family, which had long dwelt in the domains of the Counts of Mansfeld, in Thuringia. "I am the son of a peasant," he used to say; "my father, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather, were honest peasants." His father, John Luther, soon after his marriage removed to Eisleben in Saxony. There Luther was born, November 10th, 1483. It was on St. Martin's eve: the following day he was christened by the name of Martin, in honor of the saint on whose festival he was born.
His father was an upright and industrious man; frank in his manner, but disposed to carry the firmness of his character even to obstinacy. He was fond of reading, and improved his naturally strong understanding by studying such books as came within his reach. His wife, Margaret, was a humble, prayerful, pious woman, looked up to by her neighbors as a pattern of virtue.
The following summer, or when Martin was about six months old, the family removed back to Mansfeld, where they endured great poverty. "My father was a wood cutter," says Luther, "and my mother has often carried the wood on her back that she might procure the means of bringing up her children." But the Lord was not unmindful of these honest labors and raised them above such drudgery in due time. John became connected with the iron-mines at Mansfeld, and, by his habits of industry and the general respect he acquired by his good sense, he was brought into comparatively easy circumstances. He was chosen a member of the town council; and by the superior character of his mind he easily found his way to the best society in the district.
The father's fondest ambition was to make his eldest son a scholar; but he did not forget his early domestic education. As soon as he was old enough to receive instruction, his pious parents spoke to him about the Lord Jesus and prayed with him by his bedside. Martin was sent very young to school. His first instructor was one George Emilius, the schoolmaster of the place. There he was taught the catechism, the commandments, the creed, the Lord's prayer, and the rudiments of Latin. But, according to the manners of the age, poor little Martin acquired his first religious education through many and severe floggings. From an early age he was trained in the school of poverty, hardship, and suffering, for a future life of warfare. On one occasion, as he himself relates, he was flogged by the unsparing Emilius fifteen times in the same day. His treatment at home was not more merciful.
"His father administered with conscientious rigor," says one of his biographers, "what was long considered as the only instrument of moral or intellectual cultivation; and even his mother engaged in the system with so much zeal as to draw blood by her chastisements." Martin's warm and resolute temper gave frequent occasions for punishment on this principle. "My parents," he said in after life, "treated me harshly, so that I became very timid. My mother one day chastised me so severely about a nut, that the blood came; but they sincerely thought they were doing right."*