It is curious to contrast the lives of great men whom the same enviornment has moulded or the same year ushered into the world. One thinks, for instance, of Fra Angelico and Savonarola, both citizens of Florence, both monks of San Marco, both confessing the same faith, but separated as the poles in its expression. These men, however, lived nearly a century apart. Stranger still is the contrast between Raphael and Luther, whom the same year (1483) ushered into the world, and who were destined to accomplish greater results in art and religion than Fra Angelico could have imaged or Savonarola could have prophesied. But here the environments were as contrasted as the missions. Warm, sunny Urbino nestled the baby Raphael; a Saxon mining town, Eisleben, gave birth to Luther.

Raphael, under his first teacher, Perugino, learned all that was sweet and poetic in art, and, in his Apennine home, shut off from worldly excitement and near to the town hallowed by memories of the holy St. Francis, he seemed at once to irribibe the spirit of fine religious feeling, so characteristic of the Umbrian School.

At the same time Luther, in his peasant home in the little German mining town, by a struggle with poverty, and strict religious training, was equally preparing himself for his Christian warfare. His father's circumstances improved, however so that later he was enabled to take a degree at Erfurt. Then followed terrible religious conflict, the momentous decision to become an Augustinian monk, and the austere discipline which it involved. But already he was preaching so forcibly that one of his hearers exclaimed: "This monk is leading all the doctors astray."

All this time Raphael's life, endowed by many admirable qualities, kept on the noiseless tenor of its way; he was ever honored by legate, cardinal, and Pope, the very forces that would a little later summon Luther to Worms and impel him to protest. Raphael went to Florence to study in "The School of the Beautiful," and was but twenty-five years old when he was summoned to Rome. In 1508 he stands in the Imperial City, the gorgeous Court of Julius II. The warrior Pope had spent years in fighting to gain lands for the Church, and now wished Raphael to immortalize him, by painting the stanze of the Vatican. Here, surrounded by poets and artists, with the world's masterpieces before him, and under the patronage first of Julius II., and later of Leo X., Raphael most fully developed that genius which, whether Peruginesque, Florentine, or Roman, was always phenomenal. Perhaps his varied and harmonious qualities are best expressed in his Madonnas, and they are legion. The Sistine Madonna will ever give to the world the best expression of the union of earthly beauty and spiritual aspiration.

While Raphael painted, Luther was confronting trial and obstacle, in a heroic effort to steer the Reformation clear of threatened dangers. He, too, went on a mission to Rome, but very different was the impression made upon him by the luxurious Papal Court. Raphael loved to gaze on St. Peter's, then in process of erection; Luther saw underlying all the spirit of Tetzel's sale of indulgences, which was even then helping to make possible the building. Luther could not display the modration of a modern controversialist, and, fired with indignation, he defied the thunders of the Vatican and affixed his ninety-five theses to the gates of the church in Wittenberg, and even as he was doing this, Raphael was symbolizing most emphatically his attachment to Catholicism by painting his St. Michael.

When Luther was summoned to Worms he exclaimed, "To Worms I am called, and to Worms I will go; my conscience is bound by God's Word, and I cannot and will not recant." Among the acts of his later life was his protest against ecclesiastical tyranny, followed by the confession of the Protestants, proclaiming the doctrine of justification by faith—read in 1530 at the Diet of Augsburg.

Raphael painted his Bible on the ceiling of the Loggie of the Vatican, while Luther translated his in the retirement of Wartburg Castle. Luther was as active with his pen as Raphael with his brush; he threw his whole soul into his subject, whether it were letter, tract, lecture, or sermon. Italians love to recall the gentle Raphael, who always shared the affection of his friends, and who ever seemed surrounded by admiring throngs. We wish that we might know him more familiarly, even as we know Luther through his table-talk, for in this his personality is revealed in so many ways, among others his unfailing sense of humor, his merry laugh ringing through the whole solemn drama of his life.

Raphael and Luther—the two portraits are before us, the one with countenance youthful, earnest, with never a wrinkle to show the seriousness of life's warfare; the other manly and rugged, bearing traces of conflict and seriousness, yet full of courage and of an unswerving will.

Raphael died in the year 1520, just one year before Luther was summoned to the Diet of Worms. He was laid out in his studio, and mournfully suspended over his bier was the picture on which his last working hours had been spent, the Transfiguration, with its wondrous Christ. All Rome mourned her famous painter, and, followed by admiring throngs, his body was borne to its last restingplace in the Pantheon.

Luther died at Eisleben, in 1546. By command of the German Electors, he was interred in the castle church at Wittenberg, and as his body was carried through the villages on the way to the burial, there were tears and mourning and tolling bells, and the "De Profundis" at his funeral was rather wept than sung. Engraven on his tomb is the first line of what has been called "The Protestant Marseillaise," "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott."

On August 2, 1897, there was unveiled at Urbino, in the presence of a great concourse of people, a monument to Raphael, made by the sculptor Belli of Turin. Raphael, in his working dress, stands upon a granite pedestal, holding paint-brush and palette, contemplating from afar the effect of one of his works, and below are groups symbolizing sculpture and painting. We recognize the cherubs of the Madonna di Foligno, Baldacchino, and San Sisto; upon the dado of the pedestal are bas-reliefs representing Raphael decorating the Loggie of the Vatican and painting the portrait of Leo X. On one side is a characteristic figure, a woman of Greek outline, divesting herself of an enfolding mantle, symbolizing the Renaissance of Art. On the other stands a genius of Michaelangelesque pose, holding on high a crown of laurel. Festoons of laurel bind together the coats of arms of the cities of Urbino, Perugia, Florence, Siena, and Rome, and at the base are medallions containing portraits of Bramante, Perugino, Romano, Raimondi, and others.

As proudly as Urbino holds her noble monument, so Worms honors to-day, in its central square, Rietschel's monument to Luther. Luther, like Raphael, is heroic in size. He is surrounded by Wyclif, Savonarola, Huss, Frederic of Saxony, and others who helped to give impulse to the new religion. Coats of arms of cities faithful to the cause and bas-reliefs representing leading scenes in Luther's life, all give expression to the one central figure —Luther. As he stands there, in an attitude of stern defiance, we may almost hear his voice reaching down through the centuries: "Here I stand. I can do no otherwise; so help me God! Amen!" —Ida Prentice Whitcomb.

The Churchman.