THE LIFE AND TIMES assiduous cultivation of the arts, "whicli he alternated with the study of logic and the law, j)resented no indication that he was so soon to play the chief part in contemporaneous religious history.
Yarious traditions moreover would lead us to believe that, notAvithstanding his application and his high moral character, he took his share in the amusements of German student life at that period^'—that gayety in indigence, those boisterous, hearty manners, that martial exterior, with a gentle spirit and peaceful disposition within.
Yet despite his enjoyment of those frolics which seem in all countries to be inseparably connected with university life, Luther still managed to spend a large portion of his leisure time in the alcoves of the Erfurth library.
Passionately fond of books, he never tired of taking from the shelves the musty old volumes of half-forgotten lore, whose j)ages he scanned with hearty zest.
One day—he was then in his twentieth year, and had been at the university two years—while engaged as usual in glancing over the library manuscripts, he chanced to open an old volume, mouldy and cobwebbed.
Attracted by its antique aspect, Luther read its title, and found it to be a Latin Bible, the first he had ever seen.f This he read and reread with inexpressible and never-ceasing delight, mingled with some astonishment, for until then he had imagined that the fragments of Scrip- * Michek't's Life of Lutlier.
Auclin, Michelet, IMilncr, Mosliciin, Mainibourg, Scckcuclorf. tiire contained in the various collects of the Koman ritual embraced the whole word of God.
Thus in an obscure corner of a neglected library, locked up in the Latin text, was discovered to Martin Luther that book which he was so instrumental in restoring to its pristine dignity, purity, and authority, and which he did so much to popularize by that admirable German translation in which his countrymen still read the oracles of God.
Luther was particularly charmed by the story of Hannah and her son Samuel.
" O God," he murmured, " could I have one of these books, I would ask no other worldl}' treasure." A great revolution then took place in his soul.
Human words clothed in poetry, however noble, seemed to him worthless and tame in comparison with the inspired word.
Distressed in his mind, experiencing a greater distaste than ever for the law, and worn by study, he fell ill.
^Driest came to confess him.
The patient was pale, and gave way to a depression which aggravated his sufferings.
" Come, my son," said the good confessor to him, "courage, courage; you will not die of this sickness.
God has a great destiny in store for you; he will make a man of you, and you will live to console others in your turn ; for God loves those whom he chastens."*
In 1505, some time after his discovery of the Latin Bible, two incidents occurred which still further changed the current of Luther's thought, and drove him to new-model the plan of his life.
' Histoire de Luther. "
The assassination of one of his intimate college fi'iends caused him much sorrow, which was suddenly increased to an agony by the self-put inquiry,
"What if I should be called thus unexpectedly away?"
This question, echoing and reechoing in his ears, gave him no peace.
The phantom of that thought he could not lay.
Shortly afterwards, while walking near Erfurth, he was overtaken by a terrific thunder-storm.
The diapason of the elemental cannonade smote with crushing force upon his shrinking senses.
The forked tongue of the lightning greedily hcked the ground all about him.
He seemed encompassed by the ghastly flames.
The clammy fingers of death appeared to be tugging at his throat.
Delirious with horror, the poor student fell prostrate to the ground, breathing a voav to heaven, that if he survived the perils of that awful hour, he would dedicate himself to God's service, and entering some monastic order, assume the cowl, the sandals, and the cord.'"'
Luther has himself informed us that it was not deliberately, or even willingly, that he became a monk.
" Being suddenly encompassed by the terrors of death," he says, "I made a reluctant and forced vow."
Nevertheless the conscientious student regarded this oath, wrung fi'om him in a kind * These incidents are narrated at leugtli, and voiiclied for by all
Luther's biographers—D'Aubigue, Audin, MioheMt, Morcri, Du Pin, and tho rest. of duress, as morally binding, and therefore lie determined to adhere to it.
. Knowing well the bitter opposition which his new project would meet from his relatiyes, and particularly from his father, whose heart he well knew to be bound up in beholding his son one day a famous lawyer, and feeling that in this matter no amount of expostulation could move him from his course, Luther determined, by keeping his purpose locked in his OAvn breast until his actions had discovered it and rendered it unchangeable, to forestall the entreaties of his friends.
Accordingly on the evening of the 17th of July, 1505,^'' summoning a number of his most intimate university associates to meet in his room, he passed with them a pleasant musical and convivial night; then bidding his fiiends and the vrorld adieu, he entered on the following morning the Augustine monastery at Erfurth.
Taking wdth him nothing to remind him of his former life but two favorite volumes, a Plautus and a Virgil, cut off from his studies and his friends, young Luther buried himself in the living sepulchre of the cloister, not to acquire the reputation of a great genius, but to seek food for his piety.f
D'Aubigne says it M'as the 17tli of August, 1505. t Melancthou's " Vita Lutheri."
Now, just as Martin Luther's connection with the church commences through his entrance into the cloister, it becomes of interest to learn something of" the ecclesiastical condition of Europe at the period which immediately preceded the Reformation.
The Eoman see, originally a simple bishopric, which had ris,en from the despised church planted by St. Paul beneath the shadow of the throne of the Ca3sars, under the sway of a series of unscrupulous, able, and ambitious prelates, had gradually, in the lapse of ages, arrogated to itseK the supreme ecclesiastical control.
Receiving fi-om the neighboring princes a yoluntary recognition of their claims to spiritual authority, it was not long ere the new-born hierarchy of the church began to cast longing eyes uj)on temporal superiority.
In those rude and stormy times, princes were often shaken from their thrones, either by the onset of the Saracens, or by internecine broils.
They were in consequence obliged to have recourse to some central power for protection and support.
Eome offered to princes so situated her active countenance, on condition that they would concede to her both spii'itual and temporal supremacy.
Too often their straits compelled them to comply with this requisition.
It was no uncommon thing for the early European or MAETIN LUTHEE. sovei'eigns to sign away one-half tlieir domains, and pay their allegiance to Rome for the whole, on condition of their partial reinstatement into their rights in the remaining half of tlieir territory.
Koman see thus became the usurer of the nations.
It gradually hardened into a gigantic Forgetfal of its design, it became greedy only to swallow the usurped dominions of its neighbors
; and the atrocious sf)ectacle was presented of a church planted to garner up souls for the heavenly kingdom, anxious mainly to acquire the temporal possession and enjoy the emoluments of this world.
In this encroachment of the Roman church the western bishops acquiesced, partly perhaps from jealousy of their eastern brethren, and partly because they preferred to submit to the supremacy of a pope, rather than to bow in submission to the dominion of an independent temporal power.
Thus the living church retired into the lonely sanctuary of a few true hearts, and an external chiu'ch, abounding in pompous forms, and inflated with earthly pride, at length supplanted it, and impiously declared itself to be of divine appointment.
Under a succession of ambitious churchmen, the Benedicts, Hildebrands, and Gregorys of ecclesiastical history, this usurped power was consohdated and increased until, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, the Roman pontiffs were the acknowledged and undisputed arbiters of Of course it was not possible but tliat terrible abuses and corruptions should disfigure and disgrace an ecclesiasticism whicli had departed so radically from the original and simple purpose of its institution.
In 1505, at the time when Luther entered the cloister, the religious condition of Europe was singularly wretched and scandalous
; yet not a ripple of rebuke stirred the placid sea of jiapal corruption.
Against the flagitious and abounding profligacy of the times no voice dared protest.
Over the minds of the few earnest and sincere ecclesiastics who still lingered in the cloisters there settled a sullen gloom.
The ponderous and merciless machinery of the Koman hierarchy clanked unquestioned, and without a hitch.
The so-called heresy of the Waldenses, who had attemj)ted to inaugurate a purer regime, had been choked in blood.
The Council of Constance had recently burned John Huss in the public market-]5lace, because he ventured to differ from the Roman theologians; while the doctors of the Sorbonne openly declared the faggot and the stake to be the only light fit to guide the erring.
The agents of the Inquisition occupied themselves in suppressing all books which did not bear the imprimatur of the Yatican; thus wronging not the living only, but the dead; for "many a man," says Milton,
"lives a burden to the earth, but a good book is the precious lifeblood of a masterspirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life be^-ond life."
Effeminate philosophers stooped to the grave discussion of the emptiest and most frivolous propositions, growing heated over such topics as these
" Do 2 X 2= 4 or 5 '?" and, " Can angels fly from end to end without passing through the middle ?"^"
Struggling intellects and troubled hearts could expect but little aid or sympathy from the childish and emasculated philosophy inculcated by these bastard teachers.
" Science," said Lord Bacon, "was chained in that dark dungeon to which the ignorance or the spite of suspicious priests had co.^gigued her, while as yet no knight-errant had appeared to effect her deliverance."t
At this period not the slightest cultivation of Christian metaphysics was even attempted.
Frederic Myconius, an able coadjutor of Luther, who has left a manuscript history of the Reformation, paints this dreary picture of the ecclesiastical condition of that epoch
" The sufferings and merits of Christ were looked upon as an idle tale, or as mere fictions, like the There was no thought of the faith by which we become partakers of the Saviour's righteousness and of the heritage of eternal life.
Christ was looked upon as a severe Judge, prepared to condemn all who should not have recourse to the intercession of the saints, or to the paj^al indulgences.
Li the place of Christ appeared other saviors and intercessors, the Virgin Mary like atPagau * Seckendurfs History of Lutherauism.
Diana, and various saints who from time to lime had been created by the popes.
" These mediators granted their intercessions only to such applicants as had deserved well of the orders founded by them.
For this it w^as necessary to do, not what God has prescribed in the decalogue and enjoined on all mankind, but to perform works invented by monks and priests, and which brought money into the treasury.
These works were Ave Marias, the prayers of ; they must chant and cry night and day.
" There were as many resorts for pilgrims as there were mountains, forests, and valley's.
But these penances might be compounded for money.
The people therefore brought to the convents and to the priests money and every thing that had any value—fowls, ducks, geese, eggs, wax, straw, butter, and cheese.
Then the hymns resounded, the bells rang, incense filled the sanctuary, sacrifices were ofi'ered up, the larders overflowed, the glasses went round, and masses terminated and concealed these pious orgies.
The bishops no longer preached, but they consecrated priests, bells, monks, churches, chapels, images, books, and cemeteries
; and all this brought in a large revenue.
Bones, arms, and feet, the relics of pretended saints, were preserved in gold and silver boxes : they were given out during mass for the faithful to kiss; and this too was the source of great profit.
All these people maintained that the pope, 'sitting as God in the temple of : 4, could not err, and tliey would not suffer any contradiction.""The priests, by attempting to exalt themselves, had become abased.
They had aimed at robbing God of a ray of his own glory, and placing it in their own bosoms ; but their attempt had proved vain, and they had only hidden there a leaven of corruption stolen from the power of evil.f
The history of the age swarms with scandals.
In man}places the people were delighted at seeing a priest openly keep a mistress, thinking that the married women would thus be safe from his seductions.:}:
The rural districts were the scene of riotous disorders.
The abodes of the clergy were often dens of corruption.
Bruges,§ the abbot Trinkler at Cappel,i| in imitation of the eastern emirs, kept open harems.
Priests, consorting with dissolute characters, frequented the taverns, played at dice, and crowned their orgies with quarrels and blasphemies.^
The Council of Scliauffhausen forbade the jniests to dance in public except at marriages, and to carry more than one kind of arms.
They decreed also that all priests discovered in brothels should be unfi'ocked.*""
* Myconius' Hist, of the Eef.
Seckendorf's Hist, of Lntb. t D'Aubigne's History of the Keformation. t Nicol. De Cleinangis tie Prjesulib. Simoniacis.
§ Meteue. Nederl. Hist. VIII.
II Hottiuger, Hist. Eccles., Vol. IX.
IT Mandate of Hugo, bishop of Constance, March 3, 1517.
Miiller's "Keliqnes," Vol.
"In the archbisliopric of Mentz, the priests often scaled the walls by night, and created all kinds of disorder and confvision in the inns and taverns, and broke the doors and locks."*
Erasmus relates that in many places the priests paid their bishop a regular tax on the women with whom they lived, and for each child had by them.
A German bishop said publicly one day, at a gi-eat entertainment, that in one year eleven thousand priests had presented themselves before him for that purjDose in his single diocese.f
What was then true of Christendom at large, was especially and still more strikingl}- true of Italy.
Who can paint in detail that Ital}' of the Borgias?
" It certainly," says " presented at this period something which has seldom, nay, which has at no other time been exhibited in history—a systematic and scientific perversit}', a magnificent ostentation of wickedness; in a word, the atheist priest proclaiming himself monarch of the universe.":!:
Two years before the commencement of Luther's cloister life, Pope Alexander Sixth, of the house of Borgia, perhaps the most flagitious of an infamous dynasty of pontiifs, died, having himself partaken of some poisoned sweetmeats which he had designed for a certain cardinal who had ofiended him.
* D'Aubigue's History of the Eeformation. t "Uno auuo ad se delata iiiideoim millia saeerdotimi pjUam concubinariorum. "
X Michelct's Life of Luther, p.