THE LIFE AND TIMES conscience M-itli increasing energy : marriage is an institution of God, celibacy an institution of man.
He had a horror of any thing that emanated from He would say to his friends, " I desire to retain no pledge of m}pajoistical slavery."
Day and night he prayed God to deliver him from his uncertainty in this matter.
At last a single thought broke the slender link which yet bound him captive.
To all the motives of propriety and personal obedience which led him to apply to himself this declaration of God, " It is not good that man sliould he alone,''" was added a motive of a higher and more powerful nature.
He saw that if he was called to the marriage state as a man, he was also called to it as a reformer.
" If this monk sliould marry," said his friend " he will make all the world, and the devil himself, burst with laughter, and will destroy the work so grandly begun."
This sarcasm made a different impression from the intended one.
To brave the world, the devil, and his enemies, and by an action which they thought calculated to ruin his cause, to prevent its success from being ascribed to his conduct, this was what Luther ardently desired.
Accordingly boldl}^ raising his head, he exclaimed, "Well, then, I will do it: I will play the devil and the world this trick
; I will content my father, and marry Catherine."
Luther had always kej)t an oversight over Catherine Bora : he had even made two elibrts to secure 'i79 her hand for a couple of his friends
; the attempts had failed however, and feeling drawn towards her himself, he solicited her to ally herself with him, and this time his efforts were crowned with success; the vestal consented, and repairing with her to the house of his friend Amsdorff, on the lltli of June,
1525, the emancipated monk was united to the runaway nun, by Pomeranus, whom he emphatically styled the pastor, and who publicly blessed the union.
The celebrated painter, Lucas Cranach, and Doctor John Apella witnessed the marriage.
No sooner was Luther married, than all Europe was disturbed.
He was overwhelmed with accusations and calumnies from every quarter.
" It is incest," cried Henry YIII., from England " A monk has married a vestal," said some ; "Antichrist will be the offspring of such a union," cried others,
" for a prophecy announces that he will be born of a monk and a nun."
To this Erasmus replied with a sarcastic smile, "If the prophecy is true, what thousands of antichrists must already exist in the world."
But while Luther was thus assailed, many good and moderate men undertook his defence.
" Luther," said Erasmus, "has taken a wife from the noble family of Bora, but she brought him no dowry."
A more valuable testimony was next given in his favor.
Philip Melancthon, whom this bold step had at first alarmed, said with that grave, sweet voice, to which even his enemies listened with respect,
" It is false and slanderous to maintain that there is any thing THE LIFE AND TIMES unbecoming in Lutlier's marriage.
I tliink that in marrying lie must have done violence to his own wishes, impelled thereto by conscience.
A married life is one of humility, but it is also a holy state, if there be any such in the world, and the Scriptures everywhere represent it as honorable and desirable for all men in God's eyes."
Luther is said to* have been troubled at first, when he saw such floods of contempt poured out upon him ; but Melancthon became more earnest in his friendship and kindness, and it w^as not long ere the reformer saw a mark of God's approbation in this bitter opposition of man.
" If it did not offend the world," said he, "I should fear that what I have done is displeasing to God.""
Luther was happy in this union.
" The best gift of God," said he, " is a pious and amiable wife who fears God, loves her family, with whom a man may live in peace, and in whom he may safely confide."
Some months after his marriage he informed one of his fi-iends of Catherine's pregnancy; and a year after their union, she gave birth to a son.
The sweets of domestic life, which Luther was eminently suited to enjoy, soon dispersed the storm which the exasperation of his enemies had at first gathered over him.
His KetJia, as he styled her, manifested the tenderest affection towards him, consoled him in his dejection by repeating passages from the Bible, relieved him from all household cares, sat near him in his leisure moments, worked his porc D'Anln;?ne. Vol.
II.. pp. 203-208, passim. trait in embroidery, reminded liim of the friends to whom he had neglected tQ write, and often amused him by the naivete of her questions.
A certain dignity appears to have marked her character, for Luther would sometimes call her One day he said playfully, that if he were to marry again, he would carve an obedient wife for himself out of a block of marble
; for, added he, it is impossible to find such a one in reality.
His letters to Catherine overflowed with tenderness ; he called her his " dear and gracious wife," his " dear and amiable Ketha."
Luther's disposition lost its ruggedness, and he became more polite and cheerful in Catherine's society, and this hapj)y frame of mind never afterwards deserted him, even in his greatest trials.*
Just prior to the occurrence of the domestic events last recited, that wide-spread and desolating insurrection whose symptoms
Luther's keen eje had detected from the summit of the Wartburg,* and which his prophetic ken foretold, burst forth— the curtain rose upon the terrible tragedy of the peasants' war.
The serfs, slumbering for ages beneath the crushing weight of feudal tyranny in a dull, heavy sleep, had of late been awakened by the frequent repetition of the magical word liberty by learned men and wise princes.
In then* ignorance they mistook the religious emancipation which the Reformation inaugurated for pohtical enfi'anchisement.
Their forefathers had left them a heritage of servitude, and the weight of the yoke had increased with each succeeding generation.
The fruit of their toil was filched from them, and wasted in the riotous luxury of ungrateful nobles, and that this spoliation might be carried on with greater security, the gates of knowledge were locked and double-barred against them, that they might have no access to those sources of information which exercise and develop the faculties.
An eternal, uninterrupted, awful night gloomed over them.
In its inception, the insurrection was meant * Chap. XXXIV., p. 450. only to remedy these evils no longer supportable.
Tramping fortli from the remotest corners of Bel^ gium to the furthest boundaries of Germany, came the infuriated multitudes, making kings, princes, and mitred bishops tremble, but claiming at this time, before they were bewildered by the subtle appeals of enthusiasts, intoxicated by success, and blinded by rage, only what was just and fitting.
The protest of the poor peasants of Suabia, in its barbarian simplicity, will always remain as a monument of courageous insurrectionary moderation.
They divided their grievances under twelve heads ;* claiming first the right to choose their own religious teachers, such as should teach them the pure word, unpolluted by human traditions.
And this was a manifest declaration in favor of the Reformation.
Second, the abolition of tithes, which were felt to be peculiarly oppressive by the poor tillers of the soil, for which they asserted that there was no authority, save the abrogated law of the Old Testament.
But if the seigneurs did not see fit to grant this, they prayed that the revenue collected from this source might be more fairly apportioned, and that a portion of it might go towards the support of their pastors and towards the relief of the poor.f
In the succeeding articles, they contended for the rank of freemen, for the restoration of certain rights belonging by custom to tillers of the soil, for liberty to hunt and fish in the open plains, forests, and rivers of the country, for exemption from heavy o Sleidan.
THE LIFE AND TIMES taxer, and for the abolition of laws which were partial and unjust.
They concluded this remarkable political manifesto by expressing their willingness to withdraw their petition, should it, or any part of it, be shown by Scripture to be unlawful, and by ajDpeahng to Luther to arbitrate between them and their oppressors.*
Thus called upon, Luther did not refuse this critical office of arbiter.
He was himself sprung from the people, he had a heart to sympathize with their woes, he was acquainted with their wants ; yet he knew well that, under the circumstances, insurrection was madness
; that these unarmed, undisciphned, unorganized masses would be butchered with relentless fury by their mailed lords ; that the rebellion must inevitably, after expending its fury and desolating the empire, be choked in blood.
The revolution was a Samson, but it was a blind ; it could not stand an hour before the trained Lanzhiechts.
He ardently desired therefore to save these poor rebels from inevitable defeat and slaughter ; he feared also that their violence might compromise the Reformation.
Yet he wished to clutch for them, from the iron grasp of the nobles, every right he could.
In his reply to the twelve articles of the insurgents, he constituted himself judge between the princes and the people ; he told both sides some grand truths, and at no crisis of his life did he assume a position more elevated or more commanding
** Beausobre, Sleidan.
He first addressed himself to the princes, castigating them for their selfishness and oppression with merited severity " It is quite clear," he wrote, " that you have no one on earth to thank for allthis disorder but yourselves, princes and lords, and you especially, bh'nd bishops, insane priests, and monks, Avho, even to this very day, hardened in your perversity, cease not to clamor against the holy gospel
; at the same time, in your capacity as secular authorities, you manifest yourselves the extortioners and spoilers of the poor, you sacrifice every thing and everybody to your monstrous luxury, to your outrageous pride, and you have continued to do this until the outraged people neither can nor will endure you longer.
With the sword already at your throat, your mad presumption induces you to imagine yourselves so firmly seated in the saddle that you cannot be thrown off.
I have many a time exhorted you to beware lest the verse of the psalmist. He 2^oiir€i]i contempt upon 'princes, become applicable to you.
Thus far all your efforts have tended to the accomplishment of these words in your persons ; you seem determined that this peasant club raised over you shall fall and crush you.
Let me implore you to listen to counsel ere it be too late, and our dear German sods are soaked in blood."
After considerable more to this same effect,-Luther passes to a consideration of the justice of the demands of the insurgents
" As to the first article, you cannot refuse them THE LIFE AND TIMES the free election of their pastors; they desire that these pastors should preach the gospel to them
Authority may not interpose any prohibition upon this, seeing indeed that of right it should permit each man to teach and to believe that which to him seems good and fitting, whether it be gospel or whether it be false.
All that authority is competent to prohibit, is the preaching of disorder and revolt.
" The articles having reference to the physical condition of the peasants, the fines and payments, the exaction of illegal services, and others, are equally just, for authority was not instituted for its own aggrandizement, nor to make use of its subjects' for the accomplishment of its own caprices and illpassions, but for the interest and advantage of the people.
Now the people h.ave become fully impressed with this fact, and, being impressed with it, they submit no longer to your crjdng extortions and tyrannies.
Of what benefit were it to a peasant that his field should produce as many florins as it produces grains of corn if his lord may despoil him of the produce, and lavish like dirt the money unjustly derived from the vassal in fine clothes, fine castles, fine eating, and fine drinking ?
What you should do first and foremost is to put a stop to all this vain luxury of yours, to close up the holes through which this money runs, so that you may leave some little matter in the peasant's pocket."*
Then turning to the peasants, the statesman-like monk exhorts them in strains of equal wisdom, concedes the justice of many of their demands, conjures them not to sully their cause by violence,
'counsels patience, informs them that civilization must ere long melt off their shackles, points out to them the mad folly of insurrection, and the certainty of its suppression, with the inevitable loss of the few privileges they then enjoyed.*
The wise counsels of the father of the Reformation Avhistled over the heads of the infuriated and now demon ized insurgents, as passed the idle wind, unheeded, unheard.
The insurrection had now lost that fine moderation which distinguished its early phases.
Ambitious demagogues and heated enthusiasts had seized upon it, and the frenzied peasants rushed with blind, indiscriminate fury to their carnival of death.
Suabia, Thuringia, Alsace, the whole western end of the empire, heaved in insurrection.
Each day the insurgents were joined by new forces ; cities and the strongest fortified castles opened the.ir gates on their approach
Bavaria the revolution became as successful as it was general ; a host of apocalyptic visionaries put themselves in motion
; the insurrection quitted the domain of politics for that of religious fanaticism ; as at first the rallying word had been equal rights, it now become the necessity of a " second baptism."f
Like that of the French Jacquerie, it became a war against property, and it thus robbed the poor man f Beausobre, Michelet.
THE LIFE AND TIMES against science, and it thus broke up all natural equalit}"—a war against all order, and it held that God revealed every thing to his saints, and that all books, pictures, statues, were inventions of Satan. A fanatic named Thomas Munzer, perhaps honestly heated in the cause, and a priest named
Pfeifer, were the preachers of the crusade.f Attila of old, these zealots left behind them nothing but desolation.
Treasure, cities, lives were thrown relentlessly into the greedy maw of the insurrection.
The reformers looked upon this picture with dismay.
Luther was too good a citizen to regard this butchery with any feeling but disgust, and he united with Melancthon in urging the princes to take the field against the maddened peasants. |
At length the princes shook off the fatal lethargy Avhicli at first had bound them, and giving the leadership of their allied forces to Philip, landgrave of Hesse, essayed to breast the torrent of destruction.
Philip came upon the insurgents at Frankenliausen, and ere ordering the charge, he said, '•' I will not assert that we princes are free from blame in this matter
; but though we have been guilty of injustice, this will not excuse those who fall into the sin of hopeless rebellion, violating at once the laws and their oaths ;"§ then sounding the attack, the insurgents were speedily rorited with awful slaugh-