IN my last chapter I brought together two celebrations—one in honour of John Bunyan, the other in honour of Richard Baxter. Another celebration now claims attention, not of an English Nonconformist, but of a Protestant Reformer, whose fame covers the world—Martin Luther. English commemorations of his character and work were held late in 1875 and early in 1876.
Before I mention any particulars respecting the Luther celebration, I repeat what I have said elsewhere:
“There is no other man of a similar order whose fame touches so many topographical points, and sweeps over so wide a surface. The local reminiscences of Shakespeare and Milton, even taken together, are few, and cluster round a metropolis, a provincial town, and two or three villages. But how many cities, castles, and houses there are in Germany scattered far and wide which may be said to have Martin Luther for their presiding genius! Guide-books call attention to some spot where he went, some fortress or tenement which gave him shelter, some church in which he preached, some locality which his name has made famous; and there are scenes and houses unmentioned in guide-books, over which lingers the spell of his memory. One comes across mementoes of Charles V. in divers directions; but even they are fewer, less interesting, and less honoured than those of the monk who gave the emperor so much anxiety, and who by his devotion, and energy accomplished the reformation of the Teutonic Church. Certainly no king, no kaiser, can vie with him as to the place he occupies in the thoughts of his own people, and indeed of the whole Christian world.” { 252}
Washington Irving concludes his essay on “Shakespeare and Stratford-on-Avon,” by remarking it would have cheered “the spirit of the youthful bard that his name should become the glory of his birthplace, that his ashes should be guarded as a most precious treasure, and that its lessening spire, on which his eyes were fixed in tearful contemplation, should one day become the beacon towering amidst the gentle landscape to guide the literary pilgrim of every nation to his tomb.”
It is no depreciation of Shakespeare’s genius to say that above his aspirations after fame, whatever they might be, rose the aims and desires of Luther—a man absorbed in zeal for the salvation of souls, and for the glory of his Saviour; but it would have filled him with wonder, could he have foreseen the place he was to occupy in the history of the world, and how the double tower of the Stadt Kirche, in which he preached, would become a beacon to guide tens of thousands from both hemispheres to the Augustinian monastery, where he lived, and to the Schloss Kirche, where he lies buried.