Life of Luther by Koestlin, Julius

48. WITTENBERG. (From an old engraving)

49. THE "LUTHER-HOUSE" (previously the Convent), before its recent restoration

50. LUTHER'S ROOM

51. LUTHER'S DAUGHTER 'LENE.' (From Cranach's Portrait)

52. DOOR OF LUTHER'S HOUSE AT WITTENBERG

53. MATHESIUS. (From an old woodcut)

54. LUTHER IN 1546. (From a woodcut of Cranach)

55. JONAS' GLASS

56. ADDRESS OF LUTHER'S LETTER OF FEBRUARY 7

57. LUTHER AFTER DEATH. (From a Picture ascribed to Cranach)

58. CAST OF LUTHER AFTER DEATH. (At Halle)

FACSIMILE OF PART OF THE EDICT OF WORMS, 8 MAY (1521), being the title and conclusion, with the signature of the Emperor Charles

TITLE AND COMMENCEMENT OF THE GOSPEL OF ST. MATTHEW, IN THE FIRST EDITION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, 1522. (From the original in the Royal Public Library at Stuttgart)

FACSIMILE OF CONCLUDING PORTION OF LUTHER'S WILL, with the attestations of Melancthon, Crueiger, and Bugenhagen. (At Pesth)

FACSIMILE OF LETTER OF LUTHER TO HIS WIFE, OF FEBRUARY 7, 1546. (At Breslau)

LUTHER'S LIFE.

PART I.

LUTHER'S CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH UP TO HIS ENTERING THE CONVENT.--1483-1505.

CHAPTER I.

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE.

On the 10th of November, 1483, their first child was born to a young couple, Hans and Margaret Luder, at Eisleben, in Saxony, where the former earned his living as a miner. That child was Martin Luther.

His parents had shortly before removed thither from Mohra, the old home of his family. This place, called in old records More and More, lies among the low hills where the Thuringian chain of wooded heights runs out westwards towards the valley of the Werra, about eight miles south of Eisenach, and four miles north of Salzungen, close to the railway which now connects these two towns. Luther thus comes from the very centre of Germany. The ruler there was the Elector of Saxony.

Mohra was an insignificant village, without even a priest of its own, and with only a chapel affiliated to the church of the neighbouring parish. The population consisted for the most part of independent peasants, with house and farmstead, cattle and horses. Mining, moreover, was being carried on there in the fifteenth century, and copper was being discovered in the copper schist, of which the names of Schieferhalden and Schlackenhaufen still survive to remind us. The soil was not very favourable for agriculture, and consisted partly of moorland, which gave the place its name. Those peasants who possessed land were obliged to work extremely hard. They were a strong and sturdy race.

From this peasantry sprang Luther. 'I am a peasant's son,' he said once to Melancthon in conversation. 'My father, grandfather--all my ancestors were thorough peasants.'

[Illustration: Coat of arms]