6. Luther's Birth and Parentage.

Catholic writers make thorough work in explaining the reasons for
Luther's "defection" from Rome. They apply to Luther's stubborn
resistance the law of heredity: Luther's wildness was congenital. Some
have declared him the illegitimate child of a Bohemian heretic, others,
the oaf of a witch, still others, a changeling of Beelzebub, etc.

Many of these writers, giving themselves the airs of painstaking
investigators who have made careful research, repeat the tale of
Barbour, viz., that Luther was born in the day-and-night room of an inn
at Eisleben. If this is so, Luther's mother must have been a traveler on
the day of her first confinement. If this were so, the fact could, of
course, be easily explained without dishonor to Luther's mother: she
merely miscalculated the date of the birth of her first-born,--not an
unusual occurrence. Carlyle believed this story, but gave it an almost
too honorable turn, by likening the inn at Eisenach to the inn at
Bethlehem.

But this story of Luther's birth in a bar-room is not history; it
belongs in the realm of mythology. Nobody knows to-day the house where
Luther was born. Preserved Smith, his latest American biographer, says
there is a house shown at Eisleben as Luther's birthplace, but it is
"not well authenticated." (p. 2.) There is a bar and a restaurant in
this particular building _now,_ for the accommodation of foreign
visitors. It is possible that in this mythical birthplace of Luther you
can get a stein of foaming "monk's brew" or a "benedictine" from the
monastery at Fecamp, or a "chartreuse" from Tarragona, distilled
according to the secret formula of the holy fathers of La Grande