respect for the great people of the
world. His father was able to support him comfortably at the university
of Erfurt; he was then full of youthful vigour, and took great delight
in joining his companions in vocal and instrumental music. Of his
mental life at that time we know but little, only that when in peril of
death, in a storm, "a fearful apparition called to him from heaven." In
his terror he vowed to go to a monastery, and quickly and secretly
carried out his resolution.

It is here that our accounts of the state of his mind begin. At
variance with his father, full of terror at an incomprehensible
eternity, frightened by the anger of God, he began, in a convulsive
struggle, a life of self-denial, penance, and devotion. He found no
peace. All the highest questions of life stormed with fearful power
over his distracted soul, which had no anchor to rest on. Strongly did
he feel the need of being in harmony with God and the world, and all
that he derived from his faith was unintelligible and repulsive. The
mysteries of the moral government of the world were to his mind matters
of the deepest import. That the good should be tormented and the wicked
made happy, that God should condemn the whole human race with the
monstrous curse of sin, because an inexperienced woman had eaten an
apple, and that on the other hand the same God should bear with our
sins, in love and patience; that Christ should sometimes repel upright
people with severity, and at others receive adulterers, publicans, and
murderers,--about all this, the wisdom of man becomes foolishness. He
complained in these words to his ghostly counsellor, Staupitz: "Dear
doctor, our Lord God does indeed deal terribly with us; who can serve
Him when He deals such blows on all?" To which the answer was: "How
could He otherwise bow down the stiff-necked?" This ingenious argument
was of no comfort to the youth. In his earnest strivings to find the
incomprehensible God, he tormented himself in searching out all his
thoughts and dreams. Every ebullition of youthful blood, every earthly
thought, appeared to him a shocking iniquity; he began to despair, and
wrestled with himself in endless prayer, fasting, and mortification. On
one occasion the brothers were obliged to break into his cell, where he
had been lying the whole day in a state not far removed from insanity.
Staupitz observed with warm sympathy the agitation and torments of his
soul, and endeavoured, though only b