The moment approached when this reformation was to burst forth. God was hastening to prepare the instrument which he meant to employ. The elector having built a new church at Wittemberg, to which he gave the name of "All-Saints," sent Staupitz into the Netherlands to collect the relics with which he was desirous to enrich it. The vicar-general ordered Luther to take his place during his absence, and in particular to pay a visit to forty monasteries in Misnia and Thuringia.
Luther repaired first to Grimma, and thence to Dresden, everywhere labouring to establish the truths which he had ascertained, and to enlighten the members of his own order. "Don't attach yourself to Aristotle, or to other teachers of a deceitful philosophy," said he to the monks, "but diligently read the word of God. Seek not your salvation in your own strength, and your own good works, but in the merits of Christ, and in Divine grace."263
An Augustin monk of Dresden had run off from his convent, and was living at Mayence, where the prior of the Augustins had received him. Luther wrote to the prior264 to demand restitution of the lost sheep, and added these words, which are full of truth and charity, "I know that offences must come. It is no wonder that man falls; but it is a wonder he rises again, and stands erect. Peter fell, in order that he might know that he was a man; and we still see the cedar of Lebanon fall. Angels even (a thing which surpasses our comprehension) fell in heaven, and Adam fell in paradise. Why then be astonished when a reed is shaken by the wind, and the smoking flax is quenched?" From Dresden, Luther proceeded to Erfurt, to do the duties of vicar-general in the very convent where, eleven years before, he had wound up the clock, opened the door, and swept the Church. He appointed his friend, bachelor John Lange, a learned and pious, but austere man, prior of the convent, exhorting him to affability and patience. Shortly after he wrote him, "Show a spirit of meekness towards the prior of Nuremberg. This is fitting, inasmuch as the prior has put on a sour and bitter spirit. Bitter is not expelled by bitter, that is to say, devil by devil; but sweet expels bitter, that is to say, the finger of God casts out demons."265
It must perhaps be regretted, that on different occasions Luther did not remember this excellent advice.
At Neustadt on Orla there was nothing but division. Quarrelling and disturbance reigned in the convent. All the monks were at war with the prior, and assailed Luther with their complaints. The prior, Michael Dressel, or Tornator, as Luther calls him, translating his name into Latin, on his part explained all his grievances to the doctor. "Peace! peace!" said he. "You seek peace," replied Luther, "but you seek the peace of the world, and not that of Christ. Know you not that our God has placed his peace in the midst of war? He whom nobody troubles has no peace. But he who, troubled by all men, and by all the things of life, bears all calmly and joyfully, possesses true peace. You say, with Israel, Peace, peace; and there is no peace. Say rather with Christ, The cross, the cross; and there will be no cross. For the cross ceases to be a cross as soon as we can sincerely say with joy, O blessed cross, there is no wood like thine!"266 After his return to Wittemberg, Luther, wishing to put an end to these divisions allowed the monks to elect another prior.
Luther returned to Wittemberg after an absence of six weeks. He was grieved at all that he had seen, but the journey gave him a better acquaintance with the Church and the world; gave him more confidence in his intercourse with men and furnished him with numerous opportunities of founding schools, and urging this fundamental truth, that "the Holy Scripture alone shows us the way to heaven," and to exhort the brethren to live together holily, chastely, and peacefully.267 Doubtless, much seed was sown in the different Augustin convents during this journey of the Reformer. The monastic orders, which had long been the stay of Rome, perhaps did more for the Reformation than against it. This is true especially of the order of Augustins. Almost all pious men of a free and exalted spirit who were in cloisters, turned to the gospel, and a new and noble blood soon circulated in their orders, which were in a manner the arteries of German Catholicity. The world knew nothing of the new ideas of the Augustin of Wittemberg, after they had become the great subject of conversation in chapters and monasteries. In this way, more than one cloister was a seminary of reformers. At the moment when the great blow was struck, pious and brave men came forth from their obscurity, and abandoned the retreat of the monastic life, for the active career of ministers of the word of God. Even during the inspection of 1516, Luther by his words awoke many slumbering spirits, and hence this year has been called "the morning star of the gospel day."
Luther resumed his ordinary avocations. At this period he was oppressed with work; it was not enough that he was professor, preacher, and confessor; he had, moreover, a variety of temporal business connected with his order and his convent. "I almost constantly require two clerks," wrote he; "for I do little else the whole day than write letters. I am preacher to the convent, chaplain at table, pastor and parish minister, director of studies, vice-prior, which means prior eleven times over, inspector of the ponds of Litzkau, advocate of the inns of Herzberg at Torgau, reader of St. Paul, commentator on the Psalms.... I have seldom time to say my Hours and chant,—to say nothing of my combat with flesh and blood, the devil and the world.... See how lazy a man I am."268
About this time the plague broke out in Wittemberg, and a great part of the students and teachers left the town. Luther remained. "I don't well know," wrote he to his friend at Erfurt, "if the plague will allow me to finish the Epistle to the Galatians. Prompt and brisk, it makes great ravages, especially among the young. You advise me to flee. Whither shall I flee? I hope the world will not go to wreck though friar Martin fall.269 If the plague makes progress, I will disperse the friars in all directions, but for myself I am stationed here, and obedience permits me not to flee, till he who has called me recall me. Not that I do not fear death, (for I am not the Apostle Paul, I am only his commentator;) but I hope the Lord will deliver me from fear." Such was the firmness of the doctor of Wittemberg. Will he, whom the plague could not force to recoil one step, recoil before Rome? Will he yield to the power of the scaffold?
Chapter X.
Relations of Luther with the Elector—Luther and the Elector—Counsels to the Chaplain—Duke George—His Character—Luther before the Court—Dinner at Court—Emser's Supper.
The same courage which Luther displayed in presence of most formidable evils, he displayed in presence of the great. The elector was much pleased with the vicar-general, who had made a good collection of relics in the Netherlands. Luther gives an account of it to Spalatin. There is something curious in this affair of relics occurring at the moment when the Reformation is about to commence. Assuredly the Reformers had little idea of the point at which they were to arrive. A bishopric seemed to the elector only a fit recompence to the vicar-general. Luther, to whom Spalatin wrote on the subject, strongly disapproved of it. "Many things," replied he, "please your prince, which, however, displease God. I deny not his ability in the affairs of the world, but in what concerns God and the salvation of souls, I account him seven-fold blind as well as his counsellor Pfeffinger. I say not this behind their backs like a slanderer; don't hide it from them, for I am ready to say it personally to both. Why," continues he, "would you environ this man with all the whirlwinds and tempests of episcopal cares?"270
The elector did not take Luther's frankness in bad part. "The prince," says Spalatin in a letter to him, "often speaks of you, and with much respect." Frederick sent the monk stuff to make a cassock of very fine cloth. "It would be too fine," said Luther, "were it not the gift of a prince. I am unworthy that any man