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

about to destroy. Carlstadt, with his foot propped upon the shoulder of a
devout old bishop in stone, looks on Luther with an expression of impotent
wrath.
Luther and Melanchthon.
The next picture leads us to a calmer scene. Luther is in his quiet
room. His translation of the Bible is growing beneath his hand. By his side,
rendering invaluable aid, is Melanchthon: "Still," said Luther, "in age,
form, and mien, a youth: but in mind a MAN." This was the time of their
first love, when they were perfectly of one spirit, and full of admiration,
each of the other's wondrous gifts; when Melanchthon knew no glory on
earth beyond that of looking upon Luther as his father, and Luther's chief
joy was to see and extol Melanchthon, (1523-24.)
Luther’s marriage.
Next, as if the artist would lead us through alternate scenes of
sunshine and tempest, we have Luther preaching in Seeburg against the
peasant war, (1525;) a noble picture crowded with varied life. Then from
revelry, arson, and rapine, we are led into a private chapel in the house of
the Registrar of Wittenberg. The jurist, Apel, and the great painter,
Cranach, stand on either side; Bugenhagen blesses the plighted troth of
Luther and Catherine, who kneel before him, she with her long hair
flowing over her shoulders, and the marriage wreath on her brow, her face
meekly and thoughtfully bent downward; he holding her right hand in his,
his left pressing on his heart, and his eyes turned to heaven, (June 13th,
1525.)
Luther and Zwingle
From sunshine to storm--Luther's conference with Zwingle on the
question of the Sacrament, (October 1-4, 1529.) Luther had redeemed the
Gospel doctrine of the Supper from the gross materialism and scholastic
refinings of Rome: it was now his work to maintain it against the error
which violent reaction had produced, a hyperspiritualizing, which was
driven to so violent a resort as confounding the benefits of our Redeemer's
flesh with the feebleness of our own. It was to save the living body of
Christ himself from disseverance, to rescue the Reformation from a
tendency toward Sect, which an easy perversion of some of its principles
might cause, that Luther struggled. As the Protestant world has receded