established, then they can be truly possessed by the man who trusts. The just live by their faith. These thoughts, acted upon, helped Luther gradually to win his way to peace, and he told Staupitz long afterwards that it was he who had made him see the rays of light which dispelled the darkness of his soul.(139) In the end, the vision of the true relation of the believing man to God came to him suddenly with all the force of a personal revelation, and the storm-tossed soul was at rest. The sudden enlightenment, the personal revelation which was to change his whole life, came to him when he was reading the _Epistle to the Romans_ in his cell. It came to Paul when he was riding on the road to Damascus; to Augustine as he was lying under a fig-tree in the Milan garden; to Francis as he paced anxiously the flag-stones of the Portiuncula chapel on the plain beneath Assisi; to Suso as he sat at table in the morning. It spoke through different words:—to Paul, “Why persecutest thou Me?”;(140) to Augustine, “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh”;(141) to Francis, “Get you no gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, no wallet for your journey, neither two coats, nor shoes, nor staff”;(142) to Suso, “My son, if thou wilt hear My words.”(143) But though the words were different, the personal revelation, which mastered the men, was the same: That trust in the All-merciful God, who has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, creates companionship with God, and that all other things are nothing in comparison with this fellowship. It was this contact with the Unseen which fitted Luther for his task as the leader of men in an age which was longing for a revival of moral living inspired by a fresh religious impulse.(144) It is not certain how long Luther’s protracted struggle lasted. There are indications that it went on for two years, and that he did not attain to inward peace until shortly before he was sent to Wittenberg in 1508. The intensity and sincerity of the conflict marked him for life. The conviction that he, weak and sinful as he was, nevertheless lived in personal fellowship with the God whose love he was experiencing, became the one fundamental fact of life on which he, a human personality, could take his stand as on a foundation of rock; and standing on it, feeling his own strength, he could also be a source of strength to others. Everything else, however venerable and sacred it might once have seemed, might prove untrustworthy without hereafter disturbing Luther’s religious life, provided only this one thing remained to him. For the moment, however, nothing seemed questionable. The inward change altered nothing external. He still believed that the Church was the “Pope’s House”; he accepted all its usages and institutions—its Masses and its relics, its indulgences and its pilgrimages, its hierarchy and its monastic life. He was still a monk and believed in his vocation.