Luther rose from the peasant class; his father left Moehra, a place amid the forests of the Thuringian mountains, which was half peopled by his kindred, to engage in mining in the district of Mansfeld; thus the boy was born in a cottage, where the terrors inspired by the spirits of the pine woods, and dark fissures which served as entrances to the mine in the mountains, were still strong and vivid. His mind was no doubt often occupied with the dark traditions of the heathen mythology; he was accustomed to perceive in the terrors of nature, as well as in the life of man, the work of the powers of darkness. When he became a monk, these recollections of his childhood blended themselves with the figure of the devil, and the busy tempter always wore the same aspect to his imagination as the mischievous hobgoblins that frequent the hearth and stable of the countryman. His father was a man of concentrated and energetic character, firm and decided, and gifted with a full measure of strong common sense: he struggled hard to attain wealth; he kept strict discipline in his house, and in later years Luther remembered with grief the severe punishment he had received as a boy, and the sorrow it had inflicted on his childish heart. The influence of the old Hans Luther on the life of his son lasted till his death in 1530. When Martin went secretly into a monastery at the age of twenty-two, the old man was violently angry, as he had intended to provide for his son by a good marriage. At last friends succeeded in bringing about a reconciliation between them, and when the supplicating son approached his father, confessing that he had been driven by a fearful apparition to take the monastic vows, he replied to him in the following words: "God grant that it may not have been a delusion of the devil." He agitated still more the heart of the monk by the angry question: "You thought you were listening to the command of God when you went into the cloister; have you never heard that it is a duty to be obedient to parents?" This made a deep impression on the son, and when, many years afterwards, he was residing at Wartburg, cast out of the Church, and proscribed by the Emperor, he wrote to his father these touching words: "Do you still wish to withdraw me from the thraldom of the monastery? You are still my father, I your son; you have on your side the power and commands of God; on my side there is only human error. Behold, that you may not boast yourself before God, He has anticipated you, and taken me out himself." From that time he was as it were restored to the old man. Hans had once reckoned upon having a grandson for whom he would work, and to this idea he stubbornly returned, regardless as to what the rest of world thought; he soon therefore admonished him earnestly, to marry, and his persuasions had a great share in determining Luther to do so. When the father, who at a great age had become councillor of Mansfeld,