The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 124

An earnest desire to be free from sin and to find peace with God led
him at last to enter a cloister and devote himself to a monastic life. Here
he was required to perform the lowest drudgery and to beg from house to
house. He was at an age when respect and appreciation are most eagerly
craved, and these menial offices were deeply mortifying to his natural
feelings; but he patiently endured this humiliation, believing that it was
necessary because of his sins.
Every moment that could be spared from his daily duties he
employed in study, robbing himself of sleep and grudging even the time
spent at his scanty meals. Above everything else he delighted in the
study of God’s word. He had found a Bible chained to the convent
wall, and to this he often repaired. As his convictions of sin deepened,
he sought by his own works to obtain pardon and peace. He led a
most rigorous life, endeavoring by fasting, vigils, and scourgings to
subdue the evils of his nature, from which the monastic life had brought
no release. He shrank from no sacrifice by which he might attain to
that purity of heart which would enable him to stand approved before
God. “I was indeed a pious monk,” he afterward said, “and followed
the rules of my order more strictly than I can express. If ever monk
could obtain heaven by his monkish works, I should certainly have been
entitled to it.... If it had continued much longer, I should have carried
my mortifications even to death.”—Ibid., b. 2, ch. 3. As the result of this
painful discipline he lost strength and suffered from fainting spasms,
from the effects of which he never fully recovered. But with all his
efforts his burdened soul found no relief. He was at last driven to the
verge of despair.
When it appeared to Luther that all was lost, God raised up a
friend and helper for him. The pious Staupitz opened the word of
God to Luther’s mind and bade him look away from himself, cease the
contemplation of infinite punishment for the violation of God’s law, and
look to Jesus, his sin-pardoning Saviour. “Instead of torturing yourself
on

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