Some who have seen this letter say it is too trifling for such serious subjects. But heaven is not a grim and austere, but a most bright and joyful place; and Dr. Luther is only telling the child in his own childish language what a happy place it is. Does not God our heavenly Father do even so with us?
I should like to have seen Dr. Luther turn from his grave letters to princes and doctors about the great Augsburg Confession, which they are now preparing, to write these loving words to his little Hans. No wonder "Catharine Lutherinn," "Doctoress Luther," "mea dominus Ketha," "my lord Käthe," as he calls her, is a happy woman. Happy for Germany that the Catechism in which our children learn the first elements of divine truth, grew out of the fatherly heart of Luther, instead of being put together by a Diet or a General Council.
One more letter I have copied, because my children were so interested in it. Dr. Luther finds at all times great delight in the songs of birds. The letter I have copied was written on the 28th April to his friends who meet around his table at home.
"Grace and peace in Christ, dear sirs and friends! I have received all your letters, and understand how things are going on with you. That you, on the other hand, may understand how things are going on here, I would have you know that we, namely, I, Master Veit, and Cyriacus, are not going to the Diet at Augsburg. We have, however, another Diet of our own here.
"Just under our window there is a grove like a little forest, where the choughs and crows have convened a diet, and there is such a riding hither and thither, such an incessant tumult, day and night, as if they were all merry and mad with drinking. Young and old chatter together, until I wonder how their breath can hold out so long. I should like to know if any of those nobles and cavaliers are with you; it seems to me they must be gathered here out of the whole world.
"I have not yet seen their emperor; but their great people are always strutting and prancing before our eyes, not, indeed, in costly robes, but all simply clad in one uniform, all alike black, all alike grey-eyed, and all singing one song, only with the most amusing varieties between young and old, and great and small. They are not careful to have a great palace and hall of assembly, for their hall is vaulted with the beautiful, broad sky, their floor is the field strewn with fair, green branches, and their walls reach as far as the ends of the world. Neither do they require steeds and armour; they have feathered wheels with which they fly from shot and danger. They are, doubtless, great and mighty lords, but what they are debating I do not yet know.
"As far, however, as I understand through an interpreter, they are planning a great foray and campaign against the wheat, barley, oats, and all kinds of grain, and many a knight will win his spurs in this war, and many a brave deed will be done.
"Thus we sit here in our Diet, and hear and listen with great delight, and learn how the princes and lords, with all the other estates of the empire, sing and live so merrily. But our especial pleasure is to see how cavalierly they pace about, whet their beaks, and furbish their armour, that they may win glory and victory from wheat and oats. We wish them health and wealth,—and that they may all at once be impaled on a quickset hedge!
"For I hold they are nothing better than sophists and Papists with their preaching and writing; and I should like to have these also before me in our assembly, that I might hear their pleasant voices and sermons, and see what a useful people they are to devour all that is on the face of the earth, and afterwards chatter no one knows how long!
"To-day we have heard the first nightingale; for they would not trust April. We have had delightful weather here, no rain, except a little yesterday. With you, perhaps, it is otherwise. Herewith I commend you to God. Keep house well. Given from the Diet of the grain-Turks, the 28th of April, anno 1530.
"Martinus Luther."
Yet, peaceful and at leisure as he seems, Gottfried says the whole of Germany is leaning now once more on the strength of that faithful heart.
The Roman diplomatists again and again have all but persuaded Melancthon to yield everything for peace; and, but for the firm and faithful words which issue from "this wilderness," as Luther calls the Coburg fortress, Gottfried believes all might have gone wrong. Severely and mournfully has Dr. Luther been constrained to write more than once to "Philip Pusillanimity," demanding that at least he should not give up the doctrine of justification by faith, and abandon all to the decision of the bishops!
It is faith which gives Luther this clearness of vision. "It is God's word and cause," he writes, "therefore our prayer is certainly heard, and already he has determined and prepared the help that shall help us. This cannot fail. For he says, 'Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. See, I have graven thee on the palms of my hands.' I have lately seen two miracles," he continues; "the first, as I was looking out of my window and saw the stars in heaven, and all that beautiful vaulted roof of God, and yet saw no pillars on which the Master Builder had fixed this vault; yet the heaven fell not, but all that grand arch stood firm. Now, there are some who search for such pillars, and want to touch and grasp them, and since they cannot, they wonder and tremble as if the heaven must certainly fall, for no other reason but because they cannot touch and grasp its pillars. If they could lay hold on those, think they, then the heaven would stand firm!
"The second miracle was—I saw great clouds rolling over us, with such a ponderous weight that they might be compared to a great ocean, and yet I saw no foundation on which they rested or were based, nor any shore which kept them back; yet they fell not on us, but frowned on us with a stern countenance, and fled. But when they had passed by, then shone forth both their foundation and our roof which had kept them back—the rainbow! Truly a weak, thin, slight foundation and roof, which soon melted away into the clouds, and was more like a shadowy prism, such as we see through coloured glass, than a strong and firm foundation! so that we might well distrust that feeble dyke which kept back that terrible weight of waters. Yet we found, in fact, that this unsubstantial prism could bear up the weight of waters, and that it guards us safely. But there are some who look rather at the thickness and massy weight of the waters and clouds, than at this thin, slight, narrow bow of promise. They would like to feel the strength of that shadowy, evanescent arch, and because they cannot do this, they are ever fearing that the clouds will bring back the deluge."
Heavenly Father, since one man who trusts thy word can thus uphold a nation, what could not thy word do for each of us if we would each of us thus trust it, and Thee who speakest it.