the college as a
post-graduate and sub-lecturer; finally was appointed a teacher, then a
professor, and when twenty-nine years old became a Doctor of Theology.

He took his turn as preacher in the Schlosskirche, which was the School
Chapel, and when he preached the place was crowded. He was something
more than a monotonous mumbler of words: he made his addresses personal,
direct, critical. His allusions were local, and contained a deal of
wholesome criticism put with pith and point, well seasoned with a goodly
dash of rough and surprising wit.

Soon he was made District Vicar--a sort of Presiding Elder--and preached
in a dozen towns over a circuit of a hundred miles. On these tours he
usually walked, bareheaded, wearing the monk's robe. Often he was
attended by younger monks and students, who considered it a great
privilege to accompany him. His courage, his blunt wit, his active
ways--all appealed to the youth, and often delegations would go out to
meet him. Every college has his kind, whom the bantlings fall down and
worship--fisticuffs and books are both represented, and a touch of
irreverence for those in authority is no disadvantage.

Luther's lack of reverence for his superiors held him back from
promotion--and another thing was his imperious temper. He could not bear
contradiction. The orator's habit of exaggeration was upon him, and
occasionally he would affront his best friends in a way that tested
their patience to the breaking-point. "You might become an Abbot, and
even a Bishop, were it not for your lack of courtesy," wrote his
Superior to him on one occasion.

But this very lack of diplomacy, this indifference to the opinions of
others, this boldness of speech, made him the pride and pet of the
students. Whenever he entered the lecture-room they cheered him, and
often they applauded him even in church.

Luther was a "sensational preacher," and he was an honest preacher. No
doubt the applause of his auditors urged him on to occasional
unseemliness. He acted upon his audience, and the audience reacted upon
him. He thundered against the profligacy of the rich, the selfishness of
Society, the iniquities of the government, the excesses of the monks,
the laxity of discipline in the schools, and the growing tendency in the
Church to worship the Golden Calf. In some instances priests and monks
had married, and he thundered against these.

All of the topics he touched had been treated by Savonarola in Italy,