Yet everything in the Church was advancing. The habits of a monastic life, the invention of man, were giving way in every quarter to those of domestic life, appointed by God. On Sunday the 9th of October 1524, Luther, having risen as usual, laid aside the frock of the Augustine monk, and put on the dress of a secular priest; he then made his appearance in the church, where this change caused a lively satisfaction. Renovated Christendom hailed with transport everything that announced that the old things were passed away. Shortly after this, the last monk quitted the convent; but Luther remained; his footsteps alone re-echoed through the long galleries; he sat silent and solitary in the refectory that had so lately resounded with the babbling of the monks. An eloquent silence, attesting the triumphs of the Word of God! The convent had ceased to exist. About the end of December 1524, Luther sent the keys of the monastery to the elector, informing him that he should see where it might please God to feed him.[432] The elector gave the convent to the university, and invited Luther to continue his residence in it. The abode of the monks was destined erelong to be the sanctuary of a christian family. [432] Muss und will Ich sehen wo mich Gott ernähret. L. Epp. ii. 582. Luther, whose heart was formed to taste the sweets of domestic life, honoured and loved the marriage state; it is even probable that he had some liking for Catherine Bora. For a long while his scruples and the thought of the calumnies which such a step would occasion had prevented his thinking of her; and he had offered the poor Catherine, first to Baumgartner of Nuremberg,[433] and then to Dr. Glatz of Orlamund. But when he saw Baumgartner refuse to take her, and when she had declined to accept Glatz, he asked himself seriously whether he ought not to think of marrying her himself. [433] Si vis Ketam tuam a Bora tenere. Ibid. 553. [Sidenote: LUTHER'S MOTIVES.] His aged father, who had been so grieved when he embraced a monastic life, was urging him to enter the conjugal state.[434] But one idea above all was daily present before Luther's conscience, and with greater energy: marriage is an institution of God,--celibacy an institution of man. He had a horror of every thing that emanated from Rome. He would say to his friends, "I desire to retain nothing of my papistical life."[435] Day and night he prayed and entreated the Lord to deliver him from his uncertainty. At last a single thought broke the last links that still held him captive. To all the motives of propriety and personal obedience which led him to apply to himself this declaration of God, _It is not good that man should be alone_,[436] was added a motive of a higher and more powerful nature. He saw that if he was called to the marriage-state as a man, he was also called to it as a reformer: this decided him. [434] Aus Begehren meines lieben Vaters. Ibid. iii. 2. [435] Ibid. 1. [436] Genesis ii. 18.