Catholic writers ask the world not to believe Luther's tales about the
city of Rome. Luther, they say, came to Rome as a callow rustic comes to
a metropolis. To the wily Italians he was German Innocence Abroad; they
hoaxed him by telling him absurd tales about the Popes, the priests, the
wonders of the city, etc., and the credulous monk believed all they told
him. He left Rome with his faith in the Church unimpaired. Later in
life, after his "defection" from Rome, he told as true facts and as
reminiscences of his visit at the Holy City many of the false stories
which had been palmed off on him. This is said to have given rise to the
prevailing Protestant view that during his visit at Rome Luther's eyes
were opened to the corruption of the Roman Church and his resolution
formed to overthrow that Church. Luther himself is said to be
responsible for this false view. He fostered it by his tales of what he
had seen and heard at Rome with disgust and horror. His horrid
impressions are declared pure fiction, and simply serve to show how
little the man can be trusted in anything he states.

To leave a way open for a decent retreat, Catholics also point to a
difference in temperament between the phlegmatic Luther coming from a
northern clime, which through its atmospheric rigors begets somber
reflections and gloomy thoughts, and the airy, fairy Italians, who revel
in sunshine, flowers, and fruits, drink fiery wines, and naturally grow
up into a freedom of manners and lack of restraint that is
characteristic of people living in southern climes. All of which means--
if it means anything serious--that the Ten Commandments are subject to
revision according to the geographic latitude in which a person happens
to be. When your austere gentleman, raised among the fens and bogs of
the Frisian coast, sees something in a grove in Sicily which he
denounces as wicked, you must tell him that there is nothing wrong in
what he has seen. He has only omitted to adjust his temperament to the