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