Luther's children after his death, and devoted to | Sacristan pointed out to me the curious panes of the uses of the once famous University of Witten-glass in the window and the coarse but strong archiberg-which some of my readers may recollect is tecture of the room. This window is in the old mentioned by Shakspeare as the place where Ham- Gothic form, terminating in a point at the top. The let studied. The University was united by the panes of glass are round and not more than two Government about twenty years ago with that of inches in diameter, thin at the edges and gradually Halle, in disregard of the associations connected thickening, like the bottom of a bottle, towards the with its name as the nurse of the Reformation, and middle which was rough and broken on the surface. despite the murmurs of its Saxon subjects. It is Thus each distinct pane must have been separately now devoted to the use of a theological institute manufactured, and not cut out of a larger plate, as here, but the Faculty has been transferred to Halle, at the present day; and, doubtless, economy too inwhich, as is well known, now ranks as the first fluenced the monks in selecting such small glasses, theological school in Germany. inasmuch as when one was unluckily broken it would cost less to replace it than if it were larger. These small panes or plates of glass are soldered into metal frames and the window opens in the middle, each side opening and closing like a shutter. The windows in all Continental houses are constructed in this manner to this day, and, to give a strange instance of difference in taste, the people of the Continent look upon our mode of raising our windows, by means of a pulley, as barbarous, antiquated and clumsy in the extreme. I will not attempt to decide the matter, but leave it with the expression of my preference of the Continental windows, simply because such a window can be thrown entirely open from top to bottom, while at least one half of our windows must be always closed and be useful only in admitting light.

The entrance, through an antiquated arched gateway under the North wing, conducts into a spacious court. This is open to the East, where it borders on the city ramparts, but surrounded with buildings two stories high on all the other sides. We crossed over to the South wing and, on the South-east corner of the court, passed up a winding stair-case in a small tower jutting out of the line of building. Arrived at the top, we entered a dark, narrow ante-chamber: the old oaken door creaked upon its hinges as the Sacristan solemnly opened it and we were ushered into

LUTHER'S CELL.

'Twas in this apartment he meditated a change in the religion of Europe and formed his plans of resistance to the Pope. The room stands just as he left it. "Tis about 12 or 15 feet square and about 10 feet in height-a small space, but large enough to think great thoughts in. The oaken walls and floor are black with age and a part of the latter is almost completely rotten-'tis the plank upon which the Monk was accustomed to walk to and fro in his meditative moments. Against the West wall is an old oaken bench in front of which is a large and clumsy oaken table. On this bench the Reformer used to sit and on this table once lay his Bible and writing materials: the ink-spots are still to be discerned. I wished for a moment to cut one of these spots out with my pen knife, but I hesitated to commit such a sacrilege until the opportunity of doing so had passed. A young lady of Weimar, who, on a visit to the Library of that city, had slily cut out a small piece of Luther's gown, the veritable Simon Pure monk's dress itself, offered me a thread, or ravelling from it. As the theft was already committed, I felt few scruples of conscience; but my gallantry did not permit my taking advantage of the lady's kindness to lesson the value of her relic. "Twas the severest test my gallantry has been put to, and since I have acquired a taste for such trifles, I would not insure its resisting a similar temptation now.

Two coarse, clumsily made oaken chairs stand facing each other by the window. In these, Luther's visitors and select disciples sat to listen to the words of wisdom which fell from his lips. The closets were pointed out to me, and also the stove, made more than three centuries ago, of baked clay and having on its sides rude figures in basso relievo of the four Evangelists. 'Tis a large and clumsy affair, but in character with the room. Just such stoves are used by the Germans at the present day-so stereotype and unchanging are the habits of that nation-'twere well for them, if in their religious opinions, at least in those of a large number of their educated men, they had departed as little from the paths of their forefathers. His book-case was shown me. I doubt if it could contain the works of the Fathers alone, but the sturdy and soaring genius of Luther probably little relished those pious but prosy Doctors of the Church.

In this apartment are kept full-length portraits of Luther and Melancthon in their monastic dress, and on either side similar portraits of their friends and protectors, Frederic the Wise and John the Steadfast in their costume as Electors of Saxony and Arch-Marshalls of the Empire. All these portraits are by Cranach. The walls of this room To return to my subject: as Luther sat on this are covered with names, the most remarkable bench, before him was the outer door of his apart- among which is that of Peter the Great, written ment, and on his left hand was the solitary large with his own hand over the doorway leading into the window through which the light poured full upon dormitory. It is written with chalk, in the Rusthe sacred page he was perusing. The talkative sian character (which resembles the Greek)—Petr.

We descended the steps and were met by a party of travelling journeymen, anxious to see the cell of Luther. The good Sacristan did not seem overpleased at their apparition, for they usually visit such places out of mere curiosity, and their means do not permit them to renumerate the Sacristan for his trouble on any liberal scale. Nevertheless it is gratifying to find in this, in Europe so needy class, even a germ of higher feelings and sentiments, and where a taste for the elevated and for something above the common-place in life has not existed before, 'tis often engendered by the sight of works of art, or the mysterious influence which the scenes of great events exercise over every soul to a greater or less extent. I slipped his fee into the Sacristan's hand, and exchanging our adieu with uncovered heads, as the good old custom in Germany still requires, we parted and, as the reader already knows, for ever. The memory of that wan and melancholy old man still lingers in my bosom and gives the tombs which he guarded even a still greater hold upon my affection and my remembrance.

For its preservation it has been covered with a We retraced our steps, and from a window in glass-case. the tower containing the stair-case, the Sacristan We proceeded through the dormitory, (an apart-pointed out to me the tree which now marks the ment rendered worthy of notice solely by the fact spot, a few hundred yards beyond the Elster gate, that in it the Reformer was accustomed to sleep,) to the East of the town, where Luther publicly and a passage without a window, into Luther's burnt the Papal Bull by which, Leo the X. conlecture room, which he used until the concourse of demned his doctrines and excommunicated him as his hearers became so great that he was compelled an obstinate heretic, Dec. 10th, 1520. to remove to a larger hall. It is now not much more capacious than his cell, but I am inclined to think it then included a room adjoining, now filled with rubbish. With that room it would form an apartment about 20 feet by 50. In it stands the chatechistry which Luther used for chatechising and for lecturing: 'tis ornamented with portraits of Luther and the first Rector of the University, and also with the arms of the University encircling a portrait of Frederic the Wise, its founder. The chatechistry is nothing but a kind of pulpit of plain oaken wood painted. On one side of it stand against the wall full-length portraits of Luther and the Elector just named, and on the other side a similar likeness of the unfortunate John Frederic the Magnanimous, or more properly, the Greatsouled, the last of the Ernestine Electors of Saxony. These portraits are all by Lucas Cranach, whose also is the altar piece preserved in this room and representing Christ upon the cross-an old, but otherwise not remarkable painting, far inferior to most of the works of this excellent artist, nearly all of which, in my various journeys during a four years sojourn in Germany, I have seen. There is also here an old wood engraving on wood, instead of on paper. It is a portrait of Luther, very accurate, and remarkable as a specimen of the art in its infancy. In a case, in this room, are preserved several relics of the Reformer; his beer can, of earthen-ware, is, as is well known, quite capacious: it would hold a little more than two quarts. Here is also a piece of embroidery by his wife, representing the emblems of Christ's passion, the cross, spears, crown of thorns, &c.

In a corner of this portrait of Luther, as if more in mockery than in pride, stand his family coat of arms and one which he framed for himself. The former I did not particularly notice, but the latter, as the Reformer's own design, deserves some attention. It is made in complete defiance of all the rules of the Herald's Office and is rather a mystic emblem than a wordly ensign of nobility. In the centre is a cross, lying on a heart, which again lies on a rose floating in a sea of blood,* bounded by a golden ring. The explanation is this: the heart bearing the cross of Christianity and resting on the rose (the emblem of Truth) will reach through the blood of Christ to an eternity of supreme bliss, (the boundless ring being the emblem of eternity, and gold representing all that is valuable and excellent.)

I returned rapidly to the Post-House, and was soon again on my way. The clumsy old diligence rattled along the roughly-paved streets, the sentinel threw open the ponderous gates of the passage under the Southern ramparts, the draw-bridge was quickly passed, and I found myself on the banks of the "abounding and rejoicing" Elbe. Before me lay the plain on which Charles V., three centuries ago, encamped with his powerful besieging host.

The Spaniard came down like a wolf on the fold, His cohorts all glittering in purple and gold, aided by the crafty Duke Maurice of Saxony, to crush the last hopes of the captive Elector. Behind me were the ramparts which the brave citizens of Wittenberg, under the heroic Sybella of Cleves, defended against the concentrated might of the German Empire under its greatest Emperor, until Charles, by threatening the life of the Elector, obtained from the fears of an affectionate wife what he had failed to gain in honorable combat. My fancy bringing all these things before my mind's eye was fast carrying me back into those martial times, when the merry notes of the postillion's horn roused me from my reverie, and the heated dust rushing into the windows of the coach soon convinced me of the disagreeable reality that I was rolling along one of the most sandy and dusty roads

* In restoring the painting this by mistake was painted blue. in all his Prussian Majesty's dominions.

An able writer, in a late number of the Southern his memory. They now belong to us all, their Review, has remarked "The Hebrew nation fur- characters and deeds to History, and their bright nishes the only instance in which the carrying for- example to you, reader, and to me and all manward of the torch of the world's advance has proved kind.* a curse to the bearers: again we are reminded of * I am indebted to John Siegling, Esq. of Charleston, the fate and destinies of Cain, though the judg-who has resided, during his absence abroad, for some time in ment has fallen most heavily here."

'Tis melancholy to reflect, that the same remark is strictly true with respect to the German nation. Such have been the evils arising to that country from the political tendencies of the Reformation, that many of her writers are disposed to regard it as a fit compeer of the French Revolution and the greatest evil ever inflicted on that people. A century and a half of dissension and thirty years of civil war are but items in this catalogue of calamities. A dismembered Empire, total loss of patriotic feeling, the complete extinction of individual freedom and the establishment of innumerable petty, though iron despotisms, extensive immorality and irreligion were the boons conferred on Germany by the religious wars originating in the Reformation. The effects of these wars are still distinctly traceable in Germany. The places which have been rendered most famous, by a strange coincidence and fatality, have received a double portion of this inheritance of evil. Wittenberg is a decayed and lifeless fortress, Augsburg an impoverished city, deprived of its independence and fast losing its wealth; Worms and Spire mere collections of hovels and the magnificent castles of Heidelberg and the Wartburg mere heaps of ruins.

But, nevertheless, an impartial examination of the good and the evil, as well to the Roman as to the Protestant Church, to the states, as to the people of Germany, must convince us that the former greatly predominates. The hand of man, busy for two centuries in repairing the evil which a few years of war had done, has now restored to the Empire its former prosperity, character and intellectual vigor. Evil has been endured for a season, but the beneficial effects of the Reformation will continue to be felt for ever.

Erfurt, for the information that a family of the name of Luther still exists in that city, who claim descent from the Reformer. As the information came to me after writing the above, the reader will excuse my not amending my peroration accordingly.

SONNETS.

BY ANNA M. HIRST.

LIFE.

Alas, alas, alas! and what is life?
A dreaming of dim dreams and their forgetting-
A star of beauty, in its rising, setting-

A white plume scen and sinking in the strife
Of hoping-yearning for what Time will sweep
Away unheeding; and no more-no more!
We walk the earth; but on the shadowy shore
Beyond the stars--beyond the azure deep-
Beyond the purple verge of infinite space,

The immortal Soul of Man shall live again-
Live where its glories never more may wane,
And where its nobler memories will efface
All thoughts which rend the solemn pall away,
That shrouds the meanness of its primal clay.

LONELINESS.

It is a sad, sad thing to be alone-

Alone within a world so bright as this-
To meet at night no light and welcome kiss
And hear no answer to our heavy moan,
Save, loud without, the solemn organ tone

Of the wild wintry winds about the eaves,
Or rustling in the woods the withering leaves-
Alas, alas! for early hopes-they've flown!
Their song brought back no echo and--they died-
(Died, like an infant sinking into rest,
And seeking heaven from its mother's breast!)
Leaving me nothing but my iron pride-
Pride which I wrap around me, as I tread
The ways of life, the living and-the dead.
Philadelphia, November, 1843.

I recollect seeing in the newspapers, several years ago, a statement that Martin Luther, a citiMR. WEBSTER'S BUNKER HILL ORATION. zen of Cologne, and the only remaining descendant of the Reformer had been received into the Josephus, after somewhere enumerating with his bosom of the Roman Church. In his poverty and characteristic terseness and accuracy the leading old age, the open-hearted and open-handed charity, features that should direct and adorn the writings for which that church has always been eminent, of the historiographer, has observed, that men often was extended to him, and gratitude or conviction acquire fame for originality and invention at the induced him to embrace its faith. So went the expense of truth and justice. After the interventale, and I believe it to be substantially correct. A tion of so many centuries since the very approfew years ago, this last scion of the house of Luther priate application of this reflection to the relater of breathed his last, in the communion and faith of historical events, it seems to me that it has dethat church at which his ancestor and namesake, scended to us in this age of literary warfare and three centuries before, had aimed so vigorous a rivalship with a peculiar and renewed force of blow. The blood of Luther has now disappeared truth attached to it-belonging equally to the rhetofrom the face of the earth, and of Melancthon also rician with the historian. Orators especially, in no descendant exists to cherish his name and honor their ardor for literary distinction and eminence