Christians who, in the Netherlands and
Spain, were burned at the stake and bled upon the scaffold because they
read the Bible, the Word of God and their Saviour, and would rather die
than deny it. If it should come to the worst, thousands here would also
be ready to ascend the funeral pyre, and I at their head. If war is
declared now, the Emperor Charles will gain the victory; and if he does
not wish to withdraw in earnest from Romish influences, who can tell
what will then await us Protestants? But I am not anxious about what may
come. We German citizens, who are accustomed to guide our own destinies
and maintain the system of government we arranged for ourselves, who
built by our own strength our solid, comfortable, gable-roofed houses
and noble, towering cathedrals, will also independently maintain the
life of our minds and our souls. Rome, with her legions of priests,
claimed the right not only to interfere in our civil life, but also
to intrude into our houses, our married lives, and our nurseries. What
could she not decide for the individual by virtue of the power she
arrogates to bind and to loose, to forgive sins, and to open or to close
the door of heaven for the dying? What she has done with the Church's
gifts of grace we know.

"There is a deep, beautiful meaning underlying this idea. But it has
degenerated into a base traffic in indulgences. We have sincere natures.
For a long time we believed that salvation is gained by works--gifts
to the Church, fasts, scourgings, seclusion from the world,
self-confinement in a cell--and our wealth went to Rome. Rarely do we
look vainly in the most beautiful sites on mountain or by river for a
monastery! But at last the sound sense of Germany rebelled, and when
Luther saw in Rome poor sufferers from gout and cripples ascending the
stairs of the Lateran on their knees, a voice within cried out to him
the great 'sola fide' on which our faith is founded. On it alone, on
devotion to Jesus Christ, depends our salvation."

"Then," asked Wolf, "you boldly deny any saving power to good works?"

"Yes," was the firm reply, "so far as they do not proceed from faith."

"As if the Church did not impose the same demand!" replied Wolf in a
more animated tone. "True, base wrong has been done in regard to the
sale of indulgences, but at the Council of Trent opposition will be made
to it. No estimable priest holds the belief that money can atone for
a sin or win the mercy of Heaven. Wi