INFLUENCE OF ISRAEL—DISCOVERERS AND REFORMERS.

HISTORY IN WORDS—BRITISH COAT OF ARMS—THE TEN TRIBES—ACCOUNT OF ESDRAS—DISPERSION OF THE TRIBES—MIXED SEED OF ISRAEL—EFFECT ON EUROPEAN SOCIETY—JEWISH INFLUENCE—DISCOVERY OF CAPE OF GOOD HOPE—PACIFIC OCEAN DISCOVERED—MAGELLAN'S VOYAGE—DISCOVERS CAPE HORN—DISTANCE SAILED—DEATH OF MAGELLAN—VOYAGE COMPLETED—ITS EFFECT ON THE PUBLIC—HUSS AND JEROME BURNED—JOHN ZISKA—PERSECUTIONS OF WALDENSES—CAPTURE OF MENTZ—DISPERSION OF PRINTERS—HANS BOHEIM—JOSS FRITZ—SALE OF INDULGENCES—MARTIN LUTHER BURNS THE POPE'S LETTER—GRAND COUNCIL AT WORMS—ROME IN A RAGE—LUTHER KIDNAPPED.

One of the most pleasing and at the same time instructive amusements in which a thoughtful mind can engage, is to trace the derivation of certain words of our language to the primitive times and people where they originated, and thus learn the social and mental condition of the people who first used them. It is pleasing to know that dish and mop, mat and rug, and other household terms are the very words that were spoken by the women of ancient Britain, two thousand years ago, and have been handed down from generation to generation, with little or no variation. In like manner the words ax, plow, house, post, bed, fire, and hundreds of others, can be easily discerned under the old Saxon forms. And as these words are precisely those that would be used by a rude or half-civilized people, while those words that refer to a more advanced state of society cannot be traced to our Saxon ancestors we may correctly infer the extent of their knowledge and social condition. Further, as the ancient British words refer to domestic affairs while those of Saxon origin refer exclusively to the avocations of man, we can easily perceive that the Anglo-Saxon tongue has originated from the marriage of the ancient British women with their Saxon conquerors.

Hence Max Muller, the learned professor of languages, in the university at Oxford, England, very justly remarks that "by means of philology we have a more accurate record of our race than any narrative written by prejudice or ill-informed historians."

Now it is generally admitted that Germans, Anglo-Saxons and men descended from these nationalities, in one word, German thought, led the van of progress in science, literature and religious thought, during the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and in fact has continued to do so up to the present time.

From the fifth century, when Attila, king of the Huns, declared himself "The scourge of God," wave after wave of conquest by these hardy warriors had swept over the hills and plains of western and southern Europe, until their blood and their love of civil and religious liberty were infused into every European nation.

Now the language of the Goths, or ancient Germans, plainly indicates that they were not the primitive people of Europe, but had conquered and intermingled with them in the same manner as the Saxons conquered and intermingled with the inhabitants of ancient Britain, or the Spaniards with those of Mexico.

But it may be asked, whence came they? In this connection two other questions may also be asked: why is it that the German language contains so many idioms and terms that bear a close relationship to the language of the ancient Hebrews and Chaldeans? (See Max Muller's lectures on language.) And why is it that the lion, which was the emblem of Judah, and the unicorn, which was the emblem of Israel, are in modern times, emblazoned on the coat of arms of England? (See Ant. of Jews by Josephus, also Num. xxiii., 22 and Deut. xxxiii, 17.) These questions are worthy of deep and careful consideration; and to better understand them it will be necessary to briefly trace the history of the children of Israel.

As is well known, after the death of Solomon the kingdom was divided into two parts, known as the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel. In 730 B. C, Hashem, king of Israel, became tributary to Shalmaneser, king of Assyria. Nine years later his capital was taken and the greater portion of the people were carried away captive beyond the river Euphrates, and people from other countries were put in possession of their inheritance. In the Apocrypha the Prophet Esdras states that these ten tribes went a journey of a year and a half into the north country. He says: "These are the ten tribes which were carried away prisoners out of their own land in the time of Hosea the king, whom Shalmaneser the king of Assyria led away captive; and he carried them over the waters so they came into another land. But they took this council among themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the heathen and go forth into a farther country where never mankind dwelt, that they might there keep their statutes which they never kept in their own land. For through that country there was a great way to go, namely, in a year and a half's journey, and the same region is called Arsareth." (II. Esdras, xiii, 40, 41, 42 and 45.)

Now by looking on a map of the eastern continent it will be seen at once that the Black Sea and the Caucasus mountains lie directly north of the river Euphrates. It is quite possible that the Black Sea is the "waters" to which Esdras refers. Also Josephus, in speaking of the return of the Jews under Esdras, says, "Many of them took their effects with them and came to Babylon, as very desirous of going down to Jerusalem, but then the entire body of the people of Israel remained in that country, wherefore there are but two tribes in Asia and Europe subject to the Romans, while the ten tribes are beyond the Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude and not to be estimated by numbers." (Ant. Book II. chapter 5.)

Perhaps the words of the ancient Roman are not altogether fable when he says that "Beyond the Borean (Caucasus) Mountains live a people who are sublime in their virtue since they dwell very distant form the provinces, in great simplicity and give great heed to the oracles which their gods have given unto them." Thus we have not only the sure word of prophecy, but likewise the admission of heathen writers.

Max Muller, in his work on language, in referring to the migrations of ancient European tribes, says, "Two great routes lay before them, one by way of the valleys of the Don and Volga across modern Russia to the shores of the Baltic, the other along the shores of the Black Sea to the valley of the Danube."

He also demonstrates the close relationship that exists between the Hebrew language and the language of the people of Finland in western Russia. Considering that more than twenty-five centuries have rolled by since the dispersion of Israel, sufficient time has elapsed for mighty changes. Muller adds in another place, "The time was when the ancestors of the Indians, the Fins, the Slavonic and German tribes of central Europe and the modern English lived in one enclosure, nay, under the same roof."

In the latter part of the second century or beginning of the third, these new settlers had spread as far westward as the Danube, and settled in the Roman province of Dacia, which lay on the north bank of that river. They also asked permission to cross the river which was granted under certain stipulations.

Still they continued to increase in numbers, and by inter-marriage with the native tribes had in the fifth century become formidable enemies of Rome and under the name of Dacians, Huns, Vandals, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Suevi and Heruli precipitated themselves upon Italy and wreaked a terrible vengeance.

The history of some of these, as the Huns for example, may be traced to the second century before the Christian era and to the very locality indicated by the Prophet Esdras and by Josephus. For over twenty-six centuries these scattered tribes have continued to mix up with the nations of the earth, but in their long migrations westward they have lost many of their distinctive characteristics. Doubtless it is from this mixed seed of Israel that many, aye nearly all, the great reformers, inventors and discoverers have sprung. This infusion of new blood had a marked effect on the nations of western Europe, but more especially on Italy, which had continued to decline, from the days of Augustus, until these nations mingled with the degenerate ancient race, and infused new life into her decaying civilization. The result was that a succession of poets, painters, sculptors, philosophers, inventors and discoverers sprung up in Italy and western Europe unparalleled in the history of the world. Above all, the invention of printing had just come in time to spread whatever new ideas were afloat, with a rapidity never known before. In fifty-two years from the time of that invention came the discovery of America. Five years later two Jewish priests, Rabbi Abraham, and Rabbi Joseph, brought to King John II., of Portugal, a Saracen map of the entire coast of Africa.

Thus instructed King John sent out several expeditions in one of which Brazil was accidentally discovered. Aided by this, Vasco de Gama set sail, and on Nov. 20th, 1497, rounded the cape of Good Hope. Sixteen years later Balboa discovered the Pacific Ocean, and six years still later, or in A. D. 1519, Magellan set out on his memorable voyage to circumnavigate the world.

The story of that voyage of wild adventure seems never to grow old by repeating. The narrative of that voyage is too long for this brief sketch, but a few items may not be out of place.

After many months of sailing in strange seas, he at length discovered a new land to which he gave the name of Patagonia. Here he found giants clad in skins, one of whom was greatly terrified at seeing his own image in a looking-glass.

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The Straits of Magellan.

His perseverance was at last rewarded, and after fifteen months of struggling and adventures he discovered Cape Horn, passed through the strait which now bears his name and entered the Great South Sea, on Nov. 28th, 1520. An eye-witness relates that he shed tears of joy when he recognized its great expanse, and that God had brought him where he might grapple with its unknown dangers. Admiring its placid surface he courteously gave it the name it will ever bear, the "Pacific Ocean." Magellan was the first European to discover that when the nights are long in the northern hemisphere they are correspondingly short in the southern. When he passed through the straits the nights were only four hours long. At the same time in Spain they were nearly fifteen hours long. And now the great sailor having burst through the barrier of the great American continent steered for the north-west. For three months and fifteen days he sailed on and on, but saw no inhabited land.

He and his crew were compelled by famine to soak old leather in the sea, then boil it and make of it a wretched food; and to drink water that had become putrid by keeping; yet he resolutely held his course, though his men were dying daily. He estimated that he sailed over this unknown sea more than twelve thousand miles.

In the whole history of human undertakings there is nothing that exceeds, if indeed there is anything that equals, this voyage of Magellan. That of Columbus dwindles away in comparison. It is a display of super-human courage and perseverance, an exhibition of heroic resolution, not to be diverted from its purpose by any motive, or any suffering, but inflexibly persisting to its end.

This unparalleled resolution met its reward at last. He reached the Ladrones, a group of islands north of the equator. Thence he sailed to the Spice Islands, where he met with European merchants. He had accomplished his object and proven that the earth was round. At an island called Zebu, or Mutan, he was murdered either by the natives or by his own men. In a few days more his crew learned that they were actually in the vicinity of their friends. On the morning of Nov. 8th, 1521, they entered Tidore, the capital of the Spice Islands, and the king swore upon the Koran alliance to the sovereign of Spain.

Magellan's crew continued their voyage amid hardships and perils, and at length, on Sept. 10th, 1522, the good ship, San Vittoria, sailed into the very port from which she had departed just three years and twenty-seven days before. She had accomplished the greatest achievement in the history of the human race. She had circumnavigated the earth. Magellan lost his life in his great enterprise, but he made his name immortal. His lieutenant Sebastian d'Elcano received the proudest and noblest medal ever given to a sailor. It was a golden globe belted with this inscription, Primus circumdedisti me—"Thou hast first circumnavigated me."

At the present time it is almost impossible to conceive the effect of Magellan's voyage had upon the public mind. One of the leading dogmas of Rome had been that the earth was flat. Now it was proved that the earth was indeed a vast ball. If Rome had been in error in this case, where was her infallibility? Might not some of her other teachings be equally false? Many leading minds began to doubt her authority. Even Pope Leo X., is said to have become skeptical. At all events he chose to spend his leisure time in his library reading to his sister out of the beautiful new printed books which were then throwing a flood of intellectual light on all grades of society. The philosophy of Aristotle and Plato, the poems of Homer and Virgil, the sciences of the Saracens and the narratives of the adventures of Columbus and Vasco de Gama had more charms for him than burning and torturing heretics as his predecessors had done.

While science was undermining the influence of Rome in one direction, religious thought was busy at work in another. That great religious revolution commonly called the Reformation had long been gathering its forces; and already sounded from behind the Alps the loud clarion of battle.

The memory of John Huss and Jerome of Prague was still fresh in the minds of the populace. Huss had been burned at Constance, in A. D. 1415, and Jerome the year following. When the news of these barbarous executions reached Bohemia, it threw the whole kingdom into confusion and a civil war was kindled from the ashes of the martyrs.

John Ziska, the leader of the populace, collected an army of forty thousand men and defeated the emperor, Sigismund, in several battles. When Ziska found that he was dying, he gave orders that his skin should be made into a drum which was long the symbol of victory to his followers.

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The Rack. The Waldenses also who dwelt in the valleys of Switzerland and Piedmont had lively memories of cruel wrongs. Their ancestors had been destroyed by Pope Innocent III., and as late as A. D. 1487, they had been driven to the mountains and obliged to wander there until their feeble and little ones were left buried in the Alpine snows. No wonder they chanted that grand old Hymn, commencing:

"O God, arise, avenge Thy slaughtered Saints,
Whose bones lie bleaching on the Alpine mountains cold."

The writings of Dante and Petrarch, Reuchlin and Erasmus, were already scattered in every direction, by means of the printing press, and wielded a mighty influence in society.

The siege and capture of Mentz, in A. D. 1462, had the effect of scattering Guttenberg and his co-workers. Printing presses were established immediately afterwards in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Holland, France and England.

In 1476, on the banks of the river Maine, in central Germany had appeared a strange character named Hans Boheim. He professed to be a prophet of God, to have received visions, and to have been sent to proclaim that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. More than forty thousand men flocked to his standard. At length the bishops of Mentz and Wurtzburg interfered, dispersed the crowd and burned the prophet. He was but a sign of the times—"a voice crying in the wilderness." His memory was not forgotten. In 1493, another movement took place, and again in 1501. Maximilian, the emperor of Germany, ordered the leaders to be quartered alive and their wives and children to be banished. But the fire was only slumbering. In 1512, it commenced again on a larger scale. It found a leader in Joss Fritz, a soldier of commanding presence and great natural eloquence, used to battle and above all to patience. He was one of those who had escaped being quartered. His banner was blue silk with a white cross, and underneath the motto, "O Lord, help the righteous." Fritz was the William Tell of his times. No wonder his name is a favorite one among the Germans.

These conflicts, commonly known as the "Wars of the Peasants," had shown the masses that with more union and better information they were the real strength of the nation.

Such was the condition of affairs in the very locality where, four years afterwards, burst forth the great religious revolution known as the Reformation.

Society seemed waiting for a coming man of strong will and fervent religious nature, who should give something of organization to those movements, and gather around him an irresistible phalanx of the noble, the learned and ardent spirits of the age. This man was Martin Luther. He came from his cell a shaven monk, in his hand no sceptre, on his head no crown. But he had a human heart within him; and it gushed out for human woe.

Strong in the principles of right he hurled the firebrands of truth right and left and kindled such a flame that all the waves of error could never quench it.

The immediate cause of the Reformation was when John Tetzel, in 1574, was sent into Germany to sell indulgences.

The church of Rome had long taught the people that the pope and clergy under him held the keys of heaven. At this time the pope was in need of means to complete that great cathedral called St. Peter's Church. He therefore issued indulgences or pardons for all kinds of sins. These pardons or indulgences entitled whoever bought them to a free passport to heaven. Nor was this all. A man of sufficient wealth could purchase the pardon of a sin he intended to commit. Thus the civil law was shorn of its power and the nation of its wealth.

This bold blasphemy provoked the indignation of a people already ripe for revolution.

Luther, then thirty-four years of age, began to denounce the sale of these indulgences. In 1520, the pope issued a decree, or bull, as it was called, condemning Luther and his writings. Luther in turn defied the pope. When the news reached him he took the decree and all the Roman books he could find, and on December 10, 1520, burned them in a public place just outside the walls of the city of Wittenberg. Then Luther was summoned to appear before a grand council, or court, to be held in the city of Worms. His friends procured him a passport or pledge of security, lest the papal authorities should take his life.

Accordingly, on the 17th of April, 1521, Luther appeared before the council, or diet, as it was called. The Emperor Charles V., of Germany, presided in person. When Luther was asked to recant his opinions and deny his own teachings, he not only refused to do so but also pleaded his own cause with eloquence and power. So powerful were his arguments that many of the nobility were won over to his side. A poor monk, the son of a simple peasant, clad in the armor of truth, had defied and defeated the proudest potentates of earth! No wonder that Rome was in a rage! No wonder that the friends of Luther deemed it advisable to kidnap him and carry him away to the castle of Wartburg, in the solitudes of the Thuringian forest! No wonder that those valiant knights, Ulrich von Hutten and Franz von Sickingen, prepared to use their swords and eloquence in defense of right! We may not in all things admire the character of Luther or defend his acts; yet no grander figure appears on the pages of modern history than Luther, as, with one hand upon his breast and the other lifted towards heaven, he refused the emperor's demand to retract his writings or deny the truth, closing with these memorable words, "Hier stehe ich, Gott helfe mir. Amen." "Here I stand, God help me. Amen."

The battle that Luther fought was not only for Germany and the sixteenth century, but for all countries, all peoples and all coming times. It was a battle not merely against the pope, but against all powers religious or secular, that seek to enchain the human mind or prevent the free exercise of religion.