Though compactly built, he was generally spare and wasted from incessant studies, hard labor, and an abstemious life.

Mosellanus, the moderator at the Leipsic Disputation, describes him quite fully as he appeared at that time, and says that “his body was so reduced by cares and study that one could almost count his bones.”  He himself makes frequent allusion to his wasted and enfeebled body.  His health was never robust.  He was a small eater.  Melanchthon says:  “I have seen him, when he was in full health, absolutely neither eat nor drink for four days together.  At other times I have seen him, for many days, content with the slightest allowance, a salt herring and a small hunch of bread per day.”

Mosellanus further says that his manners were cultured and friendly, with nothing of stoical severity or pride in him—­that he was cheerful and full of wit in company, and at all times fresh, joyous, inspiring, and pleasant.

Honest naturalness, grand simplicity, and an unpretentious majesty of character breathed all about him.  An indwelling vehemency, a powerful will, and a firm confidence could readily be seen, but calm and mellowed with generous kindness, without a trace of selfishness or vanity.  He was jovial, free-spoken, open, easily approached, and at home with all classes.

Audin says of him that “his voice was clear and sonorous, his eye beaming with fire, his head of the antique cast, his hands beautiful, and his gesture graceful and abounding—­at once Rabelais and Fontaine, with the droll humor of the one and the polished elegance of the other.”

In society and in his home he was genial, playful, instructive, and often brilliant.  His Table-Talk, collected (not always judiciously) by his friends, is one of the most original and remarkable of productions.  He loved children and young people, and brought up several in his house besides his own.  He had an inexhaustible flow of ready wit and good-humor, prepared for everybody on all occasions.  He was a frank and free correspondent, and let out his heart in his letters, six large volumes of which have been preserved.

He was specially fond of music, and cultivated it to a high degree.  He could sing and play like a woman.[20] “I have no pleasure in any man,” said he, “who despises music.  It is no invention of ours; it is the gift of God.  I place it next to theology.”

He was himself a great musician and hymnist.  Handel confesses that he derived singular advantage from the study of his music; and Coleridge says:  “He did as much for the Reformation by his hymns as by his translation of the Bible.”  To this day he is the chief singer in a Church of pre-eminent song.  Heine speaks of “those stirring songs which escaped from him in the very midst of his combats and necessities, like flowers making their way from between rough stones or moonbeams glittering among dark clouds.” Ein feste Burg welled from his great heart like the gushing of the waters from the smitten rock of Horeb to inspirit and refresh God’s faint and doubting people as long as the Church is in this earthly wilderness.  There is a mighty soul in it which lifts one, as on eagles’ wings, high and triumphant over the blackest storms.  And his whole life was a brilliantly enacted epic of marvelous grandeur and pathos.[21]