the clouds, the fields, the flowers, the birds, dissolved in
melody and devotion. Feared by the mighty of the earth, the dictator
and reprimander of kings, the children loved him, and his great heart
was as playful among them as one of themselves. If he was harsh and
unsparing upon hypocrites, malignants, and fools, he called things by
their right names, and still was as loving as he was brave. Since King
David's lament over Absalom no more tender or pathetic scene has
appeared in history or in fiction than his outpouring of paternal love
and grief over the deathbed, coffin, and grave of his young and
precious daughter Madeleine. "I know of few things more touching,"
says Carlyle, "than those soft breathings of affection, soft as a
child's or a mother's, in this great wild heart of Luther;" and adds:
"I will call this Luther a true Great Man; great in intellect, in
courage, affection, and integrity; one of our most lovable and
precious men. Great not as a hewn obelisk, but as an Alpine mountain,
so simple, honest, spontaneous; not setting up to be great at all;
there for quite another purpose than being great. Ah, yes, unsubduable
granite, piercing far and wide into the Heavens; yet, in the clefts of
it, fountains, green, beautiful valleys with flowers. A right
Spiritual Hero and Prophet; once more, a true Son of Nature and Fact,
for whom these centuries, and many that are yet to come, will be
thankful to Heaven."

FOOTNOTES:

[23] "It must be observed that the coarse vituperations which shock
the reader in Luther's controversial works were not peculiar to him,
being commonly used by scholars and divines of the Middle Ages in
their disputations. The invectives of Valla, Filelfo, Poggio, and
other distinguished scholars against each other are notorious; and
this bad taste continued in practice long after Luther down to the
seventeenth century, and traces of it are found in writers of the
eighteenth, even in some of the works of the polished and courtly
Voltaire."--_Cyclopaedia of Soc. for Diffus. of Useful Knowledge._

HIS MARVELOUS ACHIEVEMENTS.

A lone man, whose days were spent in poverty; who could withstand the
mighty Vatican and all its flaming Bulls; whose influence evoked and
swayed successive Diets of the empire; whom repeated edicts from the
Imperial throne could not crush; whom the talent, eloquence, and
towering authority of the Roman hierarchy assailed in vain; whom the
attacks of kings of state and k