that is, I wanted to become a pious, devout,
and God-fearing monk.

"In the year of Christ 1510, the 14th of July, at two o'clock in the
afternoon, I entered the cloister, accompanied by my preceptor, some few
of my school-comrades, and some very devout matrons, to whom I had in
part made known the reason why I was entering the spiritual order. And
so I blessed my companions to the cloister, all of whom, amid tears,
wished me God's grace and blessing. And thus I entered the cloister.
Dear God, Thou knowest that this is all true. I did not seek idleness or
provision for my stomach, nor the appearance of great holiness, but I
wished to be pleasing unto Thee--Thee I wished to serve.

"Thus I at that time groped about in very great darkness" (p. 38 ff.)*
*This account is published by the courtesy of the Lutheran
Publication Society of Philadelphia; it is taken from their publication
_Doctor Luther,_ by Gustav Freitag.

Few Christians can read this old record without pity stirring in them.
The man of whom Myconius tells all this, Tetzel, has been recently
represented to the American public as a theologian far superior to
Luther, calm, considerate, kind, and of his actions the public has been
advised that they were so utterly correct that the Roman Catholic Church
of to-day does not hesitate one moment to do what Tetzel did. So mote it
be! We admire the writer's honesty, and blush for his brazen boldness.

15. Luther's Faith without Works.

Out of Luther's opposition to the sale of indulgences there grew in the
course of time one of the fundamental principles of Protestantism:
complete, universal, and free salvation of sinners by grace through
faith in Jesus Christ. In the controversies which started immediately
after the publication of the Ninety-five Theses, Luther was led step by
step to a greater clearness in his view of sin and grace, faith and
works, human reason and the divine revelation. Not yet realizing the
full import of his act, Luther had in the Theses made that article of
the Christian faith with which the Church either stands or falls the
issue of his lifelong conflict with Rome--the article of the
justification of a sinner before God. It is, therefore, convenient to
review the misrepresentations which Luther has suffered from Catholic
writers because of his teaching on the subject of justification at this
early stage in our review, though in doing so a great many things will
have to be anticipated