joined a Dominican monastery.
Then he became a college professor at the theological school of
Wittenberg and began to explain the scriptures to the indifferent
ploughboys of his Saxon home. He had a lot of spare time and this he
used to study the original texts of the Old and New Testaments. Soon
he began to see the great difference which existed between the words of
Christ and those that were preached by the Popes and the Bishops. In the
year 1511, he visited Rome on official business. Alexander VI, of the
family of Borgia, who had enriched himself for the benefit of his
son and daughter, was dead. But his successor, Julius II, a man of
irreproachable personal character, was spending most of his time
fighting and building and did not impress this serious minded German
theologian with his piety. Luther returned to Wittenberg a much
disappointed man. But worse was to follow.

The gigantic church of St. Peter which Pope Julius had wished upon his
innocent successors, although only half begun, was already in need of
repair. Alexander VI had spent every penny of the Papal treasury. Leo X,
who succeeded Julius in the year 1513, was on the verge of bankruptcy.
He reverted to an old method of raising ready cash. He began to sell
"indulgences." An indulgence was a piece of parchment which in return
for a certain sum of money, promised a sinner a decrease of the time
which he would have to spend in purgatory. It was a perfectly correct
thing according to the creed of the late Middle Ages. Since the church
had the power to forgive the sins of those who truly repented before
they died, the church also had the right to shorten, through its
intercession with the Saints, the time during which the soul must be
purified in the shadowy realms of Purgatory.

It was unfortunate that these Indulgences must be sold for money. But
they offered an easy form of revenue and besides, those who were too
poor to pay, received theirs for nothing.

Now it happened in the year 1517 that the exclusive territory for the
sale of indulgences in Saxony was given to a Dominican monk by the name
of Johan Tetzel. Brother Johan was a hustling salesman. To tell the
truth he was a little too eager. His business methods outraged the pious
people of the little duchy. And Luther, who was an honest fellow, got so
angry that he did a rash thing. On the 31st of October of the year 1517,
he went to the court church and upon the doors thereof he posted a sheet
of p