was the wickedness of the world, heavy the oppression under which
the poor suffered, coarse the greed after enjoyment, boundless the
covetousness both of ecclesiastics and laymen. Who was there to punish
the young nobleman who maltreated the peasants? who to defend the poor
citizen against the powerful family unions of the rich counsellors?
Hard was the labour of the German peasant from morning till evening,
through summer and winter; pestilence was quickly followed by famine
and hunger: the whole system of the world seemed in confusion, and
earthly life devoid of love. The only hope of deliverance from misery,
was in God; before Him all earthly power, whether of Emperor or Pope,
was weak and insignificant, and the wisdom of man was transitory as the
flower of the field. By his mercy men might be delivered from the
miseries of this life, and compensated by eternal happiness for what
they had suffered here; but how were they to obtain this mercy? by what
virtues could weak men hope to gain the endless treasure of God's
favour? Man had been doomed from the time of Adam to will the good and
do the evil. Vain were his highest virtues; inherited sin was his
curse; and if he obtained mercy from God, it was not by his own
merits.[19]

These were the questions that then struggled within the agonized hearts
of men. But from the holy records of Scripture, which had only been a
dark tradition to the people, went forth the words; Christ is love. The
ruling Church knew little of this love; in it God was kept far from the
hearts of men: the image of the Crucified One was concealed behind
countless saints, who were all made necessary as intercessors with a
wrathful God. But the great craving of the German nature was to find
itself in close connection with the Almighty, and the longing for the
love of God was unquenchable. But the Pope maintained that he was the
only administrator of the inexhaustible merits of Christ; and the
Church also taught, that by the intercession of saints for the sins of
men, an endless treasure of good works, prayers, fasts, and penances
were made available for the blessing of others; and all these treasures
were at the disposition of the Pope, who could dispense them to whom he
chose, as a deliverance from their sins. Thus, when believers united
together in a pious community, the Pope was able to confer on such a
brotherhood the privilege of passing over from one to the other, the
merits of the saints, the