MARTIN LUTHER.
“Ein Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott.”
Of Martin Luther Coleridge said, “He did as much for the Reformation by his hymns as he did by his translation of the Bible.” The remark is so true that it has become a commonplace.
The above line—which may be seen inscribed on Luther's tomb at Wittenberg—is the opening sentence and key-note of the Reformer's grandest hymn. The forty-sixth Psalm inspired it, and it is in harmony with sublime historical periods from its very nature, boldness, and sublimity. It was written, according to Welles, in the memorable year when the evangelical princes delivered their protest at the Diet of Spires, from which the word and the meaning of the word “Protestant” is derived. “Luther used often to sing it in 1530, while the Diet of Augsburg was sitting. It soon became the favorite psalm with the people. It was one of the watchwords of the Reformation, cheering armies to conflict, and sustaining believers in the hours of fiery trial.”
“After Luther's death, Melancthon, his affectionate coadjutor, being one day at Weimar with his banished friends, Jonas and Creuziger, heard a little maid singing this psalm in the street, and said, ‘Sing on, my little girl, you little know whom you comfort:’”
A mighty fortress is our God,
A bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe