Soul on Fire

Of all the great "Martinisms" in his illustrious career, this one certainly stands out as one of the greatest.

When Martin was a young boy he was chosen to be part of a wedding ceremony. His task was to light the candles and then put them out afterwards. To accomplish this he was provided with a long stick that had a lighter on the end, and on the opposite side of the same end was the candle snuffer to extinguish the flame. Unfortunately, no one taught him how to use the device. He was clever enough to figure out how to turn on the lighter, however, he could not figure out to turn it off.

When it was time to light the candles, he had no problem turning the lighter on and lighting the candles. But when he could not get the flame to go out, he just left the lighter running. The problem came when it was time to put the candles out. Martin reached up with the stick to extinguish the candles with the flame still exposed on the opposite side. As he was attempting to extinguish the candles, the flame caught on a nearby curtain (probably not a good idea to put candles next to curtains). The fire quickly spread on the curtains and then onto the freshly revarnished wall, and before long the entire building was engulfed in flames. The church was completely destroyed and Martin was asked to never return.

This is the earliest Martinistic incident that we know of and may explain his never ending bad luck since then.