FROM Mayence, I run up to pay my respects to Frankfort (ford of the Franks)-on-the-Main; and right royal is the reception extended me. The good people of this classic city seem really glad to see me, especially the hotel keepers. Reader, you can scarcely imagine what a pleasure it is to a way-worn pilgrim, as he enters a great city in a foreign country, to be met by a committee consisting of a full score of hotel clerks and porters, and half a hundred hack drivers! As the traveler steps off the train, he is approached by the different members of the committee, each of whom tries to be more kind and obliging than any of the others. Indeed, the honored visitor is well-nigh overcome with gratitude, as he sees these committeemen crowding round him on all sides, each with an expectant look, a face wreathed with smiles, and a palm itching to get hold of his purse strings. Such was the welcome given me at Frankfort-on-the-Main, which city, though it dates back from the time of Charlemagne, 775, is now as fresh and fair as a sixteen year old maiden with blue eyes and golden hair.

Frankfort is about the size of Rochester, New York, is a place of great commercial importance, and, according to population, is by far the wealthiest city in Germany. It claims two hundred millionaires.

The museum and art galleries here are of the highest type. I can not use the brush, palette, and easel myself, but some pictures throw a spell over me that I can not shake off. Murillo’s “Madonna Enthroned,” Overbeck’s “Triumph of Religion in the Arts,” Rembrandt’s “Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard,” are indelibly stamped on the imperishable tablets of memory; their gilded frames I have entwined with a garland of forget-me-nots, and with golden cord of appreciation I have hung them up in the art gallery of the soul. And, if as Keats says, and as I believe, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” then will my visit to Frankfort-on-the-Main be a blessing to me until the silver cord be loosed, and the golden bowl of life broken.

This is the birthplace of Goethe, the Shakespeare of Germany. His splendid monument stands in the centre of one of the public squares of the city. The pedestal on which the bronze statue rests is relieved by raised figures, those on one side being taken from “Faust,” and the other from “Hermann and Dorothea.” The first is one of the most masterly productions that ever emanated from the human brain, and the second one of the sweetest love stories ever embalmed in verse. Carlyle says of Goethe: “There was none like him; he knew everything.” If Germany ever produced Goethe’s equal, it was his bosom friend Schiller, whose life-like statue adorns another of the public squares of Frankfort. Seeing these two statues, I involuntarily look around for that of Herder. I always think of Goethe, Schiller and Herder as the inseparable trio.

The well-known millionaire, M. A. Rothschild who, I believe was at one time the richest man on earth, was born in Frankfort. The family still lives, and do a large business here. Through the influence of a friend, I gain an entrance to Rothschild’s house and private museum, which one may well imagine contains an elegant collection of curiosities from all parts of the world. One gold vase alone, set with diamonds and other precious stones, is said to have cost 800,000 marks or $200,000.

The next place the traveler hangs his hat on the wall is here in Worms. Ah, what a history has this quaint old German town! How many thrilling incidents have taken place on its narrow streets during the last fifteen hundred years! But Worms is of more than a general interest to the world, since it was the scene of Luther’s fiercest struggle with Rome. In March, 1521, Luther was summoned to appear before the Diet, or Supreme Court, of half the World, assembled at Worms, under the presidency of Charles V. With Napoleonic courage, Luther answered the call in person. As the bold reformer on his way to trial passed through Eisenach, where he had sung carols on the street for bread, his friends met him with the warning; “They will burn you as they did John Huss;” to which he replied; “Though they should build a fire from Worms to Wittenberg and reaching to the sky, I would pass through it in the name of the Lord.” As he was approaching the city, Spalatin sent a messenger with another warning. This time the monk responded: “Go tell your master that if there were as many devils in Worms as there are tiles upon the housetops, I would enter.” He did enter, and the next day became a turning point in the world’s history. It was then that this “Christian Hercules, this heroic cleanser of the Augean stable of apostacy,” went forth in the arena of debate to shiver lances with kings and popes and princes. Being severely in earnest, grandly right, and divinely appointed to his office, he hurled his arguments like withering blighting thunder-bolts. And, if the enemy now and then put in hard licks, Luther, being possessed of a cool head, quick wit, and boundless resources, revived like the vigor of vegetation after the stunning blow had fallen. He stood until there was not a man to meet him. The haughty hierarchy which he assailed had “bound kings in chains, and nobles in fetters of iron; but before the fire of his quenchless zeal those fetters fell, fused as by the lightning touch of Heaven.”

It is only in accordance with the “eternal fitness of things,” therefore, that we find in Worms a monument memorializing this severe conflict and brilliant victory of the intrepid reformer.

As we enter the town from the railway station, we pass through the Luther-Platz (place or square), in the center of which stands the Luther Monument, which was erected in 1868 at a cost of $85,000. The monument is on this wise. There is a massive platform of granite, forty-eight feet square and nine and one-half feet high, bearing in its centre a large pedestal, also of granite. This pedestal is surmounted by another in bronze, adorned with reliefs representing four scenes in Luther’s life. In the first, we see him administering the communion as a Catholic priest; second, he is nailing his theses on the church door in Wittenberg; next, we see him defending himself at Worms; and, last, he is translating the Bible into his native language.

Now, upon this pedestal, whose sides are thus adorned, stands the bronze statue of Luther, eleven feet in height, a commanding figure. In his left hand he holds a Bible, on which his right hand is placed emphatically, while his face, on which faith is admirably portrayed, is turned upwards. John Huss, Savonarola, John Wycliffe, and Peter Waldus are sitting at the four corners of the large pedestal on which Luther stands.

From the four corners of the large platform, rise four granite pedestals, not so large as the central one. On these four pedestals stand bronze statues of Luther’s fellow champions, Malanchthon, Reuchlin, on one side, and Philip of Hesse and Frederick the Wise of Saxony, his princely protectors, on the other. The four last-named statues are each nine feet high. Taken all in all, this is one of the finest and most impressive monuments I have seen. And why should it not be so? These men have justly been called the thunderers, the cloud compellers, the world uplifters, the hammers of the Lord, the pioneers of progress, the liberators of mankind,

“Whose names are ever on the world’s broad tongue,
Like sound upon the falling of a force;
Who play upon our hearts as upon a harp,
And make our eyes bright as we speak of them.”