"Which, interpreted, means 'Of all the places on the earth, this one to me is dearest.' Thus would I also sing. The Lord is very good. He does above all that we ask or think. If we petition Him for a piece of bread, He gives us a whole field of grain. I prayed God to give me back your life,—He gave me that, and Zulsdorf besides, and an abundant, fruitful year. This is like Paradise, and makes my heart warm! Truly, if after the heat and burden of the day, God grants me a season of rest at the end of my life, I would fain enjoy it here. I feel each day, that my strength is failing, and that my life is drawing to a close. When the time comes, I will yield the sovereignty to you, and you shall be my 'lord' Kate indeed, to whom I will become an obedient subject."
CHAPTER XXI.
LUTHER'S LAST WILL.
"Man proposes—God disposes." He who had labored more than all the others, was not to enjoy the coveted rest. Much still remained for him to do. Amid ceaseless toil and endeavor, the great life was to reach its end. Many a hard road must be traveled, before he should hear the Master's well-beloved voice: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant,—enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
Yet he was weary, and his thoughts were constantly fixed upon death. To the many loving questions of friends he had but one answer: "Old age has come upon me, which is unsightly, cold and dreary. The pitcher is carried to the fountain until it breaks. I have lived long enough, and now my desire is, that God grant me a peaceful end, and that my useless body be put beneath the earth among His dead, and furnish food for the worms. Methinks the days that are past, were better than those that are to come; for it seems as though evil times were drawing near. God help His own. Amen."
When the Elector, in his loving anxiety, sent his court-physician to the ailing man, Luther thanked his gracious sovereign for the kindness shown to his old and worn-out body, and added: "I would have been pleased, had the dear Lord Jesus taken me from hence, for I am of little further use upon the earth."
It was not the despondency of approaching age, which caused him to take this gloomy view of events,—but rather the inspired, prophetic eye, which foresaw a troubled future. The present was already fraught with evil. The waves of political strife ran high. The relations between the Protestant and Catholic parties were strained to the utmost. In Wittenberg itself,—in the very city which had once been the torch-bearer of the Reformation, Luther was forced to censure the profligacy of the students; and had personally entered the lists against the jurists, and their perversion of equity. But the world's answer to his cry of anguish, wrung from a Christian conscience, and to the honest testimony of the champion of truth, was hatred and enmity. In their blindness, men forgot the debt which Christianity owed to Dr. Martin, and repaid him with insult and calumny. All this weighed upon the giant spirit, and made the thought of death most welcome to him.
In this mood he sat in his study one day, in the beginning of the year 1542, and wrote his last Will and Testament. He was prepared for its departure,—now he would arrange his temporal affairs, and put his house in order.
The document unconsciously shaped itself into a testimonial of honor and gratitude toward his wife. It seemed as though her husband desired to fix finally, in imperishable words, the love and respect he had never wearied of expressing.
The Will, which is still preserved, runs as follows: "I, Dr. Martin Luther, do herewith set forth, in my own handwriting, that on this present day, and in virtue of this document, I bequeath to my beloved and faithful wife Katharine, during her life-time, and to use according to her own pleasure: