The Thunderstorm on the Road to Stotternheim

On July 2, 1505, a twenty-one-year-old law student named Martin Luther was walking back to the University of Erfurt when the sky turned black. A violent thunderstorm broke over the Saxon countryside with such ferocity that Luther was thrown to the ground by a bolt of lightning striking nearby. The rain hammered the earth. The thunder rolled across the open fields like the voice of the Almighty Himself, and young Luther — face pressed into the mud, trembling — cried out, "Help me, Saint Anne!…