"Therefore, my dear little son John, learn and pray with all confidence; and tell this to Philip and James, that they also may learn and pray; and ye will all meet in this beautiful garden. Herewith I commend thee to Almighty God. Give greetings to Aunt Lena, and also a kiss from me. Thy father who loves thee.
"19th June, 1530.
"Martin Luther."
A cheery, bright, helpful, storylike letter to a boy, is it not? And written from that old German castle in a time of danger and of controversy. And the writer is neither soldier, prince, nor priest, but greater than soldier, prince, or priest, the one man who gave the death-blow to the ignorance of the Dark Ages, and changed the history of the world. For the writer was Martin Luther, the apostle of the Reformation, the "renegade monk" who dared, in spite of Pope and Orders, to tell the world that alike the Word of God and the conscience of man were free, and who, in the year 1521, commanded by Pope and Emperor to take back his bold words, heroicly said, in the midst of enemies, and in the face of almost certain death: "I may not, I cannot retract; for it is neither safe nor right to act against conscience. Here stand I. I cannot do otherwise. God help me."
And the little four-year-old boy to whom this storylike letter was written was Luther's first-born, the dearly loved "son John." He was named for his grandfather Hans (or John) Luther, the Saxon miner, and he was born in June, 1526, in the cloister-home in Wittenberg, where his father, Martin Luther, had first lived as monk, and afterwards as master. For when that monk made his heroic stand, and the men of North Germany followed him as a leader, the Prince of his homeland, the Elector of Saxony, gave him as his home the Augustinian convent at Wittenberg, deserted by the monks, who would not follow him whom they called "the renegade."
Here in the cloisters of the old convent, close to the city wall, and almost overhanging the river Elbe, Martin Luther and his wife Catherine made their home; here they received into their household students, professors, travellers, and guests—men anxious to hear the glad tidings of religious freedom that this great leader proclaimed to Germany and the world, and here, as I have told you, in June, 1526, little "Hanschen," or "Johnny" Luther was born.
Luther was a man who loved home and family ties, and from babyhood little John was most dear to him. The Reformer's letters to his friends are full of references to the small stranger who had come into the Wittenberg home; and neither hot religious disputes, knotty theological problems, nor grave political happenings could crowd Johnny out of the father's heart.
We get these glimpses of "our John" frequently. "Through the grace of God there has come to us," he writes to one of his friends, "a little Hans [John] Luther, a hale and hearty first-born"; and a few days later he says that, with wife and son, he envies neither Pope nor Emperor. Of the year-old boy he writes, in May, 1527, "My little Johnny is lively and robust, and eats and drinks like a hero."
That year of 1527 some terribly contagious disease, called, as all such "catching" illnesses then were, "the plague," visited Wittenberg and converted the Luther household "into a hospital." "Thy little favorite, John"—thus he closes a letter to a friend—"does not salute thee, for he is too ill to speak, but through me he solicits your prayers. For the last twelve days he has not eaten a morsel. 'Tis wonderful to see how the poor child keeps up his spirits; he would manifestly be as gay and joyous as ever, were it not for the excess of his physical weakness." It was in the midst of the poverty and worry that the plague and the other crosses he endured brought about that Luther wrote his great hymn, "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott," one of the grand and triumphant "Hymns of the Ages," and we can imagine that, with his powerful voice, he rang the hymn out gladly when, in December, 1527, he could write thankfully, "Our John is well and strong again."
Luther was a great letter-writer, and in the midst of pressing duties and important deeds, away from his loved ones, he could always find time to write home. Many of these "letters home" remain on record, beginning "To the gracious dame Catherine Luther, my dear spouse, who is tormenting herself quite unnecessarily"; or, "To my sweet wife Catherine Luther von Bora. Grace and peace in the Lord. Dear Catherine, we hope to be with you again this week, if it please God." But one of the most famous of the Luther letters is that one which, when "our John" was just four years old, his father wrote from the old castle of Coburg, in the shadow of the Saxon mountains, and in the midst of stirring times, sitting at the window, as we have seen, while outside the crows were cawing and the jackdaws were chattering, and armed men guarded the great letter-writer as the most precious of Germany's possessions.
Five boys and girls blessed that cloister-home at Wittenberg. The Luthers were never "well-to-do"; sometimes they were so short of money—for Luther was overgenerous in his charities—as to feel the pinch of poverty. But Luther had friends in high places who would not let him want, and he was therefore able to give his boys tutors at home and good instruction later on in life.