rity and tenderness bordering upon the sublime. He deplores the death of his infant daughter, Elizabeth :

"Elizabeth, my little girl, is dead.

Strange to say, her loss has left me a sick heart, a woman's heart, so intense is my sorrow. I never could have imagined that a father could feel so much tenderness for his child.

"Her features, her words, her gestures during life and on her death-bed are deeply engraved in my heart. Oh my obedient and dutiful daughter! the very death of Christ (and what in comparison are all other deaths,) cannot, as it should, drive her from my memory.

"Think, however, dearest Catherine, whither she is gone. She has assuredly finished a happy journey. The flesh, no doubt, bleeds; such is its nature; but the spirit lives and finds itself at ease. Children dispute not! they believe as they are taught; all in children is pure simplicity. Their death is free from cares and anguish; they have no doubts, no temptations, at the approach of death, no bodily pain; they but fall asleep as it were.'

When we read such tender, such religious, such affecting sentiments, our anger is appeased, we forget the fierceness of the sectary.

The death of his father inspired him with

these words, of biblical depth and simplicity:

"I succeed to his name; now am I, for my family, the old Luther. It is now my turn, my right, to follow him through death."

When Luther became ill and sad at heart, he said:

"The empire falls, monarchs fall, priests fall, the whole world totters, as the approaching fall of a large mansion is announced by little lizards."

Luther's was a peaceful death; he wished to die, and said:

May our Lord soon come and take me away! may he come, above all, with his last judgment; I am prepared to hold out my neck; let him hurl the thunderbolt, and may rest be my portion!

"Shame upon us! we do not give the tithe of our lives to God; and we presumptuously hope to deserve heaven by one good work! What have I myself done?"

*

*

"This little bird has chosen its place of shelter, and will sleep undisturbed; it has no uneasiness, never dreams of to-morrow's home; it remains quietly perched on its little branch, and leaves the care of itself to God.

"I recommend my soul to thee, oh my Lord Jesus Christ! About to quit this terrestrial body, and to be cut off from this life, I know that I shall rest for ever near thee."

He again thrice repeated: In manus tuas commendo spiritum meum; redemisti me, Domine, Deus veritatis. On a sudden, he closed his eyes and fainted away. Count Albert and his wife, as well as the medical attendants, employed all possible means to bring him to himself; with much difficulty they succeeded. Doctor Jonas then said to him: Reverend father, do you die true to the faith you have taught? He answered by a distinct yes, and again fell asleep. He soon grew pale, became cold, breathed deeply once more, and expired. *

PORTRAITS OF LUTHER.

THERE was the final yes which followed the no pronounced at Worms. Yes, Luther persisted, as did also the sects which originated in him; but his refusal of all accommodation with those sects is a proof that he was not aware of the drift of the movement he had brought about. Thus it was that, in the presence of the landgrave of Hesse, he would yield nothing to Zuinglius, Bucer, and Ecolampadius, who besought him to come to an arrangement with them; they would have given him Switzerland and the banks of the Rhine; thus it was that he blamed Melanchton, who attempted to effect, between catholics and protestants, a reconciliation similar to that which Bossuet endeavoured to negociate with Leibnitz; thus it was that he condemned the peasants of Swabia and the anabaptists of Munster, far less on account of the disorders of which they had been guilty,

than because they would not remain within the circle which he had marked out for them. A man of gigantic conceptions, who aimed at changing the face of the world, would have soared above his own opinions; he would not have fettered those minds which aimed at the destruction of what he also pretended to destroy. Luther was the first obstacle to Luther's reformation.

The reformer was not, assuredly, deficient in spirit; after all, however, he did not display that commanding courage which so many martyrs and enthusiasts evinced in behalf of the catholic religion and of heresies; he was neither the invincible Arius, nor the indomitable John Huss; he only exposed himself on one occasion, thenceforward kept in the back-ground, vents the loudest threats from afar, boasts that he will brave every danger, but confronts none. He refuses to repair to the diet of Augsburg, and prudently remains shut up in the fortress of Coburg. He often says that he is alone, that he is about to descend from his Sinai, his Sion; but he remains there. When he spoke thus, so far from being alone, he was behind the dukes of Mecklenburg and Brunswick, behind the grand-master of the Teutonic Order, behind the elector of Saxony and the landgrave of Hesse; before him