safe side.'

That is to say, truth was not the first necessity to Erasmus. He would
prefer truth, if he could have it. If not, he could get on moderately
well upon falsehood. Luther could not. No matter what the danger to
himself, if he could smite a lie upon the head and kill it, he was
better pleased than by a thousand lives. We hear much of Luther's
doctrine about faith. Stripped of theological verbiage, that doctrine
means this.

Reason says that, on the whole, truth and justice are desirable things.
They make men happier in themselves, and make society more prosperous.
But there reason ends, and men will not die for principles of utility.
Faith says that between truth and lies, there is an infinite difference:
one is of God, the other of Satan; one is eternally to be loved, the
other eternally to be abhorred. It cannot say why, in language
intelligible to reason. It is the voice of the nobler nature in man
speaking out of his heart.

While Tetzel, with his bull and his gilt car, was coming to Wittenberg,
Luther, loyal still to authority while there was a hope that authority
would be on the side of right, wrote to the Archbishop of Mayence to
remonstrate.

The archbishop, as we know, was to have a share of Tetzel's spoils; and
what were the complaints of a poor insignificant monk to a supreme
archbishop who was in debt and wanted money?

The Archbishop of Mayence flung the letter into his waste-paper basket;
and Luther made his solemn appeal from earthly dignitaries to the
conscience of the German people. He set up his protest on the church
door at Wittenberg; and, in ninety-five propositions he challenged the
Catholic Church to defend Tetzel and his works.

The Pope's indulgences, he said, cannot take away sins. God alone remits
sins; and He pardons those who are penitent, without help from man's
absolutions.

The Church may remit penalties which the Church inflicts. But the
Church's power is in this world only, and does not reach to purgatory.

If God has thought fit to place a man in purgatory, who shall say that
it is good for him to be taken out of purgatory? who shall say that he
himself desires it?

True repentance does not shrink from chastisement. True repentance
rather loves chastisement.

The bishops are asleep. It is better to give to the poor than to buy
indulgences; and he who sees his neighbour in want, and instead of
helping his neighbour buys a pardon for himself, is doing what is
disp