The Elector heard him, and was filled with admiration. An old
professor, whom the people called "the light of the world," listened
to him, and was struck with his wonderful insight, his marvelous
imagination, and his massive solidity. And Wittenberg sprang into
great renown because of him, for never before had been heard in Saxony
such a luminous expositor of God's holy Word.


LUTHER MADE A DOCTOR.

On all hands it was agreed and insisted that he should be made a
doctor of divinity. The costs were heavy, for simony was the order of
the day and the pope exacted high prices for all church promotions;
but the Elector paid the charges.

On the 18th of October, 1512, the degree was conferred. It was no
empty title to Luther. It gave him liberties and rights which his
enemies could not gainsay, and it laid on him obligations and duties
which he never forgot. The obedience to the canons and the hierarchy
which it exacted he afterward found inimical to Christ and the Gospel,
and, as in duty bound, he threw it off, with other swaddling-bands of
Popery. But there was in it the pledge "to devote his whole life to
the study, exposition and defence of the Holy Scriptures." This he
accepted, and ever referred to as his sacred charter and commission.
Nor was it without significance that the great bell of Wittenberg was
rung when proclamation of this investiture was made. As the ringing of
the bell on the old State-house when the Declaration of Independence
was passed proclaimed the coming liberties of the American colonies,
so this sounding of the great bell of Wittenberg when Luther was made