Wyclif in England, Brenz at Heidelberg, Huss in Bohemia, Erasmus in
Holland and Bucer in Switzerland--and they had all paid the penalty of
death or exile.

It is well to be bold, but not too bold. Up to a certain point the
Church and Society will stand criticism: first it is diverting, next
amusing, then tiresome, finally heretical--that is to say, criminal.

There had been a good deal of heresy. It was in the air--men were
thinking for themselves--the printing-presses were at work, and the
spirit of the Renaissance was abroad.

Martin Luther was not an innovator--he simply expressed what the many
wished to hear--he was caught in the current of the time: he was part
and parcel of the Renaissance. And he was a loyal Churchman. None of his
diatribes were against the Church itself--he wished to benefit the
Church by freeing it from the faults that he feared would disintegrate
it.

And so it happened that on the Thirty-first day of October, Fifteen
Hundred Seventeen, Martin Luther tacked on the church-door at Wittenberg
his Ninety-five Theses.

The church-door was the bulletin-board for the University. The
University consisted of about five hundred students. Wittenberg was a
village of three or four thousand people, all told. The Theses were
simply questions for discussion, and the proposition was that Martin
Luther and his pupils would defend these questions against all comers in
public debate.

Challenges of this sort were very common, public debates were of weekly
occurrence; and little did Martin Luther realize that this paltry
half-sheet of paper was to shake the world.

* * * * *

The immediate cause of Luther's challenge was the presence of a
Dominican monk by the name of John Tetzel. This man was raising money to
complete Saint Peter's Church at Rome, and he was armed with a
commission direct from Pope Leo the Tenth.

That Brother John was an expert in his line, no one has ever denied. He
had been in this business of raising money for about ten years, and had
built monasteries, asylums, churches and convents. Beginning as a plain,
sturdy beggar, this enterprising monk had developed a System--not
entirely new, but he had added valuable improvements.

There is a whole literature on the subject of the "indulgence," and I
surely have no thought of adding to the mighty tomes on this theme. But
just let me briefly explain how John worked: When he approached a town,
he sent his a