elf did not understand at the time what I was doing.

"My dear father had taught me in my childhood the Ten Commandments, the
Lord's Prayer, and the Christian Creed, and compelled me always to pray.
For, he said, we had everything from God alone, gratis, for nothing, and
He would also govern and lead us if we prayed with diligence. Of the
indulgences and Roman remission of sins he said that they were only
snares with which one tricked the simple out of their money and took it
from their purses, that the forgiveness of sins and eternal life could
certainly not be purchased and acquired with money. But the priests or
preachers became angry and enraged when one said such things. Because I
heard then nothing else in the sermons every day but the greatest praise
of the remission of sins, I was filled with doubt as to whom I was to
believe more, my father or the priests as teachers of the Church. I was
in doubt, but still I believed the priests more than the instruction of
my father. But one thing I did not grant, that the forgiveness of sins
could not be acquired unless it was purchased with money, above all by
the poor. On this account I was wonderfully well pleased with the little
clause at the end of the Pope's letter, _'Pauperibus gratis dentur
propter Deum.'_

"And as they, in three days, intended to lay down the cross with special
magnificence and cut off the steps and ladders to heaven, I was impelled
by my spirit to go to the commissioners and ask for the letters of the
forgiveness of sins 'out of mercy for the poor.' I declared also that I
was a sinner and poor and in need of the forgiveness of sins, which was
granted through divine grace. On the second day, around evening, I
entered Hans Pflock's house where Tetzel was assembled with the
father-confessors and crowds of priests, and I addressed them in Latin
and requested that they might allow me, poor man, to ask, according to
the command in the Pope's letter, for the absolution of all my sins for
nothing and for the sake of God, _'etiam nullo casu reservato,'_ without
reserving a single case, and in regard to the same they should give me
the Pope's _'literas testimoniales,'_ or written testimony. Then the
priests were astonished at my Latin speech, for that was a rare thing at
this time, especially in the case of young boys; and they soon went out
of the room into the small chamber which I was alongside, to the
commissioner Tetzel. They made my desire known to him