THE LUTHER QUATERCENTENARY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 28, 27 October 1917, Page 8

THE LUTHER QUATERCENTENARY

A tiny, spark will fire a mine, and j an explosion might result that would shift a mountain On October 31, four hundred. years ago, an obscure religious teacher in Wittenberg,, in Germany, nailed to the door of tho church in which it was his custom to preach a protest against certain bad religious practices. It was done in the presence of a small crowd, and tho preacher little, thought he was doing a deed that would be remembered throughout all time. The religious teacher was Martin Luther. and his protest was his now famous 95 Theses against tho sale of indulgences. Luther's action was the firing of a mine that caused an explosion that changed the faco of Europe. The history of tho world to-day is not intelligible without taking into account tho great religious revolution of the sixteenth centurv, and that revolution is not intelligible without taking into account the lite and work of Martin Luther. Ho was undoubtedly ono of the-great men of the history of the past. Historians; Protestant and Roman Catholic, recognise that Luther had sound reasons for his protest, that is now onfl of tho great documents of history- The ecolesiastteal construction "of Christianity of the age of Luther had becomo shamefully ■corrupt. The evil of tho Church showed itself- in a traffic that Erasmus called tho "crime of false pardons." Mr. W. -S. Lilly, tho wellknown Koman Catholic writer, in his Heralds of Revolt denounces the traffic set up as a scandal in which men for hard cash were guaranteed heaven. The demon in tho plav was a degraded Hohen?.ollern, Prince Albert of Mayence. He wanted money to pay a heavy debt ho owed to the Pof-e for dispensations granted hini, in defiance of canon law, to occupy when under, age two bishoprics, and to draw revenues from them. He was given the right to sell indulgences in Germany, and thus find the money he ncedod John Tetzel became tho business manager of this greedy Ho--henzollern, and all went well until Tetzel came within ten miles of Wittenberg, where Luther was, and then the deluge came upon him, and his trado was gone. Lecky, the nistorinn, says that a soul experience of John Wesley made an epoch in English history, and it may bo said that a soul exporionce of Martin Luther made an epoch in the his-

tovy of'the world. TETZEL's-sham pardons made Luther blaze_ with holy anger, and he hurled his bolt at the Hohenzollern prince and his fraudulent spiritual wares. He knocked the bottom out of tho traffic, and ho started on a career of revolt against Rome, which led to the Reformation. Ho lived under the ban of the Kaiser of his day, who .would gladly have seen him burnt at the stake, but Luther was so strongly entrenched in the affection of his countrymen that he lived in perfect safety, and no one attempt was made on his life. To discuss the merits of the theological controversies of Luther is outside tho province of these columns. Luther had his serious limitations. He erred in coarse speech, and he made serious mistakes in judgment, and ho organised tho German Church in such a way that the prince- and not the people controlled it, and so to-day in this war the Protestant Church in Germany is part of a State machine controlled largely by the Kaiser. But when these and other deductions are made, Luther remains as the outstandingly great man of his ago —great in moral earnestness, in courage, in piety, and in intellect. There is something sublime in tho moral courage of 'Luther. Few men in' historv had the power to . alone such as Luther mam tested. Cuilyle says his battle was -one 'man versus tho devil and all men. How ho faced tho Kaiser ana. his princes at the Imperial Parliament at Worms and said, when he was asked to recant his views My conscience binds me; here stand 1. God helping, me I cannot change* is a story that has a thrill in it today Before the war broke out there were signs in . the literary world that the 400 th anniversary of Luther's protest would bulk large. The Century Magazine gave up a large part of its space for a year to publish a scholarly and elaborately illustrated Life of LirtAer. Miss Currie translated some 500 letters of LuTHER-a translation that Coleridge called for m his day Br. Preserved •■bsiith, ot America, published an exhaustive study of Luther's life- and letters. But to-day things German. are under the ban, and tho enthusiasm for this anniversary will be much weaker than it would have been. But neither the Church nor the world can ignore the man, Luther fills a specially large place in tho world of literature. His translation ot the Bible made the German language, and only a literary Hercules could have given such a work to the world. His writings began the book trade of tho modern world. He could speak and write a language that compelled men to listen and moved them to action. His critics have admitted that his words were "half battles." Froude, the historian, was impressed wioh ( the genius of Luther,_ and said: His mindf was world-wide and he studied human nature like a dramatist. At forty years of ago he became a poet, and wrote hymns for congregational worship. Thomas Carlyle who translated his famous hymn A Sure Stronghold," compared it tc the "sound of -Alpine avalanches or the first murmur of earthquakes. Luther was the father of congregational singing, which is such a prominent feature- in the church services of to-day. Adequate recognition of this fact is made ' by Dn. Julian in his Dictionary of Hymnalow- This sixteenth century herr was'thus one- of tho great men ol l-.hc past whose life and works arc the real wealth of the world, ami such men "live again in minds made ' hotter by their-presence.