Then came another brief interval, when once again the lowly home at Eisenach became to me dearer and more than all the wide world beside, and all earth and all life seemed to grow sacred and to expand before me in the light of one pure, holy, loving maiden's heart. I have seen nothing so heaven-like since as she was. But then came the great crash which wrenched my life in twain, and made home and the world alike forbidden ground to me.
At first, after that, for years I dared not think of Eva. But since my pilgrimage to Rome, I venture to cherish her memory again. I thank God every day that nothing can erase that image of purity and love from my heart. Had it not been for that, and for the recollection of Dr. Luther's manly, honest piety, there are times when the very existence of truth and holiness on earth would have seemed inconceivable, such a chaos of corruption has the world appeared to me.
How often has the little lowly hearth-fire, glowing from the windows of the old home, saved me from shipwreck, when "for many days neither sun nor stars appeared, and no small tempest lay on me."
For I have lived during these years behind the veil of outward shows, a poor insignificant monk, before whom none thought it worth while to inconvenience themselves with masks or disguises. I have spent hour after hour, moreover, in the confessional. I have been in the sacristy before the mass, and at the convent feast after it. And I have spent months once and again at the heart of Christendom, in Rome itself, where the indulgences which are now stirring up all Germany are manufactured, and where the money gained by the indulgences is spent; not entirely on the building of St. Peter's or in holy wars against the Turks!
Thank God that a voice is raised at last against this crying, monstrous lie, the honest voice of Dr. Luther. It is ringing through all the land. I have just returned from a mission through Germany, and I had opportunities of observing the effect of the theses.
The first time I heard of them was from a sermon in a church of the Dominicans in Bavaria.
The preacher spoke of Dr. Luther by name, and reviled the theses as directly inspired by the devil, declaring that their wretched author would have a place in hell lower than all the heretics, from Simon Magus downward.
The congregation were roused and spoke of it as they dispersed. Some piously wondered who this new heretic could be who was worse even than Huss. Others speculated what this new poisonous doctrine could be; and a great many bought a copy of the theses to see.
In the Augustinian convent that evening they formed the subject of warm debate. Not a few of the monks triumphed in them as an effective blow against Tetzel and the Dominicans. A few rejoiced and said these were the words they had been longing to hear for years. Many expressed wonder that people should make so much stir about them, since they said nothing more than all honest men in the land had always thought.
A few nights afterwards I lodged at the house of Ruprecht Haller, a priest in a Franconian village. A woman of quiet and modest appearance, young in form but worn and old in expression, with a subdued, broken-spirited bearing, was preparing our supper, and whilst she was serving the table I began to speak to the priest about the theses of Dr. Luther.