the lectures on them with which he began his public career, as a teacher at Wittenberg (1512), by his Commentaries on the Seven Penitential Psalms (1517), by his hymns, by his life and conversation. He clung to his "old and ragged Psalter as a tried and trusty friend. With an exposition of Ps. cxviii. he busied himself in his solitude at Coburg. This," he says, in the dedication of his translation, "is my psalm, my chosen psalm. I love them all; I love all Holy Scripture, which is my consolation and my life. But this psalm is nearest my heart, and I have a familiar right to call it mine. It has saved me from many a pressing danger, from which nor emperor, nor kings, nor sages, nor saints could have saved me. It is my friend; dearer to me than all the honours and power of the earth.” Mention has been already made of Luther's love for Psalm iv., and his wish to hear sung in his last moments the soothing words, "I will lay me down in peace, and take my rest (Ps. iv., verse 9). Another of his favourites was Psalm cx. The 110th, ,"he says, "is very fine. It describes the kingdom and priesthood of Jesus Christ, and declares Him to be the King of all things and the intercessor for all men; to Whom all things have been remitted by His Father, and Who has compassion on us all. 'Tis a noble psalm; if Í were well, I would endeavour to make a commentary upon it." Another favourite was Psalm ii., and his remarks upon it bring out salient features in the character of a man whose very words were "half-battles ": "The 2nd Psalm is one of the best psalms. I love that psalm with all my heart. It strikes and flashes valiantly among kings, princes, counsellors, judges, etc. If what this psalm says be true, then are the allegations and aims of the papists stark lies and folly. If I were as our Lord God, and had committed the government to my son, as He to His Son, and these vile people were as disobedient as now they be, I would knock the world in pieces." But if his comment on Psalm ii. illustrates the violence of Luther's character, his use of Psalm xlvi. exemplifies his magnificent courage, and suggests the source from which it sprang. There were moments when even he felt something akin to despair, and he asked with the Psalmist, "Why art In such hours he would say thou cast down, O my soul? ' to Melancthon, " Come, Philip, let us sing the 46th Psalm," and the two friends sang it in Luther's version, "Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott." The version is characteristic of the man. It has his heartiness, his sincere piety, his joyful confidence, his simplicity and strength, his impetuosity and ruggedness. Harmony, delicacy, spiritual tenderness, are not there. But the words of his hymn breathe the same undaunted spirit which flamed out in his answer to the warning of his friends, "Were there as many devils in Worms as there are roof-tiles, I would on." They also reveal the secret of the confidence which inspired his memorable words before the Council: "I cannot and will not retract anything. It is neither wise nor right to do aught against conscience. Here stand I; I cannot otherwise. God help me. Amen." From Carlyle's rugged translation of "Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott," the first and the last of the four stanzas of Luther's version of Psalm xlvi. are quoted: "A safe stronghold our God is still, The Diet of Worms (January 1521), by which Luther was condemned and placed under the ban of the empire, was opened by Charles V., the champion of the Pope against the Protestants. Yet, in love of the Psalms, emperor and reformer were not divided. Charles presented Marot with 200 gold doubloons for his metrical version of thirty psalms, and asked him to translate his own special favourite, Psalm cxviii.1 His delight in the Psalter increased in later life, especially in the period of ill-health which ended his long rule (1550-6), when he sang them with his friend, William von Male. During those years his cherished plan of abdication took definite shape. The In November 1556, Charles crossed the pass of Puertonuevo and descended into the valley of the Vera in Estramadura, where he intended to pass the closing years of his life. The beetling crags at the topmost crest of the Sierra closed, as it were, the gates of the world behind him; ""Tis the last pass," he said, " that I shall ever go through." Jeromite Convent of Yuste was the scene of the emperor's retirement. He entered it on February 3rd, 1557, bringing with him two illuminated Psalters, and the commentary of Tomas de Puertocarrero on the Psalm, In te, Domine, speravi. From the windows of his cabinet he looked over a cluster of rounded knolls, clad in walnut and chestnut, varied with the massive foliage of the fig, and the feathery sprays of the almond. Here he lived, transacting business of the State, punctilious in his devotions, delighting in the music of the choir, giving to his garden or his pets much of the leisure which he enjoyed. In September 1558, he lay on his death-bed. Portents heralded his approaching end. The bell of Vililla in Arragon, which, ringing of itself, had foretold the death of Ferdinand the Catholic, and the sack of Rome by the army of Bourbon, sent out its mysterious warnings over the plains of the Ebro. A comet blazed in the sky during his illness, and disappeared on the day of his death. A lily bud, which had remained a bud all the summer, burst into bloom on September 20th, as a token, it was believed, of the whiteness of the departing spirit, and as a pledge of its reception into the mansions of bliss. On Monday the 19th, he had received the longer or ecclesiastical form of extreme unction, which consisted in the recitation of the seven Penitential Psalms, a litany, and several portions of Scripture. Throughout the 20th of September, passages were read aloud to him by his confessor, from the Bible, but especially from the Psalms, 1 Bovet (Histoire du Psautier, p. 6, note 3) thinks the Psalm was cxviii. It might, however, have been Psalm cvii. his favourite being Psalm xc., "Lord, Thou hast been our refuge." On the same evening he received the Sacrament, at his urgent request. It may not," he said, "be necessary; but it is good company on so long a journey." In spite of his extreme weakness, he followed all the responses, and repeated with the utmost fervour the whole verse, "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit: for Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, Thou God of truth " (Ps. xxxi., verse 6). On St. Matthew's day (September 21st), at two o'clock the next morning, the Emperor Charles V. was dead. To men of Luther's temper, leaders of the New Learning were cowardly palterers with truth. He denounced Erasmus as a very Caiaphas," and whenever he prayed, prayed for a curse upon Erasmus "; to him also Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) appeared a cruel tyrant." Yet here again the Psalms were common ground. 66 66 Many of the Renaissance scholars, in their eagerness to conquer the new worlds of thought and knowledge which opened out before them, doubtless relaxed, lost, or abandoned their earlier faith. It was not so with Christopher Columbus, the man of action. The young Genoese wool-comber, who discovered the New World of America, was essentially a man of the Middle Ages, and died clad in the habit of St. Francis. His imaginative, enthusiastic mind was imbued with the firm conviction that, in devoting all his energies to his great idea, he was the chosen instrument for the fulfilment of a Divine design. The impulse to the work of the greatest maritime genius of the century was essentially religious. His habitual signature was an invocation to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, placed above his own name of Christopher, or the Christ-bearer. In the constancy of his faith at least, if in no other respect, his death was worthy of his life and work. In a wretched hired lodging at Valladolid, dressed in the Franciscan habit, fortified by the rites of the Church, he died on the eve of Ascension Day, May 20th, 1506, repeating, like John Hus, or Luther, or More, or like Tasso, who sang the swan-song of Italian chivalry, the familiar words, "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit." Nor were the men of the New Learning, who explored new worlds of knowledge, or re-discovered lost continents of G 66 thought and literature, necessarily hostile to the older faith. Erasmus, himself a commentator on the Psalms, writing from Louvain (May 30th, 1519), praises Luther's commentaries on the Psalms, which pleased him "prodigiously," and should be "widely read." Pico della Mirandola, one of the most brilliant scholars of the Italian Renaissance, was the friend and apologist of Savonarola, without whom he could not live, and in whose church of San Marco he lies buried. His life and works were translated by More. Let no day pass," writes Pico, "but thou once, at the least-wise, present thyself to God by prayer, and falling down before Him flat to the ground . . not from the extremity of thy lips, but from the inwardness of thine heart, cry these words of the prophet,' O remember not the sins and offences of my youth; but according to Thy mercy think upon me, O Lord, for Thy goodness (Ps. xxv., verse 6). The advice was daily practised by More himself, even when he was surrounded by the splendours of the court of Henry VIII., and in the midst of the active life of a diplomatist and statesman, man of letters, Chancellor, and Treasurer. The Psalms formed part of his morning and evening prayers, and he had made a small collection of special psalms for frequent use. In the days of his disgrace, a prisoner in the upper ward of the Beauchamp Tower because he would not swear an oath against his conscience, he composed many works, chiefly meditations on the Christian faith, by the dim light that flickered through the bars of his prison. Whatever view may be taken of the course of the Protestant Reformation in England, at the different stages of its progress, it is difficult to justify the public farce of Queen Catherine's divorce and Anne Boleyn's coronation. With or without the Pope's sanction, Henry VIII. was resolved to go all lengths in order to obtain his will. "He was," says Bishop Stubbs," the King, the whole King, and nothing but the King: he wished to be . . the Pope, the whole Pope, and something more than Pope." riage was still before the Pope (June 1st, 1533), and when the following September, was born. Parliament (25 Henry VIII., c. The question of the marwhen Anne was crowned Princess Elizabeth, in the In March 1534, an Act of 22), declared Catherine's |