Those of us who had known him in earlier days saw in him all the simplicity, the deep earnestness, the child-like delight in simple pleasures we had known in him of old. It was our old friend Martin Luther, but it seemed as if our Luther had come back to us from a residence in heaven, such a peace and majesty dwelt in all he said. One incident especially struck me. When the glass he was about to drink of at the feast given by the Archbishop of Treves, one of the papal party, shivered in his hand as he signed the cross over it, and his friends exclaimed "poison!" he (so ready usually to see spiritual agency in all things) quietly observed that "the glass had doubtless broken on account of its having been plunged too soon into cold water when it was washed."
His courage was no effort of a strong nature. He simply trusted in God, and really was afraid of nothing.
And now he is gone.
Whether among friends or foes, in a hospital refuge such as this, or in a hopeless secret dungeon, to us for the time at least he is dead. No word of sympathy or counsel passes between us. The voice which all Germany hushed its breath to hear is silenced.
Under the excommunication of the Pope, under the ban of the empire, branded as a heretic, sentenced as a traitor, reviled by the Emperor's own edict as "a fool, a blasphemer, a devil clothed in a monk's cowl," it is made treason to give him food or shelter, and a virtue to deliver him to death. And to all this, if he is living, he can utter no word of reply.
Meantime, on the other hand, every word of his is treasured up and clothed with the sacred pathos of the dying words of a father. The noble letter which he wrote to the nobles describing his appearance before the Diet is treasured in every home.
Yet some among us derive not a little hope from the last letter he wrote, which was to Lucas Cranach, from Frankfort. In it he says,—
"The Jews may sing once more their 'Io! Io!' but to us also the Easter-day will come, and then will we sing Alleluia. A little while we must be silent and suffer. 'A little while,' said Christ, 'and ye shall not see me; and again a little while and ye shall see me.' I hope it may be so now. But the will of God, the best in all things, be done in this as in heaven and earth. Amen."
Many of us think it is a dim hint to those who love him that he knew what was before him, and that after a brief concealment for safety, "till this tyranny be overpast," he will be amongst us once more.
I, at least, think so, and pray that to him this time of silence may be a time of close intercourse with God, from which he may come forth refreshed and strengthened to guide and help us all.