[Illustration: Fig. 57.—LUTHER AFTER DEATH. (From a picture ascribed to Cranach.)]
The Elector John Frederick at once insisted that the mortal remains of Luther should rest at Wittenberg. The Counts of Mansfeld wished at least to pay them the last honours. After they had been brought, on the afternoon of the 19th, into the Church of St. Andrew, where a sermon was preached by Jonas that day, and another by Cölius on the following morning, a solemn procession started at noon on the 20th, with the coffin, for its destination. In front rode a troop of about fifty light-armed cavalry, with sons of both the Counts, to accompany the body to its last resting-place. All the Counts and Countesses, with their guests, followed as far as the gates of Eisleben, and among them was a Prince of Anhalt, the magistrates, the school-children, and the whole population of the surrounding country.
[Illustration: Fig. 58.—CAST OF LUTHER AFTER DEATH. (At Halle.)]
In all the villages on the road the bells tolled, and old and young flocked to join the procession. At Halle the coffin was received with great solemnity, and placed for the night of the 20th in the principal church of the town. There a cast was taken in wax, which is preserved in the library of the church; the original features, however, having been altered by putting in the eyes and improving the shape of the mouth. To complete our picture of Luther's outward appearance, we have in this cast the remarkably strong brow, which in Cranach's portraits of Luther often recedes out of all proportion in his upturned face. The two representations of Luther when dead are of great value, deeply as it must be lamented that no more skilful hands than those of the painter of Halle and the wax-modeller have had the privilege of working upon them.
On the 21st the corpse was taken to Kemberg, after being received at the frontier of the Electorate by deputies from the Elector. On the morning of the 22nd it reached Wittenberg, where it was at once taken to the Castle Church in solemn procession through the whole length of the town. It was a long, sad procession. First went the nobles representing the Elector, then the horsemen from Mansfeld and their young Counts, and immediately after the coffin the widow in a little carriage with some other gentlewomen. Then followed Luther's sons and his brother James, with other relatives from Mansfeld; then the University, the members of the Town Council, and all the citizens of Wittenberg. In the church Bugenhagen preached a sermon, and Melancthon, who, on the arrival of the sad news, had expressed his grief in a charge to the students, gave a Latin oration as representative of the University. Then, near the spot where the great Reformer had once nailed up his theses, the body was lowered into the grave.
Throughout the whole Evangelical Church arose a cry of lamentation. Luther was mourned as a prophet of Germany—as an Elijah who had overthrown the worship of idols and set up again the pure Word of God. Like Elisha to Elijah, so Melancthon called out after him, 'Alas! the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof!' On the other hand, fanatical Papists were not ashamed to insult his very deathbed with slanders and falsehoods; even a year before he died a silly, sensational story of his death was spread about by them.
Luther throughout his life and labours had never troubled himself much about the praise or the abuse of men. After the example of his great teacher St. Paul, he went his way in honour and dishonour, through evil report and good report, along the road which he knew to be pointed out from above. The portrait of his life, plain and unadorned as it is presented to the present age, will at any rate testify to the worth of this great man, and thus do something towards that eternal end for which he was ready to sacrifice his life and, in the eyes of the world, his honour and his fame.