Now, All Past, All Solitary; The Stairs Dirty, The Windows Dim.

[Illustration: _of Luther's room._]

And this is Luther's room. It was a fine one in its day, that is plain. The arched recesses of the windows; the roof, divided in squares, and, like the walls and cornice, painted in fresco; the windows, with their quaint, round panes, - all, though now so soiled and dim, speak plainly of a time when life was here, and all things wore a rich and joyous glow. In this room that great heart rejoiced in the blessedness of domestic life, and poured forth some of those exulting strains, glorifying the family state, which yet remain. Here his little Magdalen, his little Jacky, and the rest made joyous uproar.

There stands his writing table, a heavy mass of wood; clumsy as the time and its absurdities, rougher now than ever, in its squalid old age, and partly chipped away by relic seekers. Here he sat; here lay his paper; over this table was bent that head whose brain power was the earthquake of Europe. Here he wrote books which he says were rained, hailed, and snowed from the press in every language and tongue. Kings and emperors could not bind the influence from this writing table; and yet here, doubtless, he wrestled, struggled, prayed, and such tears as only he could shed fell upon it. Nothing of all this says the table. It only stands a poor, ungainly relic of the past; the inspiring angel is gone upward.

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