who devoutly searches in written revelation, in human history, in blooming flowers, sweeping winds and rolling spheres, for Him whose spirit ensouls creation, and we we will approach him with gratitude and love, adopt him as our teacher, and ask him for help while wrestling with the tough problems of existence. A few such have been given to the world. God sprinkles here and there one over the ages, to preserve mankind, to "recall their lost affections unto Him and his." Luther was one of these men, devoutly seeking truth, with all the helps of his period, and encountering all its hinderances. We have been respectfully shaking hands with him over some centuries, and will relate our impressions. Our impressions, however, are not to be taken for Luther himself; our age with its wonderful improvements has not yet succeeded in producing achromatic eyes. If any would see and talk with him, they must go to the books that he has left, and look for his features stamped upon the sixteenth century. The old Egyptians had an art by which they preserved the bodies of men, but in printing we have an art by which we preserve, and even multiply, the minds of men. The spirit of Luther hovers this side of the eternal world, in the mysterious drapery of words, inviting the serious and thoughtful to acquaintance.

It is not necessary to dwell long on the external life of Luther. All know when he was born, how poor his parents were, how he took his Latin grammar and catechism, seasoned with birch, at the school of Master George Emilius, how he begged bread while a school boy at Magdeburg and at Eisenach; that at the age of fifteen he entered the University of Erfurth, received his bachelor-degree next year, was made doctor in philosophy when less than twenty-two years old; how his mind was arrested by the fate of his friend Alexis, and by his own narrow escape from death by lightning; that he entered an Augustinian Convent, and remained there three years; that he was appointed professor in the new university of Wittemberg, where he began to preach; went to Rome in his twenty-seventh year, whence he returned disgusted with the corruption of the Italian priests; that as proxy of his Vicar-general, he visited forty monasteries of Misnia and Thuringia, where he taught that "Scripture alone

shows the way to heaven," and opposed Scholasticism. All know how he opposed the sale of Indulgences, and thereby involved himself in a quarrel with the Church; that he attacked the Papal doctrines, was summoned to answer to the then terrible charge of heresy, appeared unmoved before the crafty Cardinal; that in 1520, the Sacred College at Rome excommunicated him; that he appealed to a General Council; that when his books were burned at Rome, he in turn burned the Canon Law, the Decretals, the Clementines, and the Extravangances of the Popes; was summoned before the Diet at Worms, in 1521, and on his return was abducted to the Castle of Wartburg. It is equally well known how he answered the attack of Henry VIII. of England; that he threw off the monastic habit at the age of forty-one, married a nun the next year, and died in 1546, after seeing half of Christendom revolt from the Papacy.

Such were the prominent events of his life, and we may now inquire what manner of man he was, that even the winds of religious revolution obeyed his command.

The best of all the noble qualities of Luther was his sincerity. His integrity never forsook him, therefore he was always in earnest. His sincerity was a characteristic of his nature, and was strengthened by the circumstances of his early life. His parents were pious, active, and austere; hence seriousness was stamped upon his soul in its first developement. There was nothing frivolous in the home atmosphere around him. "My parents," he once said, "treated me very harshly, so that I became very timid. My mother one day chastised me so severely about a nut, that the blood came. They seriously thought they were doing right; but they could not distinguish character, which is very necessary, to know when, or where, or how chastisement should be inflicted." Harshness, like that of Luther's parents, is not to be approved; but we can see how he was indebted to an inflexible system of home government, for much of the sober earnestness of his character. At school he was flogged fifteen times in a single day. The future hero of the Reformation was not destined to be spoiled by delicate training, and by indecision on the part of his governors. The school at Magdeburg was a severe one for Luther. He had no

friends, and his masters were harsh. When other boys were playing, he was begging for bread. His stomach was often empty, when his brain was full, and it may be added, when his heart was full. This world was to him altogether one of realities. No one put on for him a false, flattering look; or spoke to him with deceitful words. So far as he was concerned, all around him were sincere. Blessed privilege of adversity!-it knocks the falsehood out of all faces that it meets. All persons, without any merit on their part, were as sincere for the beggar-student as mother nature herself. By such training, the natural sincerity of Luther's mind became a fixed quality. His earnestness eminently manifested itself while he was in the Augustinian Convent of Erfurth. He went about the work of saving his soul, not as though it were an agreeable pastime, or the pleasant excitement of a revival, but as though it were an affair of momentous interest and solemn reality. "I was indeed a pious monk," he said in a letter to Duke George of Saxony," and followed the rules of my order more strictly than I can express. If ever monk could obtain heaven by his monkish works, I should certainly have been entitled to it. Of this all the friars who have known me can bear witness. If it had continued much longer, I should have carried my mortifications even to death, by means of my watchings, prayers, reading, and other labors." He feared eternal death, and stood shivering on the brink of black, bottomless despair. In his fear of death, he sought life with all the earnestness of his nature. No peace could he find in self-torture, confessions and masses. "I tortured myself almost to death, in order to procure peace with God for my troubled heart and agitated conscience; but surrounded with thick darkness, I found peace no where." He realized in his own sincere experience, that it requires for the salvation of any soul something more than vigils, fasts and formalities. In that old Latin Bible carefully chained up in the Convent, his great, sincere soul discovered a fact, old enough in itself, but to Luther and all others of his time quite new,—the fact, expressed in Paul's luminous words, that "the just shall live by faith." A ray of light flashed into his soul, through the darkness of the age, from the mount of crucifixion. In his doubts and monkish labors,

Luther grew sickly, and cadaverous,-became weak even to fainting fits; but when his soul found rest in the teachings of Scripture, he regained strength and elasticity of spirit. That conversion was a crisis in his life, and indicated that, through his influence, Christendom also should have its conversion; that it should turn from shams to realities, from dead works to a vital faith, from monkish superstition to apostolic light, from hypocrisy to sincerity, from formalities to spiritual life, from obedience to the Pope, to obedience to the living and true God. In every scene of the Reformation, the sincerity of Luther manifested itself, and served him better than the cunning and sagacity of the most skilful diplomatist.

Luther was a man of real heroism. We cannot find in his whole life a single exhibition of cowardice. His courage was deeply rooted in his sincerity, and his sincerity was leavened by his courage. When the occasion demanded, he did not fear to speak out and act out his convictions. When he was the most noted man of Europe, he did not fear to speak of the poverty of his early life: "Do not despise the boys who go singing through the streets, begging a little bread for the love of God. I also have done the same. It is true that somewhat later my father supported me with much love and kindness at the University of Erfurth, maintaining me by the sweat of his brow; yet I have been a poor beggar." Not a little moral courage did it require in young Luther to break away from his University companions, among whom he was a favorite, to go over to the Convent and become one of the despised tribe of monks. When journeying to Rome, he stopped in Lombardy, at a Benedictine Convent, on the banks of the Po. On every hand rich dresses, splendid apartments, delicate food, silk, marble, every kind of luxury met the astonished eyes of the poor Wittemberg monk. When Friday came, the tables groaned under the weight of savory meats. It was a plain violation of the monastic rule, and Luther exhibited his usual courage by sharply reprimanding the luxurious Benedictines. "The Church and the Pope forbid such things." As Richter well says, the very words of Luther are half-battles. After he was made Doctor of Divinity, and had come in contact with the Papal authori

ty, he used the following language, the words of which sound like the heavy blows dealt by an unflinching athlete. "He who undertakes any thing without a divine call, seeks his own glory. But I, Doctor Martin Luther, was forced to become a Doctor. Popery tried to stop me in the performance of my duty, but you see what has happened to it. They cannot defend themselves against · me. I am determined, in God's name, to tread upon the lions, to trample dragons and serpents under foot." When the plague broke out in Wittemberg, and the people were forsaking the town, Luther wrote to a friend at Erfurth, "I am not certain whether the plague will let me finish the Epistle to the Galatians. Its attacks are sudden and violent; it is making great ravages among the young in particular. You advise me to fly. Whither shall I fly? I hope the world will not come to an end if brother Martin dies. If the pestilence spreads, I shall disperse the brothers in every direction; but as for me, my place is here; duty does not permit me to desert my post, until He who has called me shall summon me away." The one who could look grim pestilence courageously in the face, was not to be intimidated before any human tribunal. De Vio, the Pope's legate, said to Luther, during his trial at Augsburg, "Whether you will, or whether you will not, you must retract that article this very day, or, upon that article alone, I will reject and condemn your whole doctrine." "I have no will but the Lord's," responded Luther. "Let him do with me as it seemeth good to him. But if I had four hundred heads, I would lose them all rather than retract the testimony which I have borne to the holy Christian faith."

Such moral courage reminds us of the prophet Daniel who kneeled three times a day at his open window and prayed towards the city of his fathers, when he knew that he should be cast into the lions' den. It is true that Luther secretly retired from Augsburg, but such a step was dictated by wisdom not by timidity. He remembered the fate of Huss, and was convinced that staying longer could be of no use. Death he did not fear, but he wished to be of farther use to the world. When Luther was summoned before the Diet at Worms, some of his friends advised him not to go, warning him of the