“There is a deep, beautiful meaning underlying this idea.  But it has degenerated into a base traffic in indulgences.  We have sincere natures.  For a long time we believed that salvation is gained by works—­gifts to the Church, fasts, scourgings, seclusion from the world, self-confinement in a cell—­and our wealth went to Rome.  Rarely do we look vainly in the most beautiful sites on mountain or by river for a monastery!  But at last the sound sense of Germany rebelled, and when Luther saw in Rome poor sufferers from gout and cripples ascending the stairs of the Lateran on their knees, a voice within cried out to him the great ‘sola fide’ on which our faith is founded.  On it alone, on devotion to Jesus Christ, depends our salvation.”

“Then,” asked Wolf, “you boldly deny any saving power to good works?”

“Yes,” was the firm reply, “so far as they do not proceed from faith.”

“As if the Church did not impose the same demand!” replied Wolf in a more animated tone.  “True, base wrong has been done in regard to the sale of indulgences, but at the Council of Trent opposition will be made to it.  No estimable priest holds the belief that money can atone for a sin or win the mercy of Heaven.  With us also sincere repentance or devout faith must accompany the gift, the fasting, and whatever else the believer imposes upon himself here below.  Man is so constituted that the only things which make a deep impression are those that the body also feels.  The teacher’s blow has a greater effect than his words, a gift produces more willingness than an entreaty, and the tendency toward asceticism and penance is genuinely Christian, and belongs to many a people of a different faith.  Your Erasmus said that his heart was Catholic, but his stomach desired to be Protestant.  You have an easier task than we.”

“On the contrary,” the young theologian burst forth.  “It is mere child’s play for you to obtain forgiveness by acts which really do not cut deeply into the flesh; but if one of us errs, how hard must be the conflict in his own breast ere he attains the conviction that his guilt is expiated by deep repentance and better deeds!”

“I can answer for that,” here interposed old Ursel, who from her arm-chair had listened to the conversation between the two with intense interest.

“Good heavens!  One went forth from the confessional as pure as a white dove after absolution had been received and the penance performed; but now that I belong to the Protestants, it is hard to reach a perfect understanding with the dear Saviour and one’s self.”

“And ought that to redound to the discredit of my faith?” asked Wolf.  “So far as I have learned to know men, the majority, at least, will not hasten to attain our Ursel’s complete understanding with one’s self.  I should even fear that there are many among you who no longer feel a desire to heed little sins and their forgiveness——­”

Here Ursel again interrupted him with an exclamation of dissent, accompanied by a gesture of denial from her thin old hand; but Wolf glanced at the clock which the precentor had received as a testimonial of affection from the members of the cathedral choir, which he had led for years.