So mournfully and tenderly he writes and speaks, the shadow of that sorrow at the centre of his life overspreading the whole world with darkness to him. Or rather, as he would say, the joy of that loving, dutiful child's presence being withdrawn, he looks out from his cold and darkened hearth, and sees the world as it is; the covetousness of the rich; the just demands, yet insurrectionary attempts of the poor; the war with the Turks without, the strife in the empire within; the fierce animosities of impending religious war; the lukewarmness and divisions among his friends. For many years God gave that feeling heart a refuge from all these in the bright, unbroken circle of his home. But now the next look to him seems beyond this life; to death, which unveils the kingdom of truth and righteousness, and love, to each, one by one; or still more, to the glorious Advent which will manifest it to all. Of this he delights to speak. The end of the world, he feels sure, is near; and he says all preachers should tell their people to pray for its coming, as the beginning of the golden age. He said once—"O gracious God, come soon again! I am waiting ever for the day—the spring morning, when day and night are equal, and the clear, bright rose of that dawn shall appear. From that glow of morning I imagine a thick, black cloud will issue, forked with lightning, and then a crash, and heaven and earth will fall. Praise be to God, who has taught us to long and look for that day. In the Papacy, they sing—
'Dies iræ, dies illa;'
but we look forward to it with hope; and I trust it is not far distant."
Yet he is no dreamer, listlessly clasping his hands in the night, and watching for the dawn. He is of the day, a child of the light; and calmly, and often cheerfully, he pursues his life of ceaseless toil for others, considerately attending to the wants and pleasures of all, from the least to the greatest; affectionately desirous to part with his silver plate, rather than not give a generous reward to a faithful old servant, who was retiring from his service; pleading the cause of the helpless; writing letters of consolation to the humblest who need his aid; caring for all the churches, yet steadily disciplining his children when they need it, or ready to enter into any scheme for their pleasure.
Wittemberg, 1530.
It seems as if Dr. Luther were as necessary to us now as when he gave the first impulse to better things, by affixing his theses to the doors of Wittemberg, or when the eyes of the nation centred on him at Worms. In his quiet home he sits and holds the threads which guide so many lives, and the destinies of so many lands. He has been often ailing lately, and sometimes very seriously. The selfish luxury of the rich burghers and nobles troubles him much. He almost forced his way one day into the Elector's cabinet, to press on him the appropriation of some of the confiscated church revenues to the payment of pastors and schoolmasters; and earnestly, again and again, from the pulpit, does he denounce covetousness.
"All other vices," he says, "bring their pleasures; but the wretched avaricious man is the slave of his goods, not their master; he enjoys neither this world nor the next. Here he has purgatory, and there hell; while faith and content bring rest to the soul here, and afterwards bring the soul to heaven. For the avaricious lack what they have, as well as what they have not."
Never was a heart more free from selfish interests and aims than his. His faith is always seeing the invisible God; and to him it seems the most melancholy folly, as well as sin, that people should build their nests in this forest, on all whose trees he sees "the forester's mark of destruction."
The tone of his preaching has often lately been reproachful and sad.
Elsè's Gretchen, now a thoughtful maiden of three-and-twenty, said to me the other day,—