through the colored windows upon the rich carvings of pulpit and pillar, the illusion returned. The fine associations of the churches are a thousand, and none are finer than those with the stout artisans of Nuremberg, who gave the city its ancient fame. These temples they wrought out, these they frequented, here they have left their portraits, and here often they lie buried. On the screen of the wonderful shrine in Saint Sebald's stands the stalwart figure of Peter Vischer, who made it, his blacksmith's apron before his rotund stomach, his workman's cap above his manly, full-bearded face. In the church of Saint Lawrence, Adam Krafft and his journeymen, crouched down upon the pavement, hold up on broad shoulders their handiwork, the beautiful pyx, whose curling summit, graceful as a lily stem, bends to avoid contact with the arch above. Here they wrought, here they worshipped; most interesting and significant of all, here they came in their guilds, from forge and shoe-shop, from ropewalk and carpenter's bench, and contended laboriously in song and poem. From these doors went out the Mastersingers, with anxious faces, to contests in neighboring cities, at Bamberg, at Ulm, or at Hof. Here they were received when, with leather apron laid aside, the honest breast heaved proudly beneath a gold or silver chain, the prize gained somewhere by labored rhyming.

I dreamed awhile in the churches, then going once more into the street, stood presently before the house where lived the greatest of the Mastersingers, Hans Sachs, the cobbler. It is a substantial struct

his name,

ure with a tablet let into the front inscribed with so near to the market-place that the burghers may have heard him thence, whether he were hammering away at a ditty or a tough strip of sole-leather. The house corroborates the testimony of the chronicles that he worked his way to a substantial position. Far beyond the walls of Nuremberg he made himself known, doing his part, meantime, toward keeping his generation well shod.

As I think of a figure which will best describe Hans Sachs, I am reminded of what I once heard from a farmer of the Connecticut Valley. "The land on which tobacco does best," he said, "is not that which is richest, but a certain rather poor, sandy soil, which has little strength in itself. It has great power, however, of absorbing the fertilizers thrown upon it, which in turn it pours, without retention, into the coarse, leathery leaves, spreading until they cover the meadow." The mind of Hans Sachs was such a soil. Receptive to a wonderful degree, from travel and observation at home, he absorbed the contemporary world; he gathered much too from the past. All this he threw into the unrefined, voluminous product which was harvested at last into the thirty-four great folios. It is not quite sightly,not at all adapted to the sensitive and delicate; but a whiff of him now even is not unwholesome, or without enjoyment, in an atmosphere charged with moral malaria, and we can understand well that in its day and place it may have had power to brace the soul in important ways.

Whoever visits the museum at Berlin will linger

long upon the staircase in the centre, to see the great wall-paintings, in which Kaulbach represents the leading epochs of history. It is the last picture of the series, which is usually thought the finest, and is most familiar, -The Era of the Reformation. In an immense hall are grouped the figures that wrought the modern world, - poets and philosophers, artists and reformers, discoverers and scholars. Columbus towers here, his brow heavy with his great thought; here Kepler and Copernicus demonstrate the theories. that have reconstructed for us the heavens. The great Italians whose names are connected with the revival of learning are busy in ways that symbolize their noble activity, while close at hand is the face of Shakespeare, shadowed by mighty imaginations. The imperious Elizabeth stands in a posture of command; the bold Gustavus makes a soldierly gesture; Erasmus and Reuchlin proceed with dignified pace in scholars' gowns, while Albrecht Dürer spreads upon the wall a magnificent decoration. Prince and statesman, warrior and sage, bard and preacher, - the painter has thrown them upon the canvas by the score, all names of note for worthy striving in that so memorable crisis. Directly in front, in a place of prominence, whom do we find but homely Hans Sachs! He sits crouched upon the pavement, in such homely attire as he wore in the Nuremberg streets, with a thoughtful head bending forward in deep absorption, as if he had turned aside a moment from his leather to frame a song. An honest heart and plain good sense have lifted the cobbler thus into the company of the great of the era of the Ref

ormation. And who is it, in the centre of the picture, that stands as the focus of the whole? A plainly-robed monk, of vigorous frame and powerful countenance, bearing the impress of unshrinking boldness. He holds on high, that the whole world may see it, the open Bible. Now across the scene is thrown for us the Titanic shadow of Luther.

CHAPTER VIII.

LUTHER IN LITERATURE.

With regard to many a famous historical character, the judgment of the world in our time has been reversed. Names that have been revered have come to be treated with contumely; names that have been contemned have come to be treated with respect. Scholars have satisfied themselves that Tiberius Cæsar and Nero have not received justice. Though we may not entirely trust Mr. Froude, no candid reader will hereafter feel disposed to set aside Henry VIII. as simply brutal and cruel; on the other hand, we cannot hold Archbishop Cranmer to have been simply a great benefactor. Hepworth Dixon shows plainly that the character of Bacon has been much maligned. With regard to Luther, there has been a twofold judgment: the Catholic world holding him to have been Anti-christ,-little better than Satan himself; the Protestant world considering him the greatest name in the Church since the days of the apostles. Of both judgments there has been to some extent a reversal, for Catholic writers of our century can be cited who pay to the memory of Luther noble tributes; and, on the other hand, no

1 Friedrich Schlegel, Döllinger, Von Eichendorff.