imself. Eisenach, with its
dramatic situation, perhaps lingers longest in the memory of men of any
place connected with that great story. But if it bore a more poetic
share, it was not the most important. It was neither at Leipsic nor at
Heidelberg, at Nueremberg nor at Speyer, at Augsburg nor even at Worms,
that the great drama had its chief location, though memories of Luther
were to us among the conspicuous attractions of these places.

From the time when the young monk emerged from Erfurt, where his
preparation for life was made, until at sixty-three he had "finished
his course," Wittenberg was his only home. For thirty-eight long years
here his heart was, and here, like the needle to the pole, the
direction of his activities constantly turned. Here, in the old
Augustinian monastery, is the lecture-room and the ancient "cathedra"
from which he delivered those lectures which laid the foundation of
his fame in the early years of his professorship. Here he quietly
wrought at his translation of the Bible and discharged the duties of
his position, while his voice shook the world, and all Europe was
swaying in the storm, himself the calm centre of the whirlwind. Here,
at the age of forty-two, he brought his bride, the nun Katherine von
Bora; and in this monastery, presented to him by his friend the
Elector, his six children were born. Hither, when his work was done,
his lifeless form was borne, followed by a weeping funeral procession
which stretched across Germany; and here in the church which had been
the scene of so many great sermons, he was laid to rest, with room for
Melanchthon beside him. Here one may enter that other church where he
first administered the communion in both kinds to the laity; may read
the immortal theses, now in enduring bronze on the doors of the castle
church; may pluck a leaf from the oak-tree planted on the spot outside
the city gate where he burned the papal bull; may sit in the
window-seat of his family-room, surrounded by his table, his bench,
and his stove, and listen where that family music seems still to echo;
may wander in the old garden, amid the representatives of the trees
which shaded him, and the flowers and birds he loved; may sit at the
stone table in Melanchthon's garden where the names of the friends are
inscribed; may stand before their statues in the market-place and hear
his voice: "If it be God's work, it will endure; if man's, it will
perish."

As we live over these day