468 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 15380.
To the records of Veit Dietrich, Lauterbach, and Mathesius, which were often edited, though in bad taste, we owe the most remarkable “ Table-Talk” ever published.1 Many of his sayings are exceedingly quaint, and sound strange, coarse, and vulgar to refined ears. But they were never intended for publication; and making due allowance for human weakness, the rudeness of the age, and his own rugged nature, we may agree with the judgment of one of his most accurate biographers, that “in all his words and_ deeds Luther was guided constantly by the loftiest principles, by the highest considerations of morality and religious truth, and that in the simple and straightforward manner which was his nature, utterly free from affectation or artificial effort.”
After dinner he indulged with his friends and children ἴῃ. music, sacred and secular songs, German and Latin hymns. He loved poetry, music, painting, and all the fine arts. In this respect he was ahead of those puritanical Reformers who had no taste for the beautiful, and banished art from the church. He placed music next to theology. He valued it as a most effectual weapon against melancholy and the temptations of the Devil. ‘ The heart,” he said, “is satisfied, refreshed, and strengthened by music.” He played the lute, sang melodiously, and composed tunes to his hymns, especially the immortal “Hin feste Burg,” which gives classic expression to his heroic faith in God and the triumph of the gospel. He never lost his love for Virgil and Cicero, which he acquired as a student at Erfurt. He was fond of legends, fables, and proverbs. He would have delighted in
1 See St. Louis ed. of Walch, vol. XXII., much improved by Hoppe, 1887.
2 Kostlin, small biography, N.Y. ed. p. 554, Ger. ed. p. 592. But in his large work, vol. II. 519, he makes this just qualification: ‘* Derbe, plumpe, unserm Ohre anstéssige Worte kommen in Luther’s Reden wie in seinen Schriften, ja einigemale sogar in seinen Predigten vor. Seine Art war in der That keine feine; sie steht aber auch so noch bedeutend tiber dem Ton, der damals durchschnittlich in weltlichen und geistlichen Kreisen, bei Biirgern, hohen Herren und Kirchenfiirsten herrschte, und jene unginstiyen Eindriicke miissen der edeln Kraft, dem Salz und Mark gegeniiber, die seine Ὁ Gespriache und Schriften durchdringen, auch fiir uns weit zuricktreten.”’
§ 78. LUTHER’S HOME-LIFE. 469
the stories of old “ Mother Goose,” and in Grimm’s “ Haus. mihrchen.” He translated some of Esop’s Fables, and wrote a preface to an edition which was published after his death.
He enjoyed the beauties of nature, loved trees and flowers, was fond of gardening, watched with wonder the household of the bees, listened with delight to the singing birds, renewed his youth with the return of spring, and adored everywhere the wisdom and goodness of nature’s God. Looking at a rose, he said, “Could a man make a single rose, we should give him an empire; but these beautiful gifts of God come freely to us, and we think nothing of them. We admire what is worthless, if it be only rare. The most precious of things is nothing if it be common.” “The smallest flowers show God’s wisdom and might. Painters cannot rival their color, nor perfumers their sweetness; green and yellow, crimson, blue, and purple, all growing out of the earth. And yet we trample on lilies as if we were so many cows.” He delighted in a refreshing rain. “God rains,” he said, “many hundred thousand guilders, wheat, rye, barley, oats, wine, cabbage, grass, milk.” Talking of children, he said, “* They speak and act from the heart. They believe in God without disputing, and in another life beyond the present. They have small intellect, but they have faith, and are wiser than old fools like us. Abraham must have had a hard time when he was told to kill Isaac. No doubt he kept it from Sarah. If God had given me such an order, I should have disputed the point with Him. But God has given his only begotten Son unto death for us.”
He shared in the traditional superstitions of his age. He believed in witcheraft, and had many a personal encounter with the Devil in sleepless nights... He was reluctant to accept the new Copernican system of astronomy, because “ Joshua bade the sun stand still, not the earth.” He regarded the comets, which he calls “ harlot stars,” as tokens
1 See above, p. 334 sq.