I Thought Of The Stir There Was Here
When The Pope's Bull Against Luther Came Out, And Of The Pattering Of
Feet And Commotion There Were In This Court, When Luther Sallied Out
To Burn The Pope's Bull Under The Oak, Just Beyond The City Wall Near
By.
The students thought it good fun; students are always progressive;
they admired the old boy for his spirit; they threw up caps and
shouted, and went out to see the ceremony with a will.
Philip
Melanchthon wondered if brother Martin was not going a little too
fast, but hoped it would be overruled, and that all would be for the
best! So, coming out, I looked longingly beyond the city gate, and
wanted to go to the place of the oak tree, where the ceremony was
performed, but the party had gone on.
[Illustration: _of Melanchthon's house._]
Coming back, I made a pause opposite the house on which is seen the
inscription, "Here Melanchthon lived, labored, and died." A very good
house it was, too, in its day; in architecture it was not unlike this.
I went across the street to take a good look at it; then I came over,
and as the great arched door stood open, I took the liberty of walking
in. Like other continental houses, this had an arched passage running
through to a back court and a side door. A stone stairway led up from
this into the house, and a small square window, with little round
panes, looked through into the passage. A young child was toddling
about there, and I spoke to it; a man came out, and looked as if he
rather wondered what I might be about; so I retreated. Then I threaded
my way past queer peaked-roofed buildings to a paved court, where
stood the old church - something like that in Halle, a great Gothic
structure, with two high towers connected by a gallery. I entered.
Like the other church it has been whitewashed, and has few
architectural attractions. It is very large, with two galleries, one
over the other, and might hold, I should think, five thousand people.
Here Luther preached. These walls, now so silent, rung to the rare
melody of that voice, to which the Roman Catholic writers attributed
some unearthly enchantment, so did it sway all who listened. Here,
clustering round these pillars, standing on these flags, were myriads
of human beings; and what heart-beatings, what surgings of thought,
what tempests of feeling, what aspirations, what strivings, what
conflicts shook that multitude, and possessed them as he spoke! "I
preach," he said, "not for professor this or that, nor for the elector
or prince, but for poor Jack behind the door;" and so, striking only
on the chords common to all hearts, he bowed all, for he who can
inspire the illiterate and poor, callous with ignorance and toil, can
move also the better informed. Here, also, that voice of his, which
rose above the choir and organ, sang the alto in those chorals which
he gave to the world. Monmouth, sung in this great church by five
thousand voices, must needs have a magnificent sound.
The altar-piece is a Lord's Supper, by Louis Cranach, who appears in
the foreground as a servant. On each side are the pictures of the
Sacraments. In baptism, Melanchthon stands by a laver, holding a
dripping baby, whom he has just immersed, one of Luther's children, I
suppose, for he is standing by; a venerable personage in a long beard
holds the towel to receive the little neophyte. From all I know of
babies, I should think this form of baptism liable to inconvenient
accessories and consequences. On the other side, Luther is preaching,
and opposite, foremost of his audience are, Catharine and her little
son. Every thing shows how strictly intimate were Luther, Melanchthon,
and Cranach; good sociable times they had together. A slab elaborately
carved, in the side of the church, marks the last rest of Lucas and
Magdalen Cranach.
I passed out of the church, and walked slowly down to the hotel,
purchasing by the way, at a mean little shop, some tolerable
engravings of Luther's room, the church, &c. To show how immutable
every thing has been in Wittenberg since Luther died, let me mention
that on coming back through the market-place, we found spread out for
sale upon a cloth about a dozen pairs of shoes of the precise pattern
of those belonging to Luther, which we had seen in Frankfort - clumsy,
rude, and heelless. I have heard that Swedenborg said, that in his
visit to the invisible world, he encountered a class of spirits who
had been there fifty years, and had not yet found out that they were
dead. These Wittenbergers, I think, must be of the same conservative
turn of mind.
Failing to get a carriage to the station, we started to walk. I paused
a moment before the church, to make some little corrections and
emendations in my engravings, and thought, as I was doing so, of that
quite other scene years ago, when the body of Luther was borne through
this gate by a concourse of weeping thousands. These stones, on which
I was standing, then echoed all night to the tread of a closely-packed
multitude - a muffled sound, like the patter of rain among leaves.
There rose through the long, dark hours, alternately, the unrestrained
sobbings of the throng, and the grand choral of Luther's psalms, words
and music of his own. Never since the world began was so strange a
scene as that. I felt a kind of shadow from it, as I walked homeward
gazing on the flat, dreamy distance. A great windmill was creaking its
sombre, lazy vanes round and round, - strange, goblin things, these
windmills, - and I thought of one of Luther's sayings. "The heart of a
human creature is like the millstones: if corn be shaken thereon, it
grindeth the corn, and maketh good meal; but if no corn be there, then
it grindeth away itself." Luther tried the latter process all the
first part of his life; but he got the corn at last, and a magnificent
grist he made.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 101 of 119
Words from 101889 to 102929
of 120793
