But it was not possible that so brave, honest, and self-sacrificing a man should long pursue his convictions without coming into collision with the Roman high priesthood.  Though far off at Wittenberg, and trying to do his own duty well in his own legitimate sphere, it soon came athwart his path in a form so foul and offensive that it forced him to assault it.  Either he had to let go his sincerest convictions and dearest hopes or protest had to come.  His personal salvation and that of his flock were at stake, and he could in no way remain a true man and not remonstrate.  Driven to this extremity, and struck at for his honest faithfulness, he struck again; and so came the battle which shook and revolutionized the world.

THE SELLING OF INDULGENCES.

Luther’s first encounter with the hierarchy was on the traffic in indulgences.  It was a good fortune that it there began.  That traffic was so obnoxious to every sense of propriety that any vigorous attack upon it would command the approval of many honest and pious people.  The central heresy of hierarchical religion was likewise embodied in it, so that a stab there, if logically followed up, would necessarily reach the very heart of the oppressive monster.  And Providence arranged that there the conflict should begin.

Leo X. had but recently ascended the papal throne.  Reared amid lavish wealth and culture, he was eager that his reign should equal that of Solomon and the Caesars.  He sought to aggrandize his relatives, to honor and enrich men of genius, and to surround himself with costly splendors and pleasures.  These demanded extraordinary revenues.  The projects of his ambitious predecessors had depleted the papal coffers.  He needed to do something on a grand scale in order adequately to replenish his exchequer.

As early as the eleventh century the popes had betimes resorted to the selling of pardons and the issuing of free passes to heaven on consideration of certain services or payments to the Church.  From Urban II. to Leo X. this was more or less in vogue—­first, to get soldiers for the holy wars,[4] and then as a means of wealth to the Church.  If one wished to eat meat on fast-days, marry within prohibited degrees of relationship, or indulge in forbidden pleasures, he could do it without offence by rendering certain satisfactions before or after, which satisfactions could mostly be made by payments of money.[5] In the same way he could buy remission of sins in general, or exemption for so many days, years, or centuries from the pains of Purgatory.  Bulls of authority were given, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to issue certificates of exemption from all penalties to such as did the service or paid the equivalent.  Immense incomes were thus realized.  Even to the present this facile invention for raising money has not been entirely discontinued.  Papal indulgences can be bought to-day in the shops of Spain and elsewhere.