University of Virginia Library

Say, how can man be justified by God?
Challenged eternity would echo, “how,”
But from The Cross responding grace replies
To this high question: faith in Christ is life,
And love, and righteousness, completely fit
To each vast claim of violated Law.
Thus, conscience finds no compromise involved;
Nor Mercy from the hand of Justice grasps
The sceptre, and her awful head uncrowns;
But there, all Attributes divinely blend
In one rich centre of consummate light,
And God, with most benignant glory, smiles
His goodness forth, o'er ransom'd souls and worlds.

But he, pale thinker! in portentous gloom
Robed by the rags of papal righteousness,
Was shiv'ring yet: around his spirit coil'd
The clankless fetters of condemning law;
And upward, when his heart to gaze presumed
A moment, soon it shrunk, appall'd and dim,
From God's dread eye-glance, flaming with the curse!
Dark wrestler with the pangs of sin untold,
Silence and solitude his haunt became,
Transforming nature, till the soul was typed
In all he witness'd, of the bleak and wild.
Down lonely vales, and paths of soundless gloom,
He loved to meditate, and learn'd to mourn;
But, chief the night-blast, with its hollow yell
Rung from the Tempest's riven heart of sound,
Becharm'd him, when beneath the wat'ry moon
Late roaming. Still, the crisis came at last!—
'Twas summer; and with crimson eye of fire
Full o'er the pine-tree boughs the west'ring Orb
Sunk flaming; like a furnace glow'd the air
In breezeless trance, while not a bird-wing moved;
And forest-leaves, as by some fixing spell
Enchanted, like the lids of slumber, hung
Subdued, and motionless: so deep the hush,
Your very heart-pulse strange and loud appear'd;
When, lo! the blacken'd cope of heaven divides,
And flashes; re-divides, and with one fold
Of sheeted flame the firmament involves.
Hark! peal on peal redoubling, and return'd
With raging echo, till heaven's arches ring
And vibrate; then, in one convulsive burst
The clouds are clash'd to thunder, and descends
Down at his feet, in supernat'ral roar,
A death-bolt!—Harmless as the rain-drop fell
The blasting ruin; Luther, in the shade
Of that great Hand, Whose hollow hides the church
From storming earth and hell, was all secure,
Though death glared round him. What a scene was there!
In kneeling agony, with eyes of awe
To Heaven upturn'd, as if the judgment-pomp
And equipage of heaven's almighty King
Emerged apparent, Luther throbb'd, and pray'd;
And vow'd his after-life to God alone,
If safely rescued from the whelming storm.
So sank a great Apostle, when the blaze
Bright as That form of Glory whence it fell,
Abash'd him into blindness, and he heard
The mournful thunder of Messiah's lip
Rebuke him, till his conscience rock'd and reel'd.

But now, all faithful to his word, sincere
In darkness, to the blinding creed he loved,
Hark! on their hinges grind the massive gates
Of St. Augustine's cold and cloister'd pile,
And in the clang of those reclosing doors,
The knell of Luther's freedom! Darkly bound
By dread theology's remorseless chains
Of monkish falsehood, in the deep of night,
Fresh from the haunt of social youth he comes
Self-exiled, and sincere, in convent-gloom
Amid the graves of unproductive mind,
Where dead religion putrified to fear
And fear to superstition,—there to lift
His soul to God, and fashion it for heaven!
Yet, mark in this eternal Wisdom's plan.
A dungeon'd martyr, on whose haggard limbs
The rust-worn chain its branding trace hath delved,
When free again beneath the skies to walk,
Inhaling liberty from each loved breeze
Which carols round him, chief o'er all can tell
How priceless to the heart pure freedom is!
And thus did Luther, by whose dreadless hand
Of truth, base fetters from the mind were fell'd,
As captive, first by dark experience learn
How deep that dungeon of the spirit was,
Where Roman witchcraft plunged, and plagued mankind!
Yes, he, the champion of Jehovah's cause,
Whose bold harangues, like Alpine thunder-peals
Hereafter shook the Vatican to shame,
Himself once crouch'd, in martyrdom of zeal,
Beneath the lashes of a monk's stern lip
In silence; wound the clock, and swept the floor,
And begg'd, a charter'd mendicant, from house
To house, the bread of blushless charity!

But, found he there the holiness he sought?
Did peace divine in purity descend
Down on his conscience, like the calming Dove?
Ah! no; in vain the convent's round of rites,
The fastings dull, the macerations dire,
The penance long, the midnight-watchings pale,
All the mean clock work of monastic life,
Wheel within wheel, by superstition turn'd!
From righteous acts no righteous nature flows;
First form the nature, then the acts arise
Spontaneous, free, by fertile love produced,
Not pleading merit, but proclaiming Christ
Within, by transcript of His life without.
For, how in Self can man salvation find,
When self is sin, connat'ral and corrupt?
But, like that Bible, which his sateless eyes
Read oft and oft, with most devouring gaze
Of faith and feeling, Luther wore the chain
Which round the soul rank Superstition binds.
Yet, oft the heavings of his spirit rose
In dark reflection, to his pale-worn face!
While e'en the whisper of that still small Voice
Which cowards all, but christians maketh none,
Beneath the roof of his o'erarching cell
Raged into moral thunder, when stern thoughts
Of God in judgment, tore with tort'ring might
And mystery, the troubled mind within!
Thus, like a spectre, through the cloisters moved
With fruitless sigh, and ineffectual groan,
Day after day, all spirit-crush'd, and worn,
The helpless Luther, till the Cross appear'd:
From holy love then true repentance sprang;
And faith, like Mary, at the feet of Christ
Attending, hung upon His lips, and lived.