The Pictures of German Life Throughout History. Gustav Freytag

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the most enlightened Roman Catholics look with horror upon Luther and Zwinglius as originators of the schism in their old Church. It is to be hoped that such views may disappear in Germany. All sects have reason to thank Luther for whatever depth and spirituality now remains in their faith: The heretic of Wittenberg was as much the reformer of German Roman Catholics as of Protestants; not only, because in the struggle with him the teachers of the Roman Catholic Church were obliged to erect at Trent a firmer building on the ruins of the Church of the middle ages, but because he left the impress of his mind on the character of the people, in which we all equally partake. Some things for which the obstinate and pugnacious Luther contended, against both Reformers and Catholics, have been condemned by the free judgment of modern times. His doctrines, vehement and high strained, wrung from a soul full of reverence, were in some weighty points erroneous, and he was sometimes bitter, unjust, indeed harsh to his opponents; but such things should not lead Germans astray, for all the deficiencies of his nature and education disappear in the fullness of blessing, which streamed from his great heart into the life of his nation.

      To few mortals has it been granted to exercise such an influence on his cotemporaries and on after times, as has fallen to the lot of Luther: his life may be divided into three periods. In the first, the character of the man was formed; it was powerfully influenced by the surrounding world, but from the depths of human nature, under the pressure of individual character, thoughts and convictions were gradually strengthened into resolutions which broke forth into action, and the individual commenced a struggle with the world. Then followed another period, one of more energetic action, of more rapid development and of greater triumph. Ever greater became the influence of the individual on the world; powerfully did he draw the whole nation along with him; he became their hero and model; the inward life of millions seemed concentrated in one man.

      But a single individual, however powerful in character, however great his aims, could not long dominate over the spirit of a nation, the life, strength, and wants of which are manifold. The man is under the constraint of the logical consequences of his thoughts and actions; all the spirits of his own deeds force him into a fixed limited path; but the soul of a people requires for its life, incessant working with the most varied aims. Much that an individual cannot bring himself to receive, is taken up by others in opposition to him. The reaction of the world begins: it is first weak, and from many quarters, with various tendencies and little authority; then it becomes stronger and more victorious. Finally, the inward spirit of the individual life confines itself within its own system, and becomes only a single element in the formation of the people. The end of a great life is always full of secret resignation, mixed with bitterness and quiet suffering.

      And thus it was with Luther. The first of these periods ended with the day on which he affixed his Theses; the second continued till his return from the castle of Wartburg; the third till the beginning of the Smalkaldic war and his death. It is not our intention to give his life here, but only to describe shortly how he became what he was. There was much in him which, only viewed from a distance, appears strange and unpleasing, but the more closely we examine his character, the greater and more amiable we find it.

      Luther rose from the peasant class; his father left Möhra, a place amid the forests of the Thuringian mountains, which was half peopled by his kindred, to engage in mining in the district of Mansfeld; thus the boy was born in a cottage, where the terrors inspired by the spirits of the pine woods, and dark fissures which served as entrances to the mine in the mountains, were still strong and vivid. His mind was no doubt often occupied with the dark traditions of the heathen mythology; he was accustomed to perceive in the terrors of nature, as well as in the life of man, the work of the powers of darkness. When he became a monk, these recollections of his childhood blended themselves with the figure of the devil, and the busy tempter always wore the same aspect to his imagination as the mischievous hobgoblins that frequent the hearth and stable of the countryman.

      His father was a man of concentrated and energetic character, firm and decided, and gifted with a full measure of strong common sense: he struggled hard to attain wealth; he kept strict discipline in his house, and in later years Luther remembered with grief the severe punishment he had received as a boy, and the sorrow it had inflicted on his childish heart. The influence of the old Hans Luther on the life of his son lasted till his death in 1530. When Martin went secretly into a monastery at the age of twenty-two, the old man was violently angry, as he had intended to provide for his son by a good marriage. At last friends succeeded in bringing about a reconciliation between them, and when the supplicating son approached his father, confessing that he had been driven by a fearful apparition to take the monastic vows, he replied to him in the following words: "God grant that it may not have been a delusion of the devil." He agitated still more the heart of the monk by the angry question: "You thought you were listening to the command of God when you went into the cloister; have you never heard that it is a duty to be obedient to parents?" This made a deep impression on the son, and when, many years afterwards, he was residing at Wartburg, cast out of the Church, and proscribed by the Emperor, he wrote to his father these touching words: "Do you still wish to withdraw me from the thraldom of the monastery? You are still my father, I your son; you have on your side the power and commands of God; on my side there is only human error. Behold, that you may not boast yourself before God, He has anticipated you, and taken me out himself." From that time he was as it were restored to the old man. Hans had once reckoned upon having a grandson for whom he would work, and to this idea he stubbornly returned, regardless as to what the rest of world thought; he soon therefore admonished him earnestly, to marry, and his persuasions had a great share in determining Luther to do so. When the father, who at a great age had become councillor of Mansfeld, was about to draw his last breath, and the priest bending over him asked him whether he died in the pure faith of Christ and the Holy Gospel, old Hans collected himself once more, and said shortly: "He is a rogue who does not believe in it." When, afterwards, Luther was relating this, he added admiringly: "That was indeed a man of the olden time." The son received the account of his father's death, in the fortress of Coburg; and when he read the letter, which his wife had conveyed to him with the portrait of his youngest daughter, Magdalen, he spoke only these words to his companions: "God's will be done, my father is dead." He arose, took his psalter, went into his room, where he wept and prayed, and returned with a composed mind. The same day he wrote to Melancthon with deep emotion, of the heartfelt love of his father, and of the entire confidence that existed between them. "Never did I despise death so much as I do now: how often do we suffer death by anticipation before we really die! I am now the eldest of my race, and I have a right to follow him."

      Such was the father from whom the son derived the groundwork of his character, veracity, a steadfast will, an honest understanding, and circumspection in the management of business and in his dealings with men. His childhood was full of hardships, and he had much that was disagreeable to endure at his Latin school, and as a chorister; but he experienced also much good-will and love, and he retained, what is more easily kept in the smaller circles of life, a heart full of trust in the goodness of human nature, and respect for the great people of the world. His father was able to support him comfortably at the university of Erfurt; he was then full of youthful vigour, and took great delight in joining his companions in vocal and instrumental music. Of his mental life at that time we know but little, only that when in peril of death, in a storm, "a fearful apparition called to him from heaven." In his terror he vowed to go to a monastery, and quickly and secretly carried out his resolution.

      It is here that our accounts of the state of his mind begin. At variance with his father, full of terror at an incomprehensible eternity, frightened by the anger of God, he began, in a convulsive struggle, a life of self-denial, penance, and devotion. He found no peace. All the highest questions of life stormed with fearful power over his distracted soul, which had no anchor to rest on. Strongly did he feel the need of being in harmony with God and the world, and all that he derived from his faith was unintelligible and repulsive. The mysteries of the moral government of the world were to his mind matters of the deepest import. That the good should be tormented and the wicked made happy, that God should condemn the whole human race with the monstrous curse of sin, because an inexperienced woman had eaten an apple, and that on the other hand the same God should bear СКАЧАТЬ