carriage, but he kept a bowling-alley for exercise. He liked to throw the first ball himself, and
elicited a hearty laugh when he missed the mark; he then reminded the young friends that by aiming
to knock down all the pins at once, they might miss them all, as they would find out in their future
calling. He warned Melanchthon against excess of study, and reminded him that we must serve
God by rest and recreation as well as by labor, for which reason He has given us the fourth
commandment, and instituted the Sabbath.
Luther exercised a generous hospitality, and had always guests at his table. He was
indiscriminately benevolent to beggars, until rogues sharpened his wits, and made him more
careful.^596 There was an unbroken succession of visitors—theologians, students, princes, noblemen,
and ladies, anxious to see the great man, to get his advice and comfort; and all were favorably
impressed with his frank, manly, and pleasant bearing. At times he was wrapt in deep thought, and
kept a monkish silence at table; but at other times he talked freely, seriously and merrily, always
interestingly, about every thing under the sun. His guests called his speeches their "table-spice,"
and recorded them faithfully without discrimination, even his most trivial remarks. Once he offered
a premium for the shortest blessing. Bugenhagen began in Low German: —
"Dit und dat,
Trocken und nat
Gesegne Gott."
Luther improved upon it in Latin: —
"Dominus Jesus
Sit potus et esus."
But Melanchthon carried the palm with
"Benedictus benedicat."
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.^597 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."^598 After dinner he
indulged with his friends and children in 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
(^596) He wrote to Justice Menius, Aug. 24, 1535 (De Wette, IV. 624), that he was often deceived, "per fictas Nonnas et generosas
meretrices."
(^597) See St. Louis ed. of Walch, vol. XXII., much improved by Hoppe, 1887.
(^598) Köstlin, 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 anstössige 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 über dem Ton, der damals durchschnittlich in weltlichen
und geistlichen Kreisen, bei Bürgern, hohen Herren und Kirchenfürsten herrschte, und jene ungünstigen Eindrücke müssen der edeln
Kraft, dem Salz und Mark gegenüber, die seine Gespräche und Schriften durchdringen, auch für uns weit zurücktreten."