absolute guarantee from hell. [Sidenote: Martin Luther.] It is said that the attention of Martin Luther, formerly an Augustinian monk, was first attracted to this subject by the traffic having been conferred on the Dominicans instead of upon his own order at the time when Leo X. was raising funds by this means for building St. Peter's at Rome, A.D. 1517. That was probably only an insinuation of Luther's adversaries, and is very far from being borne out by his subsequent conduct. His first public movement was the putting forth of ninety-five theses against the practice. He posted them on the door of the cathedral of Wittenberg, and enforced them in his sermons, though at this time he professed obedience to the papal authority. With a rapidity probably unexpected by him, his acts excited public attention so strongly, that, though the pope was at first disposed to regard the whole affair as a mere monkish squabble for gains, it soon became obvious, from the manner in which the commotion was spreading, that something must be done to check it. The pope therefore summoned Luther to Rome to answer for himself; but through the influence of certain great personages, and receiving a submissive letter from the accused, he, on reconsideration, referred the matter to Cardinal Cajetan, his legate in Germany. The cardinal, on looking into the affair, ordered Luther to retract; and now came into prominence the mental qualities of this great man. Luther, with respectful firmness, refused; but remembering John Huss, and fearing that the imperial safe-conduct which had been given to him would be insufficient for his protection, he secretly returned to Wittenberg, having first, however, solemnly appealed from the pope, ill informed at the time, to the pope when he should have been better instructed. Thereupon he was condemned as a heretic. Undismayed, he continued to defend his opinions, but, finding himself in imminent danger, he fell upon the suggestion which, since the days of Philip the Fair, had been recognized as the true method of dealing with the papacy, and appealed to a general council as the true representative of the Church, and therefore superior to the pope, who is not infallible any more than St. Peter himself had been. To this denial of papal authority he soon added a dissent from the doctrines of purgatory, auricular confession, absolution. [Sidenote: The right of individual judgment asserted.] It was now that the grand idea which had hitherto silently lain at the bottom of the whole movement emerged into prominence--the right of individual judgment--under the dogma that it is not papal authority which should be the guide of life, but the Bible, and that the Bible is to be interpreted by private judgment. Thus far it had been received that the Bible derives its authenticity and authority from the Church; now it was asserted that the Church derives her authenticity and authority from the Bible. At this