ght have seemed a timid, weak man;
modesty, affectionate shrinking tenderness the chief distinction of
him. It is a noble valour which is roused in a heart like this, once
stirred-up into defiance, all kindled into a heavenly blaze.

In Luther's _Table-Talk_, a posthumous Book of anecdotes and sayings
collected by his friends, the most interesting now of all the Books
proceeding from him, we have many beautiful unconscious displays of
the man, and what sort of nature he had. His behaviour at the deathbed
of his little Daughter, so still, so great and loving, is among the
most affecting things. He is resigned that his little Magdalene should
die, yet longs inexpressibly that she might live;--follows, in
awe-struck thought, the flight of her little soul through those
unknown realms. Awe-struck; most heartfelt, we can see; and
sincere,--for after all dogmatic creeds and articles, he feels what
nothing it is that we know, or can know: His little Magdalene shall be
with God, as God wills; for Luther too that is all; _Islam_ is all.

Once, he looks-out from his solitary Patmos, the Castle of Coburg, in
the middle of the night: The great vault of Immensity, long flights of
clouds sailing through it,--dumb, gaunt, huge:--who supports all that?
"None ever saw the pillars of it; yet it is supported." God supports
it. We must know that God is great, that God is good; and trust, where
we cannot see.--Returning home from Leipzig once, he is struck by the
beauty of the harvest-fields: How it stands, that golden yellow corn,
on its fair taper stem, its golden head bent, all rich and waving
there,--the meek Earth, at God's kind bidding, has produced it once
again; the bread of man!--In the garden at Wittenburg one evening at
sunset, a little bird was perched for the night: That little bird,
says Luther, above it are the stars and deep Heaven of worlds; yet it
has folded its little wings; gone trustfully to rest there as in its
home: the Maker of it has given it too a home!--Neither are mirthful
turns wanting: there is a great free human heart in this man. The
common speech of him has a rugged nobleness, idiomatic, expressive,
genuine; gleams here and there with beautiful poetic tints. One feels
him to be a great brother man. His love of Music, indeed, is not this,
as it were, the summary of all these affections in him? Many a wild
unutterability he spoke-forth from him in the tones of his flute. The
Devils fled from his flute, he says