the full vigor of manhood,—forty-six years of age,—and at the height of his fame and power. With
the Augsburg Confession his work was substantially completed. His followers were now an organized
church with a confession of faith, a form of worship and government, and no longer dependent
upon his personal efforts. He lived and labored fifteen years longer, completing the translation of
the Bible,—the greatest work of his life, preaching, teaching, and writing; but his physical strength
began to decline, his infirmities increased, he often complained of lassitude and uselessness, and
longed for rest after his herculean labors. Some of his later acts, as the unfortunate complicity with
the bigamy affair of Philip of Hesse, and his furious attacks upon Papists and Sacramentarians,
obscured his fame, and only remind us of the imperfections which adhere to the greatest and best
of men.
Here, therefore, is the proper place to attempt an estimate of his public character, and services
to the church and the world.
§ 124. Luther’s Public Character, and Position in History.
In 1883 the four hundredth anniversary of Luther’s birth was celebrated with enthusiasm
throughout Protestant Christendom by innumerable addresses and sermons setting forth his various
merits as a man and a German, as a husband and father, as a preacher, catechist, and hymnist, as a
Bible translator and expositor, as a reformer and founder of a church, as a champion of the sacred
rights of conscience, and originator of a mighty movement of religious and civil liberty which
spread over Europe and across the Atlantic to the shores of the Pacific. The story of his life was
repeated in learned and popular biographies, in different tongues, and enacted on the stage in the
principal cities of Germany.^985 Not only Lutherans, but Presbyterians, Congregationalists,
Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, Unitarians, united in these tributes to the Reformer. The
Academy of Music in New York could not hold the thousands who crowded the building to attend
the Luther-celebration arranged by the Evangelical Alliance in behalf of the leading Protestant
denominations of America.^986
Such testimony has never been borne to a mortal man. The Zwingli-celebration of the year
1884 had a similar character, and extended over many countries in both hemispheres, but would
probably not have been thought of without the preceding Luther-celebration.
And indeed Luther has exerted, and still exerts, a spiritual power inferior only to that of the
sacred writers. St. Angustin’s influence extends wider, embracing the Roman Catholic church as
well as the Protestant; but he never reached the heart of the common people. Luther is the only one
among the Reformers whose name was adopted, though against his protest, as the designation and
watchword by the church which he founded. He gave to his people, in their own vernacular, what
(^985) See the Lit. on p. 104. The martyr-Emperor, Frederick III., as crown prince, representing his venerable father, Emperor William I.
of Germany, was the leading figure in the celebration at Wittenberg, Sept. 12-14, 1883, and gave it a national significance. The
Luther-celebration produced several Luther-dramas, by Henzen (1883), Devrient (7th ed. 1888), Herrig (9th ed. 1888), and Trümpelmann
(2nd ed. 1888). Comp. G. A. Erdmann, Die Lutherfestspiele, Wittenberg, 1889.
(^986) The meeting of the Evangelical Alliance of the U. S., then under the management of Drs. Prime and Schaff (Presbyterians), was the
most representative and impressive Luther celebration in America; it was addressed by Hon. John Jay (Episcopalian), Dr. Phillips Brooks
(Episcopalian), Dr. Wm. M. Taylor (Congregationalist), Bishop Simpson (Methodist), Dr. Krotel (Lutheran), Dr. Crosby (Presbyterian).
The music was furnished by the New York Oratorio Society. The Evangelical Alliance issued also an invitation to the Protestant churches
in the United States to celebrate Luther’s birthday by sermons on the Reformation.