Sacred Meditations and Moral Themes In Verse :: :: University of Virginia Library

One Truth divine, from deeps of scripture drawn,
And by one Heart with burning zeal espoused,
Then, bodied forth in full heroic life,—
What miracles that single Truth achieves,
Which rock an empire, or a world restore!
And hence, when pale in his monastic gloom,
Alone and pensive, groping after God,
Through clouds of error, black with Romish guile,
At length the tortur'd Monk, with tears of praise
Consummate pardon by the Cross procured
Discovered—then a peerless Truth was found
From whence instructed Empires learn to live.
And in that Hall, where stood the fearless man
Bulwarked with Principle, beyond all powers
By Earth created or by hell contrived,
He grasped a Truth, which Heaven's eternal creed
Hath canonized, and by the Cross explained,—
That Grace is God, by God alone applied:
On this, Religion all her fabric rears,
That else is baseless as the yielding air.

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Hence flow those energies through man and mind
Which mould our being great, or make it good.
Here by the pardon of perfective Grace,
The anguished memory can alone subdue
That dread Gehenna, which our guilt inflames
Oft in remembrance; and from thence derived,
Pure emanations spring, and feelings act
That feed with moral life the social frame
Of Men and Empires; for the Heart is free,
And guarded Conscience, on the bosom's throne
Reigns in the sanctity which Christ hath won.

'Tis thus, where olden Hearts and Hands had failed,
And ancient Heroes their protesting voice
Lifted in vain, to vindicate The Truth
From all aggression, Luther's prowess smote
The Roman Beast to Ruin—nigh to death,
And that, with principle. 'Twas here he fought,
He grappled with the foe of God and man.
Swift through the dens and dungeons of the mind,
He poured the beam of evangelic Morn;
And where Authority—that mitred Lie!
Bestrode the conscience with infernal sway,
He throned The Gospel, in the light of Grace,
At once the law, and liberty of souls.
But, had he only on a Mob of Saints
Shot his keen arrows of sarcastic truth,

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Dislodged the Virgin, paralyzed the Pope,
Or laid the Monk's Augéan darkness bare,—
In form regenerate, but with life corrupt,
The Reformation then had toiled and died.
But, glory be to Him whose name we bear!
'Twas grace in principle that Luther taught:
Here is the lever which the World uplifts—
“A Saviour just, for man unjust hath died!”
Here is a Truth, whose trumpet-voice might preach
The Pope's religion into airy nought;
A Truth, which is at once the text of texts,
Making all scripture music to our souls!—
The Bible read, is God himself perused
In pages lettered with Almighty love,
When thus proclaiming what the Conscience craves:
While the rich fountain of Emanuel's Blood,
(Not barricaded round with priestly walls,
Nor blent with superstition's blackening tide
Of “merits,”) all its healing Flood of Grace
Full on the heart, in one vast current pours!

He ended thus, where ancient Minds begun;
'Gainst outward vice those murdered Saints appealed,
And perished; but for Principle Divine,
Bravely alone the Monk of Erfurt fought.
He struck the root,—and then the branches fell;

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He purged the fountain,—then the stream rolled pure;
The deep foundation down to Hell he shook,
And then—the Roman Superstition reeled:
From centre to circumf'rence, thus the Mind
Of Luther reasoned out its lonely way;
Till, lo! at length, by gospel light revealed,
He saw Impostures, in successive form
Each after each more staringly corrupt,
And in a Pope,—the Antichrist foretold
By dread prediction, since the Church began.