predecessors. He had to raise money,
and therefore allowed agents to sell pardons throughout Germany.
Tetzel, a Dominican friar, was employed in Saxony. He was noisy and
dishonest, and spent on his own evil pleasures sums that were given by
the ignorant creatures upon whom he traded to secure their eternal
happiness.

Luther inveighed against such practices from the pulpit of the church
at Wittenberg. He was particularly angry to hear Tetzel's wicked
proclamation that "when one dropped a penny into the box for a soul in
purgatory, so soon as the money chinked in the chest, the soul flew up
to heaven."

The papal red cross hung above Tetzel's money-counter, and he sat there
and called on all to buy. Luther decided on an action that should stop
the shameful traffic, declaring, "God willing, I will beat a hole in
his drum." On the eve of All Saints' Day a crowd assembled to gaze at
the relics displayed at the Castle church of Wittenberg. Their
attention was drawn to a paper nailed on the church gate, which set
forth reasons why indulgences were harmful and should be immediately
discontinued.

There were other abuses in the Church of Rome which Luther now openly
deplored. Hot discussion followed this bold step. Tetzel retired to
Frankfort, {55} but from there he wrote to contradict the new teaching
of the Augustine monk. He burnt Luther's theses publicly, and then
heard that his own had been consigned to the flames in the market-place
of Wittenberg, where a host of sympathisers had watched the bonfire
with satisfaction. Luther did not stand alone in his struggle to free
the Church from vice and superstition. He lived in an age when men had
learning enough to despise the trickery of worldly monks. The spirit
of inquiry had lived through the Revival of Letters and Erasmus, the
famous scholar, had discovered many errors in the Roman Church.

Erasmus joined Luther in an attempt to show men that the Holy
Scriptures alone would offer guidance in spiritual matters. He knew
that a reform of the Western Church was urgently needed, and was
willing to use his subtle brains to confute the arguments of ignorant
opponents. But soon he found that Luther's temper was too ardent, that
there was no middle course for this impetuous spirit. He dreaded for
himself the loss of wealth and honour, and refused to make war on those
in high stations, whose patronage had helped him to the rewards of
knowledge.

Alarmed by the sp