CHAP. its spreading into their native country of Spain also. He offered to bear all the expence of the journey.-John, overjoyed at the change, both on his brother's account and his own, wrote to his friends at Ratisbon; who in return advised him by no means to think of the journey: and Bucer, coming to Neuburg on his return from Ratisbon, would not stir from the place till Alphonso had taken his departure. Alphonso therefore prepared to make his journey alone; and, the day before he set out, addressed his brother in the most affectionate manner; exhorted him to constancy, and thought himself most happy in that, through his brother's discourse, he had in a few days made such advances in the right knowledge of God; begged John to write to him from time to time, promised him every service in his power, and forced money upon him even against his will. Thus, with mutual tears, they took their leave, and Alphonso travelled post to Augsburg, thirtyMurder of two miles from Neuburg. Having there feed the driver to wait his convenience, he suddenly returned back to Neuburg, on horseback. By the road he purchased an axe of a carpenter, and entered the town by break of day, accompanied by a bloody ruffian, habited as a courier, and made his way directly to his brother's lodgings. Here he put the pretended courier forward, as bearing a letter for John from his brother Alphonso. The man being let in went directly up stairs: and John Diazius being awakened out of his sleep, and told that a post was there from his brother, immediately went out to him into the next room, having only thrown a cloke loosely over him; and while with some difficulty (it being not yet fully light,) he read the letter, which expressed mighty con Diazius. Mar. 27. cern for his danger, and warned him to beware of Malvenda and other such enemies of the gospel, the assassin, standing behind him, and drawing the axe from under his coat, struck it with such force into his skull, that he literally fell dead without uttering a word! The man then, leaving the axe in the wound, hastened down stairs, and joined Alphonso, who was keeping watch at the bottom; when they set off again together with all speed to Augsburg. The whole was transacted with such silence, that nothing was heard of it, till the rattling of the ruffian's spurs in going down stairs, after the murder, awakened Claude Senarcley, a Savoyard of noble family, who was studying under the direction of Bucer and Diazius, and who happened that night to sleep in the same chamber with Diazius. He, immediately getting up and going into the room, had the horrid spectacle of his murdered friend presented to his sight! He A. D. 1546. The murderers were presently pursued, and Connived were taken at Inspruck: but to the eternal dis- at. grace of Charles V, though there was the fullest proof against them, and though justice was repeatedly demanded of him in this cause by many princes of the empire, they were, through his interposition, never called to account. first forbad the ordinary magistrates to proceed, declaring that he would hear the cause in the diet: but, when formally called upon to do so, all the reply he made was, that he would advise about it with his brother, within whose territories the accused were now prisoners; and, when Ferdinand was applied to, his answer was still to the same purport!1 1 Sleid. (xvii.) 365-367, 374. Seck. iii. 652-657. CHAP. Latter days This particular account of Diazius we owe to Claude Senarcley, above-mentioned, who published his history, with a preface by Bucer, in the very year, 1546, in which the murder took place. Senarcley bears a pleasing testimony to the devout manner in which Diazius was accustomed to pray, and to his having done so, in his presence, the day before the murder; adding also "that he had passed a considerable part of that very night in extolling the works of God, and in proposing motives to sincere devotedness to him." Seckendorf also gives, from Senarcley, a confession of faith, written by Diazius in a very pious and practical style, and inscribed to Otto Henry, prince palatine. It is probably the same which we are told that Diazius, under a sort of presentiment that he had not long to live, drew up before he set out for Ratisbon.1 Maimbourg, it is true, censures this murder as the offspring of " a false zeal in the cause of religion; " but he forbears to say that the murderers were screened from justice; and other catholic historians 2 pass the whole over in silence! We shall now conclude this chapter with a particular account of the latter days of Luther himself, and thus draw to the close of the present portion of our history. Luther completed his sixty-second year in of Luther. the month of November, 1545; and he did not survive that period so much as three months. For some years previously, he seems scarcely to have written a letter in which he did not anticipate his approaching dissolution; and often his expressions of desire for his dismissal, and for the heavenly rest, are very ardent. Indeed A. D 1545. Death. he had, in his many and increasing infirmities, sufficient warning that the time of his departure was at hand. He was troubled with excruciating pains in the head, which nearly deprived him of the sight of one eye; his legs swelled, and he suffered severely from the stone. His enemies, however, were not able to wait with Fictitious patience for an event which could not now be Story of his far distant; and a pretended account of his death, as having been accompanied with " a miracle, wrought by God for the honour of Christ, the terror of the wicked, and the comfort of good men," was, in the year 1545, printed and circulated in Italy. The story is so absurd that it hardly deserves to be repeated, except as it may shew what some men were wicked enough to invent, and others weak enough to receive at that time. It set forth that Luther, finding death approaching, had called for the sacrament, and immediately after receiving it had expired: that before his death he had desired that his corpse might be placed upon the altar, and there receive divine honours-which desire, however, had not been complied with : that when his body was interred a tremendous storm arose, which threatened destruction to every thing around, and that the terrified spectators, looking up, saw the host, which the impious man had presumed to receive, hovering in the air that this having been taken, with great reverence, and deposited in a sacred place, the tempest ceased; but at night returned again with still greater fury: that in the morning, the grave being opened, no vestige of the body could be found, but a horrible stench of brimstone proceeded from the place, by which the health of the bystanders was seriously affected and that the consequence of all this CHAP. VIII. Luther's Remarks upon it. His state of mind. had been, the return of many persons into the bosom of the catholic church. The paper, containing this account, was brought to Luther, and he caused it to be reprinted, with this addition: "I, doctor Martin Luther, testify under my hand, that I have received this extravagant fiction, this twenty-first day of March, and read it with great pleasure-except for the abominable lies against the Divine Majesty which it contains. It gratifies me exceedingly to find myself so obnoxious to Satan, and to his agents, the pope and papists. May God convert and recover them from the power of the devil! or, if my prayers for them iñust be in vain, owing to their having committed the sin unto death, then may God grant that they may soon fill up their measure, and that they may find their joy and comfort only in writing such tales as this! Let us leave them alone: they go whither they have chosen to go. I shall see whether they can be saved; and how they will repent them of the lies and blasphemies with which they fill the world." When the falsehood and folly of this story appeared, some of the papists endeavoured to father it upon Luther himself, or some of his adherents but original documents are still preserved at Weimar, which accompanied the paper, as transmitted to the elector of Saxony, and by him communicated to Luther, and which give evidence that it had been printed at Naples and many other places. 1 It would certainly have been highly gratifying to record, that in the closing period of Luther's life the ruggedness of his temper had been softened down, and that his latter days were passed only in peace and love. Fidelity, how 1 Seçk. iii. 580. |