Catharine de Bora, a nun of the celebrated Bernhardin or Cistercian convent at Nimtschen, in Saxony, was the person whom Luther chose as his wife. She was born on the 29th of January, 1499. There is no authentic record of the place of her birth, and the history of her childhood is wrapped in obscurity. It is only as the nun Catharine that we first became acquainted with her. Her Romish calumniators (and no innocent woman was ever more bitterly and cruelly defamed,) declare that her parents compelled her to become a nun against her will, because they were poor and could not support her, and particularly because her conduct was so objectionable that her seclusion was necessary. As regards the first, it is true; she was not wealthy when she became the wife of Luther; but, if she had been compelled to enter the nunnery, it is likely that Luther would have mentioned it as an additional justification of her flight. Her objectionable morality is based by her enemies on the fact of her escape, and hence the accusation has no ground whatever. There is not a particle of proof to establish the calumnious charge. This Convent was designated by the name of _The Throne of God_. It was founded in 1250 by Henry the Illustrious. No trace of it remains at the present day. In 1810-12 its ruins were removed to make room for the erection of an edifice connected with a school for boys established at that place. Most of the inmates of this Convent were of noble birth, for at that day, as well as at present, it was the policy and interest of the Romish clergy to induce as many ladies of high rank as possible to take the veil, thereby rendering the profession respectable, and securing large sums as entrance fees if they were wealthy, and all their patrimony after their decease.