Martin Luther. 1483. 10th November. 1883.

in the ambition of its father . If it was not heir to gold , it •was born to an estate of parental solicitude and ambition . Much of German eminence among men has come from the devotion of father and mother to the care of each child . As each Hebrew mother had a remote suspicion that

perhaps her boy was to be the Saviour of Israel , so each German parent easily reached the conclusion that the Nation had long been waiting for his son to appear ; and so far as lay in their power the German fathers and mothers urged their offspring onward toward a dreamed of destiny .

Stilling and Mozart and Beethoven and Goethe were not only born to great powers , but also were whipped into success by their fathers . All complain of the pitiless cruelty of their early surroundings . Stilling ' s father whipped him almost daily . To common cruelty the father of Beethoven

added drunkenness ; but yet so anxious was he that his son should become an extraordinary musician , that he falsified regarding the child ' s age that he might seem the more a prodigy . In keeping with this record Luther came to the task of life miserably flogged all through his

first ten years . And what omission of the birchen switch may have occurred at home was fully atoned for by the zeal of the village schoolmaster , and between the home and the schoolhouse no lesson of duty or piety remained free from this barbarous mode of enforcement . In mature life

Luther looked back with something of sorrow upon such treatment—sorrow for himself and sorrow for the mistakes of those whom he deeply loved . He wrote : " My parents treated me so cruelly that I became timid . They felt that they were sincerely right , but they had no discernment of character that would have enabled them to know when

and upon whom , and how punishment should be inflicted . " While our times have no sympathy with this brutality , it cannot but look with approval and delight upon that parental care and ambition which encompassed all these

great children in their old German homes . In framing an explanation of many of the leading men of the whole past , we must find a part of the causes of things to rest in the culture and ambition of tbe father and mother . Cicero ' s

father moved to Rome that he might educate his boy . Augustine ' s mother cared for her child with an infinite enthusiasm until he had reached almost middle life . She lived for him alone . Thus out of a poor home as to money , but out of a

home good as to judgment and ambition and piety , came upward the mind which -was to turn the stream of the Western thought and life . In imagination we can picture this youth of fourteen leaving his home that he might attend a school that should prepare bim for the university .

He performed the journey on foot , and carried in a knapsack all his possessions . Rude as his home had been , the scene before him was so dreary that it made the cottage behind him seem an enchanted ground ; and as he moved away from the charm of the one and toward the hardship

of the other , the tears rolled down his cheeks . Once located at the school , be sang songs under the windows of the rich , and supported himself by what small coins fell at his feet . He performed this musical circuit twice each week . At last his voice , rich in itself , but made more

touching by bis poverty , won the sympathy of a woman of wealth , and out of these songs under a window came a woman ' s kindness , which paid for four years of education

in that school , and for a home in the house won by his music . You can recall the picture . A boy singing in front of the quaint house of Dame Ursula Cotta . A kind face comes to the window and looks and listens . Weeks

and months pass , and by degrees the dame begins to wish that the little Martin Luther would come again . Each week the coins the kind hand tosses out increase in size and number . At last the woman talks with the boy , and hears the simple story of his struggles and hopes . She

at last says , " Well , you need not sing for money any more , I shall help thee onward . " Mark the quality of his studies in these formative years —grammar , rhetoric , poetry , and music . Upon such a course our age has not made much improvement . Our

period offers more facts—those of science and of historybut it offers less of inspiration . Facts are a poor substitute with the young mind for rhetoric and poetry , because these are the wings of the soul , whereas facts can be

acquired and retained by a man without soul . Either method is in itself defective . A perfect course would be that which should combine the acquisition of knowledge with the highest development of language and rhetoric and the imagination . It was the good fortune of this German

Martin Luther. 1483. 10th November. 1883.

youth , and of tho world through him , that he became strong in music and poetry and language , for these helped him rise to an enthusiasm which was able to barn like au eternal fire . When the times needed impetuosity , Luther

became impetuous ; when inspiration was asked for , this man became inspired . Vast learning would have quieted that heart , which was needed not tvs a library , but as a . bnrninsr torch . Toward such a restless zeal these studies

all pointed . Poetry underlies more heroism than learning alone can boast . It only rises above the common things of the shop and marketplace , and perceives the immensity of human and divine affairs . The heart which could proceed

to the city of Worms to meet perhaps death , was tho heart which could tho day before the journey began compose the words and the music of a hymn that seemed fully able to sustain its author . The poet was the hero .

" A tower safe our God is still , A trusty shield and weapon ; He'll help us dear from all the ill , That hath ns overtaken . " Thirty-six such lines as these , sung in the outset and

chanted in the choir of the soul , were the band of music for that march of one man against the potentates of tho age . His prose was all ornamented like a wall covered with vines . Speaking of a tree covei'ed with ripe fruit , he said : " Had Adam not sinned , we should have seen the

beauty of these things ; every bush and shrub would have seemed more lovely than though it were made of gold and silver . It is really more lovely , but we are as stupid as beasts . God ' s power and wisdom are shown in the

smallest flowers . Painters can not rival their colour , nor perfumers their sweetness ; green , yellow , crimson , blue and purple—all growing out of one earth . We trample upon lillies as though we were so many cows . "

It was the design of the young man to study law . It is singular that neither Luther ' s father nor Calvin ' s held theology or the priesthood in much esteem . Each father was heartbroken over the religious drift of his son . A comment this , not upon the piety of the fathers , for they

were deeply devout , but upon the condition of the clergy iu those day ? . The vices of the age had made their black mark upon many of the monastics . Many of the monks who were not dissolute were simply lazy beggars . Luther

with all his lofty powers , was to take the path of the law . It offered some honour and some industry and money , and much less hypocrisy . Toward this the father pointed , and toward it the son turned his face .

For the law the youth at last had no heart . Pure and innocent himself , Luther saw the Church through a clear , divine air . Its music charmed him . And , moreover , there often come to young hearts melancholy years . It would seem that early life should produce nothing but smiles and

laughter . Youth is thus pictured by painter and poet , and in general it is full of joy or peace ; but from some unknown cause nature inserts a melancholy year between ten and twenty-five . Tears come easily . The heart is morbidly sensitive . It writes farewell notes 'to friends . The

soul loves to creep into its corner and to distrust the voice of love . A few hearts thus in life ' s sweet morning wholly break , and suicide ends the scene . The wave of sadness rose high around this gifted youth . The storm may have come from injured health , but more probably it came from

unseen recesses in the spirit . No path of duty seemed clearly defined . But as he walked in a field with a fellow student a bolt of lightning killed the companion in an instant and left Luther still in this world . Full of

superstition the astonished youth fell on his knees and vowed all his powers to God . He entered a convent , and thus began the Reformation . It was kindled by a flash of lightning .

A fact must be mentioned here which will betray at once the need of an overthrow of the past . The cup of folly was full . The people had been long enough fed upon the marvellous stories of ascetics , and idlers and miraclemongers . Luther went into the convent taking with him

two books , the only books , perhaps , he possessed . What were they ? Were they the Testaments , full of the simple god-like life of Jesus , and of the labours and teachings and glories of St . Paul and St . John , and the lofty strains of Job , and David and Isaiah ? Oh , no ! This educated

youth of the sixteenth century took into the convent with him Virgil and Plautus ! The secret of the Reformation is out . Luther had been reared to manhood in the Church without ever having seen the Bible . It was almost a lost volume . Where existing , it was in a foreign tongue .