known of the
matter until the first quarter of the twentieth century. This
circumstance alone is damaging to the whole story. Luther was during his
lifetime exposed to scrutiny of his most private affairs as no other
man. If Wicel's tale could have been authenticated, we may rest assured
that would have been done at the time.

In the eighteenth century a mining official in Thuringia by the name of
Michaelis told the story of Hans Luther's homicide with the necessary
detail to make it appear real. Observe, this was 220 years after the
alleged event. It had been this way: Hans Luther had quarreled with a
person who was plowing his field, and had accidentally slain the man
with the bridle, or halter, of his horse. Several Protestant writers now
began to express belief in the story. Travelers came to Moehra for the
express purpose of investigating the matter, _e.g.,_ Mr. Mayhew of the
_London Punch_. Behold, the story had assumed definite shape through
being kept alive a hundred years: the accommodating citizens of Moehra
were now able to point out to the inquiring Englishman the very meadow
where the homicide had taken place. It takes an Englishman on the
average two years and four months to see the point of a joke. By this
time, we doubt not, it will be possible to exhibit to any confiding
dunce the very horse-bridle with which Hans Luther committed
manslaughter, also the actual hole which he knocked into the head of his
victim, beautifully surrounded by a border of blue and green, which are
the colors which the bruise assumed six hours after the infliction. The
border may not be genuine, but we dare any Catholic investigator to
disprove the genuineness of the hole.

Writers belonging to a church that is rich in legends of the saints and
in relics ought to know how a tale like Wicel's can assume
respectability and credibility in the course of time. It is not any more
difficult to account for these tales about Hans Luther's homicide than
for the existence in our late day of the rope with which Judas hanged
himself, or the tears which Peter wept in the night of the betrayal, or
the splinters from the cross of the Lord, or the feathers from the wings
of the angel Gabriel, and sundry other marvels which are exhibited in
Catholic churches for the veneration of the faithful.

No historian that has a reputation as a scholar to lose to-day credits
the story of Hans Luther's homicide. It is improbable on its face. The
small lan