On the long undulating line of human progression, here and there appear, at wide distances apart, men, in whom seem to centre, condensed into tenfold force, the faculties and spirit of humanity, apparently for the purpose of furthering by almost superhuman effort, its great interests,--men who, through the union of deep insight with wisest action, utter words and do deeds, which so touch, as with the hand of inspiration, the chords of the human heart, that their fellow men start up as though a new spring were moved in their souls, and, shaking off the clogging trammels of custom, bound forward on their career with freer motion and wider aim. High among these gifted few, stands Luther,--the successful assertor, in the face of deeply founded and strongly fortified authority, of mental independence. This is not the occasion to dwell on the keen sagacity, the wise counsel, the hardy acts, the stern perseverance, the broad labors, wherewith this mighty German made good his bold position, and, partly the trumpet-tongued spokesman, and partly the creator of the spirit of his age, so powerfully affected the world's destiny. I have here to speak of his influence upon the literature of Germany. That influence was twofold. First, by the mental enfranchisement--whereof he was the agent and instrument--of a large mass of the German people, he gave an impetus to thought and a scope to intellectual activity, and thereby opened up the deep springs of the German mind; and secondly, by one great and unsurpassed literary effort, he fixed the language of his country. The bold spirit of inquiry, of which he set the example with such immense consequences--and with such immense consequences because it was congenial to his countrymen,--has been the chief agent in working out the results that in our age have given to German literature its elevated rank: while upon the dialect which, two hundred years after his death, was the pliant medium for the thoughts of Kant and the creations of Goethe, he exerted such a power, that it is called Luther's German.