The first monastery he visited was that of Grimma, near Leipsic, and still nearer the nunnery of Nimptschen, where Catharine von Bora, Luther's future wife, then a girl of sixteen, was nun. As Staupitz and Link accompanied Luther to this place, and as the former performed in this instance the duties of visitation, it would seem that Luther was here practically initiated into his new calling. While they were thus engaged at Grimma, Tetzel made his appearance in the adjacent town of Wurtzen, and practiced his arts in selling indulgences so shamelessly as to arouse the indignation of both Luther and Staupitz. This is the time when the former resolved to expose the traffic, and threatened to make a hole in Tetzel's drum.'

We next find him in Dresden, examining the state of the monastery of the Augustinians in that place. Here he writes a letter, May 1, to the prior in Mainz, requesting him to send back to Dresden a runaway monk.

'For,' says he, 'that lost sheep belongeth to me. It is my duty to find him and bring him back from his wanderings, if so it please the Lord Jesus. I entreat you, therefore, reverend father, by our common faith in Christ, and by our profession, to send him unto me, if in your kindness you can, either at Dresden or Wittenberg, or rather persuade him, and affectionately and kindly move him to come of his own accord. I will meet him with open arms, if he will but return. He need not fear that he has offended me. I know full well that offenses must come; nor is it strange that a man should fall. It is rather strange that he should rise again and stand. Peter fell, that he might know he was but a man. At the present day, also, the cedars of Lebanon, whose summits reach the skies, fall. The angels fell in heaven, and Adam in paradise. Is it then strange that a reed should quiver in the breeze, and the smoking lamp be put out?'

Luther thus writes to Mutianus, a great classical and belles-letters scholar in Gotha, whom he had known when a student at Erfurt:

I must now go where my duty calleth me, but not without first saluting you, though from a sense of my ignorance and uncouth style, I shrink from it. But my affection for you overcometh my modesty; and that rustic Corydon, Martin, barbarous and accustomed only to cackle among the geese, saluteth you, the scholar, the man of the most polished erudition. Yet I am sure, or certainly presume that Mutianus valueth the heart above the tongue or pen; and my heart is sufficiently erudite, for it is sufficiently devoted to you. Farewell, most excellent father in the Lord Jesus, and be not forgetful of me.

Postscript. One thing I wish you to know: Father John Lange, whom you have known as a Greek and Latin scholar, and what is more, as a man of a pure heart, hath now lately been made prior of the Erfurt convent by me. Unto man commend him by a friendly word, and unto God by your prayers.

The following extracts from a letter to Lange, written in August, from Kemburg, when professors and students had fled from the epidemic in Wittenberg, shows the multiplicity of his engagements: I am the preacher of the cloister; I am reader at the table; I am required every day to be parish-preacher; I am director of the studies of the brethren; I am vicar, that is, eleven times prior; I am inspector of the fish-ponds in Litzkau; I am advocate for the Hertzebergers in Torgau; I am lecturer on Paul; I am commentator on the Psalms; and, as I have said, the greater part

of my time is occupied in writing letters. I seldom have time for the canonical hours and for the mass, to say nothing of the temptations of the flesh, the world, and the devil. You see what a man of leisure I am. Concerning brother John Metzel, I think my opinion and reply have already reached you. Nevertheless, I will see what I can do. How do you suppose I can find a place for all your Sardanapaluses and sybarites [easy monks]? If you have trained them up wrong, you must support them after thus training them. I have useless brethren enough everywhere, if any can be useless to a patient mind. There are now twenty-two priests and twelve youths, forty-one persons in all, who live upon our more than most scanty stores. But the Lord will provide. You say you began yesterday [to lecture] upon the second part of Lombard's Sentences. To-morrow, I shall begin on the Epistle to the Galatians. Albeit, I fear the plague will not suffer me to go on. It taketh away two or three each several day. A son of our neighbor, Faber, opposite, who was well yesterday, is carried to his burial to-day. Another son lieth infected. What shall I say? It is already here, and hath begun to rage suddenly and vehemently— especially with the young. You ask me and Bartholomew [Feldkirk] to flee with you. Whither shall I flee? I hope the world will not fall to pieces if brother Martin do fall. The brethren I shall disperse throughout all the country, if the pestilence should prevail. But I am placed here, and my duty of obedience will not allow me to flee, until the authority which commanded me hither shall command me away.

In a letter to Lange, dated March 1, after mentioning that he sends Didymus, 'who is still ignorant of the usages of the order,' to Erfurt, and that he is about to publish his translation and exposition of the Penitential Psalms, he proceeds to say:

I am reading our Erasmus, and my esteem for him groweth less every day. With him, what is of man prevaileth over what is of God. Though I am loth to judge him, I must admonish you not to read his works; or rather, not to receive all he saith without examination. These are dangerous times, and I perceive that a man is not to be esteemed truly wise because he understandeth Greek and Hebrew; seeing that St. Jerome, with his five languages, did not match Augustine with one-though to Erasmus it may seem otherwise. . . This opinion of him I keep hid, lest I should strengthen the opposition of his enemies [the monks and priests]. Perhaps the Lord, in due time, will give him understanding.

We omit his collision with Tetzel, the Pope and Emperor, as belonging to the theological side of his career and character, although of amazing importance in the history of modern society, and pass to his introduction to Melanethon, in 1518, who from that date became his intimate and influential friend. When the negotiations which had been entered into with Mosellanus, of Leipsic, in respect to the Greek professorship, were broken off, in July, 1518, the elector applied to Reuchlin, then residing at Stuttgard, to recommend two professors, one for the Greek and one for the Hebrew language. Reuchlin recommended Melancthon for the former, and Ecolampadius for the latter. Melancthon was at that time twenty-one years of age, and was temporarily occupying the chair of rhetoric at the University of Tübingen, but a few miles from Reuchlin's house. Being the grandson of Reuchlin's sister, the young Melancthon had been carefully educated under his direction. He distinguished himself by his rapid acquisitions in the Latin school of Simler at

Pforzheim. At Heidelberg, where he entered the university at the age of twelve, he acquired the reputation of being the best Greek scholar. At Tübingen, to which, at the end of two years after having taken his first degree, he resorted, and where he spent six years in laborious study, he made such extensive and various acquisitions in learning as to stand prominent above all the youths of the university. Destined, as he was, to be the 'preceptor of Germany,' it was well that his range of study at Tübingen was very wide. Proceeding from the Latin and Greek, as from a common center, he extended his studies to history, rhetoric, logic, mathematics, philosophy, theology, law, and even to the leading medical writers, and attended lectures on all these subjects. He not only warmly espoused the cause of Reuchlin, as the representative of Greek and Hebrew literature, and its persecuted but victorious defender against the ignorant Dominican monks of Cologne, but he made himself familiar, even from boyhood, with the New Testament, in the original-a copy of which, received as a present from Reuchlin, he always carried about his person. Reuchlin, in his reply to the elector, said he knew of no German who was Melancthon's superior, except it be Erasmus of Rotterdam. July 24, 1518, Reuchlin wrote to his young kinsman: "I have received a letter from the elector, offering you a place and a salary; and I will apply to you the promise of God made to Abraham: 'Get thee out of thy country, &c.; and I will make thee a great nation, and thou shalt be blessed.' So I prophesy of thee, my dear Philip, who art my care and my comfort."

He went by way of Augsburg, in order to see the elector there before he should leave the diet, then in session. On leaving Augsburg, Melancthon proceeded to Nüremberg, where he made the acquaintance of Pirkheimer and Scheurl, and then pursued his way to Leipsic, where he saw the young Greek professor Mosellanus, and on the 25th of August, 1518, reached Wittenberg. Luther's joy, on learning what an acquisition was made to Wittenberg in this remarkable young man, was great; and never had he occasion to abate his admiration. In the very next letter after the one last quoted from him, under date of August 31, he writes to Spalatin, still in Augsburg with the elector: As touching our Philip Melancthon, be assured all is done, or shall be, which you desire in your letter. He pronounced an [inaugural] oration on the fourth day after his arrival here [in which he set forth the new method of study in contrast with the old scholastic method], full of learning and force, meeting with such favor and admiration in all, that you

We

may now leave off all anxiety in commending him unto us. soon lost the feeling produced by his [small] stature and [his weak bodily] frame; and now we do wonder and rejoice at that which we find in him, and thank the illustrious prince and yourself for what you have done. You have need rather to inquire in what study he may render himself most acceptable to our prince. With his consent and approval, I would choose that Philip be made Greek professor. I only have fears that his feeble health will not abide the severity of our climate. I hear, furthermore, that he receiveth too small a stipend, so that the men at Leipsic are hoping to get him away from us. He was beset by them on his way to this place.'

September 2, he writes to the same, informing him that the students, now eagerly pursuing the new studies and hearing, by way of preference, lectures on the Bible and the ancient languages, complain that, before receiving their degrees, they are required to attend useless courses of lectures on scholastic theology. Luther and his friends desired that those studies be made optional, and that persons be admitted to the degrees in theology on passing a regular examination on the new branches of study introduced by him, Melancthon and others. He closes by saying, 'I commend unto you heartily the most Attic, the most erudite, the most elegant Melancthon. His lecture-room is full, and more than full. He inflameth all our theologians, highest, lowest and midst, with a love of Greek.'

On the 9th of the same month, he writes to Lange: 'The very learned and most Grecian Philip Melancthon is professor of Greek here, a mere boy or stripling, if you regard his age, but one of us if you consider the abundance of his learning and his knowledge of almost all books. He is not only skilled in both languages, [Latin and Greek, then a rare thing], but is learned in each. Nor is he wholly ignorant of Hebrew.'

The following passages from an account by Kepler, of St. Gall, of his interview with Luther at the Black Bear at Jena, is characteristic of the man and the times:

Though it may seem trifling and childish, I can not omit mentioning how Martin met me and my companion, when he was riding from the place of his captivity toward Wittenberg. As we were journeying toward Wittenberg, for the sake of studying the Holy Scriptures-and the Lord knows what a furious tempest there was-we came to Jena, in Thuringia, where we could not, with all our inquiry in the town, find or hear of any place to lodge for the night, but wereeverywhere refused, for it was carnival, during which little heed is given to pilgrims or strangers. We, therefore, left the town again, to proceed farther on our way, thinking we might perhaps find a hamlet where we could pass the night. At the gate of the city we met a respectable man, who

The innkeeper Here we found

accosted us in a friendly manner, and asked us where we were going so late. He then asked us whether we had inquired at the Black Bear hotel.. He pointed it out to us a little distance without the city. met us at the door and received us, and led us into the room. a man at the table, sitting alone, with a small book lying before him, who greeted us kindly, and invited us to take a seat with him at the table; for our shoes were so muddy that we were ashamed to enter the room, and therefore slunk away upon a bench behind the door. . . . . We took him to be no other than a knight, as he had on, according to the custom of the country, a red cap, small clothes and a doublet, and a sword at his side, on which he leaned, with one hand on the pommel and the other on the hilt. He asked us whence we were, but immediately answered himself, 'You are Swiss; from what part of Switzerland are you?' We replied, St. Gall.' He then said, 'If, as I suppose, you are on your way to Wittenberg, you will find good countrymen of yours there, namely, Jerome Schurf and his brother Augustine;' whereupon we said, 'We have letters to them.' We now asked him in turn, if he could give us any information about Martin Luther-whether he is now at Wittenberg or elsewhere. He said, 'I have certain knowledge that he is not now at Wittenberg, but will soon be there. But Philip Melancthon is there, as teacher of Greek, and others teach Hebrew.' He recommended to us to study both languages, as necessary above all things to understand the Scriptures. We said, "Thank God, we shall then see and hear the man [Luther] on whose account we have undertaken this journey.' . . . He then asked us where we had formerly studied; and, as we replied at Basle, be inquired how things were going on there, and what Erasmus was doing. Erasmus is still there, but what he is about no one knoweth, for he keepeth himself very quiet and secluded.' We were much surprised at the knight, that he should know the Schurfs, Melancthon and Erasmus, and that he should speak of the necessity of studying Greek and Hebrew. At times, too, he made use of Latin words, so that we began to think he was something more than a common knight.

....

'Sir,' said he, 'what do men in Switzerland think of Luther? We replied, Variously, as everywhere else. Some can not sufficiently bless and praise God that he hath, through this man, made known his truth and exposed error; others condemn him as an intolerable heretic.' 'Especially the clergy,' interrupted he, I doubt not these are the priests.' By this conversation we were made to feel ourselves quite at home, and my companion [Reutiner] took the book that lay before him, and looked into it, and found it was a Hebrew psalter. He soon laid it down again, and the knight took it. This increased our curiosity to know who he was. When the day declined and it grew dark, our host, knowing our desire and longing after Luther, came to the table and said, 'Friends, had you been here two days ago, you could have had your desire, for he sat here at this table,' pointing to the seat. We were provoked with ourselves that we were too late, and poured out our displeasure against the bad roads which had hindered us. After a little while, the host called me to the door, and said, 'Since you manifest so earnest a desire to see Luther, you must know that it is he who is seated by you. I took these words as spoken in jest, and said, 'You, to please me, give me a false joy at seeing Luther.' 'It is indeed he,' replied my host, but make as if you did not know it.' I went back into the room and to the table, and desired to tell my companion what I had heard, and turned to him, and said in a whisper, 'Our host hath told me that this is Luther.' He, like myself, was incredulous. Perhaps he said Hutten, and you misunderstood him.' As now the knight's dress comported better with the character of Hutten than with that of a monk, I was persuaded that he said it was Hutten. [Two merchants now came in, and they all supped together] Our host came, meanwhile, to us, and said in a whisper, 'Don't be concerned about the cost, for Martin hath paid the bill.' We rejoiced, not so much for the gift of the supper, as for the honor of being entertained by such a man. After supper the merchants went to the stable to see to their horses, and Martin remained with us in the room. We thanked him for the honor shown us, and gave him to understand that we took him for Ulrich von Hutten. But he said, 'I am not he' Just then came in our host, and Martin said to him, 'I have become a nobleman to-night, for these Swiss hold me to be Ulrich