ainted Christ," says Luther--and
such pictures can still be seen in old churches--"sitting on a rainbow
with his Mother and John the Baptist on either side as intercessors
against his frightful wrath."

At thirteen he was sent away to Magdeburg to a charitable school, and
the next year to Eisenach, where he spent three years in study. He
contributed to his support by the then recognized means of begging, and
was sheltered by the pious matron Ursula Cotta. In 1501 he
matriculated at the old and famous university of Erfurt. [Sidenote:
Erfurt] The curriculum here consisted of logic, dialectic, grammar,
and rhetoric, followed by arithmetic, ethics, and metaphysics. There
was some natural science, studied not by the experimental method, but
wholly from the books of Aristotle and his medieval commentators, and
there were also a few courses in literature, both in the Latin classics
and in their later imitators. Ranking among the better {64} scholars
Luther took the degrees of bachelor in 1502 and of master of arts in
1505, and immediately began the study of jurisprudence. While his
diligence and good conduct won golden words from his preceptors he
mingled with his comrades as a man with men. He was generous, even
prodigal, a musician and a "philosopher"; in disputations he was made
"an honorary umpire" by his fellows and teachers. "Fair fortune and
good health are mine," he wrote a friend on September 5, 1501, "I am
settled at college as pleasantly as possible."

For the sudden change that came over his life at the age of twenty-one
no adequate explanation has been offered. Pious and serious as he was,
his thoughts do not seem to have turned towards the monastic life as a
boy, nor are the old legends of the sudden death of a friend well
substantiated. As he was returning to Erfurt from a visit home, he was
overtaken by a terrific thunderstorm, in which his excited imagination
saw a devine warning to forsake the "world." In a fright he vowed to
St. Ann to become a monk and, though he at once regretted the rash
promise, on July 17, 1505, he discharged it by entering the Augustinian
friary at Erfurt. After a year's novitiate he took the irrevocable
vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. In 1507 he was ordained
priest. In the winter of 1510-1 he was sent to Rome on business of the
order, and there saw much of the splendor and also of the corruption of
the capital of Christendom. Having started, in 1508, to teac