CRON BERG.-HANS SACHS.

121

emperor; and his language to his subjects was that of a father, endeavouring to make them understand the gospel, and exhorting them to faith, to obedience, and to trust in Jesus Christ, "who," he added, "is sovereign lord of us all." He resigned into the emperor's hands a pension of two hundred ducats, "not being willing," said he, "to serve one who gave heed to the enemies of the truth." We find somewhere in his writings the following words, which seem to place him much above Hutten and Sickingen: "Our heavenly teacher, the Holy Ghost, can in one hour, when he pleases, teach us more of the faith that is in Christ, than a man could learn during ten years at the university of Paris."

They who look for the friends of the Reformation only on the steps of thrones,1 or in cathedrals and academies, and who pretend that none are to be found among the people, are grievously mistaken. The same God who prepared the hearts of so many of the wise and the mighty, prepared, also, many humble and simple persons in the retreats of the people, who were one day to serve as the ministers of his word. The history of the time shows us what a ferment there then was among the lower classes. Not only are young men to be seen passing from these ranks, and at last filling the first places in the Church, but we see men, too, who remained all their lives devoted to the most humble occupations, powerfully contributing to the awakening of Christendom. We shall now give a few traits in the life of one of these.

On the 5th of November 1494, a tailor of Nuremberg, called Hans Sachs, had a son born to him. This son, called after his father, Hans (John) after giving some time to studies which a severe illness compelled him to relinquish, applied himself to the trade of shoemaker, and took advantage of the scope for thought, which his humble calling allowed him, to soar into that higher sphere in which his soul sought its happiness. The reader must know, that ever since songs had ceased to be chanted in the halls of chivalry, they appear to have sought, and found, an asylum among the burgesses of the joyous cities of Germany. A singing school used to meet in the church of Nuremberg; and

1 See Châteaubriand's Etudes Historiques.

Q

the practice of music there, in which this young man took part, opened his heart to religious impressions, and helped to give him a taste for music and poetry. The genius of Hans, however, could not remain shut up within the narrow walls of his workshop. He wanted to see for himself that world of which he had read so many things, which his fellows had told him so much about, and which his imagination had peopled with wonders. Accordingly, in 1511, he bundled up what things he might need, and set off, directing his steps towards the south. The young tourist was not long of meeting on the road with jovial companions, in the persons of students crossing the country, and with many dangerous attractions, and it was then that he felt the commencement of a fearful struggle within him. The desires of this life, and his holy resolutions, became directly confronted, and in his alarm at what might be the issue, he fled and hid himself in the small town of Wels, in Austria (1513), where he lived retired and devoted himself to the fine arts. While he was thus employed, the emperor Maximilian happened to pass through the town, attended by a brilliant retinue. The youthful poet allowed himself to be allured by the splendour of such a court; the prince admitted him into his hunting establishment, and Hans forgot himself anew under the noisy vaults of the palace of Inspruck. But again his conscience loudly remonstrated, and the young huntsman immediately threw off his gay hunting dress, quitted the palace, reached Schwatz, and then came to Munich. It was there, in 1514, that at the age of twenty, he sung his first hymn, "to the honour of God," to a remarkable tune. He was loaded with applause. Every where in the course of his travels, he had found occasion to remark the many melancholy proofs of the abuses beneath which religion was well nigh smothered.

On his return to Nuremberg, Hans set up in business, married, and became the head of a family. When the Reformation broke out, he gave heed to it, and the holy scripture which he had cherished as a poet, he now took up, not to look for poetical images and subjects for his songs, but that he might find the light of truth. To that truth he soon consecrated his lyre; and from a lowly workshop, placed at one of the gates of the

imperial city of Nuremberg, went forth those accents which were to resound throughout the whole of Germany, prepare men's minds for a new era, and everywhere endear to the people the grand revolution which was then in course of being accomplished. The spiritual songs of Hans Sachs, and his versified Bible, powerfully promoted this work, and, indeed, it is not easy to say, which did most for it-the prince elector of Saxony or the Nuremberg shoemaker.

It appears, then, that there was something in all classes that gave warning of the Reformation. On every side signs might be observed, and events were pressing onward, which threatened to subvert what had been the work of ages of darkness, and to usher in among mankind "a new time." The light which the age had discovered, shed a shower of new ideas over all countries with inconceivable rapidity. Men's minds, after a slumber of so many centuries, seemed as if they would redeem, by extraordinary activity, the time they had lost. And it would have argued ignorance of human nature, to leave them without occupation or nourishment, or to offer them no better aliment, than that which had long sustained their drooping vitality. Already could the human mind clearly discern between what was, and what should be, and measured, with resolute gaze, the vast abyss that lay between these two worlds. Great princes filled the thrones of Europe; the antique colossus of Rome, tottered beneath its own weight; the ancient spirit of chivalry had forsaken the earth, and had given place to a new spirit, which breathed at once on the sanctuaries of learning, and on the dwellings of men of no renown. The art of printing had given wings to speech, which bore it, as the wind bears certain seeds, to the most remote places. The discovery of the two Indies had enlarged the world All announced a great revolution.

But from what quarter are we to look for the blow which is to scatter the ancient edifice to pieces, and bring a new structure forth from its ruins? None then knew. Who more wise than Frederick? who had more learning than Reuchlin? who more talent than Erasmus? who more mind, and warmth of fancy than Hutten? who more courageous than Sickingen; or more virtuous than Cronberg? And yet it was neither Frederick,

nor Reuchlin, nor Erasmus, nor Sickingen, nor Hutten, nor Cronberg. Men of learning, princes, warriors, the Church itself, "all had sapped some of the foundations, but there they had stopped; and no where was there to be seen the mighty hand which was to become the hand of God."

Meanwhile all felt that it was soon to appear. Some pretended that they could find certain prognostics of it in the stars. One party, contemplating the wretched state of religion, announced the near approach of antichrist, while others presaged an impending reformation. The world was in expectation, and

Luther appeared.

BOOK SECOND.

EARLY LIFE, CONVERSION, AND FIRST LABOURS OF

LUTHER.

I. ALL was now ready. God who exhausts ages in preparation for what He does, accomplishes his purposes when the hour has come, by the feeblest instruments. To effect great ends by small means, may be regarded as the rule with God; and that rule, which we everywhere behold in nature, is to be found in history also. He took the reformers from where He had taken the apostles; choosing them from that poor class which without being the lowest, hardly ranks with the burgess class. All was to manifest to the world that the work was not of man but of God. The reformer Zwinglius came from the hut of a shepherd of the Alps; Melanchthon, the theologian of the Reformation, from an armourer's workshop; and Luther from the cottage of a poor miner.

The first epoch of a man's life, the period during which his character is formed and his capacity developed, under the hand of God, is always important. This was especially the case in the career of Luther. In fact, we find the whole Reformation already transacted there; for the several phases which that work assumed, one after the other, successively appeared in the soul of the man who was to be the instrument of its accomplishment, ere yet it had taken place in the world. The only key to the reformation of the Church is supplied by our knowledge of the reformation wrought first in Luther's own heart. It is only by studying this work in the individual, that we can come to understand it in its general operations; and they who neglect the one, can know the other only in forms and externals.