Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-08-23
Yi.l, 20 ,he Mome OF Lulhcr.

WISH 10 tne AtOute Ot
The Honolulu Friend, for August, says The
following graphic sketch of visit to the home
of the Reformer Luther we are permitted to copy
from a private letter written by II. A. P. Carter,
ESQ.,, TO one of his brothers in Honolulu. For
the reader this description will be almost equiv
alent to a visit to that world-renowned spot:
VENICE, June 8, 1871.
Av Dear Brother: have wanted to describe
to Won our visit to Wittenberg, the home of
Luther, where procured some memorials of the
steady old reformer for you. 1t was bright
red letter day in my calendar. When we
stopped at the beautiful railway station of Wit
tenberg we secured the only guide offering, a
bookseller at the railway station, and walked
along a road bordered by hedges fresh in the
spring foliage, TO an enclosure in which an oak
is growing, on the spot where Luther burned
the papal bull, December 10, 1880, doubtless to
the amazsment of his contemporaries, who prob
ably called him can enthusiast" May flowers
were blooming, as they are on all the well kept
German railway stations, and nothing about the
spot seemed TO indicate the stormy times of
Luther. We passed through the gates of the
fortress, for this is fortified, walled town.
Here we met Il party of French prisoners, with
handcarts, singing merrily at their work, APP
papntly yielding willingly "to the logic of
events that has brought the soldiers of the
eldest son of the church prisoners to the home
Of its stoutest enemy. We wandered up into
the market place, passing the home of the gen
tie Melancthon, who in his quiet way sustained
his holder friend Luther in his harsh conflict.
On the house was an inscription, Here lived,
taught and died Phillip Melancthon"
In the market place stands two Statues-one
of Meaucthon, the other of Luther ON the
pedestal of which is inscribed, " If il be Gods
work, it will endure. If it be mans work it
will PERISH" and the words, Fine feSte berg
st unser Gott," from the hymn we heard so
thrilingly sung in New York at the great Ger
man celebration, April 10th. Surely everything
around betokened it was " Gods work." We
saw the people OF this place about their usual
avocations, and were kindly addressed by
lady who introduced herself as the daughter of
the secretary OF the university, and who offered
to show us the memorials of the great Reform
en- Under her guidance, we visited the church
in which Luther preached, on the gates of
which in words of indelible bronze, are cast the
ninety-five thesis which Luther nailed to the
former gates of the church destroyed
by the French when they were the
masters, not the prisoners, of Wit
tenburg. | saw on these gates some angels
with iron trumpets, which reminded me of the
stirring words of Edward Everett in his Grafton
on Luther, to which DR.. Damon called my at
tention some years since: /" He seized the iron
trumpet of his mother tongue, and blew blast
that shook the nations from Rome to the Ork-
neys." We reverently entered the walls that
udu tCuOtu VIII ludI DllSIy anu pulsed over
an iron door in the floor under which rest the
ashes of one who had started the revolution
that still causes the triple crown of Rome to
totter. On the other side of the aisle lies Me-
lancthon, still held in tender reverence by the
scholars of Germany, and whose text books are
still used in some of the schools. We wandered
about the old church, not much larger than the
bethel from whence had come the sounds that
awoke the world from the slumberous super
stitions of Rome.
A portrait Of Luther hangs in the church,
painted by Lucas Cranach, whom as the friend
of Luther we love, but who as a painter has not
commended himself to our satisfaction, though
most of the galleries count his pictures among
their gems. The portrait did not convex so sat
isfactory an idea of Luther as the one Of him
Sin his shroud," by an unknown artist in the
Dresden gallery. The dead face in its stiffness,
seemed to show more of the fire that set the
flames of reformation burning, than the living
face in Wittenberg. Here we bought photographs
of the church, and portrait, also, of Luther and
his family around the Christmas tree-the con-
vent in which he lived, his statue in the market
place, and impressions Of his seal stamped in
sealing wax. Here VIC saw the hour glass which
used to stand on his pulpit, showing that with
all his zeal, he had some regard for the patience
of his hearers, in which he might be copied by
some OF the preachers and reformerS of the pres
ent day.
We then walked to the convent in which was
as a man. Here, while waiting for the doors to
be opened, we drank the waters Of a cool spring,
bubbling up in the court yard, which we were
afterwards told was discovered and first made
use of by Luther. We were then led to the
rooms, sanctiied by the struggles, hallowed by
the love, and rendered famous by the work OF
the reformer himself. Here was a stove of his
own designing, the table on which he wrote,
and chair on which he sat, a beer mug, and
other memorials of the time, when with the
faithful Cranach and Meancthon, he sketched
out the famous arguments with which he met
the advocates of Rome, or rested with his fam
lily. In the room, covered by glass, were the
made by Peter the great when he
visited the room TO show his admiration and re-
gard for the man. / afterwards saw at Dresden
a cabinet, sword ring, and other mementoes of
Luther, but nothing so stirred within me the
historic memories of the past so much as stand
ing there amid the stormy scenes of his life.
Wittenberg was then a university town, and
they pretend to show you the house in which
Hamlet lived, all owing to the happy thought
of Shakespeare, who makes the king in his play
to say: