The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

care, its ministers lying on the hard ground, sating their thirst at heavenly
founts, dressed as were the Apostles, and treading on stony paths with the
Everlasting Gospel in their hands. In place of this he saw cardinals borne
in litters, or on horseback, or in carriages, their attire blazing with jewels,
their faces shaded by canopies, or the plumes of the peacock, and marking
their route by clouds of dust so dense as completely to veil and hide their
attendants. His dreams reverted to those days, when the chief of the
Apostles, a pilgrim like himself, had only a staff to support his weakness.
The poor scholar, who, in his childhood, had endured so much, and who
often pillowed his head on the cold ground, now passes before palaces of
marble, alabaster columns, gigantic granite obelisks, sparkling fountains,
villas adorned with gardens, cascades and grottos! Does he wish to pray?
He enters a church, which appears to him a little world; where diamonds
glitter on the altar, gold upon the ceiling, marble in the columns, and
mosaic in the chapels. In his own country, the rustic temples are
ornamented by votive flowers laid by some pious hand upon the altar. Is he
thirsty? Instead of one of those springs that flow through the wooden
pipes of Wittenberg, he sees fountains of white marble, as large as German
houses. Is he fatigued with walking? He finds on his road, instead of a
modest wooden seat, some antique, just dug up, on which he may rest.
Does he look for a holy image? He sees nothing but the fantasies of
paganism, old deities--still giving employment to thousands of sculptors.
They are the gods of Demosthenes, and of Praxiteles; the festivals and
processions of Delos; the excitement of the forum.; in a word, pagan folly:
but of the foolishness of the Cross, which St. Paul extols, he appears
nowhere to see either memorial or representation." 10 These are the
concessions, and this the apology of a Roman Catholic historian, and we
permit them to pass together. After his return we see Luther with high
solemnities created Doctor of the Holy Scriptures, Carlstadt as Dean of the
Theological Faculty, officiating at his promotion, (1512.) The close of this
era leaves Luther busy in dictating letters, and performing
10 Audin’s Life of Luther