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Show LUTiisa a::d. the bi-sle. T.uther'a siuilics at th university emliraced the writings of th church fathers and particularly tb Bible, to which he was becoming more and mora attached. Ha telle us that it was la hia twentieth year that he first saw a complete copy of tha scriptures ia the univeraitr linrerv at Erfurt. Ha had hitherto 'supposed that they embraced only the lessons read in the public aerv !.. snd waa delighted to find much tliat waa quite unfamiliar to him. Hia itnorance, it may be remarked, though ''t exceptional, waa hia own fault. 'I ne notion that Hilile reading was frowned upon by ecclesiastical author!- j ties of thst sgs ia quite unfnuuded. T he aure, it was nut considered pert of a t hnstian'a diitv, aa it is in many Protestant Prot-estant churchee, and few homee poa-seseed poa-seseed a copv of the scriptures; but they were read regularly in church, and their study waa uo more prohibited to university' students of that day than to those of this, and waa probably as little practiced by most of them as "ab fo Bible atudv, the opinloa of the theological profcasore of Krfnrt waa divided, di-vided, home favored it, ascribing to biblical writera an authority aurior to the fat here and to U school men; others sdviaed against it, because all mat ess of value in the Hible eould be found in the writinga of the theolo gians, aud ita atudy waa apt to foater mute and promote a seditions and revolutionary revo-lutionary spirit, eiiauptts heartily believed be-lieved in it, and made it an important part of the requirement in the theological theologi-cal course of the f.rfurt. monastery. A red leather copv of the Vulgate waa put into Luther'a hands soon after he entered en-tered the convent, and be atudied it with nth diligence that h knew it ao he enva, from cover to rover aad could telf exactly where every paaaage waa to be fouad. At the time he took up his work ia Wittenberg it waa a amall. and meaa tw a of eome SOixl inhabitants It waa walled and aomewkat strongly fortified, and the elector, who waa aa indefa-tiguahie indefa-tiguahie builder, had beautified it with a number of imposing structures;' but it still resembled a poor village rather then a citv. and the contrast with Er furt was extreme. The country, moreover, more-over, wss fist end sandy, very .unlike tne Venutifti! Thnringiaa hills, f rem which Luther had couie. llw first im-prcseiona im-prcseiona were distinctly N unfavorable, lie wondered whv a university should have been established ia a unpromising unpromis-ing a pis-, and he wsa sure it waa flue to the aina of the early eeulera that teey were cursed with such a laad. he found the people cold and inhne-ritable inhne-ritable aa well aa ignorant and boorish. 1 ne place lav, he thought, aa the very e,ite of civilization, and a few mile to la aorth and east would have meant pure barbarism, but it waa here that he made hia home for the rest of his life, snd it waa here that the reformation reforma-tion bad ita birth. Trof. Arthur C. Me-t.'rTerte Me-t.'rTerte " Martin Luther and Hie York, " in the January Century. |