For instance, he had a special
hobby for sacred relics, and just at this time Staupitz, the vicar of
the Augustinian order for Saxony, was occupied in the Rhine region and
elsewhere in collecting them for the Elector. For Luther the absence
of his superior was important, for he had to fill his place. He was
already a respected man in his order. Although professor (of theology
since 1512), he still lived in his monastery in Wittenberg and
generally wore his monk's habit; and now he visited the thirty
monasteries in his charge, deposed priors, uttered severe censure of
bad discipline, and urged severity against fallen monks. But something
of the simple faith of the brother of the monastery still clung to
him.
It was in this spirit of confidence and German sincerity that he
wrote, October 31, 1517, after he had posted the theses against Tetzel
on the church door, to Archbishop Albert of Mainz, the protector of
the seller of indulgences. Full of the popular belief in the wisdom
and the goodwill of the highest rulers, Luther thought (he often said
so later) that it was only necessary to present honestly to the
princes of the Church the disadvantage and immorality of such abuses.
But how childish this zeal of the monk appeared to the polished and
worldly prince of the Church! What so deeply offended the honest man
was, from the point of view of the Archbishop, a matter long settled.
The sale of indulgences was an evil in the Church a hundred times
deplored, but as unavoidable as many institutions seem to the
politician; while not good in themselves, they must be kept for the
sake of a greater interest.
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