Martin Luther The Great Reformer Biography

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Book Report

Martin Luther The Great Reformer

By: J. A. Morrison

On November 10, 1483, Martin Luther was born. His parents were Hans and Margaret Luther. Martin came from a poor family. The Luther's were Germans. They lived in the Thuringian Mountains near Eisleben. Martin Luther was still a small baby when his parents moved from Eisleben to Mansfeld, where his father found work in the mines. Martin, his brother, and his three sisters didn't have the easiest childhood to grow up with. Their parents taught them religion. Luther's parents were devout Catholics and their strenuous and even unmerciful discipline of their children, they believed, was the very best for the children's welfare. So when Martin or his siblings did anything wrong, they were beat as a punishment.

Hans Luther wanted to give his children better education than he has himself growing up. They started to teach Martin as soon as they could. Even if he was at home he was always learning. But in school because the schoolteachers were ignorant, he received fifteen whippings one morning at school. Martin referred the name of "school" to "hell and purgatory". When the schoolmasters at Mansfeld were through pounding Latin into Luther with a stick, he was getting ready to go to Magdeburg for school. Because Luther was so poor to have money for his own expenses, Luther had to sing in the streets. It was common for Luther to see other students as poor as him standing in front of wealthy citizen houses. Sometimes they were invited to come in for some food. He stayed in Magdeburg for about one year before moving to Eisenach and going to a school known as The School Of St. George. Ursula Cotta heard Luther singing in the street for money. So she and her Husband, Conrad, invited Luther to come into their beautiful home and share its comforts with them. Then in about May of 1501, Luther enrolled as a student at Erfurt. Then in 1502, he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts and three years later that of Master of Arts.

Luther had been hunted by fears that God's wrath was being stored up against him. Luther didn't look to the Bible for an answer to his burning question.

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