SPIRITUAL REFORMER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22326, 28 July 1934, Page 4

SPIRITUAL REFORMER

A NEW LIFE OF LUTHER “ Martin Luther.” By Brian Lunn. London: Ivor Nicholson. (ISs fid net.) ■What is the influence of Martin Luther to-day? If one were to judge by the determined efforts which are being made in certain quarters to discredit him and to vilify his character, the answer would be that his influence and power arc still of more than passing moment. It is not easy to exaggerate his importance nor that of the part he played in the history of Europe. The question is sometimes asked: “Could the Reformation have been avoided? Would not the Church have reformed herself sooner or later ? ” The Counter-Reformation is adduced as proof of this contention. Erasmus hoped that the errors and corruption which were so terribly evident would have been cured from within by the gradual spread of education and the growth of intelligence. It is a nice point for a debating club, but no categorical statement upon the matter is possible to-day. The course of history is not infrequently laid down by individuals, or it seems to be, and it is not always possible to regard these persons as merely tools in the hands of “the Spirit of the age.” Often enough it must be said that they create'that spirit. Certainly the crucial individual is of outstanding importance and interest. In his “Martin Luther” Mr Lunn cannot be said to have given us anything very new in matters of fact or of interpretation. He has read widely—there are evidences of that —and has given a plain, painstaking, sympathetic study of the great Reformer, who has influenced —is influencing—the world almost more than any other outside apostolic times. He has given us plain history without subtle psychological analysis of the forces, material, sociological, and intellectual, which brought about the great event of the sixteenth century, an event so destructive in one sense, so creative in another. Judging by the bibliography on pages 333 to 335 no source of information which maybe termed authoritative has been left unexplored. Heinrich Boehmer s ‘Luther and the Reformation in the Light of Modern Research,” published in English in 1930, is of value to all who would know the truth about the Reformer’s character. Grisar, in his big work on Luther, has not been any too careful to be true to fact. It is not unfair to say that he was not unwilling to besmirch Martin’s character. Boehmer has gone with the thoroughness of the German scholar into the whole story, and, from the important Luther discoveries, many of them actual manuscripts of the Reformer himself, has proved that Grisar has not been true to fact nor lias be been any too careful to avoid the half-truth whicli is worse than a whole lie. Boehmer is good reading, but hard. He is to be studied with pencil and note book at hand. . Brian Lunn,' on the other hand, while not to be read as a mere pastime, gives us a picture of Luther which brings out bis many-sided character. The spiritual distemper which had seized him could not be purged by confession. Something deeper was required. The mediating machinery of a church will never take the place (if a personal experience. Especially is this true in the case of such a man as Luther, and Mr Lunn, as one would expect of the son of Sir Henry, brings into hold relief what faith in Christ meant to this sixteenth century monk: “Faith is a living, complete confidence in God’s grace, so certain that a man would die a thousand deaths for it.” Rude lie was, and impetuous, but profoundly sincere with a depth of spiritual experience of which but few are capable. Yet Luther was of those who move (heir fellows deeply and grandly, and one reads Mr Lunu’s study of him with joy, realising that, despite his imperfections, this man was one to be trusted to the full and loved with a love ungrudging and unfailing- g.