aided to fix that of English speech.
Leaving Luther, for the present, in his retreat at Wartburg Castle, we
must go back in his history and tell the occasion of the events just
narrated. No man, before or after his time, ever created so great a
disturbance in German thought, and the career of this fugitive monk is
one of great historical import.
A peasant by birth, the son of a slate-cutter named Hans Luther, he so
distinguished himself as a scholar that his father proposed to make him
a lawyer, but a dangerous illness, the death of a near friend, and the
exhortations of an eloquent preacher, so wrought upon his mind that he
resolved instead to become a monk, and after going through the necessary
course of study and mental discipline was ordained priest in May, 1507.
The next year he was appointed a professor in the university of
Wittenberg. There he remained for the next ten years of his life, when
an event occurred which was to turn the whole current of his career and
give him a prominence in theological history which few other men have
ever attained.
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