Reform Work Martin Luther Tract Heads from Clayton to Germany

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The secret is out. For nearly 50 years, Clayton has been the haven for a 16th-century manuscript by the founder of the Protestant Reformation.

Martin Luther's 80-page political and religious call to action, "Wider Hans Worst," will come out of its vault on the Concordia Seminary campus one last time this week. Even its margin notes and corrections are in the theologian's own hand. Copies are well known, but most people assumed Luther's handwritten, 1541 original was lost.

The manuscript arrived at Concordia Seminary in 1950 - having been mailed from New Jersey by a military chaplin who was Lutheran. On Tuesday, it will begin the journey back to its rightful …