Life of Luther

by Julius Köstlin

On January 29 the Wittenberg theologians were summoned by their prince to Torgau. From thence they travelled slowly by Grimma and Altenburg, where they were entertained with splendour at the prince's castles, then by Weimar, where, on Sunday, February 4, Luther preached a sermon, and so on to the place of meeting. Luther had left his family and house in the care of his guest Agricola. On February 7 they arrived at Schmalkald.

The theologians at first were left unemployed. The members of the convention only gradually assembled. The envoy of the Emperor came on the 14th. Luther made up his mind for a stay there of four weeks. He preached on the 9th in the town church before the prince himself. The church he found, as he wrote to Jonas, so large and lofty, that his voice sounded to him like that of a mouse. During the first few days he enjoyed the leisure and rejoiced in the healthy air and situation of the place.

He was already suffering, however, from the stone, which had once before attacked him. A medical friend ascribed it partly to the dampness of the inns and the sheets he slept in. However, the attack passed off easily this time, and on the 14th he was able to tell Jonas that he was better. But he grew very tired of the idle time at Schmalkald. He said jokingly about the good entertainment there, that he and his friends were living with the Landgrave Philip and the Duke of Würtemberg like beggars, who had the best bakers, ate bread and drank wine with the Nürembergers, and received their meat and fish from the Elector's court. They had the best trout in the world, but they were cooked in a sauce with the other fish; and so on.

The Elector soon applied to him for an opinion as to taking part in the Council, which Luther again recommended should not be bluntly refused. A refusal, he said, would exactly please the Pope, who wished for nothing so much as obstacles to the Council; it was for this reason that, in speaking of the extirpation of heresy, he held up the Evangelicals as a 'bugbear,' in order to frighten them from the project. Good people might likewise object, on the ground that the troubles with the Turks and the Emperor's engagement in the war with France, were made use of by the Evangelicals to refuse the Council, whilst in reality the knaves at Borne were reckoning on the Turkish and French wars to prevent the Council from coming to pass.

Luther now received through Butzer the communications from Switzerland, together with a letter from Meyer, the burgomaster of Basle. To the latter he sent on the 17th of the month a cheerful and friendly reply. He did not wish to induce him to make any further explanations and promises, but his whole mind was bent upon mutual forgiveness, and bearing with one another in patience and gentleness. In this spirit he earnestly entreated Meyer to work with him. 'Will you faithfully exhort your people,' he said, 'that they may all help to quiet, soften, and promote the matter to the best of their power, that they may not scare the birds at roost.' He promised also, for his part, 'to do his utmost in the same direction.'

This same day, however, Luther's malady returned; he concluded his letter with the words, 'I cannot write now all I would, for I have been a useless man all day, owing to this painful stone.' The next day, Sunday, when he preached a powerful sermon before a large congregation, the malady became much worse, and a week followed of violent pain, during which his body swelled, he was constantly sick, and his weakness generally increased. Several doctors, including one called in from Erfurt, did their utmost to relieve him. 'They gave me physic,' he said afterwards, 'as if I were a great ox.' Mechanical contrivances were employed, but without effect.' I was obliged,' he said, 'to obey them, that it might not look as if I neglected my body.'

His condition appeared desperate. With death before his eyes, he thought of his arch-enemy the Pope, who might triumph over this, but over whom he felt certain of victory even in death. 'Behold,' he cried to God, 'I die an enemy of Thy enemies, cursed and banned by Thy foe, the Pope. May he, too, die under Thy ban, and both of us stand at Thy judgment bar on that day.' The Elector, deeply moved, stood by his bed, and expressed his anxiety lest God might take away with Luther His beloved Word. Luther comforted him by saying that there were many faithful men who, by God's help, would become a wall of strength; nevertheless, he could not conceal from the prince his apprehension that, after he was gone, discord would arise even among his colleagues at Wittenberg. The Elector promised him to care for his wife and children as his own. Luther's natural love for them, as he afterwards remarked, made the prospect of parting very hard for him to bear. To his sorrowing friends he still was able to be humorous. When Melancthon, on seeing him, began to cry bitterly, he reminded him of a saying of their friend, the hereditary marshal, Hans Löser, that to drink good beer was no art, but to drink sour beer, and then continued, in the words of Job, 'What, shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?' And again: 'The wicked Jews,' he said, 'stoned Stephen; my stone, the villain! is stoning me.' But not for an instant did he lose his trust in God and resignation to His will. When afraid of going mad with the pain, he comforted himself with the thought that Christ was his wisdom, and that God's wisdom remained immutable. Seeing, as he did, the devil at work in his torture, he felt confident that even if the devil tore him to pieces Christ would revenge His servant, and God would tear the devil to pieces in return. Only one thing he would fain have prayed his God to grant—that he might die in the country of his Elector; but he was willing and ready to depart whenever God might summon him. Upon being seized with a fit of vomiting he sighed, 'Alas, dear Father, take the little soul into Thy hand; I will be grateful to Thee for it. Go hence, thou dear little soul, go, in God's name!'

At length an attempt was actually made to remove him to Gotha, the necessary medical appliances being not procurable at Schmalkald. On the 26th of the month the Erfurt physician, Sturz, drove him thither, together with Bugenhagen, Spalatin, and Myconius, in one of the Elector's carriages. Another carriage followed them, with instruments and a pan of charcoal, for warming cloths. On driving off, Luther said to his friends about him,' The Lord fill you with His blessing, and with hatred of the Pope.'

The first day they could not venture farther than Tambach, a few miles distant, the road over the mountains being very rough. The jolting of the carriage caused him intolerable torture. But it effected what the doctors could not. The following night the pain was terminated, and the feeling of relief and recovery made him full of joy and thankfulness. A messenger was sent at once, at two o'clock in the morning, with the news to Schmalkald, and Luther himself wrote a letter to his 'dearly-loved' Melancthon. To his wife he wrote saying, 'I have been a dead man, and had commended you and the little ones to God and to our good Lord Jesus…. I grieved very much for your sakes.' But God, he went on to say, had worked a miracle with him; he felt like one newly-born; she must thank God, therefore, and let the little ones thank their heavenly Father, without whom they would assuredly have lost their earthly one.

But on the 28th already, after his safe arrival at Gotha, he suffered so severe a relapse that during that night he thought, from his extreme weakness, that his end was near. He then gave to Bugenhagen some last directions, which the latter afterwards committed to writing, as the 'Confession and Last Testament of the Venerable Father.' Herein Luther expressed his cheerful conviction that he had done rightly in attacking the Papacy with the Word of God. He begged his 'dearest Philip' (Melancthon) and other colleagues to forgive anything in which he might have offended them. To his faithful Kate he sent words of thanks and comfort, saying that now for the twelve years of happiness which they had spent together, she must accept this sorrow. Once more he sent greetings to the preachers and burghers of Wittenberg. He begged his Elector and the Landgrave not to be disturbed by the charges made against them by the Papists of having robbed the property of the Church, and recommended them to trust to God in their labours on behalf of the gospel.