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That sturdy reformer, Martin Luther, was born in Fourteen Hundred Eighty-three. He was nine years old when Columbus turned the prow of his caravel to the West and persistently sailed on.
Luther's father was a miner—a day laborer—and the lad's childhood was grim and cheerless. He sang on the streets, and held out a ragged cap for pennies. His fine, sweet voice caught the ear of a priest, and the boy's services were used at the altar. The lad was alert, active, intelligent, ambitious. Very naturally he was educated for the priesthood. He became a monk, and evolved into a preacher of worth and power.
A prosperous and successful church always produces a class of dignitaries given over to sloth and sensuality. From a sublime idea, with a desire to benefit and to bless, the church degenerates into an institution for the distribution of honors, and an engine for punishment for all who oppose it. To Martin Luther religion was a matter of the heart, and his soul was filled with the thought of service. At the same time he had ability in the matter of definition. He began calling upon the Church to reform, and demanding that priests repent. Very naturally the priests thought it absurd for Luther to try to bring the righteous to repentance. They laughed. Later they scowled. Then they called on Doctor Luther to mend his manners, and not make the Church and himself ridiculous in the eyes of the world.
Had Luther had an eye on the main chance he would at this time have pulled in his horns, and chosen other texts, and been promoted in due course to a bishopric; for although the man was small in stature, yet he carried the crown of his head high and his chin in. What he had before simply stated he now began to prove. The small hand of authority, gloved in imitation velvet, here lifted Luther out of a position of power and honor as "District Vicar," a place that spelled promotion, and put him back as a grade school-teacher. Had the Pope been really infallible and the church authorities all-wise, they would have killed Luther, and that would 'a' been an end on 't. Leniency just then was an error in judgment. Luther set about bolstering his mental position. The more he thought about it, the more firmly convinced was he that his cause was just.
Where thinkers are, there is thought. Thinkers think anywhere, in country, village, town—in prison. Wittenberg was obscure, more than half of the students were charity boys, the professors were thin, dyseptic and glum, or fat and opinionated—all repeated the things they had been taught, save Martin Luther alone.
And on the thirty-first day of October, Fifteen Hundred Seventeen, Luther tacked upon the church-door his ninety-five theses, and offered to debate them 'gainst all the Church Fathers that could be mustered.
Trite, indeed, are the propositions now. Rome has really accepted them all, even to that one which hints that we, too, are divine in degree, just like our Elder Brother. Challenges on the church-doors of colleges were common, but coming from a semi-silenced priest, and directed at the Pope's emissary, ah! that was different. Even at that, the whole affair would have been lost in local oblivion, had not the few zealous boys who loved Luther started their two printing-presses in the cellar of the church, and worked night and day pulling proofs. The printing-presses did it! Without the typesetter, the make-ready man, and the sturdy lads who pulled the lever, Luther's voice would not have reached across the campus.
But lo! Luther was talking to the world, not to sleepy Wittenberg! Luther was requested to appear at the Vatican—more properly, the Castle Angelo. He ignored the invitation. Another summons followed. Luther went into hiding. He was arrested, tried and condemned, and sentence suspended. He was again tried, this time by the Emperor and the Electors, and again condemned. The formal sentence of death only awaited, and then for him the fagots would flare and the flames crackle.
His friends captured him, they of the printing-presses, helped by others, and bore him away to a prison where his enemies could not follow. Many a man has been thrown into prison by his enemies, but who besides Luther was so treated by his friends! Public sentiment was with him—Germany stood by him—but best of all the printers pulled the proofs, and four-page folders edited by Martin Luther went fluttering all over the world, protesting man's right to think.