time, we doubt not, it will be possible to exhibit to any confiding
dunce the very horse-bridle with which Hans Luther committed
manslaughter, also the actual hole which he knocked into the head of his
victim, beautifully surrounded by a border of blue and green, which are
the colors which the bruise assumed six hours after the infliction. The
border may not be genuine, but we dare any Catholic investigator to
disprove the genuineness of the hole.

Writers belonging to a church that is rich in legends of the saints and
in relics ought to know how a tale like Wicel's can assume
respectability and credibility in the course of time. It is not any more
difficult to account for these tales about Hans Luther's homicide than
for the existence in our late day of the rope with which Judas hanged
himself, or the tears which Peter wept in the night of the betrayal, or
the splinters from the cross of the Lord, or the feathers from the wings
of the angel Gabriel, and sundry other marvels which are exhibited in
Catholic churches for the veneration of the faithful.

No historian that has a reputation as a scholar to lose to-day credits
the story of Hans Luther's homicide. It is improbable on its face. The
small landholdings of Hans at Moehra are not real, but irreal estate.
Nobody has found the title for them. There is, however, a very good
reason why Hans should want to leave Moehra. He was, according to all
that is known of his father's family, the oldest son. According to the
old Thuringian law the home place and appurtenances of a peasant
freeholder passed to the youngest son. McGiffert regards the custom as
"admirably careful of those most needing care." (p. 4.) Luther's father,
on coming of age, was by this law compelled to go and seek his fortune
elsewhere, because opportunity for rising to independence there was none
for him at Moehra.