He did not live to experience the force of the blow to his cause which the emperor was at last preparing to deliver. He died on Feb. 18, 1546, at Eisleben, where he had been born 63 years before. He had paid a visit to his birthplace to arbitrate in a dispute between Counts Albrecht and Gebhard of Mansfeld. He successfully accomplished his mission, and preached several times to crowded congregations. But the exposure to the incle ment weather during the journey thither, and the protracted ne gotiations, proved too great a strain for his infirm body, and in the early morning of the i8th he passed quietly away. His last word was an emphatic "yes" to the question of Jonas whether he remained steadfast in the doctrine which he had taught. Count Albrecht would fain have laid him to rest in his native Eisleben. But the elector, John Frederick, insisted on the trans ference of his body to Wittenberg, where his life work had been done, and there, on Feb. 22, it was interred in the Castle church, in the presence of his stricken widow and children and a great concourse of notables, disciples and burghers.
The impression produced by his personality and his work on his closest associates is reflected at first hand in the funeral ser mon preached by Bugenhagen and the funeral oration delivered by Melanchthon to this great assembly. A man, said Bugenhagen, who never feared anyone, however great and mighty, in much the same words as the regent, Morton, used at the grave of John Knox. Though to some he appeared too sharp and bitter in reproof and denunciation, this was his due prerogative as a prophet, as it was of Christ himself in his conflict with the scribes and the Pharisees. In his role as a prophet sent by God, he rediscovered and vindicated the Gospel and delivered the Church from the corruption and tyranny of Rome. The preacher could only liken him to the angel of the Apocalypse who flew in mid heaven with the everlasting Gospel to proclaim to the dwellers on earth, and the effects of his prophetic mission could only be described in the words of the second angel, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!" Dead in the body, Luther would live in his work in accordance with his own prophecy, Pestis eram vivus, moriens tua mars ero Papa ("In life I was thy pestilence ; dying, I will be thy death, 0 Pope").
For Melanchthon, Luther was the unique praeceptor. He be longed to the long line of God-inspired teachers and leaders who from the days of the patriarchs onwards had successively preserved and renewed the Church. In this succession he was worthy to stand beside Isaiah, John the Baptist, Paul, Augustine. He was the great renovator, not the innovator of the Church, which he had striven to purify from error and abuse. Strife and
division had ever been an inevitable concomitant of the working of the Divine Spirit at such crises in its history, and the respon sibility for this division lay with those who refused to hear the truth. Melanchthon assumes that what Luther taught in his long struggle with his opponents was the true doctrine, of which he gave a rapid summary. He combined in the highest degree the gifts of the great Christian teacher and the active reformer. As in the days of Nehemiah the builders of Jerusalem rebuilt the walls with the one hand and held the sword in the other ; so Luther had maintained the struggle with the enemies of the true doctrine, and had at the same time, by his writings and his translations of the Scriptures, brought enlightenment and comfort to a multitude of burdened consciences. For this double work pious Christian hearts would be eternally grateful to him and thank God for him. Melanchthon, who had sometimes to suffer under his masterfulness and his vehemence, indicated, indeed, that there might be truth in the complaint of some—and these good-hearted people—that Luther was too hard and rough in his controversial writings. In the face of such a charge he reminded his hearers of the reputed saying of Erasmus, "God in these last times, in which great and terrible diseases have prevailed, has given the world also a sharp physician." As God placed His Word in the mouth of Jeremiah to tear up and break down, to plant and to build, so in the case of Luther. Certain it was that, in defending his teaching, he was acting solely in obedience to his conscience, not merely from quarrelsome and malevolent motives. All who knew him must bear him this testimony. They would, too, readily testify to his amiability, his kindliness, his goodness in private intercourse. "His heart was true and without falseness, his utterance friendly and kindly, and his striving ever to observe the Apostles' command, 'Whatsoever things are true, etc.' " Undeniable, too, his deep piety, his striving to exer cise himself in the Christian virtues and in all good and useful studies and arts, his continence and freedom from vice, his readiness to conciliate and arrange the quarrels of others, his hatred of intrigue and trimming, his singleness of purpose, his constant recourse to prayer in the midst of the trial and stress of affairs, his unfailing courage in reliance on God's help as his immovable rock, his rare intellectual acumen and quickness in dealing with difficult situations and problems, his power of ob servation and ability to read character, his devotion to study, his wide knowledge, his aptness to apply it in his writings and lec tures, and his wonderful gift of language.