Christ and the saints, who has determined their quantity? Who takes the
inventory of this stock of the papal bank of Rome? Is he the same party
who determines the length of a person's stay in purgatory and can tell
how much he has been in arrears in the matter of goodness and
virtuousness, and how much cash will purchase his release? How is this
intelligence conveyed to purgatory that Mr. So-and-so is free to proceed
to heaven? A multitude of such questions arising in all thinking minds
that want to arrive at rock bottom facts in so serious a matter always
baffle the theologians of Rome. They owe the world an answer on these
questions for four hundred years. Is the world doing Rome an injustice
when it regards the sale of indulgences a pure confidence game in holy
disguise, the offer of a fictitious value for good cash, the boldest and
baldest gold-bricking that mankind has heen [tr. note: sic] subjected
to?

The sale of indulgences which was started in Luther's days was a
particularly offensive enterprise. "It was not so much the theory of the
Church that excited Luther's indignation as it was the practises of some
of her agents. They encouraged the common man to believe that the
purchase of a papal pardon would assure him impunity without any real
repentance on his part. Moreover, whatever the theoretical worth of
indulgences, the motive of their sale was notoriously the greed of
unscrupulous ecclesiastics. The 'holy trade' as it was called had become
so thoroughly commercialized by 1500 that a banking house, the Fuggers
of Augsburg, were the direct agents of the Curia in Germany. In return
for their services in forwarding the Pope's bulls, and in hiring
sellers of pardons, this wealthy house made a secret agreement in 1507
by which it received one-third of the total profits of the trade, and in
1514 formally took over the whole management of the business in return
for the modest commission of one-half the net receipts. Naturally not a