# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1883_S23 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) . The Lutheran Pioneer. ———————— 23 Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses. In the centre of our picture, Luther nails to the church-dooy his ninety-five theses; on the left, Tetzel sells indulgences, and commits Lu- ther’s writing to the flames; and on the right, the Wittenberg Students are handling his own writing against Luther in the same way. This occurred in the year 1517. In that year Pope Leo X., an infidel and ridiculer of Bible doc- trines, instituted the sale of indulgences, in order to get as much money as possible from the people. An indulgence was a written cer- tificate which promised to the holder, who had paid in money the price asked for it, freedom from all punish- ment of sin in this life and in purgatory. John Tetzel, a bold and reckless fellow, was em- ployed as the principal salesman of these indulgences in Ger- many. He carried on this bus- iness in a most scandalous man- ner. He told the people that as soon as the money, paid for the deliverance of a soul from purgatory, rang in his box, the soul would leap up to heaven; he told them that sorrow on ac- count of sin and repentance were not needed by him who would buy a letter of indul- gence. Luther soon found out the consequences of this indul- gence business. Many of his people, on coming to confession, declared that they would not leave off sinning, and appealed to their letters of indulgence. With a sorrowful heart Luther saw the people cheated, not only out of their money, but out of their souls’ salvation. He wrote a letter to the Archbishop of Mainz, beseeching him, by his authority, to put a stop to the scandalous and immoral proceedings of Tetzel and others. But in vain! Luther now felt it his duty as pastor of the congregation at Wittenberg and as Doctor of the Holy Scrip- tures to lift up his voice against the abuse of in- dulgences. He drew up 95 Theses and, on the 31st of October, 1517, he nailed these Theses to the door of the church at Wittenberg, de- claring himself ready to dispute with any one upon the truth of the doctrine contained in these 95 propositions. In these Theses Luther struck the keynote of the Reformation—salva- ‘tion through Christ alone. They were there- fore hailed with joy by thousands of anxious souls as the dawn ofa bright Gospel day after the long dark night of Romish superstition and corruption. In a few days they had spread over all Germany, and in a few weeks they were read throughout all Europe. When Dr. Fleck rend them, he cried out in the height of his joy: ‘Ho, ho! this man will do it: he comes, upon whom we have waited so long.” | pered in spite of all enemies. He then told Luther to go on in good cheer since God and all the prayers of the captives | in the Romish Babylon would be with him. | Others again were alarmed and frightened. } But Luther said, ‘If the work is not begun in | God’s name, it will soon come to naught; but | if it is begun in His name, let Him do as seems | ‘to Him good.’”? Again he said, “Let Christ see to it whether the cause be mine or His.’’| But it was Christ’s cause, and therefore it pros-| God’s appointed | time for the Reformation of His Church had | come, and Luther, without knowing it, was God’s chosen -instrument for the accomplish- ah it ment of this great and blessed work. In after years Luther himself said: ‘*Who was I,a miserable and despised brother, looking then more like a corpse than a man, that I should set myself against the majesty of the pope, who was a terror not only to the kings of the earth and to the whole world, but also to heaven and hell, if I may so speak, and at whose nod all must obey. What and how my heart suf- fered in that first and second year, and in what humility, which was not false nor feigned, but most real, I would almost say in what despair, I labored, about this the secure spirits who afterwards with great pride and presumption attacked the majesty of the pope, know, alas! but little.” A Martyr of our Lutheran Faith. The City of Paderborn had accepted the Re- formation, but the Roman Catholic bishop was very anxious to reclaim it. In the year 1585 the mayor of the city was Liborius Wichart, « ? man unswerving in the faith, against whose firmness were dashed all the efforts of the bishop to take away the religious liberty and civil rights of the city. Finally, after a siege, the bishop was successful in taking the city, and then executed bloody vengeance against his opponents. All the principal Lutherans were at once condemned to death; of the rest, those who would not turn Roman Catholics, were banished from the city; but Wichart was retained, in order by a terrible example to | frighten others—he was to be put to a horrible death. From early morning, all day long, throughout the entire night and a portion of the following day, Wichart stood at the stake. His enemies and those whom he had formerly punished on account of their wickedness, as well as the Span- ish soldiers, now came, mocked him and spit in his face. The priest carried on worst of all. The day was extremely hot, but the soldiers knocked off his hat and raised it on a spear before the stake, so that Wichart was compelled to stand bare-headed under the burning rays of the sun. He received neither food nor drink. When faint and weary, and about to sink down, he was stirred up again. On . the second day he was released from the stake, but only in or- der at once to be tortured. Holes were cut into his breast and boiling oil poured in. Then he was hung up hy the feet and brandy poured into his nose, so that for two hours he lay there as if dead. From these tortures he was dragged into the common prison, where the Jesuits tested their arts of conversion. But he steadfastly endured them all. When led to death, and again urged to become a Roman Catholic, he said: ‘I have a faith and an as- surance and a portion, of which I have told you that it shall not be taken from me forever. You know that I do not adhere to you and the Rom- ish faith; what I now suffer is on account of the Evangelical [Lutheran] faith and the liberty of the city. May God have mercy on the city.”” In a garden, near the place of execution, he saw Bishop Dietrich anxiously awaiting the bloody spectacle. He said to him: “Come lnow, Bishop Dietrich, and drink your fill of my blood, for which you have thirsted so long!” e then undressed and allowed himself to be tied fast. Seeing the flash of the executioner’s sword, he cried with a loud voice: ‘Lord Jesus receive my spirit!’’ Then the executioner cut a bloody cross in his abdomen, and perpetrated other atrocities which cannot be related. Wi- chart suffered and died without a sigh. How is it with our faithfulness and stead- fastness, dear reader? Would you be ready thus to confess Christ and your Lutheran faith? —From the German.