ut impoverished family.
At the age of ten she was placed in the convent of Nimtsch, near Grimma.
At sixteen she became a nun. In 1523, under the influence of Luther's
preaching, she, with eight of her sister nuns, left the convent secretly
by night and fled to Wittenberg. For her apostasy, Catharine's family
cast her off. Luther found her a comfortable home and did his best to
provide her with a husband. But Catharine, who, says Erasmus, was "a
wonderfully pretty girl," would not accept either of the two suitors
Luther recommended. Amsdorf, Luther's envoy, argued with her upon her
stubbornness. Whereupon, Catharine replied, calmly, "I will not marry
Glatz, but I will marry either you or Luther, if you want me." She meant
that she would marry Martin Luther, for she well knew that Amsdorf's
affections were already placed elsewhere. Luther, though somewhat
surprised at the turn things had taken, accepted Catharine's proposal
and the nuptials were duly celebrated amid the remonstrances of the
Reformer's friends and the derisive howls of his enemies.

"Antichrist only can be born from this unholy union of priest and nun,"
was the scandalized cry of the Catholics. To which Erasmus made
sarcastic reply: "Then there must have been a good many Antichrists born
before now."

An indisputable testimony to Catharine's kindly nature is the affection
which old John Luther and his wife felt for their son's wife. Catharine
bore good, as evil fortune, with dignity. Her head was never in the
least turned by the popularity of her husband. When princes visited the
humble home at Wittenberg, she received them with simple, well-bred
courtesy. When beggars came she welcomed them with equal cordiality. She
had much to contend against. They were poor and her husband was over
generous, not only in hospitality, but in constantly giving away
household effects which his family could ill afford to spare. Martin
Luther, too, was a man of storms. A woman less firm and tactful than his
beloved "Kathie" could hardly have lived peaceably with him.

In the evil days that fell after Luther's death, his widow did not lose
her courage. She struggled nobly to support herself and children. She
followed the usual heart-breaking course of poor widows in trying to
make a living. She sewed; she kept boarders; she turned her hand,
patiently, to any honest labor that offered itself. War, flight from
pestilence, and then sudden death so runs the record of the last b