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Nevertheless, the monks began to leave Luther's own monastery, and the students and citizens to tear down the images of the saints in the churches. The Lord's Supper was no longer celebrated in the form of the Mass, since that was declared to be an idolatrous worshiping of the bread and wine.
Elizabeth, now that she had decided to talk to Luther about the circumstances with which she contended, could not bring herself readily to do so. Luther had always the insight of true wisdom, which let others gauge their own inclinations. When they came to the fence which was the boundary line between Luther's and John Hunter's farms, they stopped.
So Luther's sincere idiomatic German, such language as this: "Hilf, lieber Gott, wie manchen Jammer habe ich gesehen, dass der gemeine Mann doch so gar nichts weiss von der christlichen Lehre!" no more proves a power of style in German literature, than Cobbett's sinewy idiomatic English proves it in English literature.
We, too, would call this an act of despair. We would say with Luther: Despair makes monks. But the despair which we mean, and which Luther meant, is genuine spiritual despair. What Catholics call Luther's despair is really desperation, a reckless, dare-devil plunging of a criminal into a splendid Catholic sanctuary. That Luther's act decidedly was not.
The tractates of 1520, to which that on "The Papacy at Rome" belongs, like most of Luther's writings, were drawn forth from him in large part defensively, under provocation from the other side, or by the exigencies of the occasion. I was unwilling to be forced to come forward in public; and the more unwilling I am, the more I am drawn into the contest."
But before we exhibit the true attitude of Rome toward the Bible, it will be necessary to examine the Catholic claim regarding the extensive dissemination and the intensive study of the Bible among the people in and before Luther's times. Before the age of printing one cannot speak, of course, of "editions" of the Bible.
The accordance of the art of printing with the spirit of the times which gave it birth must be regarded as singularly providential. The Protestant Reformation in Germany was brought about by Luther's accidentally meeting, in a monastic library, with one of Gutenberg's printed Latin Bibles, when at the age of twenty.
In his announcement of this step he solemnly declared: 'The merciful God has plenteously and graciously vouchsafed to let His holy, redeeming Word, through the teaching of the reverend and most learned, our beloved and good Martin Luther, doctor of Holy Scripture, be made known to all men in these latter days of the world with true Christian understanding, for their comfort and salvation, for which we give Him praise and thanks for ever; and has made known also, in addition to other arts, the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, through the conspicuous and rare ability and industry of the learned Philip Melancthon, for the furtherance of the right and Christian comprehension of Holy Scripture. To each of these two men he now gave a hundred gulden as an addition to his salary as professor, which in Luther's case had hitherto amounted to two hundred gulden.
In the Imperial hereditary lands, where for some years missionaries, chiefly members of Luther's own Augustine Order, had been actively labouring in the strength of the convictions derived from Wittenberg, two young Augustine monks, Henry Voes and John Esch, were publicly burnt, on July 1, 1523, as heretics.
He did wickedly, and we may have to curse him some for decency's sake, but be deserves pity, too, for he was the misguided pupil of that arch-heretic Luther. That is Catholic equity in estimating Luther's share in the peasant uprising. We only note in conclusion that Thomas Muenzer died in the arms of the alone-saving Church, a penitent prodigal that had returned to the bosom of "Holy Mother."
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