Luther was the creator of German congregational singing.
[21] Luther's first poetic publication seems to have been certain verses composed on the martyrdom of two young Christian monks, who were burned alive at Brussels in 1523 for their faithful confession of the evangelical doctrines. A translation of a part of this composition is given in D'Aubigné's History of the Reformation in these beautiful and stirring words:
"Flung to the heedless winds or on the waters cast,
Their ashes shall be watched, and gathered at the last;
And from that scattered dust, around us and abroad,
Shall spring a plenteous seed of witnesses for God.
"Jesus hath now received their latest living breath,
Yet vain is Satan's boast of victory in their death.
Still, still, though dead, they speak, and trumpet-tongued proclaim
To many a wakening land the One availing Name."
Audin, though a Romanist, says: "The hymns which he translated from the Latin into German may be unreservedly praised, as also those which he composed for the members of his own communion. He did not travesty the sacred Word nor set his anger to music. He is grave, simple, solemn, and grand. He was at once the poet and musician of a great number of his hymns."
[22] Froude supplemented.
[23] "It must be observed that the coarse vituperations which shock the reader in Luther's controversial works were not peculiar to him, being commonly used by scholars and divines of the Middle Ages in their disputations. The invectives of Valla, Filelfo, Poggio, and other distinguished scholars against each other are notorious; and this bad taste continued in practice long after Luther down to the seventeenth century, and traces of it are found in writers of the eighteenth, even in some of the works of the polished and courtly Voltaire."—Cyclopædia of Soc. for Diffus. of Useful Knowledge.
[24] "In no other instance have such great events depended upon the courage, sagacity, and energy of a single man, who, by his sole and unassisted efforts, made his solitary cell the heart and centre of the most wonderful and important commotion the world ever witnessed—who by the native force and vigor of his genius attacked and successfully resisted, and at length overthrew, the most awful and sacred authority that ever imposed its commands on mankind."—A letter prefixed to Luther's Table-Talk in the folio edition of 1652.
[25] "To overturn a system of religious belief founded on ancient and deep-rooted prejudices, supported by power and defended with no less art than industry—to establish in its room doctrines of the most contrary genius and tendency, and to accomplish all this, not by external violence or the force of arms, are operations which historians the least prone to credulity and superstition ascribe to that divine providence which with infinite ease can bring about events which to human sagacity appear impossible."—Robertson's Charles V.
[26] "From the commencement of the religious war in Germany to the Peace of Westphalia scarce anything great or memorable occurred in the European political world with which the Reformation was not essentially connected. Every event in the history of the world in this interval, if not directly occasioned, was nearly affected, by this religious revolution, and every state, great or small, remotely or immediately felt its influence."—Schiller's Thirty Years' War, vol. i. p. 1.
[27] "Luther was as wonderful as he was great. His personal experience in divine things was as deep as his mind was mighty, large, and unbounded. Though called by the Most High, and continued by his appointment, in the midst of papal darkness, idolatry, and error, with no companions but the saints of the Bible, nor any other light but the lamp of the Word to guide his feet, his heaven-taught soul was ministerially furnished with as rich pasture for the sheep of Christ, as awful ammunition for the terror and destruction of the enemies by which he and they were perpetually surrounded. The sphere of his mighty ministry was not bounded by his defence of the truth against the great and powerful. No! He was as rich a pastor, as terrible a warrior. He fed the sheep in the fattest pastures, while he destroyed the wolves on every side. Nor will those pastures be dried up or lost until time, nations, and the churches of God shall be no more."—Dr. Cole's Pref. to Luther on Genesis.