"Thy sins are forgiven thee..."

       "My parents," said Luther, " were very poor. My father was a wood-cutter, and my mother has often carried the wood on her back that she might earn wherewith to bring up us children. They endured the hardest labor for our sakes." John Luther, the father of little Martin, gradually made his way, and established two small furnaces for iron. The child grew up by the side of these forges, and with the earnings of this industry his father was able to send him to school. In those days fear was regarded as the grand stimulus in the business of education. "My parents," said Luther, in after life, " treated me severely, so that I became timid. They truly thought they were doing right, but wanted discernment." At school the poor child was treated with even greater severity. The master flogged him fifteen times in one day. "It is right," said Luther, relating this fact," it is right to correct children, but at the same time we must love them." With such an education Luther early learned to despise the attractions of a self-indulgent life. When Martin was fourteen years of age, his father sent him to the school of the Franciscans at Magdeburg. Here he was cast upon the world, without friends or protectors. According to the custom of those times, he and some children, as poor as himself, begged their bread from door to door. The practice is still preserved in many towns in Germany. "I was accustomed," says he, " with my companions, to beg a little food to supply our wants. One day about Christmas time, we were going all together through the neighbouring villages, from house to house, singing in concert the usual carols on the infant Jesus born at Bethlehem. We stopped in front of a peasant's house which stood detached from the rest, at the extremity of the village. The peasant, hearing us sing our Christmas carols, came out with some food which he meant to give us, and asked, in a rough loud voice, 'Where are you, boys' Terrified at these words, we ran away as fast as we could. We had no reason to fear, for the peasant offered us this assistance in kindness; but our hearts were no doubt become fearful from the threats and tyranny which the masters then used towards their scholars, so that we were seized with sudden fright. At last, however, as the peasant still continued to call after us, we stopped, forgot our fears, ran to him, and received the food that he offered us. It is thus," adds Luther, "that we tremble and flee when our conscience is guilty and alarmed. Then we are afraid even of the help that is offered us, and of those who are our friends, and wish to do us good."

       Often the poor modest boy, instead of bread, received nothing but harsh words. More than once, overwhelmed with sorrow, he shed many tears in secret; he could not look to the future without trembling.

       One day, in particular, after having been repulsed from three houses, he was about to return fasting to his lodging, when, having reached the Place St. George, he stood before the house of an honest burgher, motionless, and lost in painful reflections. Must he, for want of bread, give up his studies, and go to work with his father in the mines of Mansfeld? Suddenly a door opens, a woman appears on the threshold - it is the wife of Conrad Cotta, a daughter of the burgomaster of Eilfeld. Her name was Ursula. The chronicles of Eisenach call her "the pious Shunammite," in remembrance of her who so earnestly entreated the prophet Elijah to eat bread with her. This Christian Shunammite had more than once remarked young Martin in the assemblies of the faithful: she had been affected by the sweetness of his voice and his apparent devotion. She had heard the harsh words with which the poor scholar had been repulsed. She saw him overwhelmed with sorrow before her door; she came to his assistance, beckoned him to enter, and supplied his urgent wants.

       Conrad approved his wife's benevolence; he even found so much pleasure in the society of young Luther, that, a few days afterwards, he took him to live in his house. From that moment he no longer feared to be obliged to relinquish his studies. He was not to return to Mansfeld, and bury the talent that God had committed to his trust!

       At the age of eighteen Luther went to the University of Urfurth. Here the young student spent, in the library of the university, the moments he could snatch from his academical labours. Books being then scarce, it was in his eyes a great privilege to be able to profit by the treasures of this vast collection. One day, (he had been then two years at Erfurth, and was twenty years of age,) he was opening the books in the library one after another, in order to read the names of the authors. One which he opened in its turn drew his attention. He had not seen anything like it till that hour. He reads the title - it is a Bible! a rare book, unknown at that time. His interest is strongly excited; he is filled with astonishment at finding more in this volume than those fragments of the gospels and epistles which the Church has selected to be read to the people in their places of worship every Sunday in the year. Till then he had thought that they were the whole word of God. And here are so many pages, so many chapters, so many books, of which he had no idea! His heart beats as he holds in his hand all the Scripture divinely inspired. With eagerness and indescribable feelings he turns over these leaves of God's word. The first page that arrests his attention, relates the history of Hannah and the young Samuel. He reads, and can scarcely restrain his joyful emotion. This child, whom his parents lend to the Lord as long as he liveth; Hannah's song, in which she declares that the Lord raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set him among princes; the young Samuel, who grows up in the temple before the Lord; all this history, all this revelation which he has discovered, excites feelings till then unknown. He returns home with a full heart. " O!" thought he," if God would but give me such a book for my own!" Luther did not yet understand either Greek or Hebrew. It is not probable that he should have studied those languages during the first two or three years of his residence in the university. The Bible that had filled him with such transport was in Latin. He soon returned to the library to find his treasure again. He read and re-read, and then, in his surprise and joy, he went back to read again. The first gleams of a new truth then arose in his mind.

       In the summer of 1505, Luther was returning from a visit to his parents. He was within a short distance of Erfurth, when he was overtaken by a violent storm. The thunder roared; a thunderbolt sunk into the ground by his side. Luther threw himself on his knees. His hour is perhaps come. Death, judgment, eternity, are before him in all their terrors, and speak with a voice which he can no longer resist. " Encompassed with the anguish and terror of death," as he himself says, he makes a vow, if God will deliver him from this danger, to forsake the world, and devote himself to His service. Risen from the earth, having still before his eyes that death that must one day overtake him, he examines himself seriously, and inquires what he must do. The thoughts that formerly troubled him return with redoubled power. He has endeavored, it is true, to fulfill all his duties. But what is the state of his soul? Can he, with a polluted soul, appear before the tribunal of so terrible a God? He must become holy. He now thirsts after holiness as he had thirsted after knowledge. But where shall he find it? How is it to be attained? The university has furnished him with the means of satisfying his first wish. Who will assuage this anguish, this vehement desire that consumes him now? To what school of holiness can he direct his steps? He will go into a cloister ; the monastic life will ensure his salvation. How often has he been told of its power, to change the heart, to cleanse the sinner, to make man perfect! He will enter into a monastic order. He will there become holy. He will thus ensure his eternal salvation.

       Such was the event that changed the vocation and the whole destiny of Luther. The hand of God was in it. It was that powerful hand that cast to the ground the young master of arts, the aspirant to the bar, the intended jurisconsult, to give an entirely new direction to his after life.

        Luther re-enters Erfurth. His resolution is unalterable. Still, it is with reluctance that he prepares to break ties that are so dear to him. He does not communicate his design to any of his companions. But one evening he invites his college friends to a cheerful and simple repast. Music once more enlivens their social meeting. It is Luther's farewell to the world. Henceforth the companions of his pleasures and studies are to be exchanged for the society of monks ; cheerful and witty discourse for the silence of the cloister; merry voices, for the solemn harmony of the quiet chapel. God calls him; he must sacrifice all things. Now, however, for the last time, let him give way to the joys of his youth! The repast excites his friends. Luther himself encourages their joy. But at the moment when their gayety is at its height, the young man can no longer repress the serious thoughts that occupy his mind. He speaks. He declares his intention to his astonished friends; they endeavor to oppose it; but in vain. And that very night Luther, perhaps dreading their importunity, quits his lodgings. He leaves behind his books and furniture, taking with him only Virgil and Plautus. (He had not yet a Bible.) Virgil and Plautus! an epic poem and comedies! Singular picture of Luther's mind! There was, in fact, in his character the materials of a complete epic poem ; beauty, grandeur, and sublimity; but his disposition inclined to gayety, wit, and mirth; and more than one ludicrous trait broke forth from the serious and noble groundwork of his life.

       Furnished with these two books, he goes alone in the darkness of the night to the convent of the hermits of St. Augustine. He asks admittance. The door opens and closes again. Behold him forever separated from his parents, from his companions in study, and from the world. It was the 17th of August, 1505. Luther was then twenty-one years and nine months old.

       The monks had received him joyfully. It was no small gratification to their self-love to see the university forsaken, by one of its most eminent scholars, for a house of their order. Nevertheless, they treated him harshly, and imposed upon him the meanest offices. They perhaps wished to humble the doctor of philosophy, and to teach him that his learning did not raise him above his brethren; and thought, moreover, by this method, to prevent his devoting himself to his studies, from which the convent would derive no advantage. The former master of arts was obliged to perform the functions of doorkeeper, to open and shut the gates, to wind up the clock, to sweep the church, to clean the rooms. Then, when the poor monk, who was at once porter, sexton, and servant of the cloister, had finished his work, "Cum sacco per civitatem - With your bag through the town!" cried the brothers; and, loaded with his bread-bag, he was obliged to go through the streets of Erfurth, begging from house to house, and perhaps at the doors of those very persons who had been either his friends or his inferiors. But he bore it all. Inclined, from his natural disposition, to devote himself heartily to whatever he undertook, it was with his whole soul that he had become a monk. Besides, could he wish to spare the body?to regard the satisfying of the flesh? Not thus could he acquire the humility, the holiness, that he had come to seek within the walls of a cloister.

       The poor monk, overwhelmed with toil, eagerly availed himself of every moment he could snatch from his degrading occupations. He sought to retire apart from his companions, and give himself up to his beloved studies. But the brethren soon perceived this, came about him with murmurs, and forced him to leave his books: "Come, come! it is not by study, but by begging bread, corn, eggs, fish, meat, and money, that you can benefit the cloister." And Luther submitted, put away his books, and resumed his bag. Far from repenting of the yoke he had taken upon himself, he resolved to go through with it. Then it was that the inflexible perseverance with which he ever prosecuted the resolutions he had once formed began to develop itself. His patient endurance of this rough usage gave a powerful energy to his will. God was exercising him first with small trials, that he might learn to stand firm in great ones. Besides, to be able to deliver the age in which he lived from the miserable superstitions under which it groaned, it was necessary that he should feel the weight of them. To empty the cup, he must drink it to the very dregs.

       This severe apprenticeship did not, however, last so long as Luther might have feared. The prior of the convent, upon the intercession of the university of which Luther was a member, freed him from the mean offices the monks had imposed upon him. The young monk then resumed his studies with fresh zeal.

       He loved, above all, to draw wisdom from the pure spring of the Word of God. He found in the convent a Bible, fastened by a chain. He had constant recourse to this chained Bible. He understood but little of the Word; but still it was his most absorbing study. Sometimes he would meditate on a single passage for a whole day; another time he learned by heart some parts of the Prophets, but above all, he wished to acquire, from the writings of the Apostles and Prophets, the knowledge of God's will - to increase in reverence for His name - and to nourish his faith by the sure testimony of the Word.

       Burning with the desire after that holiness which he had sought in the cloister, Luther gave himself up to all the rigor of an ascetic life. He endeavored to crucify the flesh by fastings, macerations, and watchings. Shut up in his cell as in a prison, he was continually struggling against the evil thoughts and inclinations of his heart. A little bread, a single herring, were often his only food. Indeed, he was constitutionally abstemious. So it was that his friends have often seen him - even after he had learned that heaven was not to be purchased by abstinence - content himself with the poorest food, and go four days together without eating or drinking.

       Luther did not find, in the tranquillity of the cloister and monkish perfection, the peace he was in quest of. He wanted an assurance that he was saved.

       His conscience, enlightened by the Divine Word, taught him what it was to be holy; but he was filled with terror at finding, neither in his heart nor in his life, the transcript of that holiness which he contemplated with wonder in the Word of God. Melancholy discovery! and one that is made by every sincere man. No righteousness within; no righteousness in outward action ; everywhere omission of duty - sin, pollution. The more ardent Luther's natural character, the more powerful was this secret and constant resistance of his nature to that which is good, and the deeper did it plunge him into despair.

       The monks and theologians encouraged him to do good works, and in that way satisfy the divine justice. "But what works," thought he, "can proceed out of a heart like mine? How can I, with works polluted even in their source and motive, stand before a Holy Judge?" - "I was, in the sight of God, a great sinner," says he; "and I could not think it possible for me to appease him with my merits.''

       A tender conscience led him to regard the least sin as a great crime. No sooner had he detected it, than he labored to expiate it by the strictest self-denial; and that served only to make him feel the inutility of all human remedies. "I tormented myself to death," says he, "to procure for my troubled heart and agitated conscience peace in the presence of God: but, encompassed with thick darkness, I nowhere found peace."

       His bodily powers failed, his strength forsook him; sometimes he was motionless as if dead.

       One day, overcome with sadness, he shut himself in his cell, and for several days and nights suffered no one to approach him. One of his friends, Lucas Edemberger, uneasy about the unhappy monk, and having some presentiment of his state, took with him some young boys, choral singers, and went and knocked at the door of his cell. No one opened or answered. The good Edemberger, still more alarmed, broke open the door, and discovered Luther stretched on the floor in unconsciousness, and without any sign of life. His friend tried in vain to recall his senses, but he continued motionless. Then the young choristers began to sing a sweet hymn. Their clear voices acted like a charm on the poor monk, to whom music had always been a source of delight, and by slow degrees his strength and consciousness returned. But if for a few instants music could restore to him a degree of serenity, another and more powerful remedy was needed for the cure of his malady; there was needed that sweet and penetrating sound of the gospel, which is the voice of God. He felt this to be his want. Accordingly his sufferings and fears impelled him to study with unwearied zeal the writings of the Apostles and Prophets.

       About this time the visit of Staupitz, vicar-general of the Augustines, was announced. This good man had passed through similar exercises, and had at length found peace in believing. Soon after his arrival, one of the brothers attracted his notice. He was a young man of middle stature, reduced by study, fasting, and watching, so that you might count his bones. His eyes, which were afterwards compared to a falcon's, were sunk; his demeanour was dejected ; his countenance expressed a soul agitated with severe conflicts, but yet strong and capable of endurance. There was in his whole appearance something grave, melancholy, and solemn. Staupitz, who had acquired discernment by long experience, easily discerned what was passing in that mind, and at once distinguished the young monk from all his companions. He felt drawn towards him, had a kind of presentiment of his singular destiny, and soon experienced for his inferior a paternal interest. He, like Luther, had been called to struggle; he could therefore understand his feelings. He could, above all, show him the path to that peace which he had himself found. What he was told of the circumstances that had induced the young Augustine to enter the convent, increased his sympathy. He enjoined the prior to treat him with more mildness. He availed himself of the opportunities his office afforded for gaining the confidence of the young monk. He approached him affectionately, and endeavored in every way to overcome the timidity of the novice - a timidity increased by the respect and fear that he felt for a person of rank so exalted as that of Staupitz.

       His venerable guide proves to him that there can be no real conversion, so long as man fears God as a severe judge. "What will you say, then," cries Luther, "to so many consciences, to whom are prescribed a thousand insupportable penances in order to gain heaven?"

       Then he hears this answer from the vicar-general - or rather he does not believe that it comes from a man; it seems to him a voice resounding from heaven. "There is," said Staupitz, " no true repentance but that which begins in the love of God and of righteousness. That which some fancy to be the end of repentance is only its beginning. In order to be filled with the love of that which is good, you must first be filled with the love of God. If you wish to be really converted, do not follow these mortifications and penances. Love him who has first loved you."

       Luther listens, and listens again. These consolations fill him with a joy before unknown, and impart to him new light. "It is Jesus Christ," thinks he in his heart;" yes, it is Jesus Christ himself who comforts me so wonderfully by these sweet and salutary words."

       Still the work was not finished. The vicar-general had prepared it. God reserved the completion of it for a more humble instrument. The conscience of the young Augustine had not yet found repose. His health at last sunk under the exertions and stretch of his mind. He was attacked with a malady that brought him to the gates of the grave. It was then the second year of his abode at the convent. All his anguish and terrors returned in the prospect of death. His own impurity and God's holiness again disturbed his mind. One day when he was overwhelmed with despair, an old monk entered his cell, and spoke kindly to him. Luther opened his heart to him, and acquainted him with the fears that disquieted him. The respectable old man was incapable of entering into all his doubts, as Staupitz had done; but he knew his Credo, and he had found there something to comfort his own heart. He thought he would apply the same remedy to the young brother. Calling his attention therefore to the Apostle's creed, which Luther had learned in his early childhood at the school of Mansfeld, the old monk uttered in simplicity this article: "believe in the forgiveness of sins.'' These simple words, ingeniously recited by the pious brother at a critical moment, shed sweet consolation in the mind of Luther. "I believe," repeated he to himself on his bed of suffering, "I believe the remission of sins." "Ah," said the monk, "you must not only believe that David's or Peter's sins are forgiven: the devils believe that. The commandment of God is that we believe our own sins are forgiven." How sweet did this commandment appear to poor Luther! "Hear what St. Bernard says, in his discourse on the Annunciation," added the old brother. " The testimony which the Holy Ghost applies to your heart is this: 'Thy sins are forgiven thee.' "

       From that moment the light shone into the heart of the young monk of Erfurth. The word of grace was pronounced, and he believed it. He renounced the thought of meriting salvation - and trusted himself with confidence to God's grace in Christ Jesus. He did not perceive the consequence of the principle he admitted - he was still sincerely attached to the Church - and yet he was thenceforward independent of it; for he had received salvation from God himself; and Romish Catholicism was virtually extinct to him. From that hour Luther went forward - he sought in the writings of the Apostles and Prophets for all that might strengthen the hope which filled his heart. Every day he implored help from above, and every day new light was imparted to his soul.