improved when he was sent abroad for his education and had to sing for
his bread or beg in the streets. His rebellious spirit found nourishment
in these humiliations. Owing to his melancholy temperament and gloomy
fits, he made no friends. He felt himself misunderstood everywhere. Even
the little season of sunshine that came into his young life at the Cotta
home in Eisenach did not cure him of the morbid feeling that nobody
appreciated him. He began to loathe the studies which he was pursuing in
accordance with the wish of his father. To certain occurrences, like the
slaying of a fellow-student, an accident with which he met on a vacation
trip, and a sudden thunderstorm, he gave an ominous interpretation which
deepened his despondency. At last he determined, "inconsiderately and
precipitately," to enter a cloister. His friends "instinctively felt he
was not qualified or fitted for the sublime vocation to which he
aspired, and they accordingly used all their powers to dissuade him from
the course he had chosen. All their efforts were fruitless, and from the
gayety and frolic of the banquet" which he had given his fellow-students
as a farewell party "he went to the monastery." He was so reckless that
he took this step even without the consent of his parents. "He knew
little about the ways of God, and was not well informed of the gravity
and responsibilities of the step he was taking." "He was not called by
God to conventual life; . . . he was driven by despair, rather than the
love of higher perfection, into a religious career." Catholics feel so
sure that they have a case against Luther that in all seriousness they
ask Protestants the question: Did he act honestly when he knelt before
the prior asking to be received into the order?

Luther has later in life given various reasons for entering the
monastery. His case was not simple, but complex. One reason, however,
which he has assigned is the severe bringing up which he had at his
home. Hausrath is satisfied with this one reason, and many Catholic