MARTIN LUTHER. 209

they were suddenly overtaken by a thunder-storm,
when a flash of vivid lightning struck Luther’s
friend dead by his side. His grief was excessive ;
and so deeply impressed was he by the circum-
stance, and the uncertainty of human life, that no
arguments on the part of his friends could prevail
with him to give up his determination to retire
from the world, to the cell of an Augustine monk.
Yet not even there did he give up his fondness for
classical study, for he took with him his Plautus
and his Virgil. It seems that his father did not
approve the step he had taken, for long after, in
dedicating to him his work De Votis Monasticis,
Luther thus speaks of his becoming an Augustine:

“Tt was not of my own deliberate will that I
became a monk. In the terror excited by a sudden
spectacle, threatened by death, and believing my-
self called upon by Heaven, I entered into my vow
without reflection, as it were on compulsion. ....
So again, when I reproached you, my father, for
the resentment you manifested at my turning monk,
you made answer in words which affected me at the
time more than any other words ever did; they are
constantly present in my recollection, and are
graven on my heart. You said, and have you not

also heard this, ‘My son, keep thy father’s com- |

mandments.’ But at that time I was hardened by
a supposed feeling of devotion, and I paid no
attention to what you said, as coming only from a
man, but in the bottom of my heart I have never
been able to conquer the effect of those words.”

It appears that Luther was most ardent in his
devotions; the following anecdote is related by
Seckendorf :—

“One morning, the door of his cell not being
opened as usual, the brethren became alarmed ; they
knocked, there was no reply. The door was burst
open, and poor brother Martin was found stretched
on the ground, in a state of ecstasy, scarcely
breathing, well nigh dead. A monk took his flute,
and playing gently upon it one of the airs that
Lather loved, brought him gradually back to
himself.”

could long withdraw Luther from his love of
literary labour ; and he turned his mind to the
especial study of the Latin Bible. His brother
friars were astonished at what he told them from
that book, of which they knew nothing; all their
notions of religion being derived from the rule of
the house and the canons of Rome. Luther
pursued his theological studies vigorously ; and
such was his erudition, and more especially in the
Holy Scriptures, that the fame of it reached beyond
the walls of the monastery, and became known to
one who was capable both of appreciating and
employing genius and learning of so high an order.

Frederick the Great, Elector of Saxony, wise,

But neither sorrow nor enthusiastic devotion |

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patriotic and independent, had been so impressed
by a conviction that the errors of the age in respect
to the church and the clergy could best be opposed
by giving a superior education to the rising youth
of the period, that he nobly founded and endowed
the university of Wittemberg. This occurred not
very long before the fame of the recluse of the
Augustines reached his ear. He sought Luther,
and was so struck by his learning and abilities,
that he at once appointed him to the professorship
of philosophy, and afterwards to that of divinity.

About this time Luther was deputed, as the best
of his order, to proceed to Rome to settle some of
the ever-recurring differences between the Holy
See and the friars. Whilst at Rome, close and
shrewd observer as he was, he first became ac-
quainted with the corruptions of the papal court
and system, and of this knowledge he failed not to
avail himself in due season.

On his return from his mission, he commenced
his course of preaching on the great points of
divinity ; this he did in a manner so lucid and
eloquent, that Frederick, who attended whenever
he preached, insisted upon his becoming a doctor
of divinity.

Luther modestly refused ; but the Elector, with
an almost prophetic intelligence, told him that “ he
must submit to be thus honoured, inasmuch as the
Almighty had important services to be rendered
to the chureh through him alone.” Tuther now )
renewed his studies of the word of God with his |
accustomed. ardour, and commenced that especial
career in doctrine which Frederick had so recently |
anticipated. But for the full detail of these mar-
vellous labours and their effects, we must refer our |
readers to more extended works—ours is but a |
sketch. Suffice it here to say that Luther (even |
as Wycliffe did so many years before him) based |
all his doctrine on the Gospels, and from them |
proved how wholly unfounded were the system, the |
canons, the decretals and the assumptions of the
See of Rome. And now let us at once go to the
great event which roused the public spirit, called
forth the public indignation, and literally sum-
moned Luther to stand forth as the champion of
the truth and of the liberty of mankind,

Leo X., a man of great talents, magnificent
designs, and boundless ambition, devoid of all fear
as of true religious principle, ready to sacrifice
whatever stood in the way of the grandeur of his
designs, when he ascended the papal throne, found
its dignity greatly shorn by the revenue of the
The vast projects

-

See being nearly bankrupt!
of his predecessors had emptied its coffers. The
building of St. Peter’s had been commenced by the
late Julius II., and every stone init had been raised
by the sale of indulgences. Leo determined on a
still more extensive sale of the same article, in order

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VOL, IX. N. §.— NO. LU.

Vv