gree. He
could sing and play like a woman.[20] "I have no pleasure in any
man," said he, "who despises music. It is no invention of ours; it is
the gift of God. I place it next to theology."

He was himself a great musician and hymnist. Handel confesses that he
derived singular advantage from the study of his music; and Coleridge
says: "He did as much for the Reformation by his hymns as by his
translation of the Bible." To this day he is the chief singer in a
Church of pre-eminent song. Heine speaks of "those stirring songs
which escaped from him in the very midst of his combats and
necessities, like flowers making their way from between rough stones
or moonbeams glittering among dark clouds." _Ein feste Burg_ welled
from his great heart like the gushing of the waters from the smitten
rock of Horeb to inspirit and refresh God's faint and doubting people
as long as the Church is in this earthly wilderness. There is a mighty
soul in it which lifts one, as on eagles' wings, high and triumphant
over the blackest storms. And his whole life was a brilliantly enacted
epic of marvelous grandeur and pathos.[21]

FOOTNOTES:

[20] Mattaehus Ratzenberger, in a passage of his biography preserved in
the _Bibliotheca Ducalis Gothana_, says: "Lutherus had also this
custom: as soon as he had eaten the evening meal with his table
companions he would fetch out of his little writing-room his _partes_
and hold a _musicam_ with those of them who had a mind for music.
Greatly was he delighted when a good composition of the old master
fitted the responses or _hymnos de tempore anni_, and especially did
he enjoy the _cantu Gregoriana_ and chorale. But if at times he
perceived in a new song that it was incorrectly copied he set it again
upon the lines (that is, he brought the parts together and rectified
it _in continenti_). Right gladly did he join in the singing when
_hymnus_ or _responsorium de tempore_ had been set by the _Musicus_ to
a _Cantum Gregorianum_, as we have said, and his young sons, Martinus
and Paulus, had also after table to sing the _responsoria de tempore_,
as at Christmas, _Verbum caro factum est_, _In principio erat verbum_;
at Easter, _Christus resurgens ex mortuis_, _Vita sanctorum_, _Victimae
paschali laudes_, etc. In these _responsoria_ he always sang along
with his sons, and in _cantu figurali_ he sang the alto."

The alto which Luther sang must not be confounded with the alto part
of to-day. Here it means the _ca