Winter-Fair: in the
tumult of this scene the Frau Luther was taken with travail, found
refuge in some poor house there, and the boy she bore was named MARTIN
LUTHER. Strange enough to reflect upon it. This poor Frau Luther, she
had gone with her husband to make her small merchandisings; perhaps to
sell the lock of yarn she had been spinning, to buy the small
winter-necessaries for her narrow hut or household; in the whole
world, that day, there was not a more entirely unimportant-looking
pair of people than this Miner and his Wife. And yet what were all
Emperors, Popes and Potentates, in comparison? There was born here,
once more, a Mighty Man; whose light was to flame as the beacon over
long centuries and epochs of the world; the whole world and its
history was waiting for this man. It is strange, it is great. It leads
us back to another Birth-hour, in a still meaner environment, Eighteen
Hundred years ago,--of which it is fit that we _say_ nothing, that we
think only in silence; for what words are there! The Age of Miracles
past? The Age of Miracles is forever here!--

I find it altogether suitable to Luther's function in this Earth, and
doubtless wisely ordered to that end by the Providence presiding over
him and us and all things, that he was born poor, and brought-up poor,
one of the poorest of men. He had to beg, as the schoolchildren in
those times did; singing for alms and bread, from door to door.
Hardship, rigorous Necessity was the poor boy's companion; no man nor
no thing would put-on a false face to flatter Martin Luther. Among
things, not among the shows of things, had he to grow. A boy of rude
figure, yet with weak health, with his large greedy soul, full of all
faculty and sensibility, he suffered greatly. But it was his task to
get acquainted with _realities_, and keep acquainted with them, at
whatever cost: his task was to bring the whole world back to reality,
for it had dwelt too long with semblance! A youth nursed-up in wintry
whirlwinds, in desolate darkness and difficulty, that he may
step-forth at last from his stormy Scandinavia, strong as a true man,
as a god: a Christian Odin,--a right Thor once more, with his
thunder-hammer, to smite asunder ugly enough _Joetuns_ and
Giant-monsters!

Perhaps the turning incident of his life, we may fancy, was that death
of his friend Alexis, by lightning, at the gate of Erfurt. Luther had
struggled-up through boyhood, better and worse; displaying, in spite