heard atevery sunrise through all the army of Gustavus in the field, as wellas in the tent and closet of its great commander. And all theinstructions given to the governors of the colony on the Delaware weremeekly conditioned to the will of God, with specific emphasis on theprovision: "Above all things, shall the governor consider and see toit that a true and due worship, becoming honor, laud, and praise bepaid to the Most High in all things. "

The same is true of William Penn. From early life he was always azealous exhorter to the devout worship of Almighty God as the onlyIlluminator and Helper of men. What he averred in his letter to theIndians was the great root-principle of his life: "There is a greatGod and Power, which hath made the world and all things therein, towhom you and I and all people owe their being and well-being, and towhom you and I must one day give an account for all that we have donein this world. "

And what was thus wrought into the texture of his being he also woveinto the original constitution of our State. 

ENACTMENTS ON THE SUBJECT. 

All the articles of government and regulation ordained by the firstGeneral Assembly, held at Upland (Chester) from the seventh to thetenth day of December, 1682, were fundamentally grounded on thisexpress "Whereas, the glory of Almighty God and the good of mankind isthe reason and end of government, and therefore government itself is avaluable ordinance of God; and forasmuch as it is principally desiredto make and establish such laws as shall best preserve true Christianand civil liberty, in opposition to all unchristian, licentious, andunjust practices, whereby God may have his due, Cæsar his due, and thepeople their due, from tyranny and oppression on the one side, andinsolence and licentiousness on the other; so that the best andfirmest foundation may be laid for the present and future happiness ofboth the governor and the people of this province and theirposterity;" for it was deemed and believed on all hands that neitherpermanence nor happiness, enduring order nor prosperity, could comefrom any other principle than that of the recognition of the supremacyand laws of Him from whom all things proceed and on whom all creaturesdepend. 

On this wise also ran the very first of the sixty-one laws ordained bythat Assembly: "Almighty God being the Lord of conscience, Father oflights, and the Author as well as Object of all divine knowledge, faith, and worship, who alone can enlighten the mind and convince theunderstanding of people in due reverence to his sovereignty over thesouls of mankind, " the rights of citizenship, protection, and libertyshould be to every person, then or thereafter residing in thisprovince, "who shall confess one Almighty God to be the Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the world, and profess himself obliged inconscience to live peaceably and justly under the civil government;"provided, further, that no person antagonizing this confession, orrefusing to profess the same, or convicted of unsober or dishonestconversation, should ever hold office in this commonwealth. 

And so entirely did this, and what else was then and there enacted andordained, fall in with the teachings, feelings, and beliefs of thehardy and devoted Swedish Lutherans, who had here been professing andfulfilling the same for two scores of years preceding, that they notonly joined in the making of these enactments, but sent a specialdeputation to the governor formally to assure him that, on theseprinciples and the faithful administration of them, they would love, serve, and obey him with all they possessed. 

IMPORTANCE OF THIS PRINCIPLE. 

Nor can it ever be known in this world how much of the success, prosperity, and happy conservatism which have marked this commonwealthin all the days and years since, have come directly from this plantingof it on the grand corner-stone of all national stability, order, andhappiness. Surely, a widely different course and condition of thingswould have come but for this secure anchoring of the ship on theeverlasting Rock. And a thousand pities it is that the influence ofFrench atheism was allowed to exclude so wholesome a principle fromthe Declaration of our national Independence and from our nationalConstitution. Whilst such recognition of Jehovah's supremacy andgovernment abides in living force in the hearts of the people, theabsence of its official formulation may be of no materialdisadvantage; but for the better preservation of it in men's minds, and for the obstruction of the insidious growth of what strikes at thefoundation of all government and order, it would have been well hadthe same been put in place as the grand corner-stone of our wholenational fabric, as it was in the original organization of theCommonwealth of Pennsylvania, and kept in both clear and unchangeablefor ever. We might then hope for better things than are indicated bythe present drift, and the outlook for those to come after us would beless dark and doubtful than it is. 

But, since weakenings and degeneration in these respects have comeinto the enactments of public power, it is all the more needful forevery true and patriotic citizen to be earnest and firm in witnessingfor God and his everlasting laws, that the people may be better thanthe later expressions of their state documents. The example of thefathers makes appeal to the consciences of their children not to letgo from our hearts and lives the deep and abiding recognition andconfession of that almighty Governor of all things from whoserighteous tribunal no one living can escape, and before whom nocontemner of his authority can stand. 

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 

III. Another great and precious principle enthroned in the founding ofour commonwealth was that of religious liberty. 

One of the saddest chapters in human history is that of persecution onaccount of religious convictions--the imposition of penalties, torture, and death by the sword of government on worthy people becauseof their honest opinions of duty to Almighty God. For the punishmentof the lawless, the wicked, and the intractable, and for the praise, peace, and protection of them that do well, the civil magistrate istruly the authorized representative of God, and fails in his officeand duty where the powers he wields are not studiously and vigorouslyexercised to these ends. But God hath reserved to himself, and hathnot committed to any creature hands, the power and dominion tointerfere with realm of conscience. As he alone can instruct andgovern it, and as its sphere is that of the recognition of his willand law and the soul's direct amenability to his judgment-bar, it is agross usurpation and a wicked presumption for any other authority orpower to undertake to force obedience contrary to the soul'spersuasion of what its Maker demands of it as a condition of hisfavor. 

It is a principle of human action and obligation recognized in bothTestaments, that when the requirements of human authority conflictwith those of the Father of spirits we must obey God rather than man. The rights of conscience and the rights of God thus coincide, and totrample on the one is to deny the other. And when earthly governmentsinvade this sacred territory they invade the exclusive domain of Godand make war upon the very authority from which they have their rightto be. 

The plea of its necessity for the support of orthodoxy, themaintenance of the truth, and the glory of God will not avail for itsjustification, for God has not ordained civil government to inflictimprisonment, exile, and death upon religious dissenters, or evenheretics; and his truth and glory he has arranged to take care of inquite another fashion. What Justin Martyr and Tertullian in the earlyChurch and Luther in the Reformation-time declared, must for everstand among the settled verities of Heaven: that it is not right tomurder, burn, and afflict people because they feel in conscience boundto a belief and course of life which they have found and embraced asthe certain will and requirement of their Maker. We must ward offheresy with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and notwith the sword of the state and with fire. 

PERSECUTION FOR OPINION'S SAKE. 

And yet such abuses of power have been staining and darkening all theages of human administration, and, unfortunately, among professingChristians as well as among pagans and Jews. Intolerance is so rootedin the selfishness and ambition of human nature that it has ever beenone of the most difficult of practical problems to curb and regulateit. Those who have most complained of it whilst feeling it, often onlyneeded to have the circumstances reversed in order to fall intosimilar wickedness. The Puritans, who fled from it as from the Dragonhimself, soon had their Star-Chamber too, their whipping-posts, theirdeath-scaffolds, and their sentences of exile for those who dissentedfrom their orthodoxy and their order. Even infidelity and atheism, always the most blatant for freedom when in the minority, have shownin the philosophy of Hobbes and in the Reign of Terror in France thatthey are as liable to be intolerant, fanatical, and oppressive whenthey have the mastery as the strongest faith and the most assuredreligionism. And the Quakers themselves, who make freedom ofconscience one of the chief corner-stones of their religion, have notalways been free from offensive and disorderly aggressions upon therightful sphere of government and the rightful religious freedom ofother worshipers. Even so treacherous is the human heart on thesubject of just and equal religious toleration. 

SPIRIT OF THE FOUNDERS. 

It is therefore a matter of everlasting gratitude and thanksgivingthat all the men most concerned in the founding of our commonwealthwere so clear and well-balanced on the subject of religious liberty, and so thoroughly inwove the same into its organic constitution. 

Gustavus Adolphus and Axel Oxenstiern were the heroes of their time inthe cause of religious liberty in continental Europe. Though intenselytroubled in their administration by the Roman Catholics and theAnabaptists, the most intolerant of intolerants in those days, theynever opposed force against the beliefs or worships of either; andwhen force was used against the papal powers, it was only so far as topreserve unto themselves and their fellow-confessors the inalienableright to worship God according to the dictates of their ownconsciences without molestation or disturbance. In their scheme ofcolonization in this Western World, first and last, the invitation wasto all classes of Christians in suffering and persecution forconscience' sake, who were favorable to a free state where they couldhave the free enjoyment of their property and religion, to cast intheir lot. In the first charter, confirmed by all the authorities ofthe kingdom and rehearsed in the instructions given by the throne forthe execution of the intention, special provision was made for theprotection of the convictions and worship of those not of the sameconfession with that for which the government provided. Though aLutheran colony, under a Lutheran king, sustained and protected by aLutheran government, the Calvinists had place and equal protection init from the very beginning; and when the Quakers came, they were atonce and as freely welcomed on the same free principles, as also therepresentatives of the Church of England. 

As to William Penn, though contemplating above all the well-being andfurtherance of the particular Society of which he was an eminentornament and preacher, consistency with himself, as well as theestablished situation of affairs, demanded of him the free tolerationof the Church, however unpalatable to his Society, and with it of allreligious sects and orders of worship. From his prison at Newgate hehad written that the enaction of laws restraining persons from thefree exercise of their consciences in matters of religion was but "theknotting of whipcord on the part of the enactors to lash their ownposterity, whom they could never promise to be conformed for ages tocome to a national religion. " Again and again had he preached andproclaimed the folly and wickedness of attempting to change thereligious opinions of men by the application of force--the utterunreasonableness of persecuting orderly people in this world aboutthings which belong to the next--the gross injustice of sacrificingany one's liberty or property on account of creed if not foundbreaking the laws relating to natural and civil things. 

Hence, from principle as well as from necessity, when he came toformulate a political constitution for his colony, he laid it down asthe primordial principle: "I do, for me and mine, declare andestablish for the first fundamental of the government of my provincethat every person that doth and shall reside therein shall have andenjoy the free possession of his or her faith and exercise of worshiptoward God, in such way and manner as every such person shall inconscience believe is most acceptable to God. And so long as suchperson useth not this Christian liberty to licentiousness or thedestruction of others--that is, to speak loosely and profanely orcontemptuously of God, Christ, the Holy Scriptures, or religion, orcommit any moral evil or injury against others in theirconversation--he or she shall be protected in the enjoyment of theaforesaid Christian liberty by the civil magistrate. "

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS. 

This was in exact accord with the principles and provisions underwhich the original colony had been formed, and had already been livingand prospering for more than forty years preceding. Everything, therefore, was in full readiness and condition for the universal andhearty adoption of the grand first article enacted by the firstGeneral Assembly, to wit: "That no person now or hereafter residing inthis province, who shall confess one Almighty God to be the Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the world, and profess himself obliged inconscience to live peaceably and justly under the civil government, shall in any wise be molested or prejudiced on account of hisconscientious persuasion or practice; nor shall he be compelled tofrequent or maintain any religious worship, place, or ministrycontrary to his mind, but shall freely enjoy his liberty in thatrespect, without interruption or reflection. "

In these specific provisions all classes in the colony at the timeheartily united. And thus was secured and guaranteed to every goodcitizen that full, rightful, and precious religious freedom which isthe birthright of all Americans, for which the oppressed of all theages sighed, and which had to make its way through a Red Sea of humantears and blood and many a sorrowful wilderness before reaching itsplace of rest. 

SAFEGUARDS TO TRUE LIBERTY. 

IV. But the religious liberty which our fathers thus sought to secureand to transmit to their posterity was not a licentious libertinism. They knew the value of religious principles and good morals to theindividual and to the state, and they did not leave it an openmatter, under plea of free conscience, for men to conduct themselvesas they please with regard to virtue and religion. 

To be disrespectful toward divine worship, to interfere with its freeexercise as honest men are moved to render it, or to set at naught themoral code of honorable behavior in human society, is never thedictate of honest conviction of duty, and, in the nature of things, cannot be. It is not conscience, but the overriding of conscience;nay, rebellion against the whole code of conscience, against thefoundations of all government, against the very existence of civilsociety. Liberty to blaspheme Almighty God, to profane his name andordinances, to destroy his worship, and to set common morality atnaught, is not religious liberty, but disorderly wickedness, a cloakof maliciousness, the licensing of the devil as an angel of light. Itbelongs to mere brute liberty, which must be restrained and broughtunder bonds in order to render true liberty possible. Wild and lawlessfreedom must come under the restraints and limits of defined order, peace, and essential morality, or somebody's freedom must suffer, andsocial happiness is out of the question. And it is one of the inherentaims and offices of government to enforce this very constraint, without which it totally fails of its end and forfeits its right tobe. Where people are otherwise law-abiding, orderly, submissive to therequisites for the being and well-being of a state, and abstain fromencroachments upon the liberties of others, they are not to bemolested, forced, or compelled in spiritual matters contrary to theirhonest convictions; but public blasphemy, open profanity, disorderlyinterference with divine worship and reverence, and the hindrance ofwhat tends to the preservation of good morals, it pertains to theexistence and office of a state to restrain and punish. Severity uponsuch disorders is not tyrannical abridgment of the rights ofconscience, for no proper citizen's conscience can ever prompt orconstrain him to any such things. And everything which tends to weakenand destroy regard for the eternal Power on which all things depend, to relax the sense of accountability to the divine judgment, and totrample on the laws of eternal morality, is the worst enemy of thestate, which it cannot allow without peril to its own existence. 

On the other hand, the state is bound for the same reasons to protectand defend religion in general and the cultivation of the religioussentiments, in so far, at least, as the laws of virtue and order arenot transgressed in the name of religion. It may not interfere todecide between different religious societies or churches, as they maybe equally conscientious and honest in their diversities; but wherethe tendency is to good and reverence, and the training of thecommunity to right and orderly life, it belongs to the office andbeing of the state not only to tolerate, but to protect them allalike. In the fatherly care of its subjects, the people consenting, the state may also recommend and provide support for some particularand approved order of faith and worship, just as it provides forpublic education. And though the civil power may not rightfullypunish, fine, imprison, and oppress orderly and honest citizens forconscientious non-conformity to any one specific system of belief andworship, it may, and must, provide for and protect what tends to itsrightful conservation, and also condemn, punish, and restrainwhatsoever tends to unseat it and undermine its existence and peace. These are fundamental requirements in all sound political economy. 

LAWS ON RELIGION AND MORALS. 

Our fathers, in their wisdom, understood this, and fashioned theirstate provisions and laws accordingly. 

The thing specified as the supreme concern of the public authoritiesin the original settlement of this territory by the Swedes was, to"consider and see to it that a true and due worship, becoming honor, laud, and praise be paid to the most high God in all things, " and that"all persons, but especially the young, shall be duly instructed inthe articles of their Christian faith. "

But if public worship and religious instruction are to be fostered andpreserved by the state, there must be set times for it, the peoplereleased at those times from hindering occupations and engagements, and whatever may interfere therewith restrained and put under bondsagainst interruption. In other words, the Lord's proper worshipdemands and requires a protected Lord's Day. Such appointed and sacredtimes for these holy purposes have been from the foundation of theworld. Under all dispensations one day in every seven was a day untothe Lord, protected and preserved for such sacred uses, on whichsecular occupations should cease, and nothing allowed which wouldinterfere with the public worship of Almighty God and the handling ofhis Word. And "because it was requisite to appoint a certain day, thatthe people might know when they ought to come together, it appearsthat the Christian Church [and so all Christian states] did for thatpurpose appoint the Lord's Day, " our weekly Sunday. 

This William Penn found in existence and observance by the Swedes andthe Dutch on this territory when he arrived. He therefore advised, andthe first General Assembly of Pennsylvania justly ordained, "that, according to the good example of the primitive Christians and the easeof the creation, every first day of the week, called the Lord's Day, people shall abstain from their common daily labor, that they may thebetter dispose themselves to worship God according to theirunderstandings"--a provision so necessary and important that thestatute laws of our commonwealth have always guarded its observancewith penalties which the State cannot in justice to itself allow to gounenforced, and which no good citizen should refuse strictly to obey. 

And to the same end was it provided and ordained by the first GeneralAssembly that "if any person shall abuse or deride another for hisdifferent persuasion or practice in religion, such shall be lookedupon as disturbers of the peace, and be punished accordingly. " And inthe line of the same wholesome and necessary policy it was alsofurther provided and ordained that "all such offences against God asswearing, cursing, lying, profane talking, drunkenness, obscene words, revels, etc. Etc. , which excite the people to rudeness, cruelty, andirreligion, shall be respectively discouraged and severely punished. "

Such were the good and righteous provisions made for the restraint ofthe licentiousness and brutishness of man in the primeval days of ourcommonwealth; and wherein it has since sunk away from these originalorganic laws the people have only weakened and degraded themselves, and hindered that virtuous and happy prosperity which would otherwisein far larger degree than now be our inheritance. 

FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 

V. And yet again, as the fathers of our commonwealth gave us religionwithout compulsion, so they also gave us a State without a king. 

There is nothing necessarily wrong or necessarily right in thisparticular. Monarchy, aristocracy, republicanism, or pure democracycannot claim divine right the one over against the other. Either maybe good, or either may be bad, as the situation and the chances maybe. There has been as much bloody wrong and ruin wrought in the nameof liberty as in the establishment of thrones. There have been as goodand happy governments by kings as by any other methods of humanadministration. Civil authority is essential to man, and the power forit must lie somewhere. The only question is as to the safestdepository of it. The mere form of the government is no great matter. It has been justly said, "There is hardly a government in the world soill designed that in good hands would not do well enough, nor any sogood that in ill hands can do aught great and good. " Governmentsdepend on men, not men on governments. Let men be good, and thegovernment will not be bad; but if men are bad, no government willhold for good. If government be bad, good men will cure it; and if thegovernment be good, bad men will warp and spoil it. Nor is there anyform of government known to man that is not liable to abuse, prostitution, tyranny, unrighteousness, and oppression. 

The best government is that which most efficiently conserves the trueends of government, be the form what it may. Anything differing fromthis is worthless sentimentalism, undeserving of sober regard. And tomeet the true ends of government there must be power to enforceobedience, and there must be checks upon that power to secure itssubjects against its abuse; for "liberty without obedience isconfusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery. " But there may beliberty under monarchy, as well as reverence and obedience underdemocracy, whilst there may be oppression and bloody tyranny undereither. 

Amid the varied experiments of the ages the human mind is more andmore settling itself in favor of mixed forms of government, in whichthe rights of the people and the limitations of authority are set downin fixed constitutions, taking the direct rule from the multitude, butstill holding the rulers accountable to the people. Such were more orless the forms under which the founders of our commonwealth weretutored. 

A REPUBLICAN STATE. 

But they went a degree further than the precedents before them. Theybelieved the safest depository of power to be with the peoplethemselves, under constitutions ordained by those intending to liveunder them and administered by persons of their own choice. "Wherethe laws rule, and the people are a party to those laws, " was believedto be the true ideal and realization of civil liberty--the way "tosupport power in reverence with the people, and to secure the peoplefrom the abuse of power, that they may be free by their justobedience, and the magistrates honorable for their justadministration. "

And with these ideas, "with reverence to God and good conscience tomen, " the first General Assembly in 1682 enacted a common code ofsixty-one laws, in which the foundation-stones of the civil andcriminal jurisprudence of this broad commonwealth were laid, and astyle of government ordained so reasonable, moderate, just, and equalin its provisions that no one yet has found just cause to deny thewisdom and beneficence of its structure, whilst Montesquieu pronouncesit "an instance unparalleled in the world's history of the foundationof a great state laid in peace, justice, and equality. "

THE LAST TWO HUNDRED YEARS. 

Two hundred years have gone by since this completed organization ofour noble commonwealth. Her free and liberal principles then stillremained in large measure to be learned by some of the other Americancolonies. From the very start she was the chief conservator of whatwas to be the model for all this grand Union of free States--acharacter which she has never lost in all the history of our nationalexistence. Six generations of stalwart freemen has she reared beneathher shielding care to people her own vast territory and that of manyother States, no one of which has ever failed in truthfulness to thegreat principles in which she was born. Always more solid than noisy, and more reserved than obtrusive, she has ever served as the greatbalance-wheel in the mighty engine of our national organization. Herlife, commingled with other lives attempered to her own, now pulsatesfrom ocean to ocean and from the frozen lakes to the warm Gulf waters, all glad and glorious in the unity and sunshine of constitutionalgovernment in the hands of a free people. With her population drawnfrom all nationalities to learn from her lips the sacred lessons ofindependent self-rule, she has sent it forth as freely to the westwardto build co-equal States in the beauty of her own image, whilst fourmillions of her children still abide in growing happiness under hermaternal care. Verily, it was the spirit of prophecy which said, twohundred years ago, "_God will bless that ground_. "

That blessing we have lived to see. May it continue for yet manycentennials, and grow as it endures! May the faith and spirit of themen through whose piety and wisdom it has come still warm and animatethe hearts of their successors to the latest generations! May nocareless or corrupt administration of justice or "looseness" orinfidelities of the people come in to bring down the wrath of Heavenfor its interruption! May the sterling principles of our happy freedombe made good to us and our posterity by the good keeping of them inhonest virtue and obedience, and in due reverence of Him who gavethem, and who is the God and Judge of nations! May those sacredconditions of the divine favor "which descend not with worldlyinheritances" be so embedded in the training and education of ouryouth that the spirit of the children may not be a libel on the faithand devotion of their fathers!

Centuries have passed, but the God of Gustavus Adolphus, of thePilgrims of Plymouth Rock, of William Penn, and of the hero-saints ofevery age and country still lives and reigns. Men may deny it, butthat does not alter it. His government and Gospel are the same nowthat they have ever been. What he most approved and blessed in theirdays he most approves and blesses in ours. And may their fear and loveof him be to us and our children a copy and a guide, to steer insafety amid the dangerous rapids of these doubtful times!

"And thou, Philadelphia, the virgin settlement of this province, namedbefore thou wert born! what love, what care, what service, and whattravail has there been to bring thee forth and preserve thee from suchas would abuse and defile thee! My soul prays to God for thee, thatthou mayest stand in the day of trial, that thy children may beblessed of the Lord, and thy people saved by his power. "

THE END.