LUTHER 



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LUTHERANS 



statements, was as follows: "I cannot, I will 

 not retract anything, unless what I have writ- 

 ten shall be shown contrary to Holy Scripture 

 or to plain reason, for to act against conscience 

 is neither safe nor upright." He closed with 

 the words, "Here I stand. I cannot do other- 

 wise. God help me. Amen." 



Though placed under the ban of the empire, 

 he was allowed to start for home in safety, but 

 while passing through a valley near Eisenach 

 he was seized by a band of masked horsemen 

 and carried to the castle of Wartburg. This 



LUTHER MONUMENT AT WORMS 



was done by order of his good friend Frederick, 

 elector of Saxony, who feared for his safety 

 but dared not protect him openly. During a 

 ten-months' sojourn in the castle Luther made 

 a translation of the New Testament from the 

 Greek into German, an event which marks an 

 epoch in the history of German literature. 

 There also he wrote his treatise on Monastic 

 Vows. 



In March, 1522, he returned to Wittenberg 

 to begin the great work of organizing his new 

 church, and the stoiy of his life from that 

 point is the story of the -Reformation. The 

 social unrest of the times, culminating in the 

 terrible Peasants' War, which broke out in 

 Germany in 1525, could not turn him from the 

 cause to which he had dedicated his life. He 

 worked out a new order of church services, and 

 a new system of church government; he wrote 

 catechisms for the instruction of the common 

 people, and he voiced his religious faith and 

 his zeal in a number of fine hymns. The best- 

 known of these, Eiri' Feste Burg, which has 

 been called the "battle hymn of the Reforma- 

 tion," begins with the stirring lines: 



A mighty fortress is our God 



A bulwark never failing ; 

 Our helper He amid the flood 



Of mortal ills prevailing. 



In 1525 Luther married Katharina von Bora, 

 who had, like himself, renounced the life of 

 the cloister. His domestic life was happy, and 

 his hospitable home was a shelter for six chil- 

 dren of his own, several orphaned nephews and 

 nieces and numerous impoverished students. 

 He died while on a visit to Eisleben, in 1546. 

 His body was taken to Wittenberg and in- 

 terred in the famous church on which, twenty- 

 nine years before, he had nailed his ninety-five 

 theses. In 1858 Frederick William IV re- 

 placed the old wooden doors of the church with 

 bronze ones bearing the text of the theses. In 

 the city there is a statue of the great reformer, 

 on which is inscribed in German this legend: 

 "If it be God's work, it will endure; if it be 

 man's work, it will perish." B.M.W. 



Consult Smith's Life and Letters of Martin 

 Luther; Lindsay's The Reformation in Germany. 



Related Subjects. In connection with the 

 study of Luther, the reader is referred to the 

 following articles in these volumes : 

 Bull Protestants 



Eck, Johann Maier von Reformation, The 

 Indulgence Saint Peter's Church 



Peasants' War Tetzel, Johann 



LUTHERANS, lu'theranz, the members of 

 the various branches of the Church which was 

 established in Germany by Martin Luther dur- 

 ing the Reformation of the sixteenth century 

 (see REFORMATION, THE). At the present time 

 nearly all of the Protestants in that country 

 belong to the United Evangelical Church, a 

 union of the former Lutheran and the Re- 

 formed or Calvanist churches. Lutheranism is 

 now the established religion of Denmark, Nor- 

 way and Sweden, and the leading religion of the 

 German Empire. A large part of the popula- 

 tion in Poland, Prussia, Bohemia, Silesia 

 Moravia have embraced this faith, and in 

 United States it has a strong foothold, for 

 are about 2,445,000 communicants in all the 

 Lutheran bodies. In Canada there are 

 230,000 in this Church. 



When Luther began his work of refor 

 tion in the Catholic Church he did not intend 

 to start a new organization, but that was the 

 final result, and the opponents of the reform 

 movement called the Protestants Lutherans in 

 derision, although their Church was rightly 

 known as the Evangelical. In 1530 the theo- 

 logians of the new Church stated their doc- 

 trines in the Augsburg Confession, which was 

 adopted, when the Church was recognized by 

 the state twenty-five years later, as the expres- 

 sion of the creed of Lutheranism. At 



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