The name of Luther is so well known that it will not be necessary to give more than a very brief sketch of his wonderful life. The peasant, who was raised by his virtues to more than kingly power, and to be the leader of the greatest religious movement of modern times, cannot be a stranger to the world. Luther was bred in the midst of poverty and almost of want. As he grew older, his father, who was a kind-hearted, though stern man, began to rise in the world, and found means to send him to school. The patronage of a wealthy lady named Cotta, was also of great benefit to him. He was distinguished very early for quickness and profundity of intellect, and the highest hopes were formed of him. But in the midst of flattering prospects, he was deeply convicted of sin, and terrified concerning his spiritual state. After he had spent a long time in mental struggles, full of agony, he resolved to become a monk, as the surest way of allaying all doubt, and obtaining the spiritual rest for which he longed. His father never forgave this step, until his son stood in direct opposition to the power of Rome. But the ardent heart of Luther could not find peace in the dull routine of a convent life, and every spiritual trial was redoubled. At last, while he was reading in an old copy of the Bible, which he had found in the library of the convent, the great doctrine of justification by faith dawned upon him with all the freshness of a new revelation. He at once began to teach the people the same blessed doctrine, with the most gratifying results. His preaching was marked by great power, and soon his sphere widened. He was made a doctor of divinity in the University of Wittenberg, and began to lecture on Paul’s Epistles, and the Psalms. He was still a devoted adherent of Rome, although he taught the students under his care to look to the Scriptures as the fountain of all authority. But the germs of the Reformation were already hid in his own mind, and it only required circumstances to bring them into vigorous life.
These were soon supplied. When a monk came to Wittenberg, selling pardons for every kind of sin, even that which was to be committed, Luther felt it his duty to warn the people against any dependence on such sources of forgiveness. The Pope took part with the monk in the strife that followed; and the contest went from one point to another, until the Pope hurled a decree of excommunication at Luther, which he burned, in the presence of his adherents, as a token of defiance and contempt. The reformation spread wonderfully, and although surrounded on every side by threatenings and enemies, the life of this great man was spared, and for years he exerted an influence in Germany not second to that of the Emperor himself. When he fell at last, in the midst of his labors, the people mourned for him as for a personal benefactor.
All through his life, Luther had the secret of reaching the hearts of the people in a wonderful manner. No other of the great men who abounded at that time possessed a tithe of his power in this respect. It has been said “that his words were half battles.” His discourses were not smooth or graceful, yet it was not for want of ability to secure these qualities, for he had great command of every style of language, and loved softer and more ornamented speech in others; but he was too much in earnest, with an empire, and the vastest hierarchy the world ever saw, arrayed against him, to stay to use them. Whenever he preached the people would flock together from great distances, and listen as to a prophet, while he unfolded the grand and simple plan of salvation in the plainest words. He had every element of a great preacher. His imagination was most vivid, and he did not fail to use it to the utmost. He could paint a scene in all the completeness of action before his hearers, and awaken their tears or smiles at his will. He used no manuscript, but spoke from the vast fulness of knowledge he possessed on every subject. His pen was employed as well as his voice. By it he not only produced a great number of books that advanced the cause of the Reformation almost as much as his spoken efforts, but by the combination of the two methods of expression, writing to meet the eye and speaking for the ear, he taught himself both accuracy and readiness, and was thus prepared for the part he was called upon to act. Added to these, were his strong emotions, and indomitable will, which gave him an energy that bore every thing before him. For beauty and grace in themselves he cared nothing, but when they came unbidden, as they often did, they were welcome. He rightly estimated his own character and work when he said “that he was rough, boisterous, stormy, and altogether warlike; born to fight innumerable devils and monsters, to remove stumps and stones, to cut down thistles and thorns, and to clear the wild woods.”
LORD CHATHAM.
It may well be doubted whether the eloquence of this great and wonderful man did not surpass that of either Cicero or Demosthenes. It is certain that the effects he repeatedly produced have never been surpassed. And he had not to deal with a populace easily moved, although cultivated in some particulars, as they had; but his mightiest triumphs were won in the British Parliament, from an acute, critical, and often hostile assembly. His example, with that of his son, who was almost equally great, afford an irrefutable answer to those who doubt the capacity of unwritten speech to convey impressions as mighty as any ever produced by man.
He was born in 1708, and was educated at Oxford, quitting it without a degree, but with a brilliant reputation. Soon after he entered Parliament, and gained such power that he was shortly advanced to the office of Prime Minister. This was in the reign of George II. and at the opening of the Seven Years War, by which England won the province of Canada, and became the most powerful empire in the world. But when he took the reins of government it was far different. The armies of the nation had been beaten in every quarter, and the people were almost in despair. But he infused new spirit into them, and by his energy and farsighted combinations, won the most glorious series of triumphs that ever crowned the arms of England. His fame did not cease when he left the ministry, and, in America at least, he is best known for his friendly words to us during the revolutionary war. He opposed with all the strength of his wondrous eloquence the oppressive measures that provoked the colonists to revolution. Yet there was no element of fear or compromise in his disposition. He only opposed the ministry in their government of our country because he believed their measures to be unjust. But when, after seven years of defeat and disaster, the body of the nation became convinced that the Americans never could be conquered, and the proposition was made to recognize their independence, Chatham fought against the accomplishment of the separation with all his vigor. He made his last speech on this subject, and while the house was still under the solemn awe that followed his address, he was stricken down by apoplexy and borne home to die.
We have little upon which to base an estimate of this almost unequalled orator, save the effect he produced upon his contemporaries. Nothing has been preserved of his speeches, but a few passages that stamped themselves indelibly upon the minds of his hearers. Yet through his eloquence, backed by his strong will, he was for many years virtually dictator of England, and even when most alone, scarcely any one dared to meet him in debate.
Many curious instances are given of the uncontrolled ascendency he obtained over the House of Commons. His most celebrated rival was Murray, Earl of Mansfield, who had just been promoted to the office of Attorney-General, when the incident narrated below occurred. Chatham made a speech, really intended to overwhelm Murray, but on a totally different subject. Fox says “every word was Murray, yet so managed that neither he nor anybody else could take public notice of it or in any way reprehend him. I sat near Murray, who suffered for an hour. At its close he used an expression that at once became proverbial.” After the unhappy Attorney had writhed for a time, and endured the terrible, but indirect, satire of Chatham until endurance was scarcely possible any longer, the latter stopped, threw his piercing eyes around as if in search of something, then fixing their whole force on his victim, exclaimed, “I must now address a few words to Mr. Attorney; they shall be few, but they shall be daggers!” Murray was agitated; the look was continued, and the agitation became so uncontrollable as to be noticed by the whole house. “Felix trembles,” roared Chatham, in a voice of thunder, “he shall hear me some other day.” Murray was too completely stricken to attempt a reply.
On another occasion, having finished a speech, he walked out of the house with a slow step, being at the time an habitual invalid. There was a profound silence until he was passing through the door. Then a member started up, saying, “Mr. Speaker, I rise to reply to the right honorable gentleman.” Chatham caught the sound, turned back, and fixed his eye on the orator, who instantly sat down. He then walked slowly to his seat, repeating in Latin, as he hobbled along, the lines from Virgil, in which is described the terror of the Grecian ghosts when Æneas entered the dark realm:
“The Grecian chiefs....