his castle of Landstein. After a bloody assault, Sickingen was obliged to retire: he was mortally wounded. The three princes penetrated into the fortress, and passing through its apartments, found the lion-hearted knight in a vault, stretched on his death bed. He put forth his hand to the Palatine, without seeming to notice the princes who accompanied him. But they overwhelmed him with questions and reproaches. "Leave me in quiet," said he, "for I must now prepare to answer to a greater Lord than ye." When Luther heard of his death, he exclaimed, "The Lord is just but wonderful! It is not by the sword that he will have his gospel propagated."

Such was the melancholy end of a warrior who, as Emperor, or as an Elector, might perhaps have raised Germany to a high degree of glory, but who, confined within a narrow circle, expended uselessly the great powers with which he was gifted. It was not in the tumultuous minds of these warriors that divine truth came to fix her abode. It was not by their arms that the truth was to prevail; and God by bringing to nought the mad projects of Sickingen, confirmed anew the testimony of St. Paul, "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God."

Another knight, Harmut of Cronberg, the friend of Hütten and Sickingen, appears, however, to have had more wisdom and knowledge of the truth. He wrote with much modesty to Leo X. urging him to restore his temporal power to him to whom it belonged, namely, to the Emperor. Addressing his subjects as a father, he endeavoured to explain to them the doctrines of the Gospel, and exhorted them to faith, obedience and trust in Jesus Christ, "who," added he, "is the sovereign Lord of all." He resigned to the Emperor a pension of two hundred ducats, "because he would no longer serve one who gave ear to the enemies of the truth." And we find a saying of his recorded which places him in our judg ment, above Hütten and Sickingen: "Our heavenly teacher, the Holy Ghost, can, when he pleases, teach us in one hour much more of the faith of Christ, than could be learned in ten years at the University of Paris."

However, those who only look for the friends of the Reformation on the steps of thrones,* or in cathedrals and academies, and who suppose it had no friends amongst the people, are greatly mistaken. God, who was preparing the hearts of the wise and powerful, was also preparing amongst the lowest of the people many simple and humble men, who were one day to become the promoters of his truth. The history of those times shews the excitement that prevailed among the lower classes. There were not only many young men who rose to fill the highest offices in the Church, but there were men who continued all their lives employed in the humblest occupations, who powerfully contributed to the revival of Christianity. We relate some circumstances in the life of one of them.

He was the son of a tailor named Hans Sachs, and was born at Nuremberg, the 5th November, 1494. He was named Hans (John) after his father, and had made some progress in his studies, when a severe illness obliging him to abandon them, he applied himself to the trade of a shoemaker. Young Hans took advantage of the liberty this humble profession afforded to his mind to search into higher subjects better suited to his inclination. Since music had been banished from the castles of the nobles, it seemed to have sought and found an asylum amongst the lower orders of the merry cities of Germany. A school for singing was held in the church. of Nuremberg. The exercises in which young Hans joined opened his heart to religious impressions, and helped to excite in him a taste for poetry and music. However, the young man's genius could not long be confined within the walls of a workshop. He wished to see that world of which he had read so much in books, of which his companions had told him so much, and which his youthful imagination peopled with wonders. In 1511, he took his bundle on his shoulders, and set out, directing his course towards the south. The young traveller, who met with merry companions on his road, students who were passing through the country, and many dangerous attractions, soon felt within himself a fear

* See Chateaubriand Etudes Historiques.

ful struggle. The lusts of life and his holy resolutions contended for the mastery. Trembling for the issue, he fled and sought refuge in the little town of Wels, in Austria, (1513,) where he lived in retirement, and in the cultivation of the fine arts. The Emperor Maximilian happened to pass through the town with a brilliant retinue. The young poet was carried away by the splendour of this court. The prince received him into his hunting establishment, and Hans again forgot his better resolutions in the joyous chambers of the palace of Inspruck. But again his conscience loudly reproached him. The young huntsman laid aside his glittering uniform, set out, repaired to Schwartz, and afterwards to Munich. It was there, in 1514, at the age of twenty, he sang his first hymn, "to the honour of God," to a well known chaunt. He was loaded with applause. Every where in his travels he had occasion to notice numerous and melancholy proofs of the abuses under which religion was labouring.

On his return to Nuremberg, Hans settled in life, married, and became the father of a family. When the Reformation burst forth, he lent an attentive ear. He clung to that holy book which had already become dear to him as a poet, and which he now no longer searched for pictures and music, but for the light of truth. To this sacred truth he soon dedicated his lyre. From a humble workshop, situated at one of the gates of the imperial city of Nuremberg, proceeded sounds that resounded through all Germany, preparing the minds of men for a new era, and every where endearing to the people the great revolution which was then in progress. The spiritual songs of Hans Sachs, his Bible in verse, powerfully assisted this work. It would perhaps be difficult to say to which it was most indebted, the Prince Elector of Saxony, Administrator of the Empire, or the shoemaker of Nuremberg!

There was at this time something in every class of society that presaged a Reformation. In every quarter signs were manifest, and events were pressing forward that threatened to overturn the work of ages of darkness, and to bring about " a new order of things." The light discovered in that age

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117

had communicated to all countries, with inconceivable rapidity, a multitude of new ideas. The minds of men, which had slept for so many ages, seemed resolved to redeem by their ac tivity the time they had lost. To have left them idle and without nourishment, or to have offered them no other food than that which had long sustained their languishing existence, would have shown great ignorance of human nature. The mind of man saw clearly what was, and what was coming, and surveyed with daring eye the immense gulph that separated these two worlds. Great princes were seated upon the throne, the ancient colossus of Rome was tottering under its own weight; the by-gone spirit of chivalry was leaving the world, and giving place to a new spirit which breathed at the same time from the sanctuaries of learning and from the dwellings of the common people. The art of printing had given wings to the written word, which carried it, like certain seeds, to the most distant regions. The discovery of the Indies enlarged the boundaries of the world. Every thing proclaimed a mighty revolution at hand.

But whence was the stroke to come that should throw down the ancient edifice, and call up a new structure from the ruins? No one could answer this question. Who had more wisdom than Frederic? Who had more learning than Reuchlin ? Who had more talent than Erasmus? Who had more wit and energy than Hütten? Who had more courage than Sickingen? Who had more virtue than Cronberg? And yet it was neither Frederic, nor Reuchlin, nor Erasmus, nor Hütten, nor Sickingen, nor Cronberg. Learned men, princes, warriors, the Church itself, all had undermined some of the old foundations; but there they had stopped: and no where was seen the hand of power that was to be God's instrument. However, all felt that it would soon be seen. Some pretended to have discovered in the stars sure indications of its appearing. Some, seeing the miserable state of religion, foretold the near approach of Antichrist. Others, on the contrary, presaged some reformation at hand. in expectation. Luther appeared.

The world was

BOOK II.

THE YOUTH, CONVERSION, AND EARLY LABOURS

LUTHER.

1483-1517.

ALL things were ready. God who prepares his work for ages, accomplishes it, when his time is come, by the feeblest instruments. It is the method of God's providence to effect great results by inconsiderable means. This law, which pervades the kingdom of nature, is discerned also in the history of mankind. God chose the Reformers of the Church from the same condition, and worldly circumstances, from whence he had before taken the Apostles. He chose them from that humble class which, though not the lowest, can hardly be said to belong to the middle ranks. Every thing was thus to make manifest to the world that the work was not of man, but of God. The reformer, Zwingle, emerged from a shepherd's hut among the Alps: Melancthon, the great theologian of the Reformation, from an armourer's workshop; and Luther from the cottage of a poor miner.

The opening period of a man's life, that in which his natural character is formed and developed under the hand of God, is always important. It is especially so in Luther's The whole Reformation was there.

career.

The different phases of this work succeeded each other in the mind of him who was to be the instrument for it, before it was publicly accomplished in the world. The knowledge of the Reformation effected in the heart of Luther himself is, in truth, the key to the Reformation of the Church. It is