Chapter XXI: The Parting of the Ways

I had failed, and I did not conceal from myself one reason why I had failed. My past life and reputation had detracted from the weight of my arguments, rather than strengthened them. That I was stark mad, or perhaps the subject of demoniac possession was the firm impression (I afterwards learned), of most of my friends in Rome. Letters informing me as much and chiding me for “casting away the fairest chance that ever a man had of winning the Pope’s favor,” overtook me whilst I tarried at Vicenza, breaking my journey north. I had done well to leave Rome suddenly, otherwise I would surely have been placed under some restraint as a lunatic, whose folly took the form of heresy.

From Vicenza I wrote to my Venice bankers, bidding them to sell all my estates and property in Italy to the first fair purchaser, and remit me the proceeds against goldsmiths’ bills on Augsburg. With the South I had finished. I dropped the title of Palaestro from my style, and for better or worse I reëntered Germany as only the “Graf von Regenstein.”

Even after so brief an absence I could see how the spirit of excitement and enthusiasm for Luther had swelled. At Tübingen I met the latest pamphlet by Ulrich von Hutten, the prince of the German poets and Humanists, who had flown to the cause of Luther. His pen had been surely dipped in gall. In his biting invectives were embodied all the implacable hate which had been accumulating among the men of the North against the Papacy.

Thus ran some of the “triads” in his _Vadiscus, or the Roman Trinity_.

“Three things abound in Rome; antiquities, poison, and ruins.

“Three things the Romans trade in; Christ, church offices, and
women.

“Three things everybody wants in Rome; short masses, good gold,
and a merry life.

“Three things are most praised yet are most rare in Rome;
devotion, faith, and innocence.

“Three things a pilgrim usually brings back from Rome; a soiled
conscience, a sick stomach, an empty purse.

“Three things are most feared in Rome; that the princes get
united, that the people begin to open their eyes, and that Rome’s
frauds come to light.

“Three things only can set Rome right; the determination of the
princes, the impatience of the people, and a host of Turks at her
doors.”

Here I have given only some of the mildest of his onslaughts. Everybody was reading them. Everybody was believing them. Ploughboys and tapsters stood around their more literate companions while they conned aloud the latest pamphlet of the great debate. Glorious Johannes Gutenberg, what a debt to thee and thy printer’s art, owe all who love truth, justice, and the freeing of the human soul!

But Hutten had not spoken alone. Louder and clearer than his sounded the voice from Wittenberg. Dr. Luther had anticipated the tardily fashioned Bull. The Wittenberg printing-presses had scattered his pamphlets to wide Germany. It was not to the learned Latinists that he was speaking now. “The time for silence is gone, and the time for speaking has come.” So in the words of Ecclesiastes, did the Augustinian friar begin his “_Address to the German Nobility_,”--the work that more than any other one book split Christendom into two hostile camps. On July 20, 1520, just as I was reëntering Germany, it was published. I met my first copy a few days later at Nuremberg. I remember sitting up late into the night in the hot room of my inn to finish it. In the morning I discovered that five other guests in the selfsame inn had burned out their candles doing the like. Men could talk of nothing else. I was not amazed to hear that very soon the presses of Leipzig and Strassburg were busily reprinting.

I fear that if I had seen this book before seeking my audience with Leo I would have turned back silent, and hazarding nothing. The Wittenberg preacher had thrown away the scabbard. Such plainness of speech had not been used against Rome since pagan emperors had ceased to persecute. I leave to historians and theologians to tell our children’s children of this book. Cold enough seems the invective now, perhaps, as the fleeting years bring us German Protestants slothful safety. But let it be read as I and a million others read it,--with the great issue trembling on the brink, with the vast fabric of the One Catholic Church and the One Vicar of Christ its head tottering as to their fall,--old rooted ideas and beliefs, things men had sucked in with their mothers’ milk, things men had learned to believe as certainly as that the sun crosses the sky toward the west, all these in short seemingly about to perish, and _then_ perchance some of the glow and battle spirit might come, some of the hope, fear, trembling, exaltation.

When I read that “the government of the Pope agrees with the government of the apostles as well as Lucifer with Christ, hell with heaven, night with day, and yet the Pope calls himself Christ’s Vicar,” how could my memory fail to race back to the scenes just witnessed at Rome? I read on and on, involuntarily nodding my head with approval at even the fiercest invective. I was in no mood to analyze the argument, to weigh the justice of each specific criticism, of each suggested improvement in churchly discipline. Nothing seemed spared. Saints’ days, masses for the dead, fasting, begging pilgrimages, a thousand other things all were written down in one fiery condemnation. And I smiled when I read “Heretics should be overcome with books, not with fire, else the hangmen would be the most learned doctors in the world, and there would be no need of study.”

“Ah! Monsignori by the Tiber,” quoth I, “you will not be pleased to have doctrines like that prevail.”

I remember casting the little book upon my pillow, and leaping up with a laugh which awakened Andrea, who was sleeping on a pallet near the door.

“Parried! Parried fairly,” I cried; “the sword of Rome is blunted on the war-club of Germany. Behold the answer to the Papal Bull!”

* * * * *

A few more days of hard riding brought me to Wittenberg. The Elbe country was all in the green and glory of ripening summer. A golden haze filled the evening as I cantered over the plain and saw the great tower of the Schloss-kirche looming ever higher. The honest peasantry were trudging homeward from the fields. Their genial “Gruss Gott” was welcome to my ears. All was peace and quietude. Rome and its atmosphere of ostentatious elegance, suppressed intrigue, polite scandal, pagan learning, almost faded from my ken. I rode up the street of the little city. The lamps were being lighted. A few students were trolling a hearty catch in one of the taverns. Leaving the horses to be taken by my servants to the Castellan’s I went alone and unannounced to the Augustinian convent. Familiarity made me enter boldly. I mounted the stairway and threw open the door of Dr. Luther. It was the same room that I had entered on an October evening almost three years before,--the green tile stove, the solid chairs, the great solid table. Only around the open lattice vines were climbing, and I caught a heavy perfume from the convent gardens. The room was very dim, but I stopped involuntarily as I crossed the threshold. Dr. Luther was kneeling on the praying stool in one corner before a tall, bare, wooden cross. He was praying softly aloud. I could not catch the words, but stood awestruck, reverent, for no small time. Presently he arose and turned. His bold, strong face seemed to shine out upon me from the gloaming. Then of a sudden he saw me.

“Walter! _Ach! Liebe Gott!_”

He ran up to me, and almost crushed me with his powerful embrace. Then he led me to the window-seat, and sat for some moments holding both my hands, and pelting me with questions, so rapidly that I could hardly answer one, ere he had discharged another.

“Oh! dear Lord Jesus Christ!” he cried at length, “what have I, poor Brother Martin, done, that the noble Graf von Regenstein should run this peril for my sake?”

“The peril was nothing, but I am come back a beaten soldier. I have failed.”

“Yes, the Bull is issued. Good! Asses must bray, wolves howl, and cardinals clamor for a poor German’s blood. Heaven has made it so. We cannot complain.”

“Yet consider, dear Dr. Martin, who and what will save us now?”

“_Us?_ ‘Me’ you intended to say.”

“Us, for am I not one with you for life and for death?”

He was silent for an instant, then the grip on my hand was renewed. “I have not deserved this. I cannot involve noble friends. The cause will triumph, but very likely over my bones. It must not march over yours also.”

“Dear Doctor,” said I, “it is you who have taught me to seek God and to play the man and not the accursed fool. It is ‘us’ from this time forth, though the Pope and every king rise up against us.”

“I have not deserved this. I thank you.” Then he reached to the table and took up a Psalter. “Let me say the forty-sixth psalm.”

And in the gray twilight, with the book unopened before him, I heard his deep voice roll out the majestic Latin of the Vulgate.

“_God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble._

_Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be removed, and
though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea._

_Though the waters therefore roar and be troubled: though the
mountains shake with the swelling thereof._

_The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: He uttered His
voice, the earth melted._

_Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the
heathen, I will be exalted in the earth._

_The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge._”

We sat silent again for a long time when he ceased. The daylight faded. I shall no more forget that hour than I shall forget the scene in the hunting lodge with Leo de’ Medici. A few years afterward Luther was to cast this psalm into a hymn which Germany, and many Christians afar, will verily sing forever, ‘_Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott_.’...

Not that evening but in the clear warm morning sunlight was the final issue drawn. I was there with Philip Melanchthon and Dr. Nicolaus Amsdorf, a careful young theologian who had become Luther’s left arm, if Melanchthon was his right. Dr. Martin had taken us on a walk through the brilliant green country down toward the swirling Elbe. As we walked out of the Eastern Gate two curly headed children, the boy and girl of some parishioner, ran out to their stalwart friend and nestled up by him, one on either side. They went along with us for a while right merrily, talking about their school, their plays and how their big sister was going to marry a Dessau hops-merchant. Luther twined his big fingers in their long hair, pinched their red cheeks, and asked innumerable questions. Then he told them a story of how the night before he had dreamed of a bright and glorious city, wherein were a hundred million boys and girls like themselves with marvellous toys wherewith they never grew weary playing, and most beautiful clothes which never grew soiled. And he had asked a holy man present (he thought he was an angel), if the little folk of Wittenberg could some day enter into that city too? “Yes,” had been the answer, “but many years hence, after they were grown up, and only then if they obeyed their parents, learned of their teachers, and loved the dear God.”

Our artless companions listened open-eyed and trustful, ever asking for “more stories,” until at last their attention was diverted by some gorgeous butterflies, and away they went, hot on the chase. Dr. Martin was looking after them very earnestly.

“Is it not written,” he asked, “‘of such is the kingdom of heaven,’ and again, ‘a little child shall lead them’? Good, they have led us here! And if it is not God who has led us to-day through them, I am sure it is not the devil. The devil is far too gloomy a gentleman to show his ugly nose on so fine a day. Come, Philip; come, all of us. Let us sit on these old timbers and deliberate, for we are not as the old Persians, who took advice only in their cups.”

Before us was the rapid river, with here and there a brown, lumber-laden barge drifting toward Magdeburg. A northern wind made the open sun delightful. We sat for some time in a contemplative mood, saying little. At last Dr. Luther broke the silence.

“Hearken, noble and learned friends of a poor and simple friar. Here I am told that a Bull has been fashioned against me at Rome. A Bull very terrible, such as princes and kings might well quake to have launched against them, let alone the son of poor Hans Luther, the miner of Eisleben. That being the case, if I am to save soul and body, tell me what I am to do, having neither soldiers nor gulden to avoid the onslaught?”

The words were lightly said, but I knew not so lightly meant. It was for no mere summer stroll we had been taken out that day. Amsdorf, ever cautious, began dryly.

“If you, dear Doctor, would indeed have sound council, you should assemble all your learned and discreet Wittenberg friends. We lack alike in years and wisdom.”

But Luther laughed with a kind of irony. “A pest on learned and discreet friends! I will have friends who are bold and lusty, but not waxed over wise. A council of graybeards will buzz out as much wisdom as a wasps’ nest. Three councillors suffice for many princes, and they shall suffice for me. What think you, Philip?”

Melanchthon stroked his thin beard.

“I was reflecting upon what the Roman Hadrian said upon his death-bed, if Cassius Dio reports him aright, ‘Many physicians are the Emperor’s death.’ In numbers we are sufficient, but in sound judgment--”

“Away with your classic anecdotes. We are not in the lecture hall. I have led you here for reasonable council, and where is a better place for it than under God’s blue heaven, where He can see and hear if all we say and think is aright? For no light matter methinks to go the road which we have undertaken. And if we are to traverse it, let it not be as blindfolded oxen goaded to the butcher.”

“Proceed,” we said together.

“Then let the king lay matters before his council. Our noble Walter von Regenstein here tells me, what is beyond peradventure true, that a Papal Bull has been prepared and approved, and since his departure from Italy it has been beyond doubt officially published. It declares me a heretic, and with me all my adherents and favorers. It orders the burning of my books. Rumor says that I and my friends are given sixty days wherein to recant our errors and to burn our books; in other words, to surrender up our castle with even the innermost keep. Failing thereof we are cut off as ‘withered branches not abiding in Christ,’ and to endure that law concerning heretics which has been from ages provided,--the tenor whereof you know right well. Good, then, my noble masters; on which horn of the dilemma shall I sit down? For I am not the first honest monk to whom the paternal father at Rome has spoken, ‘Turn or burn.’”

He looked from Amsdorf to Melanchthon, from him to me. We looked sheepishly upon the water. There was nothing hesitant in Luther’s tone or manner, but we were reluctant to speak.

“Dear Doctor,” at last I said, with a smile, “after the trumpet blast of your last pamphlet I do not see how we need seek for your answer.”

“Ah, Walter,” he replied, “you are right. And yet I will tell you--when I sit in my study among my books and think upon all the evils of the world, I am beside myself. How fortunate it is I am not God! If I were He, and had committed the government to my son, as He to His Son, and these vile people were as disobedient to him as they are now, I would knock the world in pieces. Therefore I would not renounce the Pope and all his minions whilst in some fine frenzy at my table, spitting out the fierce words with my ink. Not so. It is here--where all is peace, calm, sunlight, friendship, that I must do the deed. And no slight deed, I warrant.”

We all watched his face. He seemed to care little for what we said, but much that we should see that he was perfectly calm and collected.

“Dear friends,” his deep voice continued, “so far have I gone, but yet I can go back. Better men than Martin Luther have burned their books at a Papal summons, and sung their palinode. And I: who am I to set my weak wisdom against all the learned men, the sainted doctors and sages who have confirmed the power of Rome?”

“Who are you?” cried I, while Melanchthon affectionately closed both his delicate hands around one of his master’s great ones. “You are a prophet and saint, beside whom Aquinas and Albertus Magnus are unworthy to breathe the same air. Your word is truth. You cannot fail, or God fails with you!”

“Hear how the dear Graf Walter proves himself the adept courtier and flatterer, Philip,” responded Dr. Martin. “He would make me think I was a prince or a cardinal if he could. But he speaks in one thing the truth. Of late I have come to know how it was that the apostle wrote, ‘It is no more I that live, but Christ Jesus which liveth in me.’ Oh! blessed assurance, such as no Pope can give, with all his power from his high throne. For thanks to God’s word I am possessed by His Truth, and after that--what can man do unto me?”

“Dr. Luther,” said Melanchthon slowly, “you know that it is yours to speak, it is ours to follow. Long since you have learned all that.”

The Augustinian’s spare form grew straighter as he sat. His hands pressed hard upon his knees, but his voice was calm when he answered us.

“Hear, then, comrades and beloved. The Church wherein I have been born and bred, the Pope whom I have been taught to reverence--these have cast me off, because I have been obedient to the voice of God. Graf Walter here, on the night of the theses, warned me of this. I would believe nothing. How foolish of me--yet how well Heaven ordered it! For if I had taken fright then, how could I have learned now what manner of things the Pope and Rome are? Whether they get my body for the fire, whether an angel preserves me, matters little. For I am in the state even of Peter and of John when they said to the Jews: ‘Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen or heard.’ And I dare not answer save as they, lest in saving my body from the flames to-day, I commit my soul to the devil and his eternal fires to-morrow. Do you agree?”

In silence we looked on him, assenting. He reached down at his feet and plucked a long slip of pure green grass.

“I have heard,” he continued, “that when the Crusaders were in the wastes of Palestine, with the foe awaiting them, and no priest able to administer the sacrament, they divided amongst themselves and partook of a bit of grass, as token that they were still true to one another, to their cause, and to the dear God. Shall we do the like?”

Together we nodded. His lips were a little pale as he broke the slip into four portions and gave one to each. We ate the morsel, looking out upon the welling river and the scattered clouds above it. Suddenly Dr. Luther rose, and his laugh seemed carefree and boyish.

“Oh! What a tale to tell. Oh! Who would ever have dreamed it--that I, a German miner’s son and a friar, should give so foul a headache to the noble lords of the Vatican. Come, Philip; come all of us, back to Wittenberg. There is work enough waiting and to spare.”

On the walk homeward I had never seen Doctor Luther more lively and genial. He was full of droll anecdotes of his schoolboy life at Eisenach and his student days at Erfurt. Melanchthon and Amsdorf, as well as myself, were inclined to be pensive, but our master was able to make good spirits for all of us. When I was about to leave him at the convent, he was sitting down at his table with a huge leaden inkstand and a prodigious pile of paper before him.

“A stranger,” said I from the threshold, “would think you were about to compile a wondrously learned lecture on the Categories of Aristotle.”

He laughed as he nibbed his pen.

“Think of me as the Crusader about to fall upon the Paynim,” he shot back; “behold my battle-axe! _Ach!_ It is a mighty havoc, God willing, I will make to-night among our present-day Mussulmans from Italy!”

His pen began racing over the paper with marvellous rapidity. I stood for a time watching him. Occasionally he would turn hastily the leaves of his well-thumbed Bible to verify a text; once he reached for the Reuchlin’s Hebrew Grammar. He speedily forgot my presence and wrote faster than ever. I saw him fling aside his first sheet.

“_Upon the Babylonian Captivity of the Church_,” it read in Latin. Another thunderbolt to rock the Vatican. Knowing that I could do nothing more that day, I went to my pleasant hosts at the Castellan’s house.