Book ReportMartin Luther the Great ReformerBy: JA MorrisonOn November 10, 1483, Martin Luther was born. His parents were Hans and Margaret Luther. Martin came from a poor family. The Luthers were German. 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 did not have the easiest childhood. Their parents taught them religion. Luther's parents were devout Catholics, and their rigorous, even ruthless, discipline of their children, they believed, was best for their well-being. So when Martin or his siblings did something wrong, they were beaten as punishment. Hans Luther wanted to give his children a better education than he himself had growing up. They started teaching Martin as soon as they could. Even though he was at home, he was still learning. But at school, because the teachers were ignorant, he received fifteen lashes one morning at school. Martin referred the name “school” to “hell and purgatory.” When Mansfeld's schoolmasters had finished hammering Luther with a stick in Latin, he was preparing to go to school in Magdeburg. Because Luther was so poor that he could not meet his own expenses, he had to sing in the streets. It was common for Luther to see other students as poor as himself standing in front of the homes of wealthy citizens. Sometimes they were invited to come and get food. He stayed in Magdeburg for about a 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 to their beautiful home and share its comfort with them. Then, around May 1501, Luther enrolled as a student in Erfurt. Then, in 1502, he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts and three years later that of Master of Arts. Luther had been pursued by the fear that God's wrath would accumulate against him. Luther did not look to the Bible for an answer to his burning question.