A TRAVELER WHO HAD HIS EYES OPENED; AT ROME, BUT NOT AS THE ROMANS.
“O Rome! ...
Lone mother of dead empires!
The Niobe of nature I there she stands,
Childless and crownless in her voiceless woe
For Rome is as the desert where we slept
Stumbling o'er recollections.”
THE cry of terror which rang through the convent speedily brought the superintendent of the novices to where Luther lay insensible upon the floor of his cell. By degrees, consciousness at length returned, but when Luther was lifted to his bed, his mental distress was too acute for him to detail the cause of his terror, though he afterward found that he had been the victim of a malicious trick by Hans. For six or seven weeks he lay suffering intense spiritual anguish and bodily pain. At length Lange, who seldom left his side, induced him to break the moody silence he had previously maintained.
“I had been sleepless for a long time," said Luther. "Night after night, I lay through the night time pondering my sins, and fearing lest the devil should come and carry me off, as he did the blaspheming potter of Augsburg. When I returned to my cell. I thought I saw him; there certainly was some bodily presence who taunted me with my hypocrisy and sins. I felt guilty. I am not holy! Oh, my sins! Father Lange, what shall I do?”
“Brother Martin, do you believe in the forgiveness of sins?”
“Yes, surely. Do we not say so in the Creed?”
“I mean the forgiveness, not the payment of sins. It seems to me that you are striving to make God amends instead of accepting His Divine pardon. Now will you leave off dreaming about paying for your sins and accept the forgiveness of sins?”
“I hope to be forgiven, of course," replied Luther. "How can I ever hope to pay for pardon?”
“Do you believe in the forgiveness of your sins? Not of Peter's sins but the sins of brother Martin?”
“Surely I must do so!”
“Then that is all you need," replied Lange; and Luther felt that the statement was undoubtedly true Now Luther knew that his sins were all and unreservedly forgiven s From that moment Luther began to be more peaceful in his mind, but all his life he retained a terror of Satanic visitation, which was felt more keenly at times of weakness and bodily exhaustion. Two years after his entrance into the monastery, Luther was ordained a priest of the Roman Church; the blasphemous charge being given him, "Receive thou the power of sacrificing for the living and the dead." "I wonder," he said, long afterward, "that the earth did not open and swallow me up.”
Staupitz now sent him on preaching excursions into the neighboring towns and convents, both to word him II bodily exercise and to exercise him in preaching. A year after his ordination, ha 1508, he left Erfurt to become a professor in the University of Wittemberg, founded six years before by the Elector of Saxony he did not cease to be a monk but commenced the public exposition of the Psalms and the Epistle to the Romans; the latter portion of Holy Scriptures especially enlightening his own heart and showing him the way of peace more perfectly.
“Come, Luther, you must preach publicly," said Staupitz. "I dare not; think upon the solemn responsibility," replied Luther. "I dare not, indeed I dare not!”
“You must! I command you.”
“If I do, I shall die.”
“Then the Lord requires faithful servants in heaven as well as on earth. Do you know the little church in the public square?”
“The little tiny wooden church, thirty feet long? It is so dilapidated that it has to be propped up by timbers. The pulpit is made of rough boards.”
“Yes, there you preach your first sermon, and if the place is not beautiful it will be beautified by your doctrine.”
In the little barn-like structure the preaching took place, and as the tiny church soon became too small for the throngs that were attracted by preaching utterly unlike anything they had heard before, the town council of Wittemberg appointed Luther their preacher and assigned to him the Parish church. Here, among others, came the Elector Frederick, to hear the preaching which told of forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ, declared with a fervor previously unknown. Here, too, many got the knowledge of justification by the blood of Christ for the first time.
In 1511 a dispute between seven monasteries and their superior, Staupitz, led to Luther's visiting Rome to refer the controversy to the Pope for his decision. His experience may be related in his description to Staupitz, as they sat together in Wittemberg on his return.
“When at thy request, dear Staupitz, I started for Rome I was delighted at the prospect of seeing the city which was like heaven below to my fancy. As I went to Heidelberg, to Basle, and through Swabia into Bavaria, the way seemed dreary and long before I arrived at the Holy City; but, when I arrived at Milan, I was amazed beyond measure at the luxury of the monks. In rooms lined with marble and adorned with costly paintings, the monks, with garments more costly than our prince's, lived and ate delicacies such as seldom appear upon out princes table. I kept silence until, on Friday, I found that they ate more meat than on other days; and when I spoke out in reproof, I received a hint from the porter that, if I valued my life, I had better leave Milan without delay.”
“They surely would not have been so base!”
“The man was a serious quiet man, and would not have said what he did, unless there had been real danger at Bologna. I was sick unto death, but whether from poison I had taken at Milan, I know not. While I lay in much pain the devil came to distress me, and sorely he did buffet me. Then came into my mind that text, 'The just shall live by faith,' and I was straightway healed in mind and body. At last I saw the great city rising before me; and I fell upon my knees and cried, Holy Rome, I salute thee! ‘But alas! the Pope, Julius the Second, thought more of getting money and waging war than of religion.
When he heard that the French had defeated his troops at Ravenna, he flung down his prayer book with a fearful oath, blasphemously saying to God, 'Art Thou too become a Frenchman? Is it thus that Thou dost protect Thy Church?'
“The priests too made a mock of the Gospel, declaring that it was merely a barren invention. They openly boasted that they made a mock of the service in which they were engaged. Oh the obscene stories they told me about the dignitaries of the church!”
“I grieve to hear this, brother Martin," replied Staupitz, "but I have heard a little of this from others." "There is a proverb at Rome," continued Luther, "that he who goes to Rome for the first time looks for a rogue; on the second visit, he finds him; and at the third visit, he brings him away with him. I certainly have brought away with me new ideas as to the Pope and his religion.”
“Now, my dear Luther, you must become a doctor of the Scriptures, and set yourself to teaching the Bible only.”
“But I have no friends, and cannot pay the fees.”
“Spalatin, who is court preacher and private secretary of the Elector, is your friend, brother Martin," replied Staupitz, "and the Elector will pay your fees; so say no more. I am your superior, and lay my commands upon you.”
On 18th October, 1512, Luther took a solemn oath to defend the Evangelical faith with all his might; promising to explain the Scriptures faithfully, and with all purity, defending then by voice and pen against all false teachers and enemies of the faith The new doctor said to Spalatin:— “Preaching indeed is wanted here. Among the three hundred and fifty-six houses in Wittemberg, containing two thousand people, there are at least one hundred and seventy-two breweries. As one goes along the streets of an evening, one hears from every house the cuckoo sound of beer corks being drawn. These townsfolk seem to think of nothing but riot and pleasure, and, alas, vice!”
“Preach against their sins," said Spalatin. "Speak out plainly. Someone should do so.”
“I will," said Luther, and he did so.
Staupitz had been sent into the Low Countries to collect relics for the new church the Elector was building, and Luther undertook the visitation of the convents during the Vicar General's absence.
“We do not become righteous by doing righteous deeds, but having become righteous we do good work," he taught. "He sins who does not keep the law spiritually.”
Saxony was at that time divided between two cousins, the Elector Frederick, in whose dominions Wittemberg was situated, and Duke George, whose grandmother was the daughter of the Hussite King of Bohemia.
Frederick was superstitious, and a devoted servant of the Papacy; George was supposed to be anything but a staunch Romanist. Yet when Luther preached before him, Duke George was bitterly offended, and eventually became one of the most violent antagonists to the Reformation. Under Luther's influence the Elector became gradually more enlightened, so singular are the changes of life by which God accomplishes His plans.
In his house, near the Elster Gate of Wittemberg, Luther was meanwhile slowly preparing the Reformation. The situation of the city, among low white sandstone hills, upon the northern bank of the Elbe, made him long for the romantic Eisenach and Erfurt he had left. But God selected his habitation as He does ours, saying to one, "Live in wealth," and to another, Flourish in poverty;" and for Luther and each of us His choice is Ever the best.
Events were slowly hastening which should revolutionize Saxony, Germany, and the whole world; but those who were to be chief actors in the stirring scenes were all unconscious of what was at hand.
One bright morning tidings came to the Augustinian convent that roused Luther to anger, and induced him to take a step the full consequences of which he could not then foresee.