veins of the
mountain. Certainly the imagination of the boy was often busy with
dark traditions from heathen mythology. He was accustomed to feel the
presence of uncanny powers as well in the phenomena of nature as in
the life of man. When he turned monk such remembrances from childhood
grew gloomier and took the shape of the devil of Scripture, but the
busy tempter who everywhere lies in wait for the life of man always
retained for him something of the features of the mischievous goblin
who secretly lurks about the peasant's hearth and stable.

His father, a curt, sturdy, vigorous man, firm in his resolves, and of
unusual, shrewd common sense, had worked his way, after hard
struggles, to considerable prosperity. He kept strict discipline in
his household. Even in later years Luther thought with sadness of the
severe punishments he had endured as a boy and the sorrow they had
caused his tender, childish heart. But Old Hans Luther, nevertheless,
up to his death in 1530, had some influence on the life of his son.
When at the age of twenty-two Martin secretly entered the monastery
the old man was violently angry; for he had already planned a good
match for him. Friends finally succeeded in bringing the angry father
to consent to a reconciliation; and as his imploring son confessed
that a terrible apparition had driven him to the secret vow to enter
the monastery, he replied with the sorrowful words, "God grant that it
was not a deception and trick of the devil;" and he still further
wrenched the heart of the monk by the angry question, "You thought you
were obeying the command of God when you went into the monastery; have
you not heard also that you shall obey your parents?" These words made
a deep impression on the son, and when, many years after, he sat in
the Wartburg, expelled from the Church and outlawed by the Emperor, he
wrote to his father the touching words: "Do you still wish to tear me
from the monastery? You are still my father and I your son. The law
and the power of God are on your side--on my side human weakness. But
look that you boast not yourself against God, he has been beforehand
with you,--he has taken me out himself." From that time on it seemed
to the old man as if his son were restored to him. Old Hans had once
counted upon having a grandson for whom he would work. He now came
back obstinately to this thought, caring nothing for the rest of the
world, and soon urged his son to marry; his encouragem