(the History of the Name)
“What’s in a name?” is a question that is more often asked than answered. There is a great deal in a name, for what are names but words, and what are words but servants, and very useful and important servants too? They are the servants of Thought, and Thought cannot even picture to itself how it could get on without them. It follows that, as Thought is ours, they are our servants. But we do not always treat these valuable servants wisely or well. We turn them into slaves; we misuse them, torture them, make them say what they don’t want to say, mangle and distort them in various ways. Then, like other oppressed slaves. they are ant to avenge themselves and become our tyrants. Or else they acquire an undue influence over us and do us harm; they deceive us, they mislead us, they confuse our perceptions. Often they create in us unjust prejudices. This is the case with the word before us. Many people, by the very name of Protestantism, have been prejudiced unjustly against the thing.
Names of Churches, communities, systems, parties, and so forth, may have either of two origins, or possibly both. Sometimes they are historical, sometimes they are descriptive — the latter either truly or falsely. Socinianism, for instance, is a historic name. In the sixteenth century two men, uncle and nephew, named Socinus, denied the Divinity of Christ, and their followers were called Socinians. On the other hand, those who deny the same truth are now usually called Unitarians. That is a descriptive name, meant to show that they believe in the Unity but not in the Tri-Unity of God. The name we have to deal with had a historic origin, and it has also a descriptive meaning. It has moreover the advantage of being a name that can be used alike by those who are Protestants and by those who are not; by the former with just pride and satisfaction, and by the latter without offense.
It must be understood at the outset that the Protestant Faith existed many ages before the Protestant name. When did the Protestant Faith begin? To answer that we must go back to the beginning of the Christian Faith itself. We must certainly go back to St. Paul, whose writings, next to the Four Gospels, have been studied, loved, and appealed to by Protestants in all ages, because he was the man who, under the guidance of the Divine Spirit, arranged and systematized for us the doctrines of our Faith. Not we ourselves alone, but even some of our candid and intelligent opponents, have linked our name with that of St. Paul. Not long ago, a friend of mine who was visiting the beautiful church of the “Tre Fontane,” dedicated to St. Paul, was told by the very courteous monk who conducted her, “ St. Paul is your Saint, St. Peter is our Saint.” While we do not renounce our claim upon St. Peter, we certainly do acknowledge a close and special tie to the Apostle of the Gentiles.
But while the Protestant Faith, in its substance, was certainly taught by St. Paul, the Protestant name was not given to it till nearly fifteen centuries later. We can point definitely to the time when it was given — to the year, the month, and the day, to the place also; we can even name the man who has the right, technically, to be called the first Protestant.
The name was born in the town of Spires, on the 19th of April, 1529, and the first man who had a right to bear it was John the Constant, Elector of Saxony. Martin Luther was one of his subjects. Those who know anything of the history of our Faith (and few of us know half enough of it) are sure at least to know something of the story of Martin Luther. That story certainly contains the elements of romance. We think of the poor miner’s son; of the hungry boy singing for his bread in the streets of Magdeburgh, and of his later struggles and conflicts, so full of human interest and pathos. There is one scene that perhaps appeals to us most of all. We may call it the turning-point in his life, but it was more than that — it was the turning-point in the life of the nation, ay, even in that of the world.
No one who has been in the city of Worms can fail to remember the stately monument erected there to Martin Luther. Around the pedestal are the statues of his four predecessors, and above is the grand figure of the heroic monk himself. There he stands, as he stood once before the Emperor Charles and his courtiers and the princes and magnates of the Empire, and engraven beneath are those words of his which “the world will not willingly let die” —
“Hier stehe Ich. Ich kann nicht anders. So hilf mir Gott! Amen.”
He had been summoned to that Diet to answer for his Faith.
He was condemned there, not by reason but by authority, and ordered to abjure his heresies, or to take the consequences. He answered that he could not so sin against God and God’s commands, ending his answer with the world-famed words just quoted; “Here I stand. I can do no other. So help me God! Amen.”
And the great Reformation had begun! But why had it not begun before? Others had spoken words as brave; others also had refused, for life itself, to give up the truth they knew — notably John Hus, a hundred years before, at the Council of Constance. But John Hus was burned at the stake. So were others who had made, from time to time, what may well be called “the grand refusal.” Why not Martin Luther? Then, humanly speaking — and for that time — the Reformation would have been stifled in its cradle.
This was not to be. God willed it so; but in this world it is His way to work out His will by the hands of men, sometimes of one man. In this case He used a man to preserve the little flame, the survival of which just then seemed to hang upon Luther’s life. That man was the Elector of Saxony, Frederick, called the Wise. He and his have good right to a place in our story; and they shall have it.
We all know that Germany was then an assemblage of states, some large and some small, which were pretty nearly independent and self-governing, only they all acknowledged the supremacy of an over-lord, the Emperor. At every vacancy the new emperor was elected by seven of the greatest of these princes, who were called on that account the Seven Electors. The emperor at this time was Charles V., who was also King of Spain; and the most illustrious of the Seven Electors was Frederick of Saxony.
A generation before, one of the Electors of Saxony was the father of twin boys, Ernest and Albert. These boys, while still in their cradle, were carried off by a daring robber named Kunz, but they were Afterward rescued by the fidelity of a servant. They grew and prospered, and at their father’s death his dominions were divided between them. Ernest had the Electorate, with Wittemberg for his capital; Albert, what was called the Duchy of Saxony, and his capital was Leipzig. Ernest had the best portion of the two, and the character and ability of his successor, Frederick, increased the power and prestige of the Electorate. Each was the father of a long line of princes, which continues to this day; and each at present is represented in Europe by a crowned head.
The Elector Frederick was noted not only for his wisdom and sagacity, but also for his moral integrity. He took deep interest in Luther’s teaching. He pondered “these things” in his heart. But he was a cautious man, slow to commit himself. Luther, after his brave refusal to retract, had been allowed to leave Worms in safety, as the Emperor, much to his honor, could not be persuaded to violate the safe-conduct he had given him. But he was placed under the Ban of the Empire, and the Elector, his sovereign, might be required — might be compelled almost — to give him up and let him be burned as a heretic. That Frederick would not do, while he could not yet resolve to come boldly forward as his champion: it would have required not only tremendous courage, but more settled convictions than he had then. So what did he do? He had Luther carried off by force — but it was a friendly force — to the lonely castle of the Wartburg, where he was kept in safety and seclusion until the worst of the danger was over. He also protected his friends and followers.
Luther, during his ten months’ stay at the Wartburg, did much beside throwing at the devil the historic inkbottle, the stains of which, on the wall of his chamber, are, I believe, still shown to visitors. He bestowed upon his countrymen, for then and for all time, the inestimable boon of the New Testament in the language “understanded of the people.” Later, with the assistance of learned friends in Wittemburg, especially of Melancthon, he completed the translation of the whole Bible. But the Elector had not asked his leave to consign him to the Wartburg, and he did not ask the Elector’s to return to the scene of conflict, where, for many reasons, his presence was needed.
During his stay in the Wartburg his cowl and his monk’s robe had been taken from him; he had been made to pass for a layman, and called “Junker Georg” — “ Squire George.” In this disguise he left the castle, and traveled homewards. There is a pleasant story of his meeting, at an inn at Jena, two young Swiss, “poor scholars,” who were going to study at Wittemburg, attracted by what they had heard of the new teaching there. The lads, poor and shy and timid, feared to sit down with the strange gentleman, but his genial, kindly ways soon set them at their ease. He gave them a good supper; and, with his strong sense of humor, evidently enjoyed the talk that followed about that mysterious Dr. Luther, of whom they had heard such conflicting reports, and whom they were longing to see.
Luther continued to enjoy the protection of the Elector; but the head of the Albertine House, Duke George of Saxony, was his fiercest opponent. So violent was he that when Luther was asked to go to his capital to hold a disputation, his friends were much alarmed for his safety, “Don’t go to Leipzig,” they said, “Duke George will be sure to kill you.” Luther’s answer was, “I would go to Leipzig if it were to rain Duke Georges for nine days together, and each Duke George nine times as fierce as he is.” “Happily no such cataclysm of Duke Georges took place,” the historian adds drily.
Meanwhile, and afterwards, the word that he spoke grew and prospered, and spread in various ways and in many places. It would not be fair to say that all the new Light came from the torch so bravely kindled by Martin Luther. We sometimes say vaguely, yet not unwisely, “Such and such a thought — or movement — is in the air.” The air that in that wonderful age breathed “upon the dry bones” of the spiritually dead was surely an air from Heaven. It brought with it the unveiling of the long-hidden and neglected Word of God. This was done, first for the learned, through the Greek Testament of Erasmus, then for the common people, who — through Luther for Germany, through Tyndale for England, and through other interpreters for other lands — were enabled to read in their own tongues the wonderful works of God.
But soon opposition arose, and persecution. Intensest passion was aroused. A new era of martyrs began. There had been many martyrs before, and for the same truths; but the martyrs of the Reformation began now. The first to suffer were three young Augustinian monks, Esch, Voes, and Lambert, who were burned at Brussels in 1523. Their fate and their constancy inspired Luther’s glorious hymn—
“Flung to the heedless winds,
Or on the waters cast,
Their ashes shall be watched
And gathered at the last;
And from that scattered dust,
Around us and abroad,
Shall spring a plenteous seed
Of witnesses for God.
Jesus hath now received
Their latest living breath,
Yet vain is Satan’s hope
Of victory in their death.
Still, still, though dead they speak,
And trumpet-tongued, proclaim
To many a wakening land
The one availing Name.”
Another obscure martyr, one Leonard Kayser, who died bravely for the Faith, was lifted into eminence by Luther. “What am I,” said the great Reformer, — “What am I, an empty talker, beside this great doer?”
To France the Light had come early; chiefly through the teaching of Lefevre, a Professor in the Sorbonne, the University of Paris. Martyr fires were soon kindled. The first sufferer was Jean Leclere, a wool-comber of Meaux; but his name finds no place in the crowded martyrologies of the Reformed Church, because, having destroyed an image, he was not given the option of saving his life by a retractation. So little anxious have we Protestants ever been to swell the lists of our martyrs, which nevertheless are crammed to overflowing!
Other victims followed in quick succession. In the very year when Protestantism was — not born but baptized, there was one who deserves to be remembered. A great contrast to the poor wool-comber Leclere was the brilliant, gifted young noble, Louis de Berquin, with all the prestige of his learning and the charm of his varied accomplishments. He was favored by the King, Francis I., of France, and by the King’s sister, Margaret of Valois, who herself leaned strongly to the cause of Reform. They, and other friends in high places, protected him from his enemies for six long years; but they either could not or would not do more; probably Francis would not, and Margaret could not. He was abandoned; and he went to the stake with joy, attired as if for a festival, “for,” said he, “I am going this day to be presented to the King — not to the King of France, but to the King of kings.” It was said of Louis de Berquin that “he would have been a second Luther, had he found in Francis a second Elector of Saxony.”
To return to our theme — the name of Protestant. In the year 1526 — five years after the Diet of Worms — another Diet was held at Spires. There was much contention there about religion. The Romis1 party wanted the Reformers to be put down at once, and burned or otherwise slain. But, having already some of the princes on their side, they had grown too strong for that; and in the end they obtained from the Diet a fair measure of toleration.
As time went on, however, the hostility of the Romish party increased. The Emperor Charles, a bigoted Spaniard, shared it of course, and so did his brother and destined successor Ferdinand, then styled King of the Romans. After three years it became expedient to summon another Diet, which was again held at Spires, in 1529. At this Diet things went hard with the Reformers. They were outnumbered, and the persecuting spirit of their antagonists was rising. The last Diet, it was said, had given them far too much liberty — they must now be put down with a strong hand. The Emperor Charles was not present. Ferdinand, one of their greatest enemies, presided, and threw all his weight against them. The Princes and Deputies favorable to their cause maintained it stoutly, but in vain. They were the minority; and, like other minorities, they had to suffer. A decree was passed greatly curtailing the liberty given them three years before. It was doubtful whether they themselves would continue to be allowed the free exercise of their Faith, and certain that no one else might join them. All who might wish to do so in future were left exposed to the horrible rigor of the old persecuting laws.
They could not consent to that! Four Princes of the Empire — the Elector of Saxony, the Landgrave of Hesse, the Margrave of Brandenburgh, and the Prince of Anhalt — had now embraced the Faith, and there were besides the Chancellor of Luneburgh and the Deputies of fourteen free Imperial cities. They consulted with each other. “We are outnumbered,” they said. “What are we to do? We cannot stay here. We must go home, protect our own people, and make ready for whatever may happen. And so may God help us! But we won’t go home in silence. We will protest against this iniquitous decree.”
So the great Protest was drawn up, and signed by them all. The first hand set to it was that of John, Elector of Saxony, brother and successor of Luther’s protector, Frederick the Wise. The Elector John was therefore the first Protestant, in the historical acceptation of the name. On the 19th of April, 1529, the Princes and the Deputies came in to the great Hall of Spires and solemnly presented their Protest. It was their word to the Diet, to the Emperor, to the world.
Having done this, and without waiting for the termination of the Diet, they rode away from the city and returned to their homes.
In this Protest two great principles were maintained. One was the supremacy of the Word of God. “ ... We are resolved, by the Grace of God, to maintain the pure and exclusive teaching of His only Word, such as is contained in the Biblical books of the Old and New Testaments, without adding anything thereto that may be contrary to it. This Word is the only truth, it is the sure rule of all doctrine and of all life, and can never fail or deceive us.”
If this principle represented the duty of man to God, as speaking in His Word, the other represented the duty of man to man. No, they would not refuse the right hand of fellowship and of help to those who hereafter might desire to embrace the same Faith. God forbid!
Those who signed that Protest were called the Protestant, or the Protesting, Princes and Deputies. Their followers and adherents were called the Protesters, or the Protestants. So that Protest began in the world the existence of the Protestant name. It was no unworthy beginning, but a noble and an honorable one, of which we may be justly proud.
That is not the end of the story — it is the beginning. The Protestants returned home, as we have said — but with what prospects for the future? They had thrown down the gage of battle, and had nothing now to expect but hostility. They knew that their dominions, their sovereignty, their subjects would all be threatened. But they did not think of retreating or retracting. They thought only of defending their Faith and explaining their principles. So the Protest of Spires was followed next year by the “Confession of Augsburg” — the Lutheran Confession of Faith, which the Churches called Lutheran still accept as their standard. The Confession was drawn up; it was to be signed — who was to sign it first? Clearly the Elector had the right to do it, if he would — but would he? He would. He took the pen in hand; but those around tried to dissuade him. “You will endanger your crown,” they said.
His answer was, “God forbid you should exclude me. My crown is not so precious to me as the Cross of Christ. My crown I must leave on earth, but my Master’s Cross I shall bring with me to heaven.”
He meant what he said, and he had soon an opportunity of proving it. Next year, at Augsburg, there was another great Diet. The Confession was brought thither by the Princes and presented to the Emperor. Charles was a cold, reserved man; moreover, he was no linguist. Unlike the celebrated diplomatist who “could keep silence in seven languages,” he, the supreme ruler of Germany, never learned more than a few words of German, and even these he seldom spoke. On one occasion the Margrave of Brandenburgh, in his eagerness to make him understand what the Confession of Faith meant for himself, knelt down at his feet and said, “Rather than abandon the Word of God, I would kneel down before your Majesty and “drawing his hand across his throat — “and have my head cut off.” The cold heart of Charles was moved for once. Stretching out his hand to arrest him, he said, “Dear Prince, not the head — not the head” and these are said to have been the only German words he uttered throughout the Diet.
During the Diet every effort was made, every art was tried, to break the resolution of the protesting princes, and win them back to the fold of Rome. No threats of dire disaster to themselves and their subjects, no splendid offers of advancement were spared. But they stood like rocks, headed by John the Constant, whose faith and courage nothing could shake. When threatened with the loss of his Electorate, he only said, “It was God who made me Elector — me, who was not worthy of it. I throw myself into His arms, let Him do with me what seemeth good unto Him.” Had it been demanded of him, this sovereign prince would have gone to the stake for his Faith as readily as any poor man. His son and heir, John Frederick, was equally steadfast. If the princes left Spires in a manner overborne and defeated, they went home as conquerors from Augsburgh. They had won a moral victory. They had stood the test, and shown themselves indeed “true to truth, and brave for truth.”
But their enemies were many and powerful, and clouds soon gathered over their prospects. Once and again they gathered, and once and again they were dispersed, or seemed to be. At length the Protestants made a League for their own Defense which was called the League of Schmalkald. This was followed, after a time, by the inevitable war. Sooner or later, wherever Protestants were strong enough to fight at all and yet not the preponderating power in the State, “Wars of Religion,” as they were called, were almost sure to arise. And for one simple reason. Rome had but one doom, one destiny, for all those who left her Communion and refused to return to it, and that was — extermination. Not in the etymological sense of the word, which means only putting beyond the frontier, but in the sense it has acquired now — absolute and universal killing out. She has attempted to do this wherever she has held undisputed sway; and has succeeded sometimes, as in Spain. It was considered a matter of course that heretics should die — and die, if possible, the death of fire. There are many more people now, I should think, who doubt that a murderer ought to be hanged than there were then who doubted that a heretic ought to be burned. Then what could the heretics be expected to do, once they became strong and numerous?
There are some good people who ask, “Is it right to go to war at all? Does not our Lord say ‘Resist not evil’?” Yes, but He says it to individuals not to communities.
Every man has a right — and a right which often becomes a duty — to give up his own property, his own life even, rather than resist evil. That concerns himself; but has he also a right to sacrifice others — perchance those nearest and dearest to him — perchance the weak and helpless, who cannot fight for themselves?
If a strong man is attacked he may resist or no — he has his choice. But if he sees a woman or a child attacked, what is he to do? Is he not to resist that evil? “Martyrdom,” it has been truly said, “is all very well for the martyrs, but little honor to those that stand by and see the stones thrown.” These first Protestants could not, would not, should not, stand by and see the stones thrown, or the fires kindled, when they were strong enough to prevent it. And, as even the light of Nature taught —
“How can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods,
And for the tender mother
Who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses
His baby at her breast?”
So at last, in the course of things, the League of Schmalkald had to be followed by the War of Schmalkald. Just before it broke out, Martin Luther was taken to the Home of Everlasting Peace. He died in 1546. John, the Constant Elector, also slept with his fathers, but his successor was as staunch a Protestant as he. It was said of him indeed that he was “more Lutheran than Luther himself.” As his uncle was called “the Wise,” and his father “the Constant,” so he has won the honorable title of John Frederick “ the Great-hearted.”
The Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse were the heads of the Protestant League and the generals of the Protestant army. It cannot be said that, as a military commander, either of them was able to cope with Charles V., perhaps the greatest general of his age. Still, things would probably have gone better with them and with their cause but for the extraordinary treachery of one who was a near relative of both, and also a Protestant in name. Luther’s stout opponent, Duke George, of the Albertine line, having died childless, had been succeeded by his brother Henry, and he in turn by his son Maurice, a young man of great abilities and corresponding ambition. The Elector, who had shown him much kindness, left him, in all confidence, to guard his own dominions when he marched against the Emperor. But Maurice made peace with Charles, and having first ravaged the Electorate himself, surrendered it to him. This obliged the Elector to separate his forces from those of the Landgrave, and to march homewards. His army met that of the Emperor at a place called Muhlburg, where a battle was fought, in which the Protestants were totally defeated, and the Elector wounded and made prisoner. The captive was led up to where, flushed with victory, the Emperor Charles and his brother Ferdinand were standing together. Contrary to all the rules of chivalry, they received him with words of bitter reproach and insult. He made no answer, but turned silently away. The day was stormy, and at that moment a peal of thunder rent the sky. The wounded, defeated man raised his eyes upward: “O Thou ancient Almighty One,” said he, “ Thy voice telleth me Thou still livest, and hath not forsaken me.” No; God indeed had not forsaken him.
The Emperor marched on to Wittemburg, the Elector’s capital, which he thought would yield to him immediately; but he found the gates shut and the people prepared for a vigorous resistance. This was the work of Sybilla, the Elector’s devoted wife. I suppose there was not in palace, hall, or cottage a happier domestic life than theirs. She was the sister of that highly respectable but decidedly unromantic person, Anne of Cleves, the divorced consort of our Henry VIII. The Electress Sybilla is a much more interesting figure, and not alien to our subject, if there be romance in true and constant affection. She had been a mere child, not yet fourteen, when the son and heir of the Elector of Saxony made her his bride, so that her character must have been in a great measure formed afterwards. She was a loving wife and an excellent mother, and the Court over which she presided was a model of virtue. She had now made up her mind to fight to the last for the Protestant cause and the inheritance of her husband. So she returned a firm answer to the Emperor’s summons to surrender.
To overcome this unexpected and most inconvenient check to his designs, Charles took an extraordinary, not to say an outrageous step. The Elector and the Landgrave had been already put under the Ban of the Empire, and thus formally outlawed. Yet to condemn a prince, and the first prince of the Empire, to death, and that by the sentence of a court-martial, was an unprecedented, an unheard of thing to do. No matter: the court was formed, with the notorious Duke of Alva at its head, and it did the work expected of it. The sentence was pronounced — the Elector was to die.
He heard it with perfect calmness. “I understand what the Emperor is doing,” he said. “I must die because Wittemburg will not surrender. And I will die willingly to save their just inheritance to my children.”
But Sybilla had also to be reckoned with. What could anyone, in such a case, expect from the heart of a woman? Had he even laid his commands upon her not to open the gates, I think she would have done it. It was done, at all events; and the Emperor entered Wittemburg in triumph.
It fared hardly, after that, with the captive Elector. He was separated from all he loved; humiliated, insulted, carried about everywhere in the train of the victorious Emperor as a spectacle to grace his triumph. All his dominions, except the town of Gotha and its surroundings, were taken from him, and given to his treacherous cousin Maurice, who was invested with the Electorate in his very sight, for it happened that the windows of his prison looked out upon the Square in which the imposing ceremony took place. But none of these things moved him. God’s peace was with him; and his own words tell the secret of the calm and dignified bearing that impressed all about him, even his Spanish guard. Sybilla’s poignant grief for him he comforted with the thought, “All I suffer now comes upon me through the will of God, whose I am and whom I serve.” And again he wrote, “Living or dying, imprisoned or free, I am still His. I am redeemed by the precious Blood of Christ, and not a hair of my head can fall to the ground without His will.” That thought, “I am His,” kept him calm and strong amidst trials which, to many men, would have been harder to bear than death itself. “My crown is not so precious to me as the Cross of Christ,” had the father said; and the son, who parted with the crown and kept the Cross, found that the choice was good.
One consolation the captive had, during a part of his imprisonment. Lucas Cranach, the painter to whom we owe the contemporary likenesses of Luther and Melancthon and other well-known men of the time, and who had resided at his Court, asked leave to share the captivity of his patron and his friend, and seems to have been permitted to do so for some time.
The Emperor, after his triumph, tried to impose his will, in matters of religion, upon the Empire. He decreed that all should conform to a “scheme” of his own, which included the retention of most of the Romish doctrines and practices, until a General Council could be summoned to decide upon the points in dispute. This scheme, as it was only to continue until then, was called the Interim. The return to Romish practices was opposed by the more zealous and enlightened Protestants, though many of the less advanced, or less earnest, yielded to the Emperor’s authority. Charles was most anxious to gain over to his views the captive Elector — now Elector no longer, but only Duke of Saxe-Cobourg and Gotha (names very familiar to us). He offered him his liberty, if only he would express his approval of the Interim. But John Frederick knew that this would involve unfaithfulness to Him whose he was and whom he served. So he refused; and, in consequence, the rigor of his captivity was increased. Charles even went the length of depriving him of the books that had been the solace of his imprisonment.
Meanwhile his true wife Sybilla had retired to Saxe-Weimar with her little Court of friends and kinsfolk. There she lived and prayed, trying to do good to all about her, and corresponding, when she could, with her captive husband. To the hymn of Luther’s which she sang daily with her household, she added the verse—
“O God, our supplications hear,
For our true Lord, Thy servant dear;
Maintain his steadfast faith in Thee,
And in Thine own time, set him free.”
And from her own lips the cry was often heard, “O Lord, turn again my misery.” God granted the prayer; and He did it by very strange means. The same Maurice who behaved so treacherously before, and nearly ruined the Protestant cause, now turned against the Emperor, his patron, and dealt him a crushing blow. Having secretly prepared an expedition, he made a sudden march upon Charles, and took him unawares, so that it was only by a hurried flight from Innspruck, where he was at the time, that he escaped being made a prisoner. Indeed, some of Maurice’s followers urged him to hurry on and he would catch the Emperor, but he answered prudently, “I have no cage for so big a bird!”
The Emperor, when he fled in haste from Maurice, still found time to give John Frederick, who was with him, his liberty. Had he not done so, Maurice on his arrival would no doubt have set him free; but we are not surprised to learn that John Frederick, though he might forgive his treacherous kinsman, still preferred to receive the boon from other hands. Most of all, he desired to owe it to the publicly expressed will of Germany, and for this purpose he accompanied the Emperor in his flight, and came with him to Augsburgh. There a “pacification” was presently concluded, and he was set free. His last interview with the Emperor was very friendly. Kind words were spoken, for Charles had learned both to respect and to like his captive.
The Duke went to Weimar, his new home. Everywhere, as he passed through the country, he was welcomed with rejoicing. Children met him singing hymns; flowers were strewn before him; the people from the towns came to do him honor. It was, a triumphal progress. The conquered was treated everywhere as if he had come home a conqueror. He could not understand it; he said, with tears in his eyes, “Who am I, that God should honor me thus?”
Sybilla’s joy may be imagined; but at first it was too much for her feeble frame, and at the long-desired meeting she fainted. It was but for a brief season, after all, that these two, who had been sundered so painfully, were left together — upon earth. Sybilla had been long in failing health; and John Frederick, though little past fifty, was prematurely worn and aged. Just eighteen peaceful months were given them, like a calm, fair sunset after a stormy day. Then both together “felt the low call of death.” Though himself very ill and weak, he was able to keep his place beside her to the end, and to witness the holy joy with which she welcomed her summons, saying she “knew it was but the journey to the heavenly country.” Only twelve days Afterward he followed her there; and thus “in death they were not divided.”
John Frederick the Great-hearted could not have a better epitaph than the few words in which Roger Ascham, the tutor of Lady Jane Gray, summed up his character: “In all his fortunes he was reverenced of his enemies, desired of his friends, loved of all men.”
Is it not true that each one of us —
“Boasts two soul sides —
One to face the world with,
And one” —
turned towards the unseen, looking Godwards, and never really seen save by Him? — like the unknown side of the moon with its—
“Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of.”
On each side life writes an inscription. If on the side looking Godwards there is written, “I am His,” I think that on the other side, where the world can see and read it, there will generally be found another inscription — something like the character described by Roger Ascham.
In the “Cambridge Modern History” — not given to over-praise — the Elector John Frederick of Saxony is styled “the most blameless of men.” Does not this recall to our memory the honored name of another Prince, who, in our own day, wore “the white flower of a blameless life?” Prince Albert of Saxe-Cobourg and Gotha, “the noble father of our kings to be,” was the lineal descendant and representative of John Frederick of Saxony, the man who lost — lost nobly — the higher place and dignity of Elector. The Electorate remained in the Albertine line, which is now represented by the King of Saxony. That was, in the sixteenth century, the line that succeeded. But what of the line that failed, the Ernestine? How is that line represented now? Here, amongst ourselves, and doubly — both through his father and his mother — in our present honored sovereign, King Edward VII., on whose dominions the sun never sets.
Well may we say and sing, and not only say and sing, but pray with full hearts — GOD SAVE THE KING.
“ The cloud of Witness solemnly advances,
Widening as each clarion voice is hushed in death below.”
From “The Cloud of Witness.”