536 



LI. THE II LUTZEN. 



and make straight the paths ; but, if I must, neces- 

 sarily, have some failing, let me rather speak the 

 truth with too great severity, than once to net the 

 hypocrite and conceal the truth." Even the enemies 

 of Luther are forced to confess that he always acted 

 j>tly and honourably. No one can behold, without 

 astonishment, his unwearied activity and zeal. The 

 work of translating the Bible, which might well 

 occupy a whole life, he completed from 1521 to 

 1534, and thus rendered his name immortal. He 

 equalled the most prolific authors, in the number of 

 his treatises on the most important doctrines of his 

 creed. After the year 1512, he preached several 

 times every week, and, at certain periods, every 

 day ; he officiated at the confessional and the altar ; 

 he carried on an extensive correspondence in Latin 

 and German, on various subjects, with men of rank, 

 and of distinguished literary attainments, and with 

 his private friends ; and, notwithstanding all this 

 press of occupation, he allowed himself some hours 

 every day for meditation and prayer, and was always 

 accessible to visiters. He gave advice and assist- 

 ance wherever it was needed ; he interested himself 

 for every indigent person who applied to him, and 

 devoted himself, with his whole soul, to the pleasures 

 of society. In company, he was always lively, and 

 abounded in sallies of wit and good humour (pre- 

 served in his Tischreden [Table-Talk]) ; he was tem- 

 perate in his enjoyments. Luther was no stranger 

 to the elegant arts. His excellent hymns are well 

 known. His fondness for music, too, was such, that, 

 as often as circumstances permitted, he would relax 

 his mind with singing, and playing on the flute and 

 lute. But few men are equal to such excessive 

 labour; and, with a weaker constitution, such a 

 constant round of action, and vicissitude, and toil, 

 would soon have overcome the great reformer. In- 

 deed, from the year 1531, he had a painful disease 

 (the stone, accompanied with vertigo) to contend 

 with, and, in several fits of sickness, was brought 

 near the grave ; but he lived to the age of sixty- 

 three. Just before his last journey to Eisleben, 

 where he was summoned by the count of Mansfield 

 to settle a dispute, he wrote, in a letter to a friend, 

 the following description of his condition: " Aged, 

 worn out, weary, spiritless, and now blind of one 

 eye, I long for a little rest and quietness ; yet I have 

 as much to do, in writing, and preaching, and acting, 

 as if I had never written, or preached, or acted. I 

 am weary of the world, and the world is weary of 

 me ; the parting will be easy, like that of the guest 

 leaving the inn ; I pray only, that God will be gra- 

 cious to me in my last hour, and shall I quit the world 

 without reluctance." He wrote this in January, 

 1546. On the 18th of the succeeding February, he 

 died at Eisleben, and was buried in the castle- 

 church of Wittemberg. He left a wife, whom he 

 tenderly loved, and two children (two others having 

 previously died), in straitened circumstances. His 

 wife died in 1552. The male line of his posterity 

 became extinct in Martin Gottlieb Luther, who was 

 a counsellor at law, and died at Dresden, in 1759. 

 Against his will, his adherents styled themselves 

 Lutherans ; against his will they engaged in a war 

 which broke out immediately after his death and 

 desolated Germany. As long as he lived, Luther 

 was for peace ; and he succeeded in maintaining it ; 

 he regarded it as impious to seek to establish the 

 cause of God by force ; and in fact, during thirty 

 years of his life, the principles of the reformation 

 gained a firmer footing, and were more widely pro- 

 pagated, by his unshaken faith and unwearied en- 

 deavours, than by all the wars, and treaties, and 

 councils, since. 



Luther's Sammtl. JVerke (Complete Works) ap- 



peared in 1826, at Erlangen, in 60 vols. Five dif- 

 ferent collections of his writings were published 

 earlier, of which the most complete is that by Walch 

 (24 vols., 4to). There is a life of Luther, by 

 Schrockh, in his Lebensbeschrieb. beruhrnter Gel. 

 (Lives of distinguished Scholars;, (part 1, 1790). 

 For further information, see the articles Reformation, 

 and Protestants. See also the Life of Luther, with 

 an Account of the Reformation, by A. Bower (Lon- 

 don, 1813), and the articles on Calvin, Melanchthon, 

 Erasmus, Zuinglius; also Robertson's Charles V., 

 and Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History. 



LUTHERANS ; the followers of the doctrines of 

 Luther, though the reformer himself, in his writings, 

 expresses his disapprobation of making his name 

 that of a sect. In Spain, and some other Catholic 

 countries, the name Lutheran is, in common par- 

 lance, almost 'Synonymous with heretic. In Sweden 

 and Denmark, there is an established Episcopal 

 Lutheran church ; this is not the case in Protestant 

 Germany. Bishops have lately been created in 

 Prussia (see Liturgy) ; but, as far as church govern- 

 ment is concerned, they are merely titular, whatever 

 may have been the intention of their establishment. 

 They are, however, neither Lutheran nor Calvinist, 

 but evangelical. The Lutherans in Germany cannot 

 be said to adhere, strictly, to all the doctrines of 

 Luther, so great a freedom of opinion, on religious 

 matters, having gained ground in tliat country. As 

 few German Calvinists adhere to predestination, few 

 Lutherans adhere to consubstantiation, in the Lord's 

 supper. See Luther, and Reformation. 



LUTHERN, in architecture; a kind of window 

 over the cornice in the roof of a building, serving to 

 illuminate the upper story. 



LUTZEN, a small town in the present Prussian 

 duchy of Saxony, to which two celebrated battles 

 have given historical renown, containing 1300 inha- 

 bitants, and belonging to the government of Mersc- 

 burg, lies eleven miles S. W. of Leipsic. Strategy 

 shows why Saxony has so often been the field of 

 battle between the powers of the north-east and the 

 powers of the south-west of Europe. How often 

 have the plains of Leipsic and Lutzen, the neigh- 

 bourhood of Dresden and Bautzen, been the scene of 

 conflict! The first battle of Lutzen was fought in 

 the thirty years' war, Nov. 6 (16), 1632, between 

 Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, and VV alien- 

 stein, duke of Friedland. The imperial troops, 

 under the latter, amounted to 40,000 men ; the 

 Swedish troops, under Gustavus, to 27,000, including 

 the Saxons under Bernard, duke of Saxe- Weimar. 

 The battle was extremely obstinate, and neither 

 party was decisively victorious during that day, but 

 Wallenstein began retrograde movements the next 

 day. In his army, the famous general Pappenheiui 

 was mortally wounded, and soon after died. On the 

 side of the Protestants, the hero of their cause, Gus- 

 tavus Adolphus, fell. The circumstances of his 

 death are uncertain ; but it is a mistake to suppose 

 that he fell a victim to revenge and treachery. His 

 body was found, by the soldiers sent in search of it 

 by Bernard, under a heap of dead, and so much 

 mutilated by the hoofs of horses, as to be recognised 

 with difficulty. A plain stone marks this spot, no/. 

 far from Lutzen, on the great road to Leipsic ; a few 

 poplars and some stone seats surround it. His body 

 was carried to Lutzen, where traces of the blood arc 

 still shown, in the town house. See Gustavus I., and 

 Thirty Years' War. 



A second battle, fought near Lutzen, May 2, 1813, 

 between Napoleon and the combined Russians and 

 Prussians, was the first great conflict after Napoleon's 

 disasters in Russia ; and on this occasion, the young 

 French and Prussian levies first measured their 



