Chapter 22

“His earnestness,” wrote a devoted young follower of his, “is so tempered with gladness and friendliness that one longs to live with him; it seems as though God wished to demonstrate how blissful and joyous his Evangel is, not merely by his teaching, but even by his conduct.” Thus the Swiss student, Johann Kessler, who became acquainted with Luther after his return from the Wartburg.[891]Another voice from the same period enthusiasticallyextols his friendly ways and his winning speech in his dealings with his pupils, also the power of his words “which cast such a spell over the hearts of his hearers that anyone, who is not made of stone, having once heard him, yearns to hear him again.” Thus his disciple Albert Burrer.[892]Mathesius, one of his busier pupils, declares: “The man was full of grace and the Holy Ghost. Hence all who sought counsel from him as a prophet of God, found what they desired.”[893]Often, he remarks, difficult questions from Scripture were submitted to him (in conversation at table) which he answered both plainly and concisely. And if anyone contradicted him he took no offence but skilfully put his gainsayer in the wrong. The Doctor knew so well how to bring in his stories and sayings and apply them at the proper juncture that it was a real pleasure and comfort to listen to him.[894]“Amongst his other great virtues he was very easily contented, and also extremely kind.”[895]Spangenberg, Aurifaber, Cordatus and other pupils were, so to speak, quite under his spell. Hieronymus Weller, whom Luther frequently sought to encourage in his fits of depression, remarked indeed on one occasion that the difference in age, and his reverence for Luther, prevented him from speaking and chatting as confidentially as he would have liked with the great man.[896]On the other hand, the Humanist, Peter Mosellanus, who was at one time much attached to him and never altogether abandoned his cause, says: “In daily life and in his intercourse with others he is polite and friendly; there is nothing stoical or proud about him; he is affable to everyone. In company he converses cheerfully and pleasantly, is lively and gay, always looks merry, cheerful and amiable however hard pressed by his opponents, so that one may well believe he does not act in such weighty matters without God’s assistance.”[897]Melanchthon, particularly in his early days, as our readers already know, expressed great reverence and devotion for Luther. “You know,” he wrote to Spalatin during his friend’s stay at the Wartburg, “how carefully we must guard this earthen vessel which contains so great a treasure.... The earth holds nothing more divine than him.”[898]After Luther’s death, in spite of the previous misunderstandings, he said of him in a panegyric addressed to the students: “Alas, the chariot of Israel and the horseman thereof, who ruled the Church in these latter years of her existence, has departed.”[899]Luther was often to prove that the strong impression made by his personality was alone able to gain the day incases of difficulty, to break down opposition and to ensure the successful carrying out of hardy plans. Seldom indeed did those about him offer any objection, for he possessed that gift, so frequently observed in men of strong character, of exercising, in every matter great or small, a kind of suggestive influence over those who approached him. He possessed an inner, unseen power which seemed to triumph over all, ... even over the claims of truthfulness and logic;[900]besides this, he was gifted with an imposing presence and an uncanny glance. He was by no means curt in his answers, but spoke freely to everyone in a manner calculated to awaken the confidence and unlock the hearts of his hearers. Of his talkativeness he himself once said: “I don’t believe the Emperor [Charles V.] says so much in a year as I do in a day.”[901]His “disinterestedness which led him to care but little about money and worldly goods”[902]increased the respect felt for him and his work. So little did he care about heaping up riches, that, when scolding the Wittenbergers on account of their avarice, he could say that “though poor, he found more pleasure in what was given him for his needs than the rich and opulent amongst them did in their own possessions.”[903]So entirely was he absorbed in his public controversy that he paid too little attention to his own requirements, particularly in his bachelor days; he even relates how, before he took a wife, he had for a whole year not made his bed, or had it made for him, so that his sweat caused it to rot. “I was so weary, overworked all the day, that I threw myself on the bed and knew nothing about it.”[904]He was never used to excessive comfort or to indulgence in the finer pleasures of the table. In every respect, in conversation and intercourse with others and in domestic life, he was a lover of simplicity. In this he was ever anxious to set a good example to his fellow-workers.Although he frequently accepted with gratitude presentsfrom the great, yet on occasion he was not above cautioning givers of the danger such gifts involved, when the “eyes of the whole world are upon us.”[905]In 1542, when there was a prospect of his receiving from his friend Amsdorf, the new “bishop” of Naumburg, presents out of the estates of the bishopric, he twice wrote to him to refrain from sending him anything, even a single hare, because “our courtly centaurs [the selfish and rapacious nobles] must be given no pretext for venting their glowing hate against us on the trumped-up charge that we were desirous of securing gain through you.” “They have gulped down everything without compunction, but still would blame us were we to accept a paltry gift of game. Let them feed in God’s or another’s [the devil’s] name, so long as we are not accused of greed.”[906]Döllinger speaks of Luther as “a sympathetic friend, devoid of avarice and greed of money, and a willing helper of others.”[907]He was always ready to assist the poor with open-handed and kindly liberality, and his friends especially, when in trouble or distress, could reckon on his charity.When his own means were insufficient he sought by word of mouth or by letter to enlist the sympathy of others, of friends in the town, or even of the Elector himself, in the cause of the indigent. On more than one occasion his good nature was unfairly taken advantage of. This, however, did not prevent his pleading for the poor who flocked to Wittenberg from all quarters and were wont to address themselves to him. Thus, for instance, in 1539 we have a note in which he appealed to certain “dear gentlemen” to save a “pious and scholarly youth” from the “pangs of hunger” by furnishing him with 30 Gulden; he himself was no longer able to afford the gifts he had daily to bestow, though he would be willing, in case of necessity, to contribute half the sum.[908]Many of the feeble and oppressed experienced his help in the law. He reminds the lawyers how hard it is for the poor to comply with the legal formalities necessary for their protection. On one occasion, when it was a question of the defence of a poor woman, he says: “You know Dr. Martin is not only a theologian and the champion of thefaith, but also an advocate of the poor, who troop to him from every place and corner and demand his aid and his intercession with the authorities, so that he would have enough to do even if no other burden rested on his shoulders. But Dr. Martin loves to serve the poor.”[909]In 1527, when the plague reached Wittenberg, he stayed on in the town with Bugenhagen in order at least to comfort the people by his presence. The University was transferred for the time being to Jena (and then to Schlieben) and the Elector accordingly urged him to migrate to Jena with his wife and family. Luther however insisted on remaining, above all on account of the urgent need of setting an example to his preachers, who were too much preoccupied with the safety of their own families. It was then that he wrote the tract “Ob man fur dem Sterben fliehen muge” (Whether one may flee from death), answering the question in the negative so far as the ministers were concerned. In such dire trouble the flock were more than ever in need of spiritual help; the preachers were to exhort the people to learn diligently from the Word of God how to live and how to die, also, by Confession, reception of the Supper, reconciliation with their neighbours, etc., to “prepare themselves in advance should the Lord knock speedily.”[910]He displayed the same courage during the epidemic of the so-called “English sweat,” a fever which, in 1529, broke out at Wittenberg, and in other German towns, and carried off many victims. Again in 1538 and in 1539 he braved new outbreaks of the plague at Wittenberg. His wish was, that, in such cases, one or two preachers should be specially appointed to look after those stricken with the malady. “Should the lot fall on me,” he says in 1542, “I should not be afraid. I have now been through three pestilences and mixed with some who suffered from it ... and am none the worse.”[911]“God usually protects the ministers of HisWord,” he writes in 1538, “if one does not run in and out of the inns and lie in the beds; confessions there is no need to hear, for we bring the Word of Life.”[912]The fact that he could boast of having braved the plague and remained at his post naturally tended to increase his influence with his congregation.[913]He had passed through a severe mental struggle previous to the epidemic of 1529. Only by dint of despairing efforts was he able to overcome his terrors of conscience concerning his doctrine and his own personal salvation. This inner combat so hardened him that he was fearless where others were terrified and fled. Of his own qualms of conscience he wrote to a friend in April, 1529: If it be an apostolic gift to fight with devils and to lie frequently at the point of death, then he was indeed in this a very Peter or Paul, however much he might lack the other apostolic characters.[914]Here we have the idea of his Divine calling, always most to the front in times of danger, which both strengthens him and enables him to inspire others with a little of his own confidence. “I and Bugenhagen alone remain here,” he wrote during the days of the plague, “but we are not alone, for Christ is with us and will triumph in us and shelter us from Satan, as we hope and trust.”[915]We already are acquainted with some of his admissions of his own weakness and acknowledgments of the greater gifts and achievements of others—confessions which have been extolled as a proof of his real humility.“I have no such foolish humility,” so he says, “as to wish to deny the gifts God has bestowed on me. In myself I have indeed enough and more than enough to humble me and teach me that I am nothing. In God, however, we may well pride ourselves, and rejoice and glory in His gifts and extol them, as I myself do on account of my German Psalter; for I studied the Psalter, thanks be to God, with great fruit; but all to the honour and glory of God to Whom be praise for ever and ever.” This he wrote to Eobanus Hessus, the poet, in a high-flown letter thanking him for translating the German Psalter into excellent Latin.[916]Of his own virtues or sinfulness he preferred to speak humorously, as his manner was. Thus, he says, for instance, in 1526, in his suppressed “Widder den Radschlag der Meintzischen Pfafferey,” that “he had not defiled any man’s wife or child,” “had not robbed anyone of his goods ... nor murdered or assaulted anyone or given help or counsel thereto”; his sin consisted in “not pulling a long face but in insisting on being merry”; also in eating meat on forbidden days. People might defame his life, but he was not going to heed “the dirty hogsnouts.”[917]His statements belittling his own powers and achievements, coming from a man whose apparently overmastering self-confidence had, from the beginning, prepossessed so many of his followers in his favour, afford a subject for psychological study. He seems the more ready to give full play to his confidence the more he feels his weakness face to face with the menace of danger, and the more he experiences in the depths of his soul the raging of doubts which he attributes to the devil.In the humble admissions he makes he never conceals how much he stands in need of assistance. He does not hide from himself the fact that he dreads outward troubles, and is deficient in strong and exalted virtue. But side by side with his faults, he is fond of gazing on and extolling God’s gifts in his person. His peculiar form of humility, his prayer and his trust in God find expression in certain utterances and experiences, on which no judgment can be passed until we have before us a larger selection of them, particularly of such as seem to be less premeditated.Prayer and Confidence in God.Luther’s strangely undaunted confidence and the personal nature of his reliance on God’s help form part of his mental physiognomy.He sees around him much distress and corruption and exclaims: “Alas, we are living outwardly under the empire of the devil, hence we can neither see nor hear anything good from without.” And yet, he proceeds in his usual forced tone, “inwardly we are living in the kingdom of Christ, where we behold God’s glory and His grace! For of Christ it is said: ‘Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.’” “Hatred is our reward in this world.” “Our reward is excessive considering the insignificance of the service we render Christ. But what is the world, its anger, or its prince? A smoke that vanishes, a bubble that bursts, such is everything that is opposed to the Lord Whom we serve and Who works in us.” With these words, so expressive of his determination, he directs his trusted pupil, Conrad Cordatus, to enter courageously upon the office of preacher at Stendal in the March.[918]Again and again he seeks to reanimate his faith and confidence by calling to mind not merely God’s faithfulness to His promises, but also his own personal “sufferings” and “temptations,” the only escape from which, as he believed, lay in the most obstinate and presumptuous belief in his cause, and in the conviction that God was constantly intervening in his favour.“Not only from Holy Scripture,” he said in a conversation in 1540, “but also from my violent inner combats and temptations have I learnt that Christ is God incarnate, and that there is a Trinity. I now know it even better from experience than by faith that these articles are true. For in our greatest temptations nothing can help us but the assurance that Christ became man and is now our intercessor at the right hand of the Father. There is nothing that excites our confidence to such a degree.... God, too, has championed this article from the beginning of the world against countless heretics, and even to-day defends it against Turk and Pope; He incessantly confirms it by miracles and permits us to call His Son, the Son of God and true God, and grants all that we ask in Christ’s name. For what else has saved us even till the present day in so many perils but prayer to Christ? Whoever says it is Master Philip’s and my doing, lies. It is God Who does it for Christ’s sake.... Therefore we hold fast to these articles in spite of the objections of reason. They have remained and will continue.”[919]Luther often had recourse to prayer, especially when he found himself in difficulty, or in an awkward situation from which he could see no escape; in his letters he also as a rule asks for prayers for himself and for the common cause of the new Evangel. It is impossible to take such requests as a mere formality; his way of making them is usually so full of feeling that they must have been meant in earnest.In 1534 he wrote a special instruction for the simple andunlearned on the way to pray.[920]Many parts of this booklet recall the teaching of the great masters of prayer, though unfortunately it is imbued with his peculiar tenets.He urges people to pray fervently against “the idolatry of the Turk, of the Pope, of all false teachers and devil’s snares”; he also mocks at the prayers of the “parsons and monks,”[921]unable to refrain from his bitter polemics even in an otherwise edifying work. Yet the body of the booklet teaches quite accurately, in a fashion recalling the directions given by St. Ignatius, how the Our Father and other daily prayers may be devoutly recited, with pauses after the various petitions or words, so as to form a sort of meditation. He himself, so he assures his readers, was in the habit of “sucking” in this way at the Paternoster, and was also fond of occupying himself with a similar prayerful analysis of the Psalter.His regular daily prayer he says elsewhere was the Our Father, the Creed and the other usual formulas.[922]“I have daily to do violence to myself in order to pray,” he remarked to his friends, “and I am satisfied to repeat when I go to bed the Ten Commandments, the Our Father and then a verse or two; thinking over them I fall asleep.”[923]“The Our Father is my prayer, I pray this and sometimes intermingle with it something from the Psalms, so as to put to shame the vain scoffers and false teachers.”It must not be overlooked, however, that on extraordinary occasions, when his hatred of the Papacy was more than usually strong or when troubles pressed, his prayer was apt to assume strange forms. His abomination for the Pope found vent, as he repeatedly tells us, in his maledictory Paternoster.[924]When in great fear and anxiety concerning Melanchthon, who lay sick at Weimar, he, to use his own quaint phraseology, “threw down his tools before our God,” to compel Him, as it were, to render assistance. Another such attempt to do violence to God is the purport of a prayer uttered in dejection during his stay in the fortress of Coburg, which Veit Dietrich, who overheard it, gives us in what he states were Luther’s own words: “I know that Thou art Our God and Father; hence I am certain Thou wilt put to shame all those who persecute Thy children. Shouldst Thou not do so, there will be as much danger for Thee as for us. This is Thy cause, and we only took it up because we knew Thou wouldst defend it,” etc.[925]This intimate friend of Luther’s alsotells us, that, in those anxious days, Luther’s conversations concerning God and his hopes for the future bore an even deeper stamp than usual of sincerity and depth of feeling. Dietrich was one of Luther’s most passionately devoted pupils.“Ah, prayer can do much,” such are Luther’s words in one of the numerous passages of the Table-Talk, where he recommends its use. “By prayer many are saved, even now, just as we ourselves prayed Philip back to life.”[926]“It is impossible,” he says, “that God should not answer the prayer of faith; that He does not always do so is another matter. God does not give according to a prescribed measure, but heaped up and shaken down, as He says.... Hence James says (v. 16): ‘Pray one for another,’ etc. ‘The continual prayer of a just man availeth much.’ That is one of the best verses in his Epistle. Prayer is a powerful thing.”[927]Anyone who has followed Luther’s development and understands his character will know where to find the key to these remarkable, and at first sight puzzling, declarations of trust in God and zeal in prayer.When once the herald of the new religion had contrived to persuade himself of his Divine call, such blindly confident prayer and trust in God no longer involve anything wonderful. His utterances, undoubtedly, have a good side, for instance, his frank admission of his weakness, of his want of virtue and of the parlous condition of his cause, should God forsake it. All his difficulties he casts into the lap of the Almighty and of Christ, in the true Divine sonship of whom he declares he believes firmly. It must, however, strike anyone who examines his prayers that he never once expresses the idea which should accompany all true prayer, viz. resignation into the hands of God and entire willingness to follow Him, to go forward, or turn back whithersoever God wills; never do we find him imploring light so as to know whether the course he is pursuing and the work he has undertaken is indeed right and pleasing to God. On the contrary, in his prayers, in his thoughts and amidst all his inner conflicts, he resolutely sets aside as out of the question any idea of changing the religious attitude he has once assumed.[928]All his striving is directed towards this one end, viz. that God will vouchsafe to further his cause and grant him victory. He, as it were, foists his cause on Heaven.Hence there is lacking a property imperatively demanded by prayer, viz. that holy indifference and readiness to serve God in the way pleasing to Him to which the Psalmist alludes when he says: “Teach me to do Thy Will, O Lord.”The dominating idea which both animates his confidence and gives it its peculiar stamp, also furnishes him with a sword against the Papacy, with which he lays about him all the more vigorously the more fervently he prays. In praying he blows into a flame his hatred of all who stand up for the ancient Church; in his prayers he seems to find all the monstrous accusations he intends to hurl against her. Yet he himself elsewhere reminds his hearers, that, as a preparation for prayer, they must put away all bad feeling, since our Lord warns the man who is at variance with his brother first to be reconciled to him before coming with his offering. Luther also impresses on the monks and clergy that they must not pray for what is displeasing to God ... for instance, for strength to fulfil their obligation of celibacy or their vows.—Might they not justly have retorted that he, too, should not insist so blindly that God should establish his work? And might not the fanatics and Anabaptists have urged atu quoqueagainst him when he accused them of spiritual pride and blind presumption because of their fervent prayers?We shall not go out of our way to repeat again what we have already said of his pseudo-mysticism. But in order to understand rightly Luther’s prayers and trustfulness, so frequently reminiscent of the best men of the Catholic past, it is necessary to bear in mind his peculiar mystic leanings.Other Personal Traits. His Family Life.Luther was able to combine in a remarkable manner his pseudo-mysticism with practical and sober common sense.Where it is not a question of his Divine mission, of the rights of the new Evangel or of politics—of which by nature he was unfitted to judge—we usually find him eminently practical in his views. His intercourse with others was characterised by simplicity and directness, and the tone of his conversation was both vigorous and original. It was most fortunate for him that his practical insight into things so soon enabled him to detect the exaggeration and peril ofthe movement set on foot by the fanatics. Had he been as incautious as they, the State authorities would soon have crushed his plans. This he clearly perceived from the very outset of the movement. Something similar, though on a smaller scale, happened later in the case of the Antinomians. Luther was opposed to such extravagance, and, when friendly admonition proved of no avail, was perfectly ready to resort to force. Whether, from his own standpoint, he was in a position to set matters straight in the case of either of the two movements is another question; the truth is that his standpoint had suspiciously much in common with both. At any rate his encounter with the fanatics taught him to lay much less stress than formerly on the “Spirit,” and to insist more on the outward Word and the preaching of the “Evangel.”It must also be noted, that, though accustomed to go forward bravely and beat down all difficulties by main strength, yet in many instances he was quite open to accommodate himself to circumstances, and to yield in the interests of his cause, displaying likewise considerable ingenuity in the choice of the means to be employed. We have already had occasion more than once to see that he was by no means deficient in the wisdom of the serpent. He knew how to give favourably disposed Princes astute advice, particularly as to how they might best encourage and promote the new Church system. To settle their quarrels and to restore concord among them he had recourse sometimes to fiery and even gross language, sometimes to more diplomatic measures. When the Elector and the Duke of Saxony became estranged by the Wurzen quarrel Luther frankly advised the former to give way, and jestingly added that sometimes there might be good reason to “light a couple of tapers at the devil’s altar.”He did not, however, possess any talent as an organiser and was, generally speaking, a very imperfect judge of the social conditions of his time. (See vol. vi., xxxv.)Heinrich Böhmer remarks justly: “Luther was no organiser. Not that he was devoid of interest in or comprehension for the practical needs of life. He was neither a secluded scholar nor a stiff-necked pedant.... His practical vein, though strong enough to enable him readily to detect the weak spot in the proposals and creations ofothers, was, however, not equal to any independent, creative and efficient action. However bold, energetic and original as a thinker and writer, as an organiser he was clumsy, diffident and poor in ideas. In this domain he is entirely lacking in initiative, decision and, above all, in any theory he could call his own.” “His regulations for public worship are no new creation but, more often than not, merely the old, Catholic ones, reduced and arranged to meet the needs of the evangelical congregation.... Where he is original he not seldom ceases to be practical. For instance, his extraordinary proposal that the Latin service should be retained for the benefit and edification of those familiar with the language, and his regret that it was no longer possible to arrange a service in Greek or Hebrew, can scarcely be characterised as anything but a professor’s whim.”[929]His domestic life, owing to the simplicity, frugality and industry which reigned there, presents the picture of an unpretentious family home.[930]With Catherine Bora and the children she bore him, heled—apart from the disturbances arising from his outward controversies and inward combats—a regular life conducive to his labours. His relations with his life’s partner, who was absorbed in the management of the little household, were, so it would appear, never seriously disturbed; he was as devoted to her as she was to him, striving as she did to serve him and to lighten his cares. As to her failings, viz. a certain haughtiness and masterfulness, he winked at them.In his will dated Jan. 6, 1542, he gives, as follows, his reason for leaving everything to his “beloved and faithful wife Catherine”: “I do this first because she, as a pious, faithful and honourable wife, has always held me dear and in honour and, by God’s blessing, bore me and brought up five children, who are still alive and whom may God long preserve.”[931]Incidentally he praises her complacency and says that she had served him not only like a wife but like a maid. It is true, however, he says elsewhere: “Had I to marry another, I should hew myself an obedient wife out of stone, for I despair of any woman’s obedience.”[932]His last letters to Bora attest great mutual confidence, even though he does just hint in his usual joking way at their common faults: “I think, that, had you been here, you would also have advised us to do this, so that then for once we should have followed your advice.” “To my well-beloved housewife Catherine Lutheress, Doctoress, Zulsdorferess, pork-butcheress and whatever else she may be. Grace to you and peace in Christ and my poor old love.... I commend to God’s keeping you and all the household; greet all the guests. [Signed] M. L., your old sweetheart.” Writing to his wife who was so anxious about him, he says: “You want to undertake the care of your God just as though He were not almighty and able to create ten Dr. Martins.... Let Master Philip read this letter, for I have not had time to write to him; console yourself with this, that I would be with you were I able, as you know, and as he perhaps also knows from experience with his own wife, and understands it all perfectly.” “We are very grateful to you for your great anxiety that prevents you from sleeping.... Do you pray and leave the rest to God. It is written: ‘Cast thy care upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee’ (Psalm lv.).”[933]His humour helped to tide him over any minor annoyances for which Catherine and the inmates of his house were responsible. He preferred to oppose the shield of jest to Catherine’s obstinacy, to her feminine desire to interfere in business that was not hers, as well as to her jealous rule in matters pertaining to the management of the household. When in his letters he addressesher as “Lord Katey,” and so forth, his object was to reprove her gently for that imperiousness under which he himself had sometimes to smart. We learn from outside sources that her interference was particularly troublesome to others at the time of Luther’s conflict with the lawyers on the validity of clandestine marriages, when his wife’s friendly interest in certain couples concerned displayed itself in loud and over-zealous advocacy of Luther’s view of the question. It was then that Cruciger, the Wittenberg theologian, described her as the “firebrand in Luther’s house.”[934]He was not merely unable to accustom himself to the humdrum occupations connected with household management, but the annoyance it entailed was so repugnant to him that in 1538 he dissuaded a preacher who wished to marry a second time, telling him that “the management of a family is in our day the most troublesome thing on earth, so that, knowing the wickedness of the world, were I a young man I would rather die than again become a married man, even though, after my Katey, a queen were offered me in marriage.”[935]Evidently he must have found something to regret.Both took their share in the troublesome and unpretentious work of educating and instructing the children. Luther rightly extols such labours as great and meritorious in God’s sight, just as he frequently describes the seemingly lowly callings, which, in the eyes of the world, are of no account, e.g. marriage, as ennobled by God when performed by pious Christians in accordance with His Will and to the benefit of body and soul. (Above, p. 142 f.)By means of a fairly well-ordered division of the day he found time, in the intervals of the demands made by his domestic duties, to devote long hours to the multifarious and exhausting labours of which we know something. Self-denial in the interests of the cause he had espoused, renunciation of ease and enjoyment so as better to serve an end for which he was impassioned, disregard even of the pressing claims of health—all this is not easily to be matched in any other writer of eminence and talent occupying so historic a position in public life. Luther, plagued as he was by extraneous difficulties, with his professorship, his pulpit and his care for souls, seemed to revolve the wheel of time. Without unheard-of energy and a fiery, overmasteringenthusiasm for the cause his achievements would indeed be incomprehensible.The Catholic, however, when contemplating these traits so far as they redound to Luther’s credit must deeply regret, that such energy was not employed in a well-ordered amelioration of the ecclesiastical system on the basis of the true Christian doctrine and in harmony with the authority divinely appointed. If he considers these favourable sides of Luther’s character with befitting broad-mindedness, his grief can only deepen at the action, characterised by such perversity and contradiction, by which Luther sought utterly to destroy the existing Church and her faith as revealed and handed down.

Mathesius, one of his busier pupils, declares: “The man was full of grace and the Holy Ghost. Hence all who sought counsel from him as a prophet of God, found what they desired.”[893]Often, he remarks, difficult questions from Scripture were submitted to him (in conversation at table) which he answered both plainly and concisely. And if anyone contradicted him he took no offence but skilfully put his gainsayer in the wrong. The Doctor knew so well how to bring in his stories and sayings and apply them at the proper juncture that it was a real pleasure and comfort to listen to him.[894]“Amongst his other great virtues he was very easily contented, and also extremely kind.”[895]

Spangenberg, Aurifaber, Cordatus and other pupils were, so to speak, quite under his spell. Hieronymus Weller, whom Luther frequently sought to encourage in his fits of depression, remarked indeed on one occasion that the difference in age, and his reverence for Luther, prevented him from speaking and chatting as confidentially as he would have liked with the great man.[896]On the other hand, the Humanist, Peter Mosellanus, who was at one time much attached to him and never altogether abandoned his cause, says: “In daily life and in his intercourse with others he is polite and friendly; there is nothing stoical or proud about him; he is affable to everyone. In company he converses cheerfully and pleasantly, is lively and gay, always looks merry, cheerful and amiable however hard pressed by his opponents, so that one may well believe he does not act in such weighty matters without God’s assistance.”[897]

Melanchthon, particularly in his early days, as our readers already know, expressed great reverence and devotion for Luther. “You know,” he wrote to Spalatin during his friend’s stay at the Wartburg, “how carefully we must guard this earthen vessel which contains so great a treasure.... The earth holds nothing more divine than him.”[898]After Luther’s death, in spite of the previous misunderstandings, he said of him in a panegyric addressed to the students: “Alas, the chariot of Israel and the horseman thereof, who ruled the Church in these latter years of her existence, has departed.”[899]

Luther was often to prove that the strong impression made by his personality was alone able to gain the day incases of difficulty, to break down opposition and to ensure the successful carrying out of hardy plans. Seldom indeed did those about him offer any objection, for he possessed that gift, so frequently observed in men of strong character, of exercising, in every matter great or small, a kind of suggestive influence over those who approached him. He possessed an inner, unseen power which seemed to triumph over all, ... even over the claims of truthfulness and logic;[900]besides this, he was gifted with an imposing presence and an uncanny glance. He was by no means curt in his answers, but spoke freely to everyone in a manner calculated to awaken the confidence and unlock the hearts of his hearers. Of his talkativeness he himself once said: “I don’t believe the Emperor [Charles V.] says so much in a year as I do in a day.”[901]

His “disinterestedness which led him to care but little about money and worldly goods”[902]increased the respect felt for him and his work. So little did he care about heaping up riches, that, when scolding the Wittenbergers on account of their avarice, he could say that “though poor, he found more pleasure in what was given him for his needs than the rich and opulent amongst them did in their own possessions.”[903]So entirely was he absorbed in his public controversy that he paid too little attention to his own requirements, particularly in his bachelor days; he even relates how, before he took a wife, he had for a whole year not made his bed, or had it made for him, so that his sweat caused it to rot. “I was so weary, overworked all the day, that I threw myself on the bed and knew nothing about it.”[904]He was never used to excessive comfort or to indulgence in the finer pleasures of the table. In every respect, in conversation and intercourse with others and in domestic life, he was a lover of simplicity. In this he was ever anxious to set a good example to his fellow-workers.

Although he frequently accepted with gratitude presentsfrom the great, yet on occasion he was not above cautioning givers of the danger such gifts involved, when the “eyes of the whole world are upon us.”[905]In 1542, when there was a prospect of his receiving from his friend Amsdorf, the new “bishop” of Naumburg, presents out of the estates of the bishopric, he twice wrote to him to refrain from sending him anything, even a single hare, because “our courtly centaurs [the selfish and rapacious nobles] must be given no pretext for venting their glowing hate against us on the trumped-up charge that we were desirous of securing gain through you.” “They have gulped down everything without compunction, but still would blame us were we to accept a paltry gift of game. Let them feed in God’s or another’s [the devil’s] name, so long as we are not accused of greed.”[906]Döllinger speaks of Luther as “a sympathetic friend, devoid of avarice and greed of money, and a willing helper of others.”[907]

He was always ready to assist the poor with open-handed and kindly liberality, and his friends especially, when in trouble or distress, could reckon on his charity.

When his own means were insufficient he sought by word of mouth or by letter to enlist the sympathy of others, of friends in the town, or even of the Elector himself, in the cause of the indigent. On more than one occasion his good nature was unfairly taken advantage of. This, however, did not prevent his pleading for the poor who flocked to Wittenberg from all quarters and were wont to address themselves to him. Thus, for instance, in 1539 we have a note in which he appealed to certain “dear gentlemen” to save a “pious and scholarly youth” from the “pangs of hunger” by furnishing him with 30 Gulden; he himself was no longer able to afford the gifts he had daily to bestow, though he would be willing, in case of necessity, to contribute half the sum.[908]

Many of the feeble and oppressed experienced his help in the law. He reminds the lawyers how hard it is for the poor to comply with the legal formalities necessary for their protection. On one occasion, when it was a question of the defence of a poor woman, he says: “You know Dr. Martin is not only a theologian and the champion of thefaith, but also an advocate of the poor, who troop to him from every place and corner and demand his aid and his intercession with the authorities, so that he would have enough to do even if no other burden rested on his shoulders. But Dr. Martin loves to serve the poor.”[909]

In 1527, when the plague reached Wittenberg, he stayed on in the town with Bugenhagen in order at least to comfort the people by his presence. The University was transferred for the time being to Jena (and then to Schlieben) and the Elector accordingly urged him to migrate to Jena with his wife and family. Luther however insisted on remaining, above all on account of the urgent need of setting an example to his preachers, who were too much preoccupied with the safety of their own families. It was then that he wrote the tract “Ob man fur dem Sterben fliehen muge” (Whether one may flee from death), answering the question in the negative so far as the ministers were concerned. In such dire trouble the flock were more than ever in need of spiritual help; the preachers were to exhort the people to learn diligently from the Word of God how to live and how to die, also, by Confession, reception of the Supper, reconciliation with their neighbours, etc., to “prepare themselves in advance should the Lord knock speedily.”[910]He displayed the same courage during the epidemic of the so-called “English sweat,” a fever which, in 1529, broke out at Wittenberg, and in other German towns, and carried off many victims. Again in 1538 and in 1539 he braved new outbreaks of the plague at Wittenberg. His wish was, that, in such cases, one or two preachers should be specially appointed to look after those stricken with the malady. “Should the lot fall on me,” he says in 1542, “I should not be afraid. I have now been through three pestilences and mixed with some who suffered from it ... and am none the worse.”[911]“God usually protects the ministers of HisWord,” he writes in 1538, “if one does not run in and out of the inns and lie in the beds; confessions there is no need to hear, for we bring the Word of Life.”[912]The fact that he could boast of having braved the plague and remained at his post naturally tended to increase his influence with his congregation.[913]

He had passed through a severe mental struggle previous to the epidemic of 1529. Only by dint of despairing efforts was he able to overcome his terrors of conscience concerning his doctrine and his own personal salvation. This inner combat so hardened him that he was fearless where others were terrified and fled. Of his own qualms of conscience he wrote to a friend in April, 1529: If it be an apostolic gift to fight with devils and to lie frequently at the point of death, then he was indeed in this a very Peter or Paul, however much he might lack the other apostolic characters.[914]Here we have the idea of his Divine calling, always most to the front in times of danger, which both strengthens him and enables him to inspire others with a little of his own confidence. “I and Bugenhagen alone remain here,” he wrote during the days of the plague, “but we are not alone, for Christ is with us and will triumph in us and shelter us from Satan, as we hope and trust.”[915]

We already are acquainted with some of his admissions of his own weakness and acknowledgments of the greater gifts and achievements of others—confessions which have been extolled as a proof of his real humility.

“I have no such foolish humility,” so he says, “as to wish to deny the gifts God has bestowed on me. In myself I have indeed enough and more than enough to humble me and teach me that I am nothing. In God, however, we may well pride ourselves, and rejoice and glory in His gifts and extol them, as I myself do on account of my German Psalter; for I studied the Psalter, thanks be to God, with great fruit; but all to the honour and glory of God to Whom be praise for ever and ever.” This he wrote to Eobanus Hessus, the poet, in a high-flown letter thanking him for translating the German Psalter into excellent Latin.[916]Of his own virtues or sinfulness he preferred to speak humorously, as his manner was. Thus, he says, for instance, in 1526, in his suppressed “Widder den Radschlag der Meintzischen Pfafferey,” that “he had not defiled any man’s wife or child,” “had not robbed anyone of his goods ... nor murdered or assaulted anyone or given help or counsel thereto”; his sin consisted in “not pulling a long face but in insisting on being merry”; also in eating meat on forbidden days. People might defame his life, but he was not going to heed “the dirty hogsnouts.”[917]

His statements belittling his own powers and achievements, coming from a man whose apparently overmastering self-confidence had, from the beginning, prepossessed so many of his followers in his favour, afford a subject for psychological study. He seems the more ready to give full play to his confidence the more he feels his weakness face to face with the menace of danger, and the more he experiences in the depths of his soul the raging of doubts which he attributes to the devil.

In the humble admissions he makes he never conceals how much he stands in need of assistance. He does not hide from himself the fact that he dreads outward troubles, and is deficient in strong and exalted virtue. But side by side with his faults, he is fond of gazing on and extolling God’s gifts in his person. His peculiar form of humility, his prayer and his trust in God find expression in certain utterances and experiences, on which no judgment can be passed until we have before us a larger selection of them, particularly of such as seem to be less premeditated.

Luther’s strangely undaunted confidence and the personal nature of his reliance on God’s help form part of his mental physiognomy.

He sees around him much distress and corruption and exclaims: “Alas, we are living outwardly under the empire of the devil, hence we can neither see nor hear anything good from without.” And yet, he proceeds in his usual forced tone, “inwardly we are living in the kingdom of Christ, where we behold God’s glory and His grace! For of Christ it is said: ‘Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies.’” “Hatred is our reward in this world.” “Our reward is excessive considering the insignificance of the service we render Christ. But what is the world, its anger, or its prince? A smoke that vanishes, a bubble that bursts, such is everything that is opposed to the Lord Whom we serve and Who works in us.” With these words, so expressive of his determination, he directs his trusted pupil, Conrad Cordatus, to enter courageously upon the office of preacher at Stendal in the March.[918]Again and again he seeks to reanimate his faith and confidence by calling to mind not merely God’s faithfulness to His promises, but also his own personal “sufferings” and “temptations,” the only escape from which, as he believed, lay in the most obstinate and presumptuous belief in his cause, and in the conviction that God was constantly intervening in his favour.“Not only from Holy Scripture,” he said in a conversation in 1540, “but also from my violent inner combats and temptations have I learnt that Christ is God incarnate, and that there is a Trinity. I now know it even better from experience than by faith that these articles are true. For in our greatest temptations nothing can help us but the assurance that Christ became man and is now our intercessor at the right hand of the Father. There is nothing that excites our confidence to such a degree.... God, too, has championed this article from the beginning of the world against countless heretics, and even to-day defends it against Turk and Pope; He incessantly confirms it by miracles and permits us to call His Son, the Son of God and true God, and grants all that we ask in Christ’s name. For what else has saved us even till the present day in so many perils but prayer to Christ? Whoever says it is Master Philip’s and my doing, lies. It is God Who does it for Christ’s sake.... Therefore we hold fast to these articles in spite of the objections of reason. They have remained and will continue.”[919]

Again and again he seeks to reanimate his faith and confidence by calling to mind not merely God’s faithfulness to His promises, but also his own personal “sufferings” and “temptations,” the only escape from which, as he believed, lay in the most obstinate and presumptuous belief in his cause, and in the conviction that God was constantly intervening in his favour.

“Not only from Holy Scripture,” he said in a conversation in 1540, “but also from my violent inner combats and temptations have I learnt that Christ is God incarnate, and that there is a Trinity. I now know it even better from experience than by faith that these articles are true. For in our greatest temptations nothing can help us but the assurance that Christ became man and is now our intercessor at the right hand of the Father. There is nothing that excites our confidence to such a degree.... God, too, has championed this article from the beginning of the world against countless heretics, and even to-day defends it against Turk and Pope; He incessantly confirms it by miracles and permits us to call His Son, the Son of God and true God, and grants all that we ask in Christ’s name. For what else has saved us even till the present day in so many perils but prayer to Christ? Whoever says it is Master Philip’s and my doing, lies. It is God Who does it for Christ’s sake.... Therefore we hold fast to these articles in spite of the objections of reason. They have remained and will continue.”[919]

Luther often had recourse to prayer, especially when he found himself in difficulty, or in an awkward situation from which he could see no escape; in his letters he also as a rule asks for prayers for himself and for the common cause of the new Evangel. It is impossible to take such requests as a mere formality; his way of making them is usually so full of feeling that they must have been meant in earnest.

In 1534 he wrote a special instruction for the simple andunlearned on the way to pray.[920]Many parts of this booklet recall the teaching of the great masters of prayer, though unfortunately it is imbued with his peculiar tenets.

He urges people to pray fervently against “the idolatry of the Turk, of the Pope, of all false teachers and devil’s snares”; he also mocks at the prayers of the “parsons and monks,”[921]unable to refrain from his bitter polemics even in an otherwise edifying work. Yet the body of the booklet teaches quite accurately, in a fashion recalling the directions given by St. Ignatius, how the Our Father and other daily prayers may be devoutly recited, with pauses after the various petitions or words, so as to form a sort of meditation. He himself, so he assures his readers, was in the habit of “sucking” in this way at the Paternoster, and was also fond of occupying himself with a similar prayerful analysis of the Psalter.His regular daily prayer he says elsewhere was the Our Father, the Creed and the other usual formulas.[922]“I have daily to do violence to myself in order to pray,” he remarked to his friends, “and I am satisfied to repeat when I go to bed the Ten Commandments, the Our Father and then a verse or two; thinking over them I fall asleep.”[923]“The Our Father is my prayer, I pray this and sometimes intermingle with it something from the Psalms, so as to put to shame the vain scoffers and false teachers.”It must not be overlooked, however, that on extraordinary occasions, when his hatred of the Papacy was more than usually strong or when troubles pressed, his prayer was apt to assume strange forms. His abomination for the Pope found vent, as he repeatedly tells us, in his maledictory Paternoster.[924]When in great fear and anxiety concerning Melanchthon, who lay sick at Weimar, he, to use his own quaint phraseology, “threw down his tools before our God,” to compel Him, as it were, to render assistance. Another such attempt to do violence to God is the purport of a prayer uttered in dejection during his stay in the fortress of Coburg, which Veit Dietrich, who overheard it, gives us in what he states were Luther’s own words: “I know that Thou art Our God and Father; hence I am certain Thou wilt put to shame all those who persecute Thy children. Shouldst Thou not do so, there will be as much danger for Thee as for us. This is Thy cause, and we only took it up because we knew Thou wouldst defend it,” etc.[925]This intimate friend of Luther’s alsotells us, that, in those anxious days, Luther’s conversations concerning God and his hopes for the future bore an even deeper stamp than usual of sincerity and depth of feeling. Dietrich was one of Luther’s most passionately devoted pupils.“Ah, prayer can do much,” such are Luther’s words in one of the numerous passages of the Table-Talk, where he recommends its use. “By prayer many are saved, even now, just as we ourselves prayed Philip back to life.”[926]“It is impossible,” he says, “that God should not answer the prayer of faith; that He does not always do so is another matter. God does not give according to a prescribed measure, but heaped up and shaken down, as He says.... Hence James says (v. 16): ‘Pray one for another,’ etc. ‘The continual prayer of a just man availeth much.’ That is one of the best verses in his Epistle. Prayer is a powerful thing.”[927]

His regular daily prayer he says elsewhere was the Our Father, the Creed and the other usual formulas.[922]“I have daily to do violence to myself in order to pray,” he remarked to his friends, “and I am satisfied to repeat when I go to bed the Ten Commandments, the Our Father and then a verse or two; thinking over them I fall asleep.”[923]“The Our Father is my prayer, I pray this and sometimes intermingle with it something from the Psalms, so as to put to shame the vain scoffers and false teachers.”

It must not be overlooked, however, that on extraordinary occasions, when his hatred of the Papacy was more than usually strong or when troubles pressed, his prayer was apt to assume strange forms. His abomination for the Pope found vent, as he repeatedly tells us, in his maledictory Paternoster.[924]When in great fear and anxiety concerning Melanchthon, who lay sick at Weimar, he, to use his own quaint phraseology, “threw down his tools before our God,” to compel Him, as it were, to render assistance. Another such attempt to do violence to God is the purport of a prayer uttered in dejection during his stay in the fortress of Coburg, which Veit Dietrich, who overheard it, gives us in what he states were Luther’s own words: “I know that Thou art Our God and Father; hence I am certain Thou wilt put to shame all those who persecute Thy children. Shouldst Thou not do so, there will be as much danger for Thee as for us. This is Thy cause, and we only took it up because we knew Thou wouldst defend it,” etc.[925]This intimate friend of Luther’s alsotells us, that, in those anxious days, Luther’s conversations concerning God and his hopes for the future bore an even deeper stamp than usual of sincerity and depth of feeling. Dietrich was one of Luther’s most passionately devoted pupils.

“Ah, prayer can do much,” such are Luther’s words in one of the numerous passages of the Table-Talk, where he recommends its use. “By prayer many are saved, even now, just as we ourselves prayed Philip back to life.”[926]

“It is impossible,” he says, “that God should not answer the prayer of faith; that He does not always do so is another matter. God does not give according to a prescribed measure, but heaped up and shaken down, as He says.... Hence James says (v. 16): ‘Pray one for another,’ etc. ‘The continual prayer of a just man availeth much.’ That is one of the best verses in his Epistle. Prayer is a powerful thing.”[927]

Anyone who has followed Luther’s development and understands his character will know where to find the key to these remarkable, and at first sight puzzling, declarations of trust in God and zeal in prayer.

When once the herald of the new religion had contrived to persuade himself of his Divine call, such blindly confident prayer and trust in God no longer involve anything wonderful. His utterances, undoubtedly, have a good side, for instance, his frank admission of his weakness, of his want of virtue and of the parlous condition of his cause, should God forsake it. All his difficulties he casts into the lap of the Almighty and of Christ, in the true Divine sonship of whom he declares he believes firmly. It must, however, strike anyone who examines his prayers that he never once expresses the idea which should accompany all true prayer, viz. resignation into the hands of God and entire willingness to follow Him, to go forward, or turn back whithersoever God wills; never do we find him imploring light so as to know whether the course he is pursuing and the work he has undertaken is indeed right and pleasing to God. On the contrary, in his prayers, in his thoughts and amidst all his inner conflicts, he resolutely sets aside as out of the question any idea of changing the religious attitude he has once assumed.[928]All his striving is directed towards this one end, viz. that God will vouchsafe to further his cause and grant him victory. He, as it were, foists his cause on Heaven.Hence there is lacking a property imperatively demanded by prayer, viz. that holy indifference and readiness to serve God in the way pleasing to Him to which the Psalmist alludes when he says: “Teach me to do Thy Will, O Lord.”

The dominating idea which both animates his confidence and gives it its peculiar stamp, also furnishes him with a sword against the Papacy, with which he lays about him all the more vigorously the more fervently he prays. In praying he blows into a flame his hatred of all who stand up for the ancient Church; in his prayers he seems to find all the monstrous accusations he intends to hurl against her. Yet he himself elsewhere reminds his hearers, that, as a preparation for prayer, they must put away all bad feeling, since our Lord warns the man who is at variance with his brother first to be reconciled to him before coming with his offering. Luther also impresses on the monks and clergy that they must not pray for what is displeasing to God ... for instance, for strength to fulfil their obligation of celibacy or their vows.—Might they not justly have retorted that he, too, should not insist so blindly that God should establish his work? And might not the fanatics and Anabaptists have urged atu quoqueagainst him when he accused them of spiritual pride and blind presumption because of their fervent prayers?

We shall not go out of our way to repeat again what we have already said of his pseudo-mysticism. But in order to understand rightly Luther’s prayers and trustfulness, so frequently reminiscent of the best men of the Catholic past, it is necessary to bear in mind his peculiar mystic leanings.

Luther was able to combine in a remarkable manner his pseudo-mysticism with practical and sober common sense.

Where it is not a question of his Divine mission, of the rights of the new Evangel or of politics—of which by nature he was unfitted to judge—we usually find him eminently practical in his views. His intercourse with others was characterised by simplicity and directness, and the tone of his conversation was both vigorous and original. It was most fortunate for him that his practical insight into things so soon enabled him to detect the exaggeration and peril ofthe movement set on foot by the fanatics. Had he been as incautious as they, the State authorities would soon have crushed his plans. This he clearly perceived from the very outset of the movement. Something similar, though on a smaller scale, happened later in the case of the Antinomians. Luther was opposed to such extravagance, and, when friendly admonition proved of no avail, was perfectly ready to resort to force. Whether, from his own standpoint, he was in a position to set matters straight in the case of either of the two movements is another question; the truth is that his standpoint had suspiciously much in common with both. At any rate his encounter with the fanatics taught him to lay much less stress than formerly on the “Spirit,” and to insist more on the outward Word and the preaching of the “Evangel.”

It must also be noted, that, though accustomed to go forward bravely and beat down all difficulties by main strength, yet in many instances he was quite open to accommodate himself to circumstances, and to yield in the interests of his cause, displaying likewise considerable ingenuity in the choice of the means to be employed. We have already had occasion more than once to see that he was by no means deficient in the wisdom of the serpent. He knew how to give favourably disposed Princes astute advice, particularly as to how they might best encourage and promote the new Church system. To settle their quarrels and to restore concord among them he had recourse sometimes to fiery and even gross language, sometimes to more diplomatic measures. When the Elector and the Duke of Saxony became estranged by the Wurzen quarrel Luther frankly advised the former to give way, and jestingly added that sometimes there might be good reason to “light a couple of tapers at the devil’s altar.”

He did not, however, possess any talent as an organiser and was, generally speaking, a very imperfect judge of the social conditions of his time. (See vol. vi., xxxv.)

Heinrich Böhmer remarks justly: “Luther was no organiser. Not that he was devoid of interest in or comprehension for the practical needs of life. He was neither a secluded scholar nor a stiff-necked pedant.... His practical vein, though strong enough to enable him readily to detect the weak spot in the proposals and creations ofothers, was, however, not equal to any independent, creative and efficient action. However bold, energetic and original as a thinker and writer, as an organiser he was clumsy, diffident and poor in ideas. In this domain he is entirely lacking in initiative, decision and, above all, in any theory he could call his own.” “His regulations for public worship are no new creation but, more often than not, merely the old, Catholic ones, reduced and arranged to meet the needs of the evangelical congregation.... Where he is original he not seldom ceases to be practical. For instance, his extraordinary proposal that the Latin service should be retained for the benefit and edification of those familiar with the language, and his regret that it was no longer possible to arrange a service in Greek or Hebrew, can scarcely be characterised as anything but a professor’s whim.”[929]

His domestic life, owing to the simplicity, frugality and industry which reigned there, presents the picture of an unpretentious family home.[930]

With Catherine Bora and the children she bore him, heled—apart from the disturbances arising from his outward controversies and inward combats—a regular life conducive to his labours. His relations with his life’s partner, who was absorbed in the management of the little household, were, so it would appear, never seriously disturbed; he was as devoted to her as she was to him, striving as she did to serve him and to lighten his cares. As to her failings, viz. a certain haughtiness and masterfulness, he winked at them.

In his will dated Jan. 6, 1542, he gives, as follows, his reason for leaving everything to his “beloved and faithful wife Catherine”: “I do this first because she, as a pious, faithful and honourable wife, has always held me dear and in honour and, by God’s blessing, bore me and brought up five children, who are still alive and whom may God long preserve.”[931]Incidentally he praises her complacency and says that she had served him not only like a wife but like a maid. It is true, however, he says elsewhere: “Had I to marry another, I should hew myself an obedient wife out of stone, for I despair of any woman’s obedience.”[932]His last letters to Bora attest great mutual confidence, even though he does just hint in his usual joking way at their common faults: “I think, that, had you been here, you would also have advised us to do this, so that then for once we should have followed your advice.” “To my well-beloved housewife Catherine Lutheress, Doctoress, Zulsdorferess, pork-butcheress and whatever else she may be. Grace to you and peace in Christ and my poor old love.... I commend to God’s keeping you and all the household; greet all the guests. [Signed] M. L., your old sweetheart.” Writing to his wife who was so anxious about him, he says: “You want to undertake the care of your God just as though He were not almighty and able to create ten Dr. Martins.... Let Master Philip read this letter, for I have not had time to write to him; console yourself with this, that I would be with you were I able, as you know, and as he perhaps also knows from experience with his own wife, and understands it all perfectly.” “We are very grateful to you for your great anxiety that prevents you from sleeping.... Do you pray and leave the rest to God. It is written: ‘Cast thy care upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee’ (Psalm lv.).”[933]His humour helped to tide him over any minor annoyances for which Catherine and the inmates of his house were responsible. He preferred to oppose the shield of jest to Catherine’s obstinacy, to her feminine desire to interfere in business that was not hers, as well as to her jealous rule in matters pertaining to the management of the household. When in his letters he addressesher as “Lord Katey,” and so forth, his object was to reprove her gently for that imperiousness under which he himself had sometimes to smart. We learn from outside sources that her interference was particularly troublesome to others at the time of Luther’s conflict with the lawyers on the validity of clandestine marriages, when his wife’s friendly interest in certain couples concerned displayed itself in loud and over-zealous advocacy of Luther’s view of the question. It was then that Cruciger, the Wittenberg theologian, described her as the “firebrand in Luther’s house.”[934]He was not merely unable to accustom himself to the humdrum occupations connected with household management, but the annoyance it entailed was so repugnant to him that in 1538 he dissuaded a preacher who wished to marry a second time, telling him that “the management of a family is in our day the most troublesome thing on earth, so that, knowing the wickedness of the world, were I a young man I would rather die than again become a married man, even though, after my Katey, a queen were offered me in marriage.”[935]Evidently he must have found something to regret.

Incidentally he praises her complacency and says that she had served him not only like a wife but like a maid. It is true, however, he says elsewhere: “Had I to marry another, I should hew myself an obedient wife out of stone, for I despair of any woman’s obedience.”[932]

His last letters to Bora attest great mutual confidence, even though he does just hint in his usual joking way at their common faults: “I think, that, had you been here, you would also have advised us to do this, so that then for once we should have followed your advice.” “To my well-beloved housewife Catherine Lutheress, Doctoress, Zulsdorferess, pork-butcheress and whatever else she may be. Grace to you and peace in Christ and my poor old love.... I commend to God’s keeping you and all the household; greet all the guests. [Signed] M. L., your old sweetheart.” Writing to his wife who was so anxious about him, he says: “You want to undertake the care of your God just as though He were not almighty and able to create ten Dr. Martins.... Let Master Philip read this letter, for I have not had time to write to him; console yourself with this, that I would be with you were I able, as you know, and as he perhaps also knows from experience with his own wife, and understands it all perfectly.” “We are very grateful to you for your great anxiety that prevents you from sleeping.... Do you pray and leave the rest to God. It is written: ‘Cast thy care upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee’ (Psalm lv.).”[933]

His humour helped to tide him over any minor annoyances for which Catherine and the inmates of his house were responsible. He preferred to oppose the shield of jest to Catherine’s obstinacy, to her feminine desire to interfere in business that was not hers, as well as to her jealous rule in matters pertaining to the management of the household. When in his letters he addressesher as “Lord Katey,” and so forth, his object was to reprove her gently for that imperiousness under which he himself had sometimes to smart. We learn from outside sources that her interference was particularly troublesome to others at the time of Luther’s conflict with the lawyers on the validity of clandestine marriages, when his wife’s friendly interest in certain couples concerned displayed itself in loud and over-zealous advocacy of Luther’s view of the question. It was then that Cruciger, the Wittenberg theologian, described her as the “firebrand in Luther’s house.”[934]

He was not merely unable to accustom himself to the humdrum occupations connected with household management, but the annoyance it entailed was so repugnant to him that in 1538 he dissuaded a preacher who wished to marry a second time, telling him that “the management of a family is in our day the most troublesome thing on earth, so that, knowing the wickedness of the world, were I a young man I would rather die than again become a married man, even though, after my Katey, a queen were offered me in marriage.”[935]Evidently he must have found something to regret.

Both took their share in the troublesome and unpretentious work of educating and instructing the children. Luther rightly extols such labours as great and meritorious in God’s sight, just as he frequently describes the seemingly lowly callings, which, in the eyes of the world, are of no account, e.g. marriage, as ennobled by God when performed by pious Christians in accordance with His Will and to the benefit of body and soul. (Above, p. 142 f.)

By means of a fairly well-ordered division of the day he found time, in the intervals of the demands made by his domestic duties, to devote long hours to the multifarious and exhausting labours of which we know something. Self-denial in the interests of the cause he had espoused, renunciation of ease and enjoyment so as better to serve an end for which he was impassioned, disregard even of the pressing claims of health—all this is not easily to be matched in any other writer of eminence and talent occupying so historic a position in public life. Luther, plagued as he was by extraneous difficulties, with his professorship, his pulpit and his care for souls, seemed to revolve the wheel of time. Without unheard-of energy and a fiery, overmasteringenthusiasm for the cause his achievements would indeed be incomprehensible.

The Catholic, however, when contemplating these traits so far as they redound to Luther’s credit must deeply regret, that such energy was not employed in a well-ordered amelioration of the ecclesiastical system on the basis of the true Christian doctrine and in harmony with the authority divinely appointed. If he considers these favourable sides of Luther’s character with befitting broad-mindedness, his grief can only deepen at the action, characterised by such perversity and contradiction, by which Luther sought utterly to destroy the existing Church and her faith as revealed and handed down.

Back to Index Next