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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 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 activity 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 shewn 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 council halls of princes. The art of printing had given wings to the written word, which carried it, like the seeds of which we read in natural history, 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 Frederick? 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 Frederick, 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. The world was in expectation. Luther appeared.

129

BOOK II.

THE YOUTH, CONVERSION, AND EARLY LABOURS OF

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. For the production of a magnificent tree, under whose branches the generations of men may find shelter, he makes use of an almost imperceptible seed. This law which pervades the kingdom of nature, is discerned also in the history of mankind. We are now to examine in its commencement and first developement, the little seed that God deposited in the earth, that he might make the word of his salvation to flourish anew. He 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.

K

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 career. The whole Reformation was there.

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 only by studying the work in the individual, that we can comprehend the general work. They who neglect the former, will know but the form and exterior signs of the latter. They may gain knowledge of certain events and results, but they will never comprehend the intrinsic nature of that renovation; for the principle of life that was the soul of it will remain unknown to them. Let us then study the Reformation in Luther himself, before we contemplate the facts that changed the state of Christendom.

John Luther, the son of a peasant of the village of Mora, near Eisenach, in the county of Mansfeld, in Thuringia, descended from an ancient and widely spread family of humble peasantry, married the daughter of an inhabitant of Neustadt, in the bishopric of Wurzburg, named Margaret Lindemann. The new married couple left Eisenach, and went to settle in the little town of Eisleben, in Saxony.

Seckendorff relates, on the testimony of Relhan, the superintendent of Eisenach in 1601, that the

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mother of Luther, thinking her time was not near, had gone to the fair of Eisleben, and that there she was brought to bed of her son. Notwithstanding the respect that is due to Seckendorff, this fact does not seem well authenticated; indeed, it is not alluded to by any of the oldest historians of Luther; moreover, the distance from Mora to Eisleben must be about twenty-four leagues,-a journey not likely to have been undertaken in the state in which Luther's mother then was, for the sake of going to a fair; and lastly, the testimony of Luther himself appears to contradict this assertion.

John Luther was a man of upright character, diligent in his business, open-hearted, and possessing a strength of purpose bordering upon obstinacy. Of more cultivated mind than the generality of his class, he read much. Books were then rare; but John did not neglect any opportunity of procuring them. They were his recreation in the intervals of rest that his severe and assiduous labours

allowed him. Margaret possessed those virtues which adorn good and pious women. Modesty, the fear of God, and devotion, especially marked her character. She was considered, by the mothers of families in the place where she resided, as a model worthy of their imitation.*

It is not precisely known how long the new-married couple had been settled at Eisleben, when, on the 10th of November, at 11 o'clock in the evening, Margaret gave birth to a son. Melancthon often questioned the mother of his friend as to the time

*

Intuebanturque in eam cæteræ honestæ mulieres, ut in exemplar virtutum.-(Melancthon Vita Lutheri.)