"What avails it that such a bread is prepared for us, if it is not served out to us, and we cannot taste it?... It is as if a magnificent feast were prepared, and there were nobody to hand the bread, bring the dishes, and pour out the liquor; so that the guests would be left to feed by the eye and the smell.... This is the reason why it is necessary to preach Christ, and Christ alone. "But what, then, you ask, is it to know Jesus Christ, and what profit is gained by it? Answer:--To learn to know Jesus Christ is to comprehend what the Apostle says--_Christ has of God been made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption_. Now, you comprehend this when you perceive that your wisdom is culpable folly, your righteousness damnable iniquity, your holiness damnable pollution, your redemption miserable condemnation--when you feel that, before God and all the creatures, you are truly a fool, a sinner, an impure and condemned man--and when you show, not only by your words, but from the bottom of your heart, and by your works, that there remains to you no comfort and no salvation, save Jesus Christ. To believe is nothing else than to eat this bread of heaven." Thus Luther faithfully fulfilled his resolution to open the eyes of a people whom priests had blindfolded, and were leading at their pleasure. His writings, which in a short time spread over all Germany, caused new light to arise, and shed the seeds of truth in abundance on a soil well prepared to receive it. But while thinking of those at a distance, he did not forget those who were near. The dominicans from their pulpits denounced him as an infamous heretic. Luther, the man of the people, and who, had he been so disposed, could with a few sentences have set them in commotion, always disdained such triumphs, and made it his sole aim to instruct his hearers. His reputation, which was continually extending, and the courage with which he raised the banner of Christ in the midst of an enslaved Church, made his sermons be followed with increasing interest. Never had the confluence been so great. Luther went straight to the point. One day, having mounted the pulpit of Wittemberg, he undertook to establish the doctrine of repentance. The discourse pronounced on this occasion afterwards became very celebrated, and contains several of the fundamental principles of evangelical doctrine. At first he contrasts the pardon of men with the pardon of heaven. "There are," says he, "two remissions--the remission of the penalty, and the remission of the fault. The former reconciles man externally with the Church; the latter, which is the heavenly indulgence, reconciles man with God. If a man has not within himself that tranquil conscience, that cheerful heart which God's remission gives, no indulgence can aid him were he to buy all that ever have been on the earth."