“Quote to me no Aristotle, Sir Graf, as to my duty. Quote God’s word--but nothing pagan.” But he checked himself; “Ei!” with a laugh he continued, “who am I to bandy proud words with your gracious Lordship? Be seated again; hear me out patiently, then call me a mad fool all you will.” So I sat, hearkening while he paced the room, talking very fast. “Peasant born I am, and peasant I am like to remain in speech and thought till God orders otherwise. Many a day as a boy have I seen my mother toiling under a load of sticks too heavy for her weak back. I have been schoolboy at Eisenach, student at Erfurt, and then friar at Erfurt and Wittenberg, but I am peasant still. Pardon therefore my blunt uncourtly speech. My tongue is a bow that sends arrows straight at the mark; your Lordship will forgive me.” “No more apologies. Proceed, I beg you.” “In years past I have gone down all the paths of monkery,--fast, flagellation, vigils, long prayers; I have tried them all. If, as Paul would say, ‘I could glory after the flesh,’ even I, sinful Martin Luther, could claim to be pious, righteous, holy. And yet, I say to you, Graf von Regenstein, my monk’s merits were as nothing, nothing. My soul was in exquisite torment. I feared hourly the pangs and anguish of hell. My righteousness I knew was but as worthless dross. Then--no matter how--it came to me that it was not by the merits of Martin the Sinner but of Christ the Righteous that I would be justified. That all the outward things men call ‘holy’ are ‘holy’ only so far as they are tokens of that inner light and hope within. My soul was born again, and unto peace. And with that peace which the world cannot give came keen desire to pass my hope to my fellow-men also.” He paused an instant, and asked, “You do not catch my drift?” “Not wholly, Magister Doctor,” replied I, following his pacings with my eyes, fascinated.