are occasions into
serious conflict with his fellow-citizens, the town administration,
the law faculty of his university, or the councillors of his
sovereign. He was not always right, but he almost always carried his
point against them, for seldom did any one dare to defy the violence
of his anger. With all this he was subject to severe physical
ailments, the frequent return of which in the last years of his life
exhausted even his tremendous vigor. He felt this with great sorrow,
and incessantly prayed to his God that He might take him to Himself.
He was not yet an old man in years, but he seemed so to himself--very
old and out of place in a strange and worldly universe. These years,
which did not abound in great events, but were made burdensome by
political and local quarrels, and filled with hours of bitterness and
sorrow, will inspire sympathy, we trust, in every one who studies the
life of this great man impartially. The ardor of his life had warmed
his whole people, had called forth in millions the beginnings of a
higher human development; the blessing remained for the millions,
while he himself felt at last little but the sorrow. Once he joyfully
had hoped to die as a martyr; now he wished for the peace of the
grave, like a trusty, aged, worn-out laborer--another case of a tragic
human fate.

But the greatest sorrow that he felt lay in the relation of his
doctrine to the life of his nation. He had founded a new church on his
pure gospel, and had given to the spirit and the conscience of the
people an incomparably greater meaning. All about him flourished a new
life and greater prosperity, and many valuable arts--painting and
music--the enjoyment of comfort, and a finer social culture. Still
there was something in the air of Germany which threatened ruin:
princes and governments were fiercely at odds, foreign powers were
threatening invasions--the Emperor of Spain, the Pope from Rome, the
Turks from the Mediterranean; fanatics and demagogues were
influential, and the hierarchy was not yet fallen. As to his new
gospel, had it welded the nation into greater unity and power? The
discontent had only been increased. The future of his church was to
depend on the worldly interests of a few princes; and he knew the best
among them! Something terrible was coming; the Scriptures were to be
fulfilled; the Day of Judgment was at hand. But after this God would
build up a new universe more beautiful, grander, and purer, full o