Martin Luther's quarrel with the Church began simply as a protest against certain practises of the monks, and that his protests should develop into a something called "Protestantism" was a thing he never for a moment anticipated or desired. He had no thought of building an institution on negation; and that he should be driven from the Church, because he loved the Church and was trying to purify and benefit it, was a source to him of deepest grief. * * * * * Martin Luther was thirty-five years old. He was short in stature, inclining to be stout, strenuous and bold. His faults and his virtues were all on the surface. He neither deceived nor desired to deceive--the distinguishing feature of his character was frankness. He was an Augustinian monk, serving as a teacher in the University of Wittenberg. Up to this time his life had been uneventful. His parents had been very poor people--his father a day-laborer, working in the copper-mines. In his boyhood Martin was "stubborn and intractable," which means that he had life plus. His teachers had tried to repress him by flogging him "fifteen times in a forenoon," as he himself has told us. In childhood he used to beg upon the streets, and so he could the better beg he was taught to sing. This rough, early experience wore off all timidity, and put "stage-fright" forever behind. He could not remember a time when he could not sing a song or make a speech. That he developed all the alertness and readiness of tongue and fist of the street-urchin there is no doubt. When he was taken into a monastery at eighteen years of age, the fact that he was a good singer and a most successful beggar were points of excellence that were not overlooked. That the young man was stubbornly honest in his religious faith, there is not a particle of doubt. The strength of his nature and the extent of his passion made his life in the monastery most miserable. He had not yet reached the point that many of the older monks had, and learned how to overcome temptation by succumbing to it, so he fasted for days until he became too weak to walk, watched the night away in vigils, and whipped his poor body with straps until the blood flowed. We now think it is man's duty to eat proper food, to sleep at night, and to care for his body, so as to bring it to the most perfect condition possible--all this that he may use his life to its highest and best. Life is a privilege and not a crime. But Martin Luther never knew of these things and there was none to teach him, and probably he would have rejected them stoutly if they had been presented--arguing the question six nights and days together.