several eligible parties has been twisted into an immoral meaning. The
fact that he gave shelter overnight to a number of escaped nuns, when he
was already a married man, has been meaningly referred to. Boehmer has
exhaustively gone into these charges, examining without flinching every
asserted fact cited in evidence of Luther's moral corruptness, and has
shown the purity of Luther as being above reproach. Not one of the
sexual vagaries imputed to Luther rests on a basis of fact. (Boehmer,
_Luther in Light of Recent Research,_ pp. 215-223.)

When the modern reader meets with a general charge of badness, or even
with the assertion of some specific form of badness, in Luther, he
should inquire at once to what particular incident in Luther's life
reference is made. These charges have all been examined and the evidence
sifted, and that by impartial investigators. Protestants have taken the
lead in this work and have not glossed anything over. Boehmer's able
treatise has been translated into English. Walther's _Fuer Luther wider
Rom_ will, no doubt, be given the public in an English edition soon.
Works like these have long blasted the claim of Catholics that
Protestants are afraid to have the truth told about Luther. They only
demand that the _truth_ be told.


4. Luther's Task.

One blemish in the character of Luther that is often cited with
condemnation even by Protestants deserves to be examined separately. It
is Luther's violence in controversy, his coarse language, his angry
moods. All will agree that violence and coarse speech must not be
countenanced in Christians, least of all in teachers of Christianity. In
the writings of Luther there occur terms, phrases, passages that sound