But what touched me most was to see the love and almost idolatrous reverence which had gathered around his name in remote districts, among the oppressed and toiling peasantry.
I remember especially, in one village, a fine-looking old peasant farmer taking me to an inner room where hung a portrait of Luther, encircled with a glory, with a curtain before it.
"See!" he said. "The lord of that castle," and he pointed to a fortress on an opposite height, "has wrought me and mine many a wrong. Two of my sons have perished in his selfish feuds, and his huntsmen lay waste my fields as they choose in the chase; yet, if I shoot a deer, I may be thrown into the castle dungeon, as mine have been before. But their reign is nearly over now. I saw that man at Worms. I heard him speak, bold as a lion, for the truth, before emperor, princes, and prelates. God has sent us the deliverer; and the reign of righteousness will come at last, when every man shall have his due."
"Friend," I said, with an aching heart, "the Deliverer came fifteen hundred years ago, but the reign of justice has not come to the world yet. The Deliverer was crucified, and his followers since then have suffered, not reigned."
"God is patient," he said, "and we have been patient long, God knows; but I trust the time is come at last."
"But the redemption Dr. Luther proclaims," I said, gently, "is liberty from a worse bondage than that of the nobles, and it is a liberty no tyrant, no dungeon, can deprive us of—the liberty of the sons of God;"—and he listened earnestly while I spoke to him of justification, and of the suffering, redeeming Lord. But at the end he said—
"Yes, that is good news. But I trust Dr. Luther will avenge many a wrong among us yet. They say he was a peasant's son like me."
If I were Dr. Luther, and knew that the wistful eyes of the oppressed and sorrowful throughout the land were turned to me, I should be tempted to say—
"Lord, let me die before these oppressed and burdened hearts learn how little I can help them!"
For verily there is much evil done under the sun. Yet as truly there is healing for every disease, remedy for every wrong, and rest from every burden, in the tidings Dr. Luther brings. But remedy of a different kind, I fear, from what too many fondly expect!