"The holy thieves, notwithstanding, became sad in consequence of these dealings; I, however, was partly downcast that I had received no letter of indulgence, partly I rejoiced, too, that there was, in spite of all, still One in heaven who was willing to forgive the penitent sinner his sins without money and loan, according to the words that I had often sung in church: 'As true as I live, says the Lord, I desire not the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live.' Oh, dear Lord and God, Thou knowest that I am not lying in this matter, or inventing anything about myself.
"While doing this, I was so moved that I, on returning to my inn, almost gushed forth and melted to tears. Thus I came to my inn, went to my room, and took the cross which always lay upon the little table in my study-room, placed it upon the bench, and fell down upon the floor before it. I cannot describe it here, but at that time I was able to feel the spirit of prayer and divine grace which Thou, my Lord and God, pouredst out over me. The essential import of the same, however, was this: I asked that Thou, dear God, mightst be willing to be my Father, that Thou mightst be willing to forgive me for my sins, that I submitted myself wholly to Thee, that Thou mightst make of me now whatsoever pleased Thee, and because the priests did not wish to be gracious to me without money, that Thou mightst be willing to be my gracious God and Father.
"Then I felt that my whole heart was changed. I was disgusted with everything in this world, and it seemed to me that I had quite enough of this life. One thing only did I desire, that is, to live for God, that I might be pleasing to Him. But who was there at that time who would have taught me how I had to go about it? For the word, life, and light of mankind was buried throughout the whole world in the deepest darkness of human ordinances and of the quite foolish good works. Of Christ there was complete silence, nothing was known about Him, or, if mention was made of Him, He was represented unto us as a dreadful, fearful Judge, whom scarcely His mother and all the saints in heaven could reconcile and make merciful with bloody tears; and yet it was done in such a way that He, Christ, thrust the human being who did penance into the pains of purgatory seven years for each capital sin. It was claimed that the pain of purgatory differed from the pain of hell in nothing except that it was not to last forever. The Holy Ghost, however, now brought me the hope that God would be merciful unto me.
"And now I began to take counsel a few days with myself as to how I might take up some other vocation in life. For I saw the sin of the world and of the whole human race; I saw my manifold sin, which was very great. I had also heard something of the secret holiness and the pure, innocent life of the monks, how they served God day and night, were separated from all the wicked life of the world, and lived very sober, pious, and virtuous lives, read masses, sang psalms, fasted, and prayed at all times. I had also seen this sham life, but I did not know and understand that it was the greatest idolatry and hypocrisy.
"Thereupon I made my decision known to the preceptor, Master Andreas Staffelstein, who was the chief regent of the school; he advised me straightway to enter the Franciscan cloister, the rebuilding of which had been begun at that time. And in order that I might not become differently minded in consequence of long delay, he straightway went with me himself to the monks, praised my intellect and ability, declared in terms of praise that he bad considered me the only one among his pupils of whom he was entirely confident that I should become a very devout man.
"I wished, however, first to announce my intention to my parents, too, and hear their ideas about the matter, since I was a lone son and heir of my parents. The monks, however, taught me from St. Jerome that I should drop father and mother, and not take them into consideration, and run to the cross of Christ. They quoted, too, the words of Christ, 'No one who lays hands to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.' All of this was bound to impel and enjoin me to become a monk. I will not speak here of many ropes and fetters with which they bound and tied my conscience. For they said that I could never become blessed if I did not soon accept and use the grace offered by God. Thereupon I, who would rather have been willing to die than be without the grace of God and eternal life, straightway promised and engaged to come into the cloister again in three days and begin the year of probation, as they called it, in the cloister; 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.