In his controversies with his foes and op poncnts Luther's spirit was oftentimes savage. biting, coarse, displaying almost uncontrollable anger and sometimes unjustifiable hatred. The occasional asperity which he showed in the defense of his faith, however, by no means diminished the merit of his constancy; and an apology may easily be found for the frequent rudeness and coarseness of his expressions in the prevailing mode of thinking and speaking; in the nature of his undertaking which required continual conflict ; in the provocations by which he was perpetually assailed; in his frequent sickness; and in his excitable imagination, evi dent from the days of his novitiate. The same excitability of temperament will serve to ex plain those dreadful temptations of the devil which disquieted him. That age regarded the devil with horror as a personage ever active; and those devoted to the cause of God felt themselves constantly obliged to resist attacks of the evil one. Luther himself says, was born to fight with devils and factions. This is the reason that my books are so boisterous and stormy. It is my business to remove Ob structions, to cut down thorns, to fill up quag mires, and to open and make straight the paths; but if I must necessarily have some failing let me rather speak the truth with too great severity than once act the hypocrite and con ceal the truth?' No one can behold without astonishment his unwearied activity and zeal. The work of translating the Bible, which might well occupy a whole life, he completed, with some assistance from Melanchthon and other friends, between 1521 and 1534. This transla tion takes the same place in Germany as the King James version does in England and the United States with regard to the religious life and literature of the people. Luther equaled the most prolific authors in the number of his treatises on the most important doctrines of his creed. After the year 1512 he preached several times every week, and at certain periods every day; he officiated at the confessional and at the altar; he carried on an extensive corre spondence in Latin and German on various subjects with men of rank and of distinguished literary attainments and with his private friends. He gave advice and assistance wherever it was needed and interested himself on behalf of every indigent person who applied to him. In company he was lively, and abounded in sallies of wit and humor preserved in his 'Tischreden' ('Table-Talk>). Luther was no stranger to the elegant arts. His excellent hymns such as 'Ein' feste Burg,' tiefer Noth,) are well known. His fondness of music, too was such that he would often relax his mine with composition, with singing and playing on the flute and lute. Luther kept up his tremendous activities until the close of his life. Just before his last jour ney to Eisleben, where he was summoned by the Count of Mansfeld to settle a dispute, he wrote in a letter to a friend the following description of his condition: °Aged, worn out, weary, spiritless, and now blind of one eye I I long for a little rest and quietness ; yet have as much to do in writing and preaching and acting as if I had never written or preached or acted. I am weary of the world, and the world is weary of me : the parting will be easy, like that of a guest leaving the inn; I pray only that God will be gracious to me in my last hour, and I shall quit the world without reluctance?' His wife died in 1552.
The 400th anniversary of the birth of Luther was commemorated with special observances throughout Protestant countries in the year 1883. The Tercentennial Commemoration of
the Reformation begun by Luther at Wittenberg, on All Saints' Eve, 31 Oct. 1517, had been cele brated in 1817, and the Protestant world had been looking forward with increasing anticipa tion to the Quadricentennial Commemoration in 1917. The event, however, was overshadowed by the Great World War which had been raging for three years from August 1914. Neverthe less the event had wide, if subdued, recog nition in many countries. As expressed by a prominent New York Lutheran divine, °With out any spirit of hostility to the Roman Catho lic Church, but with a cheerful recognition of its conscientious devotion and labor of love and sacrifice for the cause of Christ. . . . the idea of the observance is to study the causes, the necessity and the generic truths of that epochal event, so as to emphasize anew . their vital significance. It is done out of fealty to the word of God and with the conviction that the principles enunciated by the reformers are essential to a true church, and to a scrip tural Christianity.* From Wittenberg, on the anniversary day, 31 Oct. 1917, rejecting peace proposals, the German Evangelical League, how ever, launched a manifesto in which militant sayings of Luther were forcibly applied to the current events of the war. It read in part as follows, °We especially warn against the heresy promulgated from America that Chris tianity enjoins democratic institutions, and that they are an essential condition for the estab lishment of the kingdom of God on earth. As Luther said, 'The freedom of a Christian does not depend on forms of government; these are shaped by historical developments and the ac cumulated experience of nations." The Quad ricentennial Commemoration gave rise to a great quantity of magazine literature, Protestant and Catholic, on the influence of Luther on modern history, which may be studied with advantage as throwing greater light on the civi lizing trend of the four centuries since Luther's inception of the Reformation, and the remark able Catholic revival known as the Counter Reformation. Consult Butler, N. M., in 'Cele brating 400 years of Protestantism' from New York Times, 23 Sept. 1917; and for further articles 'Luther, Martin,' and 'Reformation' (in Cumulative Index of Periodical Literature, New York 1917), and New York Times Index (New York 1917) ; also bibliography attached to this article.
No great historic character has been more of a °problem* to friend and foe alike than Luther. Historians without number have utterly failed rightly to understand or satisfactorily to interpret the reformer and his strenuous and eventful life. No man has been more violently assailed, and none has had warmer defenders. He has been pictured as an inspired personality, an extraordinary genius, a national hero, the °prophet of a new religious point of view and the creator of a new ethical ideal*: the chosen of God; the deliverer of the Church; the champion of conscience and individual free dom; the creator of a national literature; and again he has been bitterly assailed as a raving monk; a barbarous writer and demagogue; a child of the devil; the insane monk; a cor rupt and shameless sensualist ; false to his vows and hypocritical and deceitful in his life. For this reason the writer has endeavored to limit this sketch simply to a faithful and suggestive outline of the history of Luther's life, believ ing that a fuller understanding must be sought in the larger study afforded by extended sources relating to the man,- and the time and nature of his activities. See CHRISTIAN Doc