Flowers of Freethought (First Series)Foote, G. W. (George William)
Religion
Flowers of Freethought (First Series)
Foote, G. W. (George William)
Free thought
Neither Jews nor witches fared any the better for the Reformation, until
it had far outgrown the intention of its founders. Brother Martin hated
the Jews, thought many of them sorcerers, and praised the Duke of Saxony
for killing a Jew in testing a talisman. As for witches, he said,
"I would have no compassion on them--I would burn them all." Poor
creatures! Yet Luther was naturally compassionate. It was the fatal
superstition which steeled his heart. Still there are dainty sceptics
who tell us not to attack superstition. I point them to Martin Luther
burning witches.
Brother Martin lived in God's presence, but they were generally three,
for the Devil was seldom absent. His Satanic Majesty plagued the poor
Reformer's life till he wished himself safe in heaven. Sometimes
the fiend suggested impious doubts, and at ether times suicide. He
attributed his chronic vertigo to the Devil, because the physic he took
did him no good. So familiar did the Devil become that Luther, hearing
him walk overhead at night, would say "Oh, is it you?" and go to sleep
again. Once, when he was marrying-an aristocratic couple, the wedding
ring slipped out of his fingers at a critical moment. He was frightened,
but, recovering himself, he exclaimed, "Listen, Devil, it is not your
business, you are wasting your time." The famous scene in which Luther
threw an inkstand at the Devil is legendary, though Coleridge, Carlyle
and others have made it the theme of their eloquence; and the ink-stain
still shown on the wall at Wartburg is like the stain of Rizzio's blood
in Holyrood Palace.
Luther's own visions were largely due to dyspepsia and an active
imagination. He said that the Devil troubled him less at night when he
took a good "nightcap," which made him sleep soundly. He found that the
Devil could not stand music, being a sad and sombre personage; just as,
long before, music was found a sovereign recipe for the melancholia of
King Saul. But the surest specific was railing and derision. When Luther
called him names, or laughed at him, the Devil vanished in a huff.
Brother Martin was plain-spoken at the best of times, but on these
occasions he was too-downright for quotation. Michelet gives a choice
sample; but though the French language allows more licence than ours,
he is obliged to give but the first letter of one of Luther's vigorous
substantives. Brother Martin displayed a sly humor in one of his stories
about Satan. A possessed person was taken into a monastery, and
the devil in him said to the monks, "O my people, what have I
done?"--"_Popule meus, quid feci tibi?_"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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