m that such and such a Reformed Preacher
"will not preach without a cassock." Well, answers Luther, what harm
will a cassock do the man? "Let him have a cassock to preach in; let
him have three cassocks if he find benefit in them!" His conduct in the
matter of Karlstadt's wild image-breaking; of the Anabaptists; of the
Peasants' War, shows a noble strength, very different from spasmodic
violence. With sure prompt insight he discriminates what is what: a
strong just man, he speaks forth what is the wise course, and all men
follow him in that. Luther's Written Works give similar testimony of
him. The dialect of these speculations is now grown obsolete for us;
but one still reads them with a singular attraction. And indeed the mere
grammatical diction is still legible enough; Luther's merit in literary
history is of the greatest: his dialect became the language of all
writing. They are not well written, these Four-and-twenty Quartos of
his; written hastily, with quite other than literary objects. But in no
Books have I found a more robust, genuine, I will say noble faculty of
a man than in these. A rugged honesty, homeliness, simplicity; a rugged
sterling sense and strength. He dashes out illumination from him; his
smiting idiomatic phrases seem to cleave into the very secret of the
matter. Good humor too, nay tender affection, nobleness and depth: this
man could have been a Poet too! He had to _work_ an Epic Poem, not
write one. I call him a great Thinker; as indeed his greatness of heart
already betokens that.

Richter says of Luther's words, "His words are half-battles." They may
be called so. The essential quality of him was, that he could fight and
conquer; that he was a right piece of human Valor. No more valiant man,
no mortal heart to be called _braver_, that one has record of, ever
lived in that Teutonic Kindred, whose character is valor. His defiance
of the "Devils" in Worms was not a mere boast, as the like might be if
now spoken. It was a faith of Luther's that there were Devils, spiritual
denizens of the Pit, continually besetting men. Many times, in his
writings, this turns up; and a most small sneer has been grounded on it
by some. In the room of the Wartburg where he sat translating the Bible,
they still show you a black spot on the wall; the strange memorial of
one of these conflicts. Luther sat translating one of the Psalms; he was
worn down with long labor, with sickness, abstinence from food: there
rose