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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

A HISTORY OF THE
REFORMATION

By
ELIAS B. SANFORD, D.D.
Honorary Secretary of the Federal Council
of the Churches of Christ in America

THE S. S. SCRANTON COMPANY
HARTFORD, CONN.

Copyright 1917 by
E. B. Sanford.

This Volume
Is
Affectionately Inscribed
To My Friends,
In Every Part of the United States, With Whom
For Many Years I Was Engaged in Work that Laid
the Foundation and Organized the Federal Coun
cil of the Churches of Christ in America Repre
senting a Communicant Membership of Nearly
Eighteen Millions and Tracing Their Origin to
the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century.

hi

PREFACE.
Since the day, in boyhood, when I discovered in my
father's library DAubigne's "History of the Reforma
tion," the era of the Protestant Revolution has been a
favorite field of reading and study. A concise narrative,
of necessity, abbreviates many important details and can
give but little space to many individual workers who ren
dered fruitful aid in their day and generation. I trust,
however, that I have omitted nothing essential to a clear
understanding of the great movement of the Sixteenth
Century that changed the history of Christianity and the
world. The amount of literature that has come from the press
regarding the Reformation is enormous. The work and
life of Luther have been the storm centre of discussion
that has continued during the past four centuries. Even
in recent years the great Reformer has been made the ob
ject of malignant assaults that have made as little im
pression on candid and thoughtful scholars as the wrath
ful waves that break upon the rock foundations of
Gibralter. Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and Knox, the four great
leaders of the Reformation, in their personality and work,
loom larger with the passing centuries because the prin
ciples for which they contended had in them the seed
truth of the kingdom of God. Never losing sight of the
providential preparation that led up to the incident, we
may well make the October afternoon in 1517, when Lu
ther affixed his Theses on the church door at Wittenberg,
the opening of a new era in the world's history. From
v

vi Preface.
that hour until now, the Christ inspired principles of
democracy, unfolded in the New Testament, have faced
the forces of autocracy and imperialism entrenched in
Church and State. The end is not yet, but through the
awful storm clouds, out of which lightning strokes have
brought millions of men to an untimely death, gleams of
light break over the horizon. In these epoch making
years when allied nations, as never before, are lifting up
the ideals of democracy and brotherhood, we do well to
recall the story of the Reformation. Many who have
prayerfully pondered over the question, why such sacri
fice of blood and treasure should be required, now see
that the agonies of the Inquisition and the fires of Smith-
field presaged the consecration of martyr hosts who in
the Twentieth Century have given their lives on the altar
of Freedom.
Christian democracy stands for an open Bible ; liberty
of thought and conscience, and the separation of Church
and State. The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century
was in its spirit and ideals the renaissance of the early
Church. In the lands beyond Germany this social, politi
cal, as well as religious upheaval, gave birth to modern
democracy whose record is found in the history of the
Huguenot struggle in France; the Rise of the Dutch
Republic; Puritan England, and the founding of this
United States.
This history has an important bearing upon the ques
tion of Christian unity and Church unity. Democracy
and autocracy cannot find a common standing ground for
organized union. They build upon principles that are so
dissimilar that one or the other must be discarded in lay
ing foundations. Autocracy, in Church and State, has

Preface. vii
been brought to the bar of judgment and found wanting.
Civilization and Christianity have suffered immeasurable
loss by the selfish and arrogant demands of imperialism.
The titanic struggle of these days bears testimony that
Christian democracy and brotherhood represent the hope
of Church and State. They stand for truths that lie at
the heart of the spirit and principles of the kingdom of
God and in so far as they prevail in the life of the nation,
the family, and the individual, the promise of the Risen
Lord and Saviour of mankind, will be. fulfilled. "Lo I
am with you to the end of the world."

CONTENTS. PART I.
Chapter I. PAGE
Church History Before the Reformation,  i
Protestants of Medieval Times,  6
Waldenses,  8
Chapter II.
Franciscan and Domenican Orders  n
English Forerunners of the Reformation,  13
John Wiclif,  17
Chapter III.
John Huss  27
Moravian Brethren  31
Chapter IV.
Social and Political Conditions in Sixteenth Century,  33
Chapter V.
The Oxford Reformers,  40
John Colet, . ...  43
Desiderius Erasmus,  45
Thomas More,  5°
Chapter VI.
Martin Luther,  54
Boyhood and Student Days,  54
Monastic Life and Spiritual Experiences,  62
Professor at Wittenberg,  67
Chapter VII.
Promulgation of Theses Against Indulgences,  . . y7
ix

x Contents.
Chapter VIII. PAGE
Opening Conflict With Rome,  82
Crisis Years in Life of Luther,  84
Chapter IX.
Luther's Break With Rome  ^  92
Chapter X.
Burning of the Pope's Bull  101
Chapter XI.
Luther at the Diet of Worms  106
Chapter XII.
Beginning of the Storm of Revolution,  116
Chapter XIII.
The Peasants' War,  125
Chapter XIV.
Diet of Speyer  134
Origin of Term "Protestant,"  137
Chapter XV.
Diet of Augsburg  142
Augsburg Confession,  143
Schmaldkald League,  145
Chapter XVI.
Closing Years in Luther's Life,  149
Reformation in Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Sweden, and
Other Countries,  156

Contents. xi
PART II.
Chapter I. page
The Reformation During the Reign of Henry VIII.,  161
Chapter II.
The Reformation in England from the Closing Years of
the Reign of Henry VIII. Until the Accession of Eliza
beth  175
Chapter III.
The Reformation in England During the Reign of Queen
Elizabeth,  191
Chapter IV.
The Reformation in Scotland,  201
Chapter V.
The Reformation in Switzerland. Zwingli and Oecolam-
padius,  209
Chapter VI.
The Reformation in Geneva Under John Calvin,  217
Chapter VII.
The Reformation in France,  238
Chapter VIII.
The Reformation in the Netherlands,  246
Chapter IX.
The Home Life of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and Knox,  262
Chapter X.
Historical Relation of the Protestant Churches of the
United States to the Reformation,  269

BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Dr. Thomas M. Lindsay's A History of the Reforma
tion, 2 vols. ( 1906-7) , is the best and most comprehensive
work. The Reformation, by Professor George P. Fisher
(1873), still holds a place among standard histories; it
furnishes in the Appendix an exhaustive list of works in
general history relating to the period of the Reforma
tion. Luther in Light of Recent Research (1916), by
Heinrich Bohmer, of Marburg University, translated by
Carl F. Huth, Jr., of University of Chicago, is interest
ing and helpful; Conversations With Luther (1915),
translated and selected by Preserved Smith, Ph.D., and
Herbert Percival Gallinger, Ph.D., gives choice selec
tions from his famous "Table Talk." To those who wish
to secure a brief but admirable summary of the theo
logical views of Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, and Cal
vin, we commend Professor Arthur Cushman McGif-
fert's Protestant Thought Before Kant (1911).

PART I.
Forerunners of the Reformation.
Martin Luther and the Reformation in Germany.

CHAPTER. I.
The Centuries Before the Reformation. The Prot
estants of Medieval Times. The Waldensians.
Four hundred years ago (October 31, 1517) the city of
Wittenberg, fifty-five miles southwest from Berlin, the
capital of Germany, was the scene of an epoch making
incident in the world's history. The principal street of
the city follows the windings of the river Elbe, and on
this autumn day was filled with men, women, and chil
dren who were anticipating and preparing for the cele
bration on the morrow of the feast of All Saints. The
beautiful church, recently erected by Frederick of Saxony,
was the special centre towards which the people directed
their steps. At great expense the Elector had gathered
from many lands sacred relics that were placed in gold
and silver cases adorned with precious stones. Every
pilgrim, from the lowliest peasant to the proudest noble,
who looked with superstitious awe upon these relics and
confessed his sins, obtained full forgiveness. No wonder
the aisles of the Palace church were crowded.
The October day was drawing to a close when a sturdy
young priest strode along the street holding in his hand
a hammer and a roll of manuscript. It was not an un
common scene. The university of the city and the church
were closely related and important announcements were
frequently posted on its entrance door. But we can im
agine that the drama we are witnessing was one that at
tracted special interest. Then, as always, Martin Luther
was a man of that physical and intellectual distinction

2 The Reformation.
that compels attention from the passing crowd, but in
Wittenberg he was already regarded by every dweller in
its homes with affectionate awe and respect. The story
of his early life and the brilliant career in scholarship
that had brought him in his thirty-fifth year to his pres
ent position as professor of theology, was known to most
of them. But there were other reasons that had already
made this sturdy young priest a man of destiny and hope
in the eyes of some, whose gaze followed him as he nailed
his manuscript upon the door of the church. Already
his fame as an eloquent preacher was spread abroad in
every part of Saxony. Even Rome had learned of the
new voice that had denounced the sins and corruptions of
the papal court. Martin Luther, from the student days
when he won high distinction as a brilliant scholar, had
early attracted the attention of men holding high official
positions. Their mandate, strengthened by the petition
of admiring teachers, had bestowed upon him a place of
high distinction and responsibility as professor in the
university that owed its existence to the beloved Elector
of Saxony, who became the stalwart supporter and close
friend of the man whom the centuries were to number
among the world's great leaders and reformers. His
life and work has a commanding place in the unfolding of
this story of the Protestant Reformation, but there had
been a long providential preparation before he came to
power and leadership.
Every great movement that changes the currents of
history has back of its era of triumphant victories a long
record of preparatory history. The centuries that inter
vened between the day of Pentecost and the time when

The Early Church. 3
Leo X. ascended the papal throne lead us on a long and
often sad and dreary journey. The Acts of the Apostles
cover a brief period that in its spiritual and ecclesiastical
life discloses the simplicity that marked the character
and work of the Divine Founder of Christianity. The
Apostolic age was followed by two centuries in which
dogmatic discussions rent the infant Church as it entered
upon days of bitter persecution in which were given to
a pagan world the witness, even unto death, of a martyr
host. It is in this period, as Dean Stanley tells us, that we
find the clue and answer to some of the great questions
of ecclesiastical history.1
"How was the transition effected from the age of the
Apostles to the age of the Fathers, from Christianity as
we see it in the New Testament to Christianity as we
see it in the next century, and as, to a certain extent, we
have seen it ever since?
"No other change equally momentous has ever since
affected its fortunes, yet none has ever been so silent and
secret. The stream in that most critical moment of its
passage from the everlasting hills to the plains below,
is lost to our view at the very point where we are most
anxious to watch it; we may hear its struggles under
the overarching rocks; we may catch its spray on the
boughs that overlap its course; but the torrent itself we
see not, or see only by imperfect glimpses. It is not so
much a period for ecclesiastical history as for ecclesias
tical controversy and conjecture. A fragment here, an
introductory lecture on "The History of the Eastern Church.''
I am confident my readers will thank me for quoting at length
this lucid and masterly statement.

4 The Reformation.
allegory there ; romances of unknown authorship ; a
handful of letters of which the genuineness of every por
tion is contested inch by inch ; the summary examination
of a Roman magistrate; the pleadings of two or three
Christian apologists ; customs and opinions in the very
act of change; last but not least, the faded paintings,
the broken sculptures, the rude epitaphs in the darkness
of the catacombs — these are the scanty, though attrac
tive, materials out of which the likeness of the early
Church must be reproduced, as it was working its way,
in the literal sense of the word, 'under ground,' under
camp and palace, under senate and forum — 'as unknown,
yet well known: as dying, and behold it lives.'
"This chasm once cleared, we find ourselves approach
ing the point where the story of the Church once more
becomes history — becomes once more the history, not of
an isolated community, or of isolated individuals, but of
an organized society incorporated with the political sys
tems of the world. Already, in the close of the Second
and the beginning of the Third Century, the Churches of
Africa, now seen for a few generations before their final
disappearance, exhibit distinct characters on the scene.
They are the stepping-stones by which we cross from the
obscure to the clear, from chaos to order. Of these the
Church of Carthage illustrates the rise of Christianity in
the West, the Church of Egypt that of Christianity in the
East. "Another and a wider sphere was in store for the prog
ress of the Church than in its own native regions ; another
and a nobler conquest than that of its old worn-out enemy
on the tottering throne of the Caesars. The Gothic tribes
descended on the ancient world : the fabric of civilized

The Church of the Middle Ages. 5
society was dissolved in the mighty crisis ; the fathers of
modern Europe were to be moulded, subdued, educated.
By whom was this great work effected ? Not by the Em
pire — it had fled to the Bosphorus; not by the Eastern
Church — its permanent conquests were in another direc
tion. In the Western, Latin, Roman clergy, in the mis
sionaries who went forth to Gaul, to Britain, and to Ger
many, the barbarians found their first masters; in the
work of controlling and resisting the fierce soldiers of the
Teutonic tribes lay the main work, the real foundation,
the chief temptation of the Papacy. From the day when
Leo III. placed the crown of the new Holy Roman Ger
man Empire on the head of Charlemagne, the stream of
human progress and the stream of Christian life, with
whatever interruptions, eddies, counter-currents, flowed
during the next seven centuries in the same channel. As
the history of the earlier stages revolved round the char
acters of the Fathers or of the Emperors, so the history
of the Middle Ages, with all their crimes and virtues,
revolved (it is at once the confession of their weakness
and their strength) round the character and the policy
of the Popes. What good they did, and what good they
failed to do, by what means they rose, and by what they
fell, during that long period of their power, form the
main questions by which their claims must be tested.
"And now a new revolution was at hand, almost as
terrible in its appearance and as trying in its results as
any that had gone before. The fountains of the great
deep were again broken up. New wants and old evils
had met together. The failures of the Crusades had
shaken men's belief in holy places. Long abuses had
shaken their belief in Popes, bishops, monasteries, sac-

6 The Reformation.
raments, and saints. The revival of ancient learning had
revealed truth under new forms. The invention of print
ing had raised up a new order pf scribes, expounders,
readers, writers, clergy. Institutions which had guided
the world for a thousand years, now decayed and out
of joint, gave way at the moment when they were most
needed. Was it possible that the Christian Church
should meet these trials as it had met those which had
gone before? It had lived through the fall of Jerusalem;
it had lived through the ten persecutions; it had lived
through its amalgamation with the Empire; it had lived
through the invasion of the barbarians ; but could it live
through the struggles of internal dissolution? Could it
live through the shipwreck of the whole outward fabric
of its existence? Could the planks of the vessel, scat
tered on the face of the raging flood, be so put together
again as to form any shelter from the storm, any home on
the waters? Did the history of the Church come to an
end, as many thought it would, when its ancient organ
ization came to an end, in the great change of the Refor
mation ?"
These questions find answer in the four hundred years
of Protestant Church history that have come and gone
since that October afternoon when Martin Luther, the
monk of Erfurt and teacher of theology, nailed his
theses regarding indulgences upon the church door at
Wittenberg. In the centuries that followed the decline and fall of
the Roman Empire we must not forget the forces repre
sented in the homes that in the daily struggle for bread
sheltered the untold millions of men, women, and youth
who dwelt in the cities and tilled the fields of sunny

The Middle Ages. 7
Italy. A life among the ruins of an imperial civilization
that tradition and surroundings still kept in mind. The
barbarous hordes that came out of the German forests
and that crossed the channel from Britain found their
conquering way to Rome along the magnificent highways
that the Empire, in the days when Christ was born in
Bethlehem of Judea, had built as a mighty network bind
ing its every part into a unity of imperial power.
In the order of Providence it was out of this rough
hewn material of German, Anglo-Saxon, and Gaulish
ancestry that Christianity was to build the fabric of civil
ization that arose in the Middle Ages. If one dwells
alone upon the corruption that gradually festered in the
papal court; if the strife for ecclesiastical and civil
power that brought the Church into conflict where Christ
and His Truth were wounded and trampled upon by the
ambition and selfish aims and purposes of godless popes
and emperors, overshadow every other form of life and
activity, we shall form a most erroneous conception of
the years that were indeed marked by such error in doc
trinal belief and such ignorance and superstitious fears
that they have been sometimes marked in the annals of
history as the dark ages. But the Light was by no means
entirely lost. What traveler from the New World, then
unknown to the dwellers of Europe, ever trod the aisles
of the great cathedrals erected in the Middle Age without
feeling that every spire and altar and window is a
silent witness to the faith that through Him, "who for us
men and our salvation came down from heaven," sus
tained and gave strength and peace to untold multitudes
in the centuries that preceded the Reformation?

8 The Reformation.
In the rise of the Roman Church, and the marvelous
grip it secured on civil as well as religious institutions,
great men at times occupied the papal throne; men and
women of rare devotion and spiritual character were to
be found in convent and monastery cells. In homes of
noble heritage as well as in lowly peasant huts there
were, in the passing generations, a great host of honest,
earnest, spiritually minded Christians. God alone knows
how many hearts, in these dark tempestuous days, uttered
their prayer of silent "protest" against the sensual life
of corrupt priests, and the selfish and wicked machina
tions of weak and ambitious prelates.
Sometimes these "protests" were not silent. Protest
antism had great forerunners before the miner's son of
Mansfield was born. Their heroic and witnessing lives
we do well to recall in the year that brings round in the
annals of time the four hundredth anniversary of the
day when the crowd about the church door at Witten
berg witnessed the historic act that set in motion the
forces that have made Protestant Christianity and
Church life what it is to-day.
Three hundred years before this event we discover
in the valley of the Rhone, and especially in some of
the Swiss valleys, the stirring of a revolt against the
teachings of Rome and a degenerate priesthood. It
was about 1170 that Peter Waldo, a wealthy mer
chant of Lyons, after passing through an experience of
great spiritual awakening, dedicated himself to vows of
poverty and efforts to reach the common people with re
ligious instruction. Having secured a translation of the
Gospels and other portions of Scripture, he went about
here and there, as a lay preacher. As disciples gathered

The Waldenses. :; 9
i,
under his leadership he sent them out after the manner
of the seventy, two by two, to carry the Gospel message
into the neighboring villages. They became known, as
the Poor Men of Lyons, and were largely recruited; from
the artisan class. They strove to imitate the mode of
life that existed in the early Church and followed the
example of their leader in distributing what they pos
sessed among their poorer brethren. They conveyed their
message even to the Papal court and Pope Alexander III.
"condescended to approve their poverty." Their appeal
for permission to preach was denied and they were con
demned for presuming to assume any religious functions.
Waldo met the interdict of the Archbishop of Lyons with
the assertion "that he must obey God rather than man."
Persecuted and condemned as heretics, the followers of
Waldo, known now as Waldenses, were outspoken in their
hostility to the Church. They repudiated its entire hier
archical and ritual system and contended for the most
simple and democratic ecclesiastical form of government.
Any layman of virtuous character they counted worthy
to administer religious rites. Repudiating the claim that
a wicked priest could still perform clerical duties, they
condemned the supremacy of popes and prelates in civil
affairs. Accepting Baptism and the Eucharist as the only
Sacraments, they repudiated prayers for the dead, festi
vals, lights, purgatory and indulgences. "The modesty,
frugality, honest industry, chastity, and temperance of the
Poor Men of Lyons was universally acknowledged." Fa
miliar with the Bible in their own language, their preach
ing made many converts in the city of Lyons and the
neighboring country.

10 The Reformation.
Driven from France, by relentless persecution, the
Waldenses fled to Aragon, Savoy, and Piedmont. They
were soon harried out of Spain but maintained them
selves in Languedoc till 1330. In 1545 the Parliament
at Aix took action that in the most cruel manner exter
minated them in Provence. Scattered in different prov
inces it was not until the war of the Cevennes that they
were finally driven out of France. Finding at last a safe
retreat in the secluded valleys of Piedmont they founded
a distinct Church that has remained till the present day.
They may well be termed the "Pilgrim Fathers" of the
Reformation.

CHAPTER II.
Franciscan and Dominican Orders. English Fore
runners of the Protestant Reforma
tion. John Wiclif.
The dawn of the Eleventh Century found Christendom
the scene of seething spiritual unrest and intellectual fer
ment. Two of the greatest leaders in the long history of
the Roman Church were born in the last decades of the
Tenth Century. St. Dominic in 1170, St. Francis in 1182.
Sacerdotal Christianity had developed an aristocracy of
power and caste that more and more separated even the
lowest ranks of the priesthood from the common people.
This priesthood, subservient in every thought to Rome,
was to a great extent exercised by men ignorant and
bigoted to the last degree. The office of teaching and
preaching had fallen into disuse and even disrepute. The
Ritual was repeated by lips that droned the service in a
mechanical and perfunctory way. "Everywhere the bell
summoned to the frequent service, the service was per
formed, and the obedient flock gathered to the chapel or
church, knelt, and either performed their orisons, or
heard the customary chant and prayer." Beyond this
there was given no word of helpful instruction. The
monasteries gave neither light nor spiritual guidance to
the people. In the loneliness and seclusion of their cells
their members were utterly isolated from the world.
The intellectual movement that in these days was
thronging the universities of Paris and Oxford with in
digent scholars, was stirring the life of the humble homes
from which they came. In early times when the Roman
11

12 The Reformation.
element predominated, the Latin service of the Church
was more or less intelligible to the congregation. But in
large sections of Europe Latin had ceased to be the
means of ordinary communication. The rude dialects of
the North were growing into the German and English
languages. In France and Spain and even Italy Latin
was displaced by vernacular speech that from the field
and market-place grew into the languages that were to
give to future generations the poetry of Dante, Chaucer,
and Milton. One cannot read the story of the life work
of Dominic the founder of the Friar Preachers and
of Francis of Assisi without feeling that they were
providential men. Under the enthusiastic guidance and
leadership of Dominic "Christendom was at once over
spread with a host of zealous, active, devoted men, whose
function was popular instruction. They were gathered
from every country, and spoke, therefore, every language
and dialect. In a few years from the sierras of Spain to
the steppes of Russia; from the Tiber to the Thames,
the Trent, the Baltic Sea, the old faith, in its fullest
medieval, imaginative, inflexible rigor, was preached in
almost every town and hamlet. The Dominicans did
not confine themselves to popular teaching; the more
dangerous, if as yet not absolutely disloyal seats of the
new learning, of inquiry, of intellectual movement, the
universities of Bologna, Paris, Oxford are invaded and
compelled to admit these stern apostles of unswerving
orthodoxy ; their zeal soon overlapped the pale of Chris
tendom ; they plunge fearlessly into the remote darkness
of heathen and Mohammedan lands, from whence come
back rumors, which are constantly stirring the minds of
their votaries, of wonderful conversions and not les?

Dominic and Francis of Assisi. 13
wonderful martyrdoms."1 Without doubt the influence of
these itinerant preachers was a mighty power in quicken
ing the spiritual life and understanding that prepared the
way for the providential mission of Wiclif, Huss, Eras
mus, and other forerunners of the Reformation. "Zeal,"
exclaimed Dominic, "must be met by zeal, lowliness by
lowliness, false sanctity by real sanctity, preaching lies by
preaching truth." Under this banner, with unfaltering
courage, Dominic led the great order, which he founded,
until his death, August 6, 1221.
Twelve years younger than the Spaniard Dominic,
Francis of Assisi became the founder of another great
order of Mendicant Friars. In youth a pleasure loving
soldier, it was during an illness in his twenty-fifth year
that the entire current and purpose of his life was
changed. He cast in his lot with the poorest class and
became an attendant in the hospital for lepers at Gubbio.
Turning a deaf ear to the entreaties of many friends, he
returned to Assisi and continued the most menial service
while he preached the doctrines of penitence and self-
sacrifice. Other young men joined him and the founda
tions were laid of the order of the Franciscans.
Little did these men realize that they were doing a
work that was finally perverted from its pristine spirit
by insidious evils that poisoned the life of monasteries
and nunneries to such an extent that the feeling was
aroused that became a vital factor in bringing about the
revolt from Rome, a revolt that unsealed the Bible and
made the silent protests of the Middle Ages, stones in the
foundations of that Protestant form of Christianity that
Oilman's History of Latin Christianity, Vol. V, p. 237.

14 The Reformation.
gave birth in the fullness of time to the principles of a
democracy, in Church and State, that has thus far at
tained fullest realization in the government and civil and
religious institutions of the United States of America.
Roman Catholicism, in its present form and age-long his
tory, stands for a monarchical conception of Christianity
that is utterly opposed to the democratic ideals and insti
tutions of Evangelical Christianity. Tolerance forbids
persecution. Heretics are no longer burned at the stake.
But honesty of faith, and courage and purpose to uphold
the principles and doctrines enunciated by Christ and illus
trated in the history of the early Church, forbids the pass
ing of Protestantism until the unity of a free democracy
has been achieved. Submission to any conditions other
than these is inconceivable.
We turn now to a story that has a peculiar interest,
especially to those who, by reason of ancestry, share in
the heritage of English history. The conversion of Brit
ain to Christianity dates back to the days when Gregory
the Great laid the foundations of medieval papacy. The
incident that called the attention of this remarkable eccle
siastical leader to the island that was the extreme western
outpost of the Roman Empire, is a familiar story. In the
early days of his priesthood, Gregory noted the fair
faces and golden hair of some lads who stood bound in
the market-place of Rome. Inquiring as to the country
from whence they came, he asked those in charge of
them what name, they bore. "They are English, Angles."
"Nay," said Gregory, "not Angles but Angels, with faces
so angel-like. From what land do they come?" "From
Deira," was the answer. "De ira !" said the young priest,
"aye, plucked from God's ire, and called to Christ's

The Friar Preachers. 15
mercy! What is the name of their King?" "Aella."
Again Gregory made a play upon this reply. "Alleluia
shall be sung in Aella's land," he exclaimed. When four
years later the marriage of Bertha, the daughter of the
Frankish king Charibert of Paris, to Aethelbert of Brit
ain, opened the door of opportunity, Gregory sfetlt Augus
tine, a Roman abbot, with a band of monks to preach the
gospel to the English people (597).
It is not our province to tell the story of the conversion
of Britain to the Christian faith. We return to the recep
tion which the followers of Dominic and Francis Of Assisi
received as, in their barefoot wanderings with coarse
frock of serge bound with a girdle of rope, they crossed
the channel and penetrated every part of England, giv
ing their message and help to the poor, preaching to the
artisans in the growing towns, and lecturing in the uni
versities. "We can hardly wonder," says the historian
Green, "at the burst of enthusiasm which welcomed the
itinerant preacher, whose fervid appeal, coarse wit, and
familiar story brought religion into the fair and the mar
ket-place." In these years (1221-1260) the followers of
Francis made their homes in the leper settlements that
had their origin in the wretched and unsanitary condi
tions that existed in sections of the towns and cities. In
London they built their rough huts in the midst of the
slaughter houses of Newgate. They illustrated in their
day the spirit of the Salvation Army of the Nineteenth
Century. History repeats itself. Success brought into the ranks
of the Friars, those who yielded to the desire for more
of the luxuries of the table ; for more congenial and ar
tistic surroundings ; and, above all, for books and appli-

16 The Reformation.
ances that would open to them the treasures of learning
that the universities were so widely distributing. From
the ranks of these Mendicant orders there came men who
were profound students of theology. They lectured to
eager listeners in the churches and taught philosophy in
the cloisters of the monasteries. Under the stimulus of
the followers of Francis, Oxford became a rival of Paris
and i the great schoolmen, Roger Bacon, Dun Scotus,
and Ockham, came to their appointed tasks. A fearless
spirit of inquiry guided the growing movement among the
masses of the English people in their coming struggle with
the Crown. "The position of the Friars," says Green,
"is clearly and strongly marked throughout this whole
contest. 'The University of Oxford, which had now
fallen' undeV the direction of their teaching, stood first in
its resistirice to papal exactions and its claim of English
liberty,, rfhe classes in the towns on whom the influence
of the Friars told most directly were the steady support
ers of.rfreedom throughout the Barons' War (1258-1265).
Adam March was the closest friend and confidant both
of Grosseteste and Earl Simon of Montfort."
Robert Grosseteste (1 175-1253), one of the greatest
scholars, if not the greatest, of his age, has been called
the "Harbinger of the Reformation." From the time he
was made bishop of Lincoln, in 1235, he labored inde
fatigably to secure the reform of the Roman Church.
The action of Innocent IV. in giving some of the richest
benefices in England to Italians, who drew their reve
nues but never entered the country, aroused his indig
nation. A visit to Rome strengthened his conviction of
the corruption of the papal court and at the council of
Lyons (1250) he preached a sermon in which he declared

John Wiclif. 17
that the Roman pontiff and his court "was the fountain
and origin of all the evils of the Church." "He was,"
says Matthew Paris, in his chronicles, "the open rebuker
of both the pope and the king, censor of prelates, cor
rector of monks, instructor of clerks, an unwearied ex
aminer of the books of Scripture, a crusher and despiser
of the Romans." We do not wonder that the request of
Edward I. that he be canonized was not favorably re
ceived at Rome.
We come now to the life work of one of the forerun
ners of the Reformation whose name looms higher with
the passing centuries. The early years of John Wiclif
are hidden in an obscurity that leaves in doubt the exact
time and place of his birth. We know that he sprang
from a lowly English home in Yorkshire that encour
aged him to join the company of indigent scholars that
were crowding the cloisters of Oxford and Cambridge.
The light of the "New Learning" had found its way as a
source of inspiration and quickening thought not only
into the monasteries and the stately halls of the nobility
of England, but into its villages and moorland cottages.
Evidently Wiclif must have been a scholar, in his stu
dent days, of rare promise. Before he entered upon the
career that brought him into wide public notice he had
gained a remarkable reputation at Oxford as a lecturer
in divinity. He had already disclosed that strength of
character, originality of intellect and undaunted courage
that characterized his entire career. While a master of
Latin he had launched his fiery invectives against the
idleness and profligacy of the clergy, in the English
tongue which he was to aid in after years, especially

18 The Reformation.
through his translation of the Bible, in making a more
effective vehicle for the use of the creative genius of
Chaucer, and in the years a little later on, of Shake
speare, Milton and John Bunyan.
In 1365 Wiclif was appointed Warden of Canterbury.
Other Church preferments came to him, but he loved Ox
ford and here in the discharge of his duties as professor
of divinity he spent most of his life.
"The burden of Wiclif's teaching was the exposure of
the indolent fictions which passed under the name of reli
gion in the established theory of the Church. He was a
man of most simple life; austere in appearance, with
bare feet and russet mantle. As a soldier of Christ, he
saw in his great Master and His Apostles the patterns
whom he was bound to imitate. By the contagion of ex
ample he gathered about him other men who thought as
he did; and gradually, under his captaincy, these 'poor
priests,' as they were called — vowed to poverty, because
Christ was poor — vowed to accept no benefice, lest they
should misspend the property of the poor, and because, as
apostles, they were bound to go where their Master called
them, spread out over the country as an army of mis
sionaries, to preach the faith which they found in the
Bible — to preach, not of relics and of indulgences, but of
repentance and of the grace of God. They carried with
them copies of the Bible which Wiclif had translated,
leaving here and there, as they traveled, their costly treas
ures, as shining seed-points of light ; and they refused to
recognize the authority of the bishops, or their right to
silence them."1
^Eroude's History of Henry VIII., Vol. I, p. 304,

John Wiclif. 19
"The spare, emaciated frame of Wiclif," says Green,1
"weakened by study and asceticism, hardly promised a
reformer who could carry on the stormy work of Ock-
ham f but within this frail form lay a temper quick and
restless, an immense energy, an immovable conviction,
an unconquerable pride. The personal charm which ever
accompanies real greatness only deepened the influence
he derived from the spotless purity of his life. As yet
indeed Wiclif himself can hardly have suspected the im
mense range of his intellectual power. It was only the
struggle that lay before him which prepared the dry and
subtle schoolman to be the founder of our later English
prose, a master of popular invective, of irony, of per
suasion, a dexterous politician, an audacious partisan, the
organizer of a religious order, the unsparing assailant of
abuses, the boldest and most indefatigable of controver
sialists, the first reformer who dared, when deserted and
alone, to question and deny the creed of the Christendom
around him, to break through the tradition of the past,
and with his last breath to assert the freedom of reli
gious thought against the dogmas of the papacy."
The colors with which these great modern historians
have painted this composite picture of Wiclif are abun-
iHistory of the English People, Vol. I, p. 295.
2William of Ockham, born at Ockham Surrey about 1270; died
at Munich, April 7, 1347. A graduate of Oxford he joined the
Franciscan order and studied under Dun Scotus in France. His
fame as a schoolman was second only to his great teacher. He
became a vigorous opponent of Pope John XXII., and was im
prisoned at Avignon because of his condemnation of the seizure
of ecclesiastical property. Making his escape from prison he
found his way to Munich, where he spent the rest of his life in
controversies that hastened the Reformation.

20 The Reformation.
dantly furnished in the contemporary testimony of the
times in which he lived. It was an opportune moment
for the work providentially placed in his hands. The
"great schism," that found rival popes fulminating their
angry excommunications from Avignon as well as Rome,
struck a blow at the ecclesiastical empire, reared in the
Middle Ages upon the ruins of ancient Rome, from
which it has never recovered. Even men of little educa
tion, trained from earliest childhood to bow with utter
self-abnegation and obedience to papal edicts and the
imperial power that enforced them, saw the weakness of
the claim that set up these proud, selfish, and often
unspeakably wicked ecclesiastical leaders, as the Vice
gerents of Almighty God. Then, as to-day, the walls of
the Palace of the Popes at Avignon, echoed the mockery
of such blasphemous assertions. Even Roman Catholic
historians, who plead eloquently for the faith and leader
ship of their Church, are compelled to acknowledge the
shame of this rivalry that for a time placed two popes
upon a throne of authority. With a near-sightedness that
reveals a lack of even common wisdom and discretion
those who controlled the papal court at Rome, in their
selfish greed, seized upon ecclesiastical property and pat
ronage in England and used these resources in meeting
the expenses of luxurious living under the shadow of St.
Peter's church. Some of the richest benefices in England
were held by Italian incumbents who never crossed the
channel or gave an hour of service to the people whom
they impoverished by their selfish demands. It was as
serted in the "Good Parliament" (1376) that "the taxes
levied by the pope amounted to five times the amount of
those levied by the king." "The brokers of the sinful

William of Wykeham. 21
city of Rome," wrote Wiclif, "promoted for money un
learned and unworthy caitiffs to benefices of the value
of a thousand marks, while the poor and learned hardly
obtained one of twenty. So decays sound learning. They
present aliens who neither need nor care to see their pa
rishioners, despise God's services, convey away the treas
ure of the realm, and are worse than Jews or Saracens.
The pope's revenue from England alone is larger than
that of any prince in Christendom. God gave His sheep
to be pastured, not to be shaven and shorn."
Wiclif in these tempestuous times suffered without
cause from the political ambitions cf John of Gaunt and
other leaders, but he held steadily to his course with un
daunted courage. Then came the persecution of Wil
liam of Wykeham, and action was taken against Wiclif.
Wykeham while pouring out the resources of his vast
riches in endowing great seats of learning, still contended
for the hierarchical power of the Church, but Wiclif
boldly declared that it was the function of the nation to
decide as to the first and paramount claim to all moneys
raised within the realm. "The religious annals of Eng
land," says Milman, "may well be proud of both these
men." The Bull dispatched from Avignon by Gregory XI.
commanding the University of Oxford to prohibit the
teachings of Wiclif met with a response that showed that
their sympathies were with their lion-hearted associate.
Cited to appear at the Church of St. Paul, Wiclif chose
to go to Lambeth. The populace arrayed themselves on
the side of the reformer. Crowding into the chapel, their
fierce exhibition of anger and resentment alarmed the
assembled bishops. The arrival of a messenger from the

22 The Reformation.
Princess of Wales put an end to the proceedings. "They
were," says the Roman Catholic historian, Walsingham,
"as reeds shaken by the wind, became soft as oil in their
speech, to the discredit of their own dignity, and the
degradation of the Church. Panic-stricken they were as
men that hear not, as those in whose mouth is no re
proof." Wiclif had struck his blows at the corrupt prac
tices of the highest and wealthiest dignitaries of the
Church. His voice was that of a leader of the new de
mocracy that in time was to revolutionize the life of Eng
land and crossing the then unknown Atlantic was to lay
the foundations of the great Republic with its dominat
ing Protestant life and institutions. Under the guidance
of Wiclif a new order came into existence "which vied
with and supplanted the Mendicant Orders in popularity.
How they were maintained appears not; probably they
were content with hospitable entertainment, with food
and lodging. Such was the distinction drawn by Wiclif be
tween our Lord and His Apostles and the sturdy beggars
whom He anathematized, and whose mode of exaction is
so humorously described by Chaucer. There is always
a depth of latent religiousness in the heart of the com
mon people, and these men spoke with simplicity and
earnestness the plainer truths of the Gospel in the ver
nacular tongue. The novelty, and no doubt, the bold at
tacks on the clergy, as well as the awfulness of the truths
now first presented in their naked form of words, shook,
thrilled, inthralled the souls of men, most of whom were
entirely without instruction, the best content with the
symbolic teaching of the ritual."1
Oilman's History of Latin Christianity, Vol. VII, p. 383.

Wiclif's Translation of the Bible. 23
In the earlier part of his career as a reformer Wiclif
confined his protests against the ecclesiastical corruption
and misused power of Rome. The time came when he
brought to bear his strong intellectual powers and knowl
edge of the New Testament in an examination, exegeti-
cal, and historical, that resulted in his discrediting and
finally repudiating the doctrine of Transubstantiation as
then held by the Church. Upon the Sacrament of the
Mass as it had, in the course of centuries, evolved from
the Supper instituted by our Lord and observed with
reverent simplicity by the early Church in the Middle
Ages, Rome built the mighty structure of her hierarchical
power and supremacy. "It was by his exclusive right to
the performance of the miracle which was wrought in the
mass that the lowliest priest was raised high above
princes." In his denial of the doctrine of Transubstan
tiation Wiclif "in the spring of 1381 began that great
movement of revolt which ended, more than a century
after, in the establishment of religious freedom, by sever
ing the mass of the Teutonic peoples from the general
body of the Catholic Church." (Green.)
It was in these years when Wiclif took his stand
against the corrupt practices and doctrinal errors of the
Roman See that he completed his monumental English
version of the Scriptures. From this time on the chained
Bible became an open Bible. "It quitted the learned
schools, the dead languages, the dusty shelves on which
the clergy suffered it to sleep, covered with a confusion
of commentators and Fathers." The invention of the
printing press was soon to place the English Bible in the
hands of the people. "Fancy," says Taine in his History
of English Literature, "these brave spirits, simple and

24 The Reformation.
strong souls, who began to read at night in their shops
by candle light ; for they were shopkeepers — tailors and
bakers — who, with some men of letters, began to read,
and then to believe, and finally got themselves burned.
What a sight for the Fifteenth Century, and what a prom
ise! It seems as though with liberty of action liberty of
mind begins to appear ; that these common folk will
think and speak; that under the conventional literature,
imitated from France, a new literature is dawning; and
that England, genuine England, half mute since the Con
quest, will at last find a voice."
John Wiclif in addition to his apostolic labors as a re
former holds a unique place in the history of English
literature. He was one of the master builders of the
language that within two centuries after his death blos
somed forth and bore the fruit of the genius of Shake
speare, Milton, and Hooker.
"If Chaucer," says Green, "is the father of our later
English poetry, Wiclif is the father of our later English
prose. The rough, clear, homely English of his tracts,
the speech of the plowman and the trader of the day,
though colored with the picturesque phraseology of the
Bible, is in its literary use as distinctly a creation of his
own as the style in which he embodied it, the terse vehe
ment sentences, the stinging sarcasms, the hard antitheses,
which roused the dullest mind like a whip."
In the midst of popular uprisings and conflicts among
ambitious leaders, that were the premonition of volcanic
forces that were soon to tear asunder the old foundations,
Wiclif labored with indefatigable zeal. In addition to
his labors in translating the Bible, tracts without number,
controversial and expository, came from his prolific pen.

Wiclif's Translation of the Bible. 25
Fearless in the midst of threatening dangers, he sought
no place of higher honor than that of the humble parish
priest of Lutterworth. Through his devoted followers,
the "poor priests," his teachings leavened England with
"Christ's Law." He enjoyed no service more than the
opportunity of preaching his "plain, bold, vernacular,"
sermons in the parish church at Lutterworth and the
neighboring villages. After his condemnation at Oxford
he retired to his parochial labors, where he continued
until his sudden death two years later (1384).
John Wiclif was the greatest among the forerunners of
the Reformation. In spite of persecution, the movement
he had set in motion did not cease to "work underground,"
until it burst forth in the great upheaval of the Sixteenth
Century. The quaint prophecy made, when in 1428 his
ashes were cast by malicious hands upon the waters of the
Avon, came true.
"The Avon to the Severn runs,
The Severn to the sea,
And Wiclif's dust shall spread abroad
Wide as the waters be."
The books that Wiclif in his Oxford study wrote in
Latin were copied and read all over Europe. "They were
as well known in Bohemia as they were in England."
Their seed truths fell into good ground. Bohemia be
came a veritable hot bed of heretical doctrines. Rome
recognized that she was facing a struggle with forces
that imperiled her very life. The history of the years
from the death of Wiclif until the holding of the Council
of Constance in 141 5 is one whose tangled threads of

26 The Reformation.
action are too numerous for mention in a condensed nar
rative. Numberless streams of influence united in the
forces, social, civil, and ecclesiastical, that founded the
nations of modern Europe; changed the history of
Christendom; and opened a new era of life and civil
ization.

CHAPTER III.
John Huss. The Moravian Brethren.
It was a motley company that filled the streets and
crowded the sidewalks of the picturesque and secluded
German city of Constance in early June, 1414. From
every part of Europe representatives were gathering to at
tend the Council towards which the thought of men, in
every country obedient to the Roman See, turned with
eager interest. From the day this great Universal Coun
cil opened its sessions, "and for several months after, the
converging roads that led to this central city were crowd
ed with all ranks and orders, ecclesiastical and laymen,
Sovereign Princes, and Ambassadors and Bishops, the
heads or representatives of the great Monastic Orders,
theologians, Doctors of Civil Law, delegates from re
nowned universities, some with splendid and numerous
retainers, some like trains of pilgrims, some singly and
on foot. With these, merchants, traders of every kind
and degree, and every sort of wild and strange vehicle."1
Among the lookers on, as this procession, exhibiting every
phase of medieval life, surges towards the doors of the
great Cathedral church of Constance we must not forget
the men who were slowly emerging out of the bondage
of feudal institutions and traditions. They represented
the lowly, forgotten hewers of wood and drawers of
water who were the vanguard of the armies that were to
win in the centuries near at hand, the victories of de
mocracy against hierarchical and monarchical power. Al-
1Milman's History of Latin Christianity, Vol. VII, p. 429.
27

28 The Reformation.
ready shackles were being riven that were worn with
the rust of the Middle Ages, and weakened by struggles
that like intermittent volcanic eruptions, again and again
disclosed hidden fires beneath a seemingly firm and un
changing landscape.
In this historic Council of Constance two figures stand
out most prominent. The one occupying the most ex
alted station in ecclesiastical and imperial power, the
other a Bohemian teacher on his way to a martyrdom
that has placed his name among the forerunners and
pioneers of the Protestant Reformation. Pope John
XXII. represented the strength and weakness of the Ro
man Church. Like so many of his predecessors his pri
vate life was rotten to the core. Enmeshed in ecclesias
tical intrigues that threatened his downfall, he had as
serted his plenary power and jurisdiction in the Edict that
called together the council at Constance, ostensibly for
"the healing of divisions and averting the dangers of
Christendom." The schism wrought by the rival popes
and courts at Avignon and Rome gave opportunity for
selfish human ambitions to have full play to the scandal
of all Christendom. Constance was the scene of Pope
John's humiliation and exit from the stage of history fur
ther than his early dissolute life casts shame upon the
hierarchical and infallible claims of the Roman See. Con
stance had power to condemn the gentle spirited Bohe
mian teacher and friend of Jerome of Prague, but the
flames that extinguished the earthly life of John Huss
helped to kindle a conflagration that burned up the dross
and stubble of a decaying civilization and again made
Christianity the hope and promise of a democracy that in
victories already won gives assurance that the Twentieth

John Huss. 29
Century of the Christian era will witness victories that
will transfer to the people of every land their rightful
leadership under the one Lord and Master whose right
it is to hold the Supreme place in the kingdom of which
He is the Divine Ruler and Upholder. Whatever changes
may come in the ecclesiastical and governmental direc
tion of the Church of which Christ is the head one fact
emerges more and more clearly even in the midst of
the titanic struggle of the hours in which these lines
are written. Democracy is to be the source of its life
and power as against all human hierarchical claims
and pretensions. In this century-old conflict the life of
John Huss of Bohemia and John Wiclif of England,
whose teachings inspired and guided him, will always be
an oasis of promise in the history of the great movement
to the advancement of which they gave their noble and
devoted service. "John Huss," says Lechler,1 "was not
an original creative mind. As a thinker he had neither
speculative talent or constructive faculty. In comparison
with Wiclif he is a moon with borrowed light. Nor was
he by nature a strong character, twice hardened, and
keen as steel. Rather was he a feeble and tender spirit,
more sensitive than designed for heroic deed. But with
his tenderness there was combined moral tenacity, indom
itable constancy, and inflexible firmness. If we add to
these characteristics his purity and humility, his manly
fear of God and tender conscientiousness, we have in
Huss a man to love and admire. Seldom have the power
of conscience and the imperial strength of a faith rooted
in Christ asserted themselves in so commanding and he
roic a manner."
1 Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia.

30 The Reformation.
Huss obeyed the command to appear at Constance,
under the protection of a safe conduct from the Emperor
Sigismund. This royal pledge of safety was violated.
Thrown into a prison where his friend Jerome of Prague
was soon incarcerated, Huss was heavily ironed and
chained to a beam. On the 7th of June, 141 5, — within
two years of a century before Luther posted his theses
on the church door at Wittenberg — Huss was brought be
fore the Council of Constance. He calmly accepted the
verdict of death rather than recant. On the 6th of July,
his forty-second birthday, he was burned at the stake and
his ashes cast into the Rhine. Following his death a
civil war broke out in Bohemia in which the contending
forces were the followers of Huss and the Emperor Sigis
mund, who had violated the safe conduct he had given
the courageous accuser of the corruptions of Rome. This
war, known as the Hussite War, did not cease until 1427.
These valiant followers of Huss, under the name of Bo
hemian Brethren, existed in the time of Luther, and laid
the foundations of the Moravian Church. Not to the Lu
theran or Reformed Churches, in the fellowship of the
Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America,
must be accorded the high distinction of having first led
in the revolt from Rome. This honor belongs to the Mo
ravian Church. The history in brief is this. In the con
tentions that followed the death of Huss, Peter of Chelcic
in Bohemia, became a leader of a group who took a very
radical stand on social questions and often quoted Wiclif
as their authority in doctrinal questions. Later on they
assumed the name of Communion of Brethren, which is
the more correct translation of the later term of Unitas
fratrium.

Moravian Brethren. 31
"At the synod of Reichenau (1495) they rejected the
authority of Peter of Chelcic, and accepted the Bible as
their only standard of faith and practice. They taught
the Apostles' Creed, rejected purgatory, the worship of
saints and the authority of the Roman Church, practiced
infant baptism and confirmation, held a view of the Sacra
ment similar to that of Zwingli, and, differing somewhat
from Luther in their doctrine of justification by faith, de
clared that true faith was 'to know God, to love Him, to
do His commandments, and to submit to His will.' With
the Brethren, however, the chief stress was laid not on
doctrine but conduct."1
The growth of the Brethren from the opening of the
Sixteenth Century was rapid. "In 1501 Bishop Luke of
Prague edited the first Protestant hymn book; in 1502 he
issued a catechism, which circulated in Switzerland and
Germany and fired the catechetical zeal of Luther; in
1565 John Blahoslaw translated the New Testament into
Bohemian; in 1579- 1593 the Old Testament was added;
and the whole, known as the Kralitz Bible, is used in Bo
hemia still.
At the very beginning of the Thirty Years' War the Bo
hemian Protestants met an overwhelming defeat at the
battle of the White Hill (1620). Some fled to England
and Saxony and a few found homes in America. The
"Hidden Seed" soon revived the spirit and work of the
Moravian Brethren who found their home in Germany.
Under the leadership of Christian David they crossed over
the border into Saxony and settled down near the estate
of Count Zinzendorf and under his patronage built the
xRev. J. E. Hutton, author of History of the Moravian Church,

32 The Reformation.
town of Hunhurt (1722-1727). The Protestant world
reverently recognizes that one of the numerically small
est communions in its fellowship in its work as the
Disopora ( 1 Peter 1:1) has been a mighty leavening
power in the life of all the Evangelical Churches. John
Wesley, the great founder of Methodism, never ceased to
bear witness to the spiritual quickening that from the
teaching and guidance of a Moravian brother (Peter
Boehler) sent him forth to his marvelous life work. To
the Moravians also, lineal descendants of John Huss, is
accorded the honor, in the annals of foreign missions, of
having first among Protestants proclaimed that it was the
duty of the Church in its corporate life and service to
carry the message of the Gospel to heathen lands.

CHAPTER IV.
Social and Political Conditions at the Dawn of the
Sixteenth Century.
While it is impossible in a brief narrative to unravel
all the tangled threads of medieval history, careful atten
tion must be given to dominant influences that are a part
of the warp and woof of the story of the struggles that
gave rise to the nations of Modern Europe; developed
its commerce and wealth ; reared its cities ; brought about
the Protestant Revolution; and ushered in the era of a
new democracy and civilization founded upon New Tes
tament ideals and principles. The Reformation was by
no means solely a religious revolution. Modern histo
rians have indeed gone so far as to assert that "the mo
tives both remote and proximate which led to the Lu
theran revolt were largely secular rather than spiritual."1
This appears to us an exaggerated overstatement, but it
must be conceded that the overthrow of discredited
dogma was used to secure relief from the intolerable
abuses of ecclesiastical power and supremacy. "German
complaints of papal tyranny go back to Hildegard of
Bingen and others who antedated Luther by more than
three centuries."
From the hour Constantine espoused the Christian
faith the Church was granted privileges and prerogatives
that under the leadership of Rome developed the ecclesi
astical system that found its imperial realization in the
spiritual authority of the Papal See that arrogated con-
iH. C. Lea. 33
3

34 The Reformation.
trolling influence over the secular power of the Holy Ro
man Empire. This assumption and exercise, both of spir
itual and political authority, was the source of friction
between Church and State that increased with the passing
centuries. The encroachments and corruptions that arose
out of the ecclesiastical system represented in the Roman
Church will find constant illustration in our narrative.
Other influences that paved the way for the Reformation
it will be helpful to dwell upon briefly.
In medieval days the learned men of Europe employed
Latin in their conversation, correspondence, and reading.
Some of them did not know the common language of the
country in which they lived. Latin was the language of
Rome. Its use created an aristocracy of letters that in
every way was separated from the masses of the people.
The members of this aristocracy were looked upon as a
part of the clergy and the Popes claimed them as their
subjects. "For centuries in England a man convicted of
a crime, by pleading that he could read and write, could
claim benefit of the clergy," a privilege that exempted him
from the punishments of the criminal law of the land.
Under the scholastic system knowledge was founded on
theology. The chief text book of the schoolmen was a
theological folio of over one thousand pages. Matters of
science were settled by Scripture texts and any freedom
of inquiry was frowned upon. Galileo was one of the
later victims of this system. Scattered over Europe there
were between thirty and forty universities, some of
which, at the beginning of the Protestant era, had been
founded for two centuries. We have already noted that
Wiclif, in the Fourteenth Century, was one of the fore
runners among university teachers who protested against

The Feudal System. 35 [
a system "that made both science and religion the prop
erty of a clerical class" and because of the exclusive use
of the Latin language closed the door of knowledge to the
common people. The progress of discussion and reform
that broke down the scholastic system, and through the
invention of printing and the revival of learning, opened
the Bible and the treasures of ancient literature to intelli
gent men and women of every class, was an immense fac
tor of influence in preparing the way for the Reforma
tion. The causes that destroyed the feudjl_§y^.tem and de
veloped the national life of modern Europe was a source
of radical changes in the whole structure of society. This
system of vassalage had divided some countries into lit
tle principalities. These petty lordships were jealous of
control from powers above them. In their struggles to
retain their position many of the feudal lords came under
the control of stronger chieftains. Inheritance descend
ing to the eldest son and the intermarriage of some of
the greatest families developed the royal house of France.
In Germany, where all the male heirs shared in the divi
sion of property, there was still an ever-increasing num
ber of petty lordships. And the feudal system, as we
shall see, was, in Germany, a source of weakness in con
nection with the work and progress of the Reformation.
But in a general way the nations of Europe were passing
out of the period of subjection to a feudal nobility and
coming under the supremacy of their crowned kings.
Covmss££^n^J^MBSJ123^^1'^de of J2TnS- The
trade and manufacturing interests of tneselowris made a
market for the peasants. Under the feudal system these
towns were mostly subject to feudal lords, but as their

36 The Reformation.
wealth increased they rebelled against this bondage and
in many cases they secured charters that made them free
republics. In the cooperative plans that banded the mem
bers of the same trades in guilds we notice a phase of the
growing spirit of domocracy that was fostered through
commerce. Not only did the towns seek to control their
local affairs but they banded together in opposition to the
feudal system, and gave their aid in advancing the claims
and ascendancy of the Crown. In their efforts to weaken
the hold of the feudal lords the towns in many ways aided
the peasantry to break the shackles of feudal bondage, a
bondage that was made unbearable by the exactions of the
Church. Commerce introduced money rents and wages
and many of the peasants found employment in the
towns. In France and England especially their condition
was much improved.
The commerce of the Mediterranean Sea conveyed the
products of the East from the Levant to the ports of
Italy. Silk was manufactured in Italy, Spain, and
France. The manufacture of woolen goods was a north
ern industry. England was the great wool growing coun
try. It kept busy the looms of its eastern counties and
Flanders. The rule of the Roman Church regarding Lent
and Friday made a market in every part of Europe for
the fish caught in vast quantities in the North Sea.
Antwerp became the chief mart of a commerce that en
riched the Netherlands and built up towns on the Rhine
and Danube. With wealth came the stirrings of inde
pendent thought ; an enlarged intellectual outlook ; the
advancement of the arts of painting and architecture ; an
uplift of the masses out of a condition of ignorance and
servitude ; the ri^e_oJ[ jLgrea^and_infJjential middle class ;

The Crusades. 37
a class from which were to come the leaders of national
and religious reform.
In this stirring of a new life the Crusades of the
Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries played an important
part. We must not forget that the primary force that
set in motion the armies that under the standard of the
Cross had for their purpose the deliverance of the Holy
Land from the Mohammedans, was the Church. An Ox
ford scholar in summing up the historic record of this
movement says : "The Crusades remain a wonderful and
perpetually astonishing act in the great drama of human
life. They touched the summits of daring and devotion,
if they also sank into the deep abysms of shame. Motives
of self-interest may have lurked in them — other worldly
motives of buying salvation for a little price, or worldly
motives of achieving riches and acquiring lands. Yet it
would be treason to the majesty of man's incessant strug
gle towards an ideal good, if one were to deny that in
and through the Crusades men strove for righteousness'
sake to extend the Kingdom of God upon earth. There
fore the tears and the blood shed were not unavailing;
the heroism and the chivalry were not wasted. Humanity
is the richer for the memory of these millions of men,
who followed the pillar of cloud and fire in the sure and
certain hope of an eternal reward. The ages were not
dark in which Christianity could gather itself together in
a common cause, and carry the flags of its faith to the
grave of the Redeemer; nor can we but give thanks for
their memory, even if for us religion is of the spirit, and
Jerusalem in the heart of every man who believes in
Christ."

38 The Reformation.
As regards political conditions at the dawn of the Six
teenth Century, we find that the medieval Church was
their controlling source. This fact was a primary factor
in bringing about the Reformation. Luther in his first
appeal to the German people in his Address to the Ger
man Nobility, makes very little reference to religious con
ditions. "He deals almost exclusively with the social,
financial, educational, industrial, and general moral prob
lems of the day." The State and the Church were largely
one. The medieval Church controlled "laws, lawgivers,
law courts and lawyers. It used physical force to compel
men to obey the laws. It kept prisons. It pronounced
sentence of death. It was not a voluntary society. If
people were not born into it, they were baptized into it
without assent on their part. If they attempted to leave
it they were treated as if criminally guilty and liable to be
burned." We have already noted that the beginnings of
the revolt against Rome may be traced back centuries be
fore the birth of Luther. It is significant to recall that
the day Luther invited the students at Wittenberg to wit
ness the burning of the "godless book of the papal de
crees" (December 10, 1520), he at the same time com
mitted to the flames the whole body of the canon law.
While the feudal system continued in its full power we
must concede that the Roman Church did much to re
strain turbulant and ignorant princes and protect the
weak, but "so soon as the modern national state began
to gain strength, the issue between secular rulers and the
bishops of Rome took a new form. The clergy naturally
stoutly defended the powers which they had long enjoyed
and believed to be rightly theirs. On the other hand, the
State which could count upon the support of an ever-

Church and State. 39
increasing number of prosperous and loyal subjects,
sought to protect its own interests and showed itself less
and less inclined to tolerate the extreme claims of the
pope. Moreover, owing to the spread of education, the
king was no longer obliged to rely mainly upon the as
sistance of the clergy in conducting his government."1
The era of the Protestant Reformation was one in
which political forces evolved the life of the modern na
tions of Europe. Martin Luther, and Lutheranism as a
Church organization, were but prominent factors in the
drama of the Sixteenth Century in which Protestantism
was the leader of a Reformed Church and the foundation
builder of a new domocracy that gave the State its right
ful place and authority.
1Professor J. H. Robinson, The Encyclopedia Brittanica, Vol.
XXIII, p. 6.

CHAPTER V.
The Oxford Reformers, — Colet, Erasmus, More.
Our story again takes us back to England, the "Old
Home," from which American Christianity has so largely
drawn its life. For a brief space we recall some of the
influences, aside from ecclesiastical conditions, that pre
pared Colet, Erasmus and other Oxford scholars for their
providential work in the revolution that opened the era
of the Protestant Reformation. Among the most potent
of these influences was the revival of learning that found
its centre in the city of Florence. The capture of Con
stantinople by the Turks compelled the Greek scholars
within its walls to seek a new home. It was not strange
that many of them turned their steps towards the pros
perous and public spirited city on the Arno. The mag
nificent dome of the cathedral, that the genius of Bru-
nelleschi had conceived and recently erected, overlooked
one of the fairest scenes in all Europe. As wealth made
its citizens opulent they became the patrons of art and
the custodians of the newly opened treasures of ancient
Greek and Roman literature ; treasures that had been lost
beneath the accumulated debris of the labors of the
schoolmen of the Middle Ages, and the intellectual stag
nation of the ritualistic routine of the monasteries. The
coming of the exiled Greek scholars to Florence was at
the opening of an era of world expansion that was to turn
the currents of European life from its old channels. Co
lumbus had discovered a New World. Sebastian Cabot
had raised the standard of England upon the shores of
40

Florence the Centre of the New Learning. 41
what is now the Atlantic seaboard of North America.
A discovery momentous in its bearing upon the history
of Evangelical Christianity. Portuguese sailors had
rounded the Cape of Good Hope and found their adven
turous way to India. The Mediterranean was alive with
a commerce that was pouring wealth into the coffers of
the merchants of Venice and Florence and making these
cities the repositories of precious manuscripts that pre
served the wonderful masterpieces of Greek and Roman
letters produced in the days of the Csesars and the spring
time of Grecian history.
The hour had come when the fruits of the genius of
earlier days and, above all, the revealed message of the
Scriptures, was to become the possession not only of a
few scholars, but of the common people. The invention
of printing was the opening of a window through which
the light of Divine Truth streamed alike into palaces, mon
asteries, and peasant homes, giving the message of the
Bible to men struggling to free themselves from the bond
age of feudalistic institutions. Florence, as the centre of
the New Learning, attracted the attention of the scholars
that thronged the universities that now existed in Spain,
France, Italy, Germany, and England. The "Modern
Athens" filled with the spirit of a revived interest in the
works of the old Greek and Latin writers, became the
home of men who found in Plato the highest ideals of
philosophy. Disgusted with the corruption that marked
the lives of the ecclesiastical leaders and the monks and
priests of the Roman Church, they discarded Christianity
and sought to enthrone pagan literature and pagan skep
ticism in the life of the people.

42 The Reformation.
The times demanded a providential leader. Suddenly
he stands before us as his burning message falls upon the
startled multitude that crowds the great cathedral at
Florence. Savonarola came to his mission, as did Paul
and Wiclif and Luther, with a providential preparation.
Born in a home where every educational advantage was
given to him, he, like Luther, against his father's wish,
turned from the profession of a learned doctor to seek
the quiet and seclusion of a monastery cell. As he studied
the Bible and tested the life about him, in Church and
State, by its precepts, his soul caught fire. As early as
i486 he preached sermons that flayed the Papal Court
as the source of evils that had poisoned the entire life
of the Church. The flame of his hot indignation con
sumed his energies until the hour in 1498, when, by the
mandate of a pope guilty "of murder and unheard-of
crimes," his worn, emaciated body was burned within a
few steps of the cathedral where untold thousands had
listened to messages the echoes of which have come down
through the passing centuries. The history of modern
Italy may be traced back to the springs of living waters
that were opened up in Florence and the surrounding
country by Savonarola, the great Florentine reformer.
It was especially in England that the revival of learning
gave a tremendous impetus to a spirit of religious reform
that in time made it a land where Protestant ideals were
triumphant. Among the Oxford students who bent their
steps, at the earliest opportunity, towards Florence, were
John Colet, Desiderius Erasmus, and Thomas More. All
of these great men lived and died in the communion of
the Roman Church, only one of them met a martyr's
death, and in his case political rather than ecclesiastical

John Colet. 43
offenses brought the head of Thomas More under the
ax of the executioner.
John Colet, in many respects, was a remarkable man.
The son of a lord mayor of London at an early age he
decided to become a priest in the Church. In Florence
he studied both Plato and the Bible and returned to Ox
ford an enthusiastic follower of the Florentine reformers
and filled with zeal for the new learning.
As a lecturer at the university on St. Paul's Epistles,
he sought to bring the students who thronged about him
to the fountain head of the waters of Life. It was indeed
a new revelation. From time immemorial monks and
priests had been utterly ignorant of the New Testament,
except as portions of it were incorporated in the ritual
that they perfunctorily recited with superstitious drone.
Colet, by his scholarly lectures, completely revolutionized
the theological thought of Oxford. The works of the
schoolmen were dethroned from the place of supreme au
thority they had held so long and Christian thought
wrought mighty spiritual changes in the hearts of young
men who were to aid in laying the foundations of Protest
antism in Great Britain.
While pursuing his studies in Italy, Colet, like Luther
a little later, had his eyes opened to the corruptions of the
Papal Court that had infected every rank of the priest
hood and society. With no uncertain voice he condemned
the evils of his times. "Whereas," he exclaims, "if the
clergy lived in the love of God and their neighbors, how
soon would their true piety, religion, charity, goodness
towards men, simplicity, patience, tolerance of evil, con
quer evil with good ! How would it stir up the minds of
men everywhere to think well of the Church of Christ."

44 The Reformation.
In a spirit of mingled "grief and tears," he condemned
the popes, whose lives had brought such shame and scan
dal upon Christendom, as "wickedly distilling poison, to
the destruction of the Church." In an outburst of vehe
ment denunciation of the evils that were sapping the life
of society he cries out, "Oh, Jesus Christ, wash for us
not 'our feet only, but also our hands and our head' !
Otherwise our disordered Church cannot be far from
death." "The great fabric of belief built up by the medieval
doctors," says Green,1 "appeared to Colet, as simply 'the
corruptions of the schoolmen.' In the life and sayings
of its founder he found a simple and rational Christianity,
whose fittest expression was the Apostles' Creed. 'About
the rest,' he said with characteristic impatience, 'let di
vines dispute as they will.' Of his attitude towards
the coarser aspects of the current religion his behavior at
a later time before the famous shrine of St. Thomas at
Canterbury gives us a rough indication. As the blaze of
its jewels, its costly sculptures, its elaborate metal work,
burnt on Colet's view, he suggested with bitter irony that
a saint so lavish to the poor in his lifetime would certainly
prefer that they should possess the wealth heaped round
him since his death. With petulant disgust he rejected
the rags of the martyr which were offered for his adora
tion, and the shoe which was offered for his kiss. The
earnestness, the religious zeal, the very impatience and
want of sympathy with the past, which we see in every
word and act of the man, burst out in the lectures which
he delivered at Oxford. Even to the most critical among
1History of the English People, Vol. I, p. 382.

Desiderius Erasmus. 45
his hearers he seemed 'like one inspired, raised in voice,
eye, his whole countenance and mien, out of himself.'
Severe as was the outer life of the new teacher, a severity
marked by his plain black robe and the frugal table which
he preserved amidst his later dignities, his lively conver
sation, his frank simplicity, the purity and nobleness of
his life, even the keen outbursts of his troublesome tem
per endeared him to his students and the group of emi
nent scholars with whom he was associated."
In this group the foremost figure is Erasmus. Unlike
Colet, this great scholar was cradled in poverty. , In or
phan loneliness, thrust into a monastery by dishonest
guardians who sought to filch from him the scanty means
he had inherited, he left his monk's cell as soon as he at
tained his majority and earned his living by giving lessons
to private pupils while attending the University of Paris.
The generosity of an English nobleman enabled him to
gain a coveted mastery of the Greek language at Oxford.
Colet and More with Grocyn, and Linacre, became his
close friends. "When," he writes in a letter, "I listen to
my friend Colet, it seems to me like listening to Plato
himself. In Grocyn, who can but admire the wide range
of his knowledge? What could be more searching, deep,
and refined than the judgment of Linacre? Whenever
did nature mould a character more gentle, endearing, and
happy than Thomas More's ?"
Every one of these men was gifted with marked genius,
but in industry, breadth of classical knowledge, and acute-
ness of mind the place of leadership must be given to
Erasmus. He owed much to Colet. for it was from him
he caught the spirit of religious zeal. In his eagerness
to master Greek he decided to go to Italy. In response

46 The Reformation.
to the urgent request of Colet that he remain by his side
at Oxford Erasmus replied: "When I feel that I have
the needful firmness and strength, I will join you." Com
ing days were to witness the fulfillment of this promise.
For nine years (1500-1509) this little band of Oxford
students were scattered. It was a time of marvelous in
tellectual and spiritual ferment. It is said that in the
last thirty years of the Fifteenth Century all of the great
Latin authors were made accessible to the poorest student
by the recently invented printing press. Ten thousand
editions of books and pamphlets were estimated to have
been published in these decades. Within twenty years of
the opening of the Sixteenth Century the literature of
Greece was placed within the reach of all who mastered
its language. As never before "men opened their eyes
and saw."1
Erasmus started for Italy in 1500, but was stopped at
Dover and literally robbed by custom-house officials of all
his money. Compelled to discontinue his journey he con
tinued his studies in France. Colet remained at Oxford
until he was made Dean of St. Paul's and became a resi
dent of London. More gained rapid advancement in the
legal profession and in early manhood was elected a mem
ber of Parliament.
Erasmus visiting England in 1505 found his Oxford
friends all living in London. Colet had married and in
his home we can imagine the consultation was held that
resulted in replenishing the empty purse of Erasmus and
sending him rejoicing on his way to Italy. In 1509
Henry VIII. ascended the throne of England. The early
1Taine. History of English Literature.

The English Reformers. 47
years of his reign gave slight token of his cruel, imperious
will that, in its sensual and ambitious purposes, wrought
such vast changes in the civil and religious fabric of the
English government and the life of the people. Generous
and open handed in the use of the immense wealth his
father had bequeathed to him the gifted young prince
won popular favor, and older men prophesied the dawn
of better days. Fond of learning and an apt and indus
trious student he did not forget the promising Oxford
scholars with some of whom he was personally acquaint
ed. Colet was made court preacher. More was given
the prominent position of an under sheriff of London,
and Erasmus was recalled from Italy and made professor
of Greek at Cambridge. It was indeed a halcyon time
of promise. Leading churchmen became the patrons both
of letters and reform. Langton, Bishop of Winchester,
we are told, "took delight in examining the young schol
ars of his episcopal family every evening and sent all the
most promising of them to study across the Alps." War
ham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, became the close and
helpful friend of Erasmus. A friendship that found
beautiful laudation in the great scholars preface to his
edition of St. Jerome. While leisurely returning from
Italy on horseback Erasmus outlined a satire in Latin on
the follies of the age that he completed in the home of
More in London. The "Praise of Folly" made an im
mense stir and proved an effective weapon of reform.
The followers of the schoolmen were addressed by Folly
in her cap and bells as "fellow fools" — men who pro
fessed to know everything and yet had not time to read
the Gospels or Epistles of St. Paul.

48 The Reformation.
Following the publication of this little book Erasmus
entered on his duties as professor at Cambridge and soon
took up the work that was to have so prominent a place
in the record of these days. Over a century had elapsed
since the death of Wiclif, but his works still followed
him. Copies of his Bible had been carefully preserved.
They had been read in secret places by men that knew
that if they were detected the penalty of death would be
inflicted. The seed truth of the kingdom had found lodg
ment in many hearts and now with the revival of letters
and the invention of the printing press the providential
hour had arrived when the oracles of God were to be un
sealed and Christian faith and knowledge again become
a source of spiritual power in the hearts of men. In 1516
— the year before Luther affixed his theses to the church
door at Wittenberg — Erasmus saw the completion of his
monumental labors in the printing at Basle of the first
edition of his translation of the Greek New Testament.
In this edition in columns side by side was the original
Greek text and his own new Latin translation. "I wish,"
said Erasmus in his preface, "that even the weakest
woman should read the Gospels — should read the Epistles
of Paul; and I wish that they were translated into all
languages, so that they might be read and understood,
not only by Scots and Irishmen, but also by Turks and
Saracens. I long that the husbandmen should sing por
tions of them to himself as he follows the plough, that the
weaver should hum them to the tune of his shuttle, that
the traveller should beguile with their stories the tedium
of his journey."

The Beginning of a New Era. 49
It is well for all, especially those of English ancestry,
to remember tpat these days, in which we stand upon the
threshold of /the era of the Protestant Reformation,
marked the spring time of what may be called the history
of modern Bngland and the beginnings of American his
tory. The /picture drawn by the fascinating pen of
Froude vividly discloses the changes that were bringing
to life a transformed world. "The paths trodden by the
footsteps of ages were broken up : old things were pass
ing away,/and the faith and the life of ten centuries were
dissolving like a dream. Chivalry was dying; the abbey
and the castle were soon together to crumble into ruins ;
and all the forms, desires, beliefs, convictions, of the old
world were passing away never to return. A new con
tinent had risen up beyond the western sea. The floor of
heaven, inlaid with stars, had sunk back into an infinite
abyss of immeasurable space; and the firm earth itself,
unfixed from its foundations, was seen to be but a small
atom in the awful vastness of the universe. In the fabric
of habit which they had so laboriously built for them
selves, mankind were to remain no longer. And now it
is all gone — like an unsubstantial pageant faded ; and be
tween us and the old English there lies a gulf of mystery
which the prose of the historian will never adequately
bridge. They cannot come to us, and our imagination
can but feebly penetrate to them. Only among the aisles
of the cathedral, only as we gaze upon their silent figures
sleeping on their tombs, some faint conceptions float be
fore us of what these men were when they were alive;
and perhaps the sound of church bells, that peculiar cre
ation of medieval age, which falls upon the ear like the
echo of a vanished world."
4

50 The Reformation.
In this period of change that brought about the tran
sition of England from a Catholic to a Protestant coun
try we discover the most potent instrumentality in the
"open Bible," that the hand of Wiclif passed on to Colet
and Erasmus, and they in turn to Tyndale and others
who gave its precious treasures to the people in their
"vulgar tongue." The Greek New Testament of Erasmus
aroused the bitter resentment of priests, monks and scho
lastic divines who looked upon the old Vulgate version
with feeling akin to Israelitish eyes that gazed upon the
Ark of the Covenant. No doubt the pagan skepticism
that had been spread abroad with the revival of Greek
literature, strengthened this opposition. But in vain
were these voices, clamoring for the "old ways," raised
in bitter denunciation. The new translation from the
tongue in which the Master and His Apostles uttered
their message "became the topic of the day; the court,
the universities, every household to which the New
Learning had penetrated, read and discussed it. But bold
as its language may have seemed, Warham not only ex
pressed his approbation, but lent the work — as he wrote
to its author — 'to bishop after bishop.' The most influ
ential of his suffragans, Bishop Fox of Winchester, de
clared that the mere version was worth ten commen
taries."1 The genius of Thomas More added the con
tribution of his genial and imaginative power in the publi
cation of his Utopia. It was a dream that has become
the hope of democracy ; a dream that has not vanished in
the smoke and carnage of the awful conflict that has
made blood red the skies that have overarched Christian
1Green's History of the English People, Vol. I, p. 385.

The Dawn of a Christian Democracy. 51
Europe in the second decade of the Twentieth Century;
a dream that as a reality may be nearer than we now
think; an hour betokening the final overthrow of mon
archical and hierarchical power, and the triumphs of
democratic institutions so vividly delineated by the pen of
Thomas More four centuries ago. May not 191 7 prove
to be the year that celebrates not only the historic incident
from which we date the era of the Protestant Reforma
tion, but the beginning of a new era in the history of
Christianity and the firm establishment in Church and
State of the principles of Christian democracy and
brotherhood whose source we trace back to the teachings
of Christ and the institutions of the Church in Apostolic
times ?
"More," says Seebohm,1 "in his Utopia urged the
points which Erasmus had inculcated in his 'Christian
Prince.' The Utopians elected their own king, as well as
his council or parliament. They hated war as the worst
of evils; they aimed not at making the king and a few
nobles rich, but the whole people. All property belonged
to the nation, and so all the people were well off. Nor
was education confined to one class ; in Utopia everyone
was taught to read and write. All magistrates and priests
were elected by the people. Every family had a vote, and
the votes were taken by ballot. Thus the keynote of
More's 'Utopia' was, like the 'Christian Prince' of Eras
mus, that governments and nations exist for the common
weal of the whole people."
While these leaders in Oxford, Cambridge, and Lon
don were busy with their pens, they were active also in
pushing the work of religious reform. They had no
1The Protestant Revolution, page 94.

52 The Reformation.
thought of the impending break with Rome, but in the
spirit with which the Master had driven the money chang
ers from the outer courts of the temple they sought to cast
out the evils that threatened the life of the Church. When
the fortune of his father came into the hands of Colet he
devoted it to founding a school for boys, under the very
shadow of the great cathedral of which he was the Dean.
This school, as its founder hoped, became a nursery of
reform and the new learning. Its textbooks were pre
pared by Erasmus and other friends, and the Latin gram
mar studied in St. Paul's school was written by its
founder. Colet, at the request of his friend Warham, Archbishop
of Canterbury, preached the opening sermon at a convo
cation that brought together an assembly of bishops and
clergy. In the strongest terms he condemned the preva
lent loose living and immorality of the parish priests. In
the presence of these ecclesiastics of every rank he boldly
affirmed that their "worldly life was in many instances
far worse heresy" than that of the poor Lollards, two of
whom had been recently burned at Smithfield. The rec
ord of these years ought not to forget these men who
were proud to be known as the successors of the itinerant
preachers that were first sent out by Wiclif. They emu
lated the spirit and courage of the Puritans of a later
time. The movement they represented became involved
with political issues and revealed a spirit of revolt among
the people that foretokened the struggles of after years
that freed England from the thralldom of Rome and laid
the foundations of a free national life. Under the admin
istration of Archbishop Arundel in 1401 they were con
demned as heretics, and John Badby suffered martyrdom

The Lollards. 53
at Smithfield nine years later. Disappointed in their hope
to secure the support of Henry V., some of the more
fiery and reckless Lollardites, under the leadership of Sir
John Oldcastle, plotted a conspiracy that sought the life
of the king. Discovery brought retribution that involved
the innocent as well as the guilty. Relentless persecution
did not entirely destroy their life. As late as 1431 severe
measures were taken to repress another uprising. As a
source of political trouble they disappeared in the strug
gles between the rival houses of Lancaster and York. The
religious reform they started was taken over by men rep
resenting every rank in society. Colet, Erasmus, and
More were the successors of Wiclif. We shall meet them
again later on.

CHAPTER VI.
Martin Luther. His Boyhood. Student Days. Mo
nastic Life and Spiritual Experiences. Visit to
Rome. Professor at Wittenberg University.
Martin Luther was born at Eisleben, in Prussian
Saxony, November 10, 1483. His father, John Luther,
was a man of sturdy qualities of character. His hours of
rest from arduous toil, as a miner and furnace owner,
were largely given to reading, and his collection of books
for the times was a very good one. Margaret (Linde-
mann), Luther's mother, we are told by Melanchthon, was
considered a model woman worthy of the imitation of the
mothers of the places where she resided. "Modesty, the
fear of God, and devotion, especially marked her char
acter." In less than six months after the birth of Martin
his parents removed to Mansfield, a short distance from
Eisleben. In speaking once of his boyhood days Luther
said: "My parents were very poor. My father was a
wood cutter, and my mother has often carried the wood
on her back, that she might earn wherewith to bring us
children up. They endured the hardest labor for our
sakes." In time a measure of prosperity came to this
home of high ideals, industry, and religious spirit. John
Luther, as the owner of two small iron furnaces, became
a man of influence in the community. Elected a member
of the council of Mansfield he was brought in social con
tact with the leading men of the town and "the ecclesi
astics and schoolmasters of the place," were often guests
at his table. 54

Early Life of Martin Luther. 55
While other children were born in this home it would
appear that Martin held in the heart and thought, both of
his father and mother, a place of ambitious solicitude and
interest. A comment in his later life reveals the stern
discipline that was characteristic in German homes in the
Sixteenth Century. "My parents," says Luther, "treated
me so severely at times that I became very timid. They
truly thought they were doing right, but they failed in
that discernment of character which is absolutely neces
sary, that we may know when, on whom, and how, pun
ishment should be inflicted." If it is true that the "boy
is father of the man," we can easily imagine that Martin
was not an easy child to manage. Flogging appears, how
ever, to have been the favorite method of discipline, as
Luther tells us that the master of the school he attended
in Mansfield whipped him fifteen times in one day. At
this school he began his study of Latin grammar and was
taught a part of the Catechism, the Ten Commandments,
the Lord's Prayer, and various hymns and other reading
matter. Under the strict religious training of both home and
school, the physically strong and mentally alert lad, made
rapid progress in his studies, and his father resolved that
no effort on his part should be spared to give his son the
advantages of an education that would enable him to
enter one of the learned professions. When he was four
teen he was sent to the school of the Franciscans at
Magdeburg. He was accompanied with a boyhood com
panion, John Reinecke, who became a lifelong friend.
Luther, in the story he has left us of his boyhood days,
gives us glimpses of the privations that were a part of
his experiences. "I was accustomed," he says, "with my

56 The Reformation.
companions to beg a little food to supply our wants. One
day about Christmas time, we were going all together
through the neighboring villages, from house to house,
singing in concert the usual carols on the infant Jesus
born at Bethlehem. We stopped in front of a peasant's
house which stood detached from the rest at the extremity
of the village. The peasant hearing us sing our Christ
mas carols, came out with some food which he meant to
give us, and asked in a rough, loud voice, Where are
you, boys?' Terrified at these words, we ran away as
fast as we could. We had no reason to fear, for the peas
ant offered us this assistance in kindness ; but our hearts
were no doubt become fearful from the threats and tyr
anny which the masters then used towards their scholars,
so that we were seized with sudden fright. At last, how
ever, as the peasant still continued to call after us, we
stopped, forgot our fears, ran to him, and received the
food that he offered us. It is thus," continues the great
Reformer in reminiscent mood, "that we tremble and flee
when our conscience is guilty and alarmed. Then we are
afraid even of the help that is offered us, and of those
who are our friends, and wish to do us good."
Within a year Luther left Magdeburg and attended a
well known school at Eisnach. He had relatives in this
place, but evidently they gave him no especial assistance,
and we find him again singing in the streets, with other
school boys, to earn a morsel of bread. While this cus
tom has survived in Germany even into modern times,
it was a source of deep humiliation to the sensitive lad
who little realized the honor with which the townsman
of Eisnach would receive him in later years. A door soon
opened that gave him a shelter from these experiences.

School Day Experiences. 57
One day, after having been turned away with harsh
words from several houses, he was about returning de
pressed and hungry to his lodgings. He stood for a mo
ment, wondering if it was not best for him to give up the
struggle to secure an education and earn a living in his
father's employ as a miner at Mansfield. Just then the
door of the house, in front of which he was standing,
opened, and a kindly voice and hand beckoned him to
enter. This welcome from the wife of Conrad Cotta, a daugh
ter of the burgomaster of Eilfeld, was the beginning of a
friendship that brought relief and enabled Luther to con
tinue his studies. Conrad no sooner became acquainted
with the lad whom his wife had befriended than he urged
him to make his house his home. A new life opened to
the young scholar and with quickened interest he made
rapid progress in his studies. It was at this time that
his musical genius began to find expression. He learned
to play on the flute and lute and the home of Conrad Cotta
first enjoyed his mastery of the art that was to be the
source of abiding pleasure, even to old age, of the future
author of "Ein Feste Burg," and other beautiful German
hymns, some of which have become the common heritage
of Protestant homes of every land and language.
In after years, recalling the memories of his early
school day privations, and his relief through the kindness
and affection of the Cotta home, Luther writes : "Do not
despise the boys who try to earn their bread by chanting
before your door, 'bread for the love of God' (Panium
propter Deum). I have done the same. It is true that
in later years my father maintained me at the University
of Erfurth, with much love and kindness, supporting me

58 The Reformation.
by the sweat of his brow ; but at one time I was only a
poor mendicant. And now by means of my pen, I have
succeeded so well, that I would not change fortunes with
the Grand Seignor himself. I may say more : if I were
to be offered all the possessions of the earth heaped one
upon an another I would not take them in exchange for
what I possess. And yet I should never have known
what I do, if I had not been in school, and been taught
to write."
These were happy boyhood days. Standing at the
head in all his studies, he gave promise of those qualities
of courage and leadership that marked his after life.
Melanchthon, in his reminiscences of the student days of
Luther, tells the story of his special esteem for one of his
teachers, John Trebonius. Unlike his colleagues, Tre-
bonius treated his scholars with deferential respect, going
so far as to lift his hat and bowing to them as he passed
them. This unusual action led one of his fellow teachers
to inquire the reason for it. "There are," said Trebonius,
"amongst these youths, some whom God will one day
raise to the ranks of burgomasters, chancellors, doctors,
and magistrates. Though you do not now see the out
ward signs of their respective dignities, it is yet proper
to treat them with respect." The thought that prompted
the Eisenach teacher to lift his hat to the miner's son of
Mansfield has kept the memory of Trebonius green for
four hundred years. It is pleasant also to recall the in
cident of later years when Conrad Cotta and his wife
Ursala, — of whom Luther once said "there is nothing
sweeter than the heart of a pious woman," — sent one
of their sons to be educated at the University of Witten-

Student Days at Erfurt. 59
berg, the then famous professor and preacher made him
a welcome guest in his own home.
Naturally, John Luther was very proud of the reports
that came to him of the position that his son had won at
Eisenach. It was his fond dream that he should have the
advantages of a university training and follow the pro
fession of law. Already he was confident that his beloved
son would in time "stand before princes," and win high
official distinction. In 1501 Luther was enrolled as a
student in the University of Erfurt. Scholastic phi
losophy at this time held the place of highest distinction
in the curriculum of the university. With wonted energy
Luther, now eighteen years old, entered upon the study
of the philosophy found in the writings of Aquinas, Aris
totle and other schoolmen. In these studies he became
dissatisfied not only with their logic but imbibed a dislike,
especially of Aristotle, that aroused through his entire
life the most vehement dissent and condemnation. He
found relief from this dreary course of philosophy in
studying Cicero, Virgil, and other classics, with a thor
oughness that made him a master of style and the use of
language. His attainments were such, says Melanchthon,
that "the whole university admired his genius."
During the four years that Luther pursued his studies
at Erfurt he passed through spiritual experiences that
changed the entire current of his life and the plans which
were the day dreams and hope of his father. His early
religious home training marked, as we have seen, by
rigorous methods of discipline, was followed in his early
school days by disquietude of feeling that disclosed a con
science keenly alive to personal need and delinquencies.
During his student days at Erfurt in great soul loneliness

60 The Reformation.
he passed through mental and spiritual conflicts that
brought him finally to decisions that were indeed for him
and after history "the parting of the ways." It was at
this time that the Bible first came into his hands. He
had already been in the university two years when in
looking through the books in its library he found what
was then a rare volume — a complete copy of the Scrip
tures. Up to this period he had supposed that the whole
of the revealed word of God was contained in the por
tions of the gospels and epistles which the Church had
selected to be read in the churches and places where its
members assembled for worship. This new found book
Luther returned to read and reread. In preparation for
his bachelor's degree overwork brought on a severe ill
ness that threatened a fatal termination. Among his
visitors was an aged priest who had followed the career
of the brilliant student with deep interest. Luther ex
pressed his fear that he would not recover. "Take cour
age," said the aged friend, "you will not die this time.
Our God will yet make you His instrument in comforting
many others. For God lays His cross upon those whom
He loves, and those who bear it patiently gain much wis
dom." It was a word in season and acted as a healthful
tonic. With restored health came a season of more gra
cious spiritual hope. In 1505 he was made master of arts
and was appointed a teacher of various branches of phi
losophy. The sudden death of an intimate college friend led to
serious questionings as to his future. A loyal son of the
Church, his mind, under the inspiration that had come
through his discovery and study of the Bible, now raised
the question as to his choice of vocation in life. He un-

Spiritual Experiences. 61
derstood full well the desires and ambition of his father
who had toiled early and late that his gifted son might be
equipped to win official anl legal honors. But the ques
tion constantly confronted Luther in his waking thoughts.
Ought he not to dedicate his life to God and the Church ?
From an earthly standpoint there were many things, be
side the wish of his father, that were calculated to dis
suade him from turning aside from long cherished plans.
Religion in its ecclesiastical activities and human repre
sentatives had fallen into low repute in the minds of many
thoughtful men and women. John Luther was a type of
an increasing number of laymen who despised the idle
life which was led by a large majority of the priests, and
sharply criticized conditions that revealed ecclesiastical
misdoing and corruption in high, as well as low, official
Church places.
During these days of acute mental and spiritual ques
tionings Luther spent his vacation in Mansfield. On his
return journey to Erfurt he was overtaken by a severe
summer storm. A lightning bolt struck so near him that
he was thrown to the ground. In the terror of the mo
ment, "encompassed" as he afterwards said, "with the
anguish and terror of death," he then and there made the
vow to forsake the world and devote his life to the serv
ice of God. As one of his associates at the university
(Rubianus), long afterwards wrote to him: "Divine
Providence foresaw what you would one day become,
when, on your return from your parents, the fire of
heaven struck you to the ground, like another Paul, near
the city of Erfurt, and separating you from us led you
to join the Augustine order."

62 The Reformation.
In the loneliness of a personal weighing of contending
interests Luther came to the decision to take upon himself
monastic vows and in the seclusion of an Augustine con
vent renounce the world and seek in its quiet the spiritual
peace for which he longed with the strength of his fervid
nature. In reaching this decision the youthful professor
of Erfurt appears not to have taken any friend into his
confidence, and even his parents were ignorant of his pur
pose. Then, as always, when Martin Luther after prayer
ful thought, resolved upon a course of action and "laid
his hand to the plow," he never stopped to look back.
After an evening spent in joyous companionship with a
group of college friends he made known to them his in
tention. Before the morning dawned he left his lodgings,
with two volumes selected from his library, Virgil and
Plautus, and entered the convent of the hermits of St.
Augustine. Luther's friends were amazed at his action.
His father received the tidings with a spirit of condem
nation that disclosed how completely his strong nature
had become absorbed in his hopes and ambitions as they
centered about the future career of the son for whose
education he had made such great sacrifices.
It was a cruel blow to the Mansfield counsellor who
detested the idle and corrupt lives of a large proportion
of the monks of whom he had knowledge. In an out
burst of angry grief he penned a letter to Martin in which
he declared him disinherited from his thought and love.
Some months later his feeling was changed by a sorrow
that overwhelmed him in the sudden death by a prevailing
epidemic, of two of his younger sons. Just at this time
a report found circulation that the monk of Erfurt was
dead. "If the report is not true," said one of John Lu-

Luther's Convent Life. 63
ther's friends, "at least sanctify your present affliction by
consenting that your son should be a monk." "Well be it
so," replied the broken-hearted father, "and God grant
that he may be prospered." Luther tells us that after his
happy reconciliation with his honored and beloved father
he was at one time relating the incident of the storm and
the lightning stroke that laid him prostrate and brought
about the experience that decided him to enter a convent.
"God grant," said the still unreconciled foe of idle and
dissolute priests, "that you may not have mistaken a de
lusion of the devil for a sign from heaven."
After the usual fashion, on entering the monastery at
Erfurt, Luther changed his name to that of Augustine.
In later years, referring to this action, he said: "What
can be more mad and impious than to renounce one's
Christian name for the sake of a cowl ! It is thus the
popes are ashamed of their Christian names, and show
thereby that they are deserters from Jesus Christ."
Luther's life in the convent in its opening days was
filled with humiliating experiences. While the monks
were overjoyed at receiving into their fellowship the tal
ented young teacher of the university, at the same time,
they evidently took a low, human pleasure, in imposing
upon him the most menial duties. Among these tasks
was the opening and shutting of the gates ; winding the
clock ; sweeping the church ; and cleaning the rooms.
Probably the most distasteful work was that of going
through the streets of the city, where he had been highly
honored in many ways, bearing a bread bag and begging
from house to house for food to feed the lazy monks who
urged this duty upon him. He endured it all without a
murmur, but the day of deliverance was drawing near.

64 The Reformation.
The spirit of meekness in which he met this trial of faith
and patience attracted the attention of the prior of the
convent and Luther was set free from these menial tasks
and bidden to give his time to the studies he so much
loved. The works of St. Augustine and the early Fathers of
the Church were his favorite reading. In the convent
there was a copy of the Bible fastened to its place by a
chain; more and more he became absorbed in its study.
A brother in the convent, of eminent ability as a scholar,
aided him in gaining a mastery both of Greek and He
brew. All unconsciously he was preparing himself to
give to the German people the great translation of the
Word of God, that was to be a living power through
coming centuries in molding the intellectual and spiritual
life of German homes and the national institutions, civil,
educational, and religious, that sprang out of them.
Living a severe ascetic life, Luther sought by every pos
sible denial, to secure peace of soul and mind. "Verily,"
he once wrote to his friend Duke George of Saxony, "I
was a devout monk, and followed the rules of my order
so strictly, that I cannot tell you all. If ever a monk en
tered into heaven by his monkish merits, certainly I
should have obtained an entrance there. All the monks
who know me will confirm this ; and if it had lasted much
longer, I should have become literally a martyr, through
watchings, prayer, reading and other labours."
That tenderness of conscience that had marked the
character of Luther in his boyhood and student days, be
came even more keenly active amid the studies and medi
tations of his convent seclusion from worldly affairs and
ambitions. Assailed by fears regarding his own worthi-

Spiritual Struggles. 65
ness, he was tossed hither and thither on a stormy sea of
conflicting emotions. "When during the time I was a
monk," he tells us, "I felt temptations assail me. I am
a lost man, thought I. Immediately I resorted to a thou
sand methods to appease the reproaches of my heart. I
confessed every day. But all that was of no use. Then,
overwhelmed with dejection, I distressed myself by the
multitude of my thoughts. See, said I to myself, thou art
envious, impatient, passionate: therefore wretch that
thou art ! it is of no use to thee to have entered into this
holy order."
With such flagellations of spirit and ascetic habits the
young monk broke down under the physical and mental
strain. One day a friend found him lying apparently
lifeless upon the floor of his room. Not responding to
the voice that sought to bring him to consciousness,
Edemberger asked some of the convent choristers to sing
a hymn. The stricken monk responded to the strain of
the melody he loved and strength and consciousness grad
ually returned. In these days of spiritual conflict and as
siduous study of the Bible and the writings especially of
St. Augustine, there came to his help a friendship that
was to have a large providential place in his preparation
for his great life work. This friend, like himself, had
sought the seclusion of a monk's cell and in its retirement
had devoted himself to learning. Of noble birth, John
Staupitz by his scholarly gifts, spiritual mindedness, and
genial manners, had already attracted the favorable re
gard of men of high station and official influence. The
Elector of Saxony, Frederic the Wise, became his close
friend and adviser. Under his patronage and support he
became the chief founder of the University of Witten-
5

66 The Reformation.
berg and filled the position of professor Of divinity. He
had early discovered the secret of the Christian life.
Temperamentally more quiet and equable than Luther
he had found the pathway of faith in Christ that had
brought soul peace and joy. Honored and beloved, Stau-
pitz had been appointed Vicar-General of the Augustines
for all Germany. This election gave proof that there
were still those in high official places who were deeply
impressed with the need of stringent reforms in monas-
terial affairs and administration. His friend, the Elector
of Saxony, and others, knew that Staupitz was deeply
grieved over the prevalent corruption in the Church that
were patent to every thoughtful observer: gross sins,
that were the source of growing discontent and hostile
criticism on the part even of the lowliest members of the
laity in the towns and rural sections of Germany.
Very early in his visitations of the convent at Erfurt
Staupitz made the acquaintance of Luther. Their friend
ship grew apace and Luther opened his inmost heart to
his spiritually minded superior. "If you wish to be truly
converted," said Staupitz, "do not depend upon morti
fications and penances. Love Him who has first loved
you." As Luther pondered upon these words the light
began to break upon his path. Staupitz presented him
with a copy of the Bible with the admonition that was
scarcely needed : "Let the study of the Scriptures be your
favorite occupation."
During the second year of his convent life Luther suf
fered from a severe illness that was attended with great
mental depression. An aged monk, to whom Luther
opened his heart, proved a messenger of spiritual hope.
Recalling the Apostles' Creed he reminded his younger

Ordained as Priest. 67
brother of the article: "I believe in the forgiveness of
sins." "I do believe," said Luther, "the remission of
sins." "Ah," said his wise confidant and friend, "you
must not only believe that David's or Peter's sins are for
given ; the devils believe that. The commandment of
God is that we believe our own sins are forgiven." With
these words he repeated a passage from one of St. Ber
nard's sermons. "The testimony which the Holy Ghost
applies to your heart is this : Thy sins are forgiven thee."
It was a word in due season. Trusting in Christ and His
atoning grace the young monk found rest. The clouds of
depression lifted and health, both physical and spiritual,
was restored. At the close of his two years' novitiate
Luther was ordained as priest. His father accepted his
son's urgent invitation to be present and he was asked
to suggest the date that was finally fixed for May 2, 1507.
Following his consecration Luther made frequent visits
to the parishes and convents in the neighborhood of Er
furt and early disclosed his gifts as a preacher. It was
through the influence of Staupitz that in 1508 he was
appointed professor at the University at Wittenberg.
He did not cease to be a monk and he had his home in
the convent of the Augustines where a cell was assigned
to him. He taught physics and dialectics. Writing to his
friend, John Braun, the curate of Eisenach, he says : "I
am very well, by God's favor, but that I am compelled
to give my whole attention to philosophy. From the mo
ment of my arrival at Wittenberg I have longed to ex
change that study for theology, I mean that theology
which seeks the kernel of the nut, the pulp of the wheat,
the marrow of the bone." Indefatigable in his studies
Luther became master of Greek and Hebrew that he

68 The Reformation.
might better understand the Bible that was to him the
fountain of lfe. At an early date (March, 1509,) he
received the degree of bachelor of divinity, and began a
series of daily lectures explanatory of the Psalms and
the Epistle to the Romans. It was in the hours of prepa
ration for these discourses that the doctrine of justifica
tion by faith found strong lodgment in his thought and
experience. The teaching of the young professor attracted attention
beyond his class-room. Among those who came to hear
the comments of Luther on the letters of St. Paul was
Martin Pollich, an eminent doctor of philosophy, who
had aided Staupitz in the founding of Wittenberg Uni
versity. He was deeply impressed with the originality
and spiritual insight with which Luther opened up the
"riches of grace" in the writings of the great apostle.
"This monk," he prophesied, "will put all the doctors to
rout ; he will introduce a new style of doctrine, and will
reform the whole Church ; he builds upon the word of
Christ ; and no one in this world can either resist or over
throw that word, though it should be attacked with all
the weapons of philosophers and sophists."
Staupitz invited Luther to preach in the church of the
Augustines. He shrank from this responsibility, but his
friend would not be denied. "It will be the death of me,"
protested Luther. "I could not stand it three months."
"And what then," said Staupitz. "In God's name so be
it ; for in heaven also the Lord requires devoted and able
servants." The services at this time, while the church building
was in process of erection, were held in a temporary
wooden chapel. The pulpit was on a raised platform of

Fame as a Preacher. 69
planks and the walls of the room were propped on each
side to save them from falling. Amid these rude sur
roundings the reformation messages of Luther were first
proclaimed. One of his contemporaries (Raymond), who
was his active opponent in after years, placed on record
this testimony as to the genius and power of Luther as
a preacher: "Gifted with a ready and lively intelligence,
having a retentive memory, and speaking his mother
tongue with remarkable fluency, Luther was surpassed
in eloquence by none of his contemporaries. Addressing
his hearers from his place in the pulpit, as if he had been
agitated by some powerful passion, and adapting his ac
tion to the words, he affected their minds in a surprising
manner, and carried them like a torrent whither he
would." The congregations soon overflowed the rude wooden
chapel, and the council of Wittenberg invited him to
preach in the city cathedral. His fame as a speaker
spread rapidly and the Elector of Saxony came one day
to hear him, and sealed by his presence and interest the
universal praise of his discourses.
In 1 5 10, — some say a little later, — an opportunity came
to Luther to visit Rome on an official errand of impor
tance. It was, for him and the world, a journey that
ended in decisions that were to aid mightily in changing
the course of history and revitalizing the spirit and teach
ings of Christianity and the Church of which Christ is the
Head. Luther no doubt hoped as he drew near the capi
tal city of the "Holy Catholic Church," that he would find
a simplicity and purity of life in the monasteries and
higher ecclesiastical circles, far greater than in the Ger
man towns where his life had been spent. In this he was

70 The Reformation.
sadly disappointed. He found the tables of the Bene
dictine order in northern Italy spread with the choicest
viands. Beautifully furnished apartments, rich dresses,
and luxuries of every sort marked the surroundings of a
convent life that fostered indolence and vice in every
sensual form.
During an illness that overtook Luther before he
reached the gates of the Imperial City he found help in
the midst of depressing anxieties as the Gospel promise
like a heavenly message came to his relief, "The just
shall live by faith." Rome, upon her seven hills, im
pressed his strong emotional nature with thoughts that in
minor key have stirred the hearts of countless throngs of
pilgrims and travellers. Julius II. was at this time upon
the pontifical throne; a man whose profane contempt of
sacred things is disclosed in the oath he uttered when
tidings were brought to him that his army had been de
feated by the French before Ravenna. In anger throwing
the prayer book, from which he was reading, upon the
floor, he exclaimed with an impious curse, "Well, now
thou art become a Frenchman — Is it thus thou guardest
the Church?" Turning in the direction of the mountain
fastnesses from whose arms he looked for help, he cried
out: "Holy Swiss. Pray for us."
We must not forget that Luther was still a loyal Cath
olic. He said mass several times while in Rome. Deeply
pained and shocked at evidence that confronted him on
every side, bearing witness to the corrupt lives of the Ro
man clergy and the unworthy character of many digni
taries of the Church, he still hoped and prayed that de
liverance might come from these conditions by spiritual

Visit to Rome. 71
forces, cleansing and removing these evils from within its
corporate life.
While bearing testimony that in places where the word
of God was faithfully dispensed peace and good order
prevailed he afterwards said in an address to the Nobility
of Germany : "It is incredible what sins and atrocities are
committed in Rome ; they must be seen and heard to be
believed. So that it is usual to say, 'If there be a hell.
Rome is built above it; it is an abyss from whence all
sins proceed.' " At another time with the keen thrust of
his genius, in sarcastic comment upon the sins of evil
doers, he remarked : "The nearer we approach to Rome,
the greater number of bad Christians do we find. It is
commonly observed, that he who goes to Rome for the
first time, goes to seek a knave there; the second time
he finds him ; and the third time he brings him away with
him under his cloak. But now, people are become so
clever, that they make the three journeys in one."
Luther did not in his experiences at Rome lose his faith
in Christ and His Church. That became more fixed.
Under the tutelage of a celebrated rabbi he pursued the
study of Hebrew and thus was better equipped for the
great work of translating the Bible into his native tongue.
We cannot omit the familiar story of the day when in the
spirit of penitence that had not yet cast aside monkish
fears and superstitions he climbed, on bended knees, what
is known as Pilate's staircase. While engaged in this ex
ercise, Luther tells us, that a voice like that of thunder
echoed through the chambers of his heart saying, "The
just shall live by faith." It was this voice with which we
have become familiar in following the life of the student
of Magdeburg, the scholar and monk of Erfurt, and the

72 The Reformation.
professor and preacher of Wittenberg. It was the "old,
old" message that had brought peace to untold multitudes
since the day of. Pentecost. A message lost to a great
extent in the darkness of the Middle Ages, but found
again in the devout heart out of which was to burst forth
the triumphal strains of "Ein Feste Burg" and other
great hymns of the Reformation. With the message of
the Gospel ringing in his ears, the thought of the super
stitious degradation of his action came upon him with a
force that broke the shackles in which early education,
monkish training, and the traditions of the Church of
Rome had bound him. His spiritual struggles had not
yet come to an end but the light was breaking in the
dawning of a new day in which he was to hold so com
manding a position and influence. Luther returned to
Wittenberg, disillusionized, disappointed and disgusted
with what he had learned from personal knowledge of
the inner life and corruption of the papal court.
Staupitz did not lose sight of his friend. "It seemed,"
says D'Aubigne, "as if the Vicar-general had a pre
sentiment of the work that was to be accomplished in the
world, and that finding it too hard for him, he desired to
urge Luther to undertake it. Nothing is more remark
able, or perhaps more inexplicable, than the character of
the man who was ever ready to impel the monk onward
in the path to which God called him, and yet himself
went and ended his days sadly in a convent." The Elec
tor Frederick, and other friends, decided that Luther had
won the right to the distinction of doctor of divinity.
Staupitz was entrusted with the pleasant errand of con
sulting with Luther in regard to this promotion that car
ried with it higher responsibilities in the work of the uni-

Luther as a Teacher of Theology. 73
versity. Luther was deeply touched by the proffer of this
unexpected honor. His first thought, however, con
strained him to decline the duties that he recognized
would fall upon him. His fears as to his worthiness, and
his health, were finally overcome by the pleas of Staupitz,
and the assurance that friends would provide the money
necessary to meet the expenses connected with his pro
motion. From this hour Luther became a marked man
and recognized leader. Little did he realize the tempes
tuous sea upon which he had embarked. But it was a
strong, tried hand that laid hold of the tiller, that with
the blessing of God, was to guide and control his course.
Luther with wonted enthusiasm took up the duties of his
doctorate. His onslaughts on the philosophy of Aristotle
and his sturdy defense of the Pauline writings and the
theology of Augustine, attracted wide attention. He be
came, for a time, the friend and defender of Erasmus,
and kept up an ever extending correspondence with the
strong group of men in the universities of Europe who
felt that the hour had arrived for the reformation of cor
rupt practices and the elimination of wicked ecclesiastical
leadership within the Church they still loved and longed
to see purified.
At this period another friend, George Spalatin, came
into the circle of comrades gathering about Luther to fill
a place of special influence by the assistance he rendered
in many ways to the great Reformer. From this time on
we shall discover that it was "team work," represented in
the cooperative labors and sacrifice of men differing in
gifts, but impelled by a common purpose, that made the
leadership of Luther successful and opened the era of
Protestant Church history. Spalatin was a born diplo-

74 The Reformation.
mat. The friend of noblemen, scholars, and men in every
rank of society, his position as secretary and chaplain of
the Elector, Frederic the Wise, enabled him to exercise
an influence quiet and unobstrusive in character, that
was at times of vital importance.
In addition to theological discussions, that stirred
up deep resentment in many quarters, Luther gave spe
cial attention to his lectures to the students who thronged
his lecture room. Melanchthon tells us, that "He so ex
plained the Scriptures, that, in the judgment of all pious
and enlightened men, it was as if a new light had arisen
on the doctrine after a long and dark night. He pointed
out the difference between the Law and the Gospel. He
refuted that error, then predominant in the Church and
schools, that men, by their own works, obtain remission
of sins, and are made righteous before God by an external
discipline. He thus brought back the hearts of men to the
Son of God. Like John the Baptist, he pointed to the
Lamb of God who had taken away the sins of the world.
He explained that sin is freely pardoned on account of
God's Son, and that man receives this blessing through
faith. He in no way interfered with the usual ceremonies.
The established ceremonies had not, in all his order, a
more faithful observer and defender. But he labored
more and more to make all understand the grand essential
doctrines of Conversion; of the forgiveness of Sins; of
Faith ; and of the true consolations of the Cross. Pious
souls were attracted and penetrated by the sweetness of
this doctrine ; the learned received it joyfully. One might
have said that Christ and His Apostles and Prophets had
come forth from darkness or from some impure dun
geon." (D'Aubigne.)

Beginning Work of Reformer. 75
It was in these days that Luther found himself, in
many points, out of sympathy with Erasmus, whose cour
age in boldly attacking the sins of the Papal Court and
the corruptions of monasterial life, he admired as well
as his erudition and ability as a scholar and student of
the Bible. As a younger group of men of university
training gathered about him Luther sought to guide them
into action that made them public defenders of the Chris
tian faith. One of these disciples, Bernard of Feld-
kirchen, maintained principles, endorsed by Luther, in a
disputation that attracted much attention. Bernard was
a professor in the university and five years later was the
first among the German priests who condemned the cele-
bate life by entering into the married state.
The Elector having erected a new church in Witten
berg commissioned Staupitz to collect relics to be placed
within its walls. The Vicar-general made Luther his
representative during his absence. In his visitation of the
large number of monasteries in all this region of Ger
many he saw much that saddened his heart and demanded
reform. He did not fail to raise his voice in condemna
tion of these evils. Many responded to his eloquent and
earnest appeals and it was from these very monasteries
that some of the most ardent advocates of Christian faith
came forth to aid Luther and his fellow reformers. So
great was the interest aroused during the year 15 16, in
which this visitation was made, that it has been called
"the Morning Star of the Reformation." Luther had
now come to a position of commanding influence. His
fame as a pulpit orator brought to him an invitation from
Duke George of Saxony to preach in the chapel of the
castle at Dresden. He chose as his text the gospel of the

76 The Reformation.
day (Mat. 20:20). It was one of his great discourses
on his favorite theme ; the assurance of salvation through
faith. It made a deep impression. Some found in its
message the way of "peace," others received its Augus
tinian doctrines with unconcealed dissatisfaction. The
battle was on in which Martin Luther was to give leader
ship that has placed his name among the few men of the
ages whose name and fame can never be lost in the an
nals of time.

CHAPTER VII.
Promulgation of the Theses Against Indulgences.
We now stand upon the threshold of the year (1517)
that has come to be recognized as the opening date of the
Protestant Reformation. It was the year in which Luther
confronted the Roman Catholic Church and its en
trenched civil and ecclesiastical power.
This conflict came to its first battle issue out of action
authorized and encouraged by the Papal Court, at whose
head stood Leo X. Needing money to help a nephew in
his ambitious schemes the Pope offered for sale indul
gences that granted pardons for every conceivable sin
and crime. He gave as the ostensible reason for this
traffic the desire to secure funds to complete the building
of St. Peter's Church at Rome. The traffic in these in
dulgences was placed in the hands of John Tetzel, a
Dominican monk whose life of wretched and criminal
profligacy would have come to an early close had the
command of the Emperor Maximillian been carried out
in an order that was issued that he should be sewed up
in a sack and thrown into the river. As early as 1502,
Tetzel acted as an agent for the sale of indulgences. For
this service he received a large salary and an allowance
that enabled him to move about the country in almost
regal state. With his carriage drawn by three horses,
with their outriders, his entrance into the towns of Ger
many was attended with great outward pomp and hypo
critical religious ceremony. A Jesuit historian tells us
that Tetzel and his companions "did not fail to distort
77

78 The Reformation.
their subject, and so to exaggerate the value of the in
dulgences as to lead the people to believe that as soon as
they gave their money, they were certain of salvation and
of the deliverance of souls from purgatory."
"The first benefit we announce," said these agents ap
pointed by command of the Pope, "is the complete pardon
of all sins ; and it is not possible to speak of any greater
benefit than this, since man who lives in sin is deprived
of the divine favor, and by this complete pardon he re
covers the grace of God. Now we affirm, that to obtain
these great blessings, it is only necessary to purchase an
indulgence. And as to those who desire to deliver souls
from purgatory, and to procure for them forgiveness of
all their sins, let them put money in the chest; but it is
not needful that they should feel sorrow of heart, or make
confession with their lips. Let them only hasten to bring
their money, for they will thus do a work most profitable
to departed souls and to the building of the church of
St. Peter."
The sacrilegious traffic of Tetzel was carried on in the
most ostentatious manner. The counter was placed by the
side of an uplifted cross and men and.women poured their
money into the boxes. The amount demanded was gradu
ated by capacity to pay. Tetzel refused to sell an indul
gence to a wealthy woman in Magdeburg for less than
one hundred florins. Her confessor, a Franciscan priest,
when informed of this extortionate demand, said: "God
gives us remission of sins freely. He does not sell it."
These words were reported to Tetzel, who angrily ex
claimed: "Such an adviser deserves to be expelled or
burnt alive."

Tetzel, the Vender of Indulgences. 79
In his history of the Reformation, D'Aubigne tells
the story of a Saxon gentleman who heard Tetzel utter
his blasphemous harangue at Leipsic. "He went to the
monk, and inquired if he was authorized to pardon sins
in intention, or such as the applicant intended to com
mit. 'Assuredly,' answered Tetzel. 'I have full power
from the Pope to do so.' 'Well,' returned the gentleman,
'I want to take some slight revenge on one of my enemies,
without attempting his life. I will pay you ten crowns
if you will give me a letter of indulgence that shall bear
me harmless.' Tetzel made some scruples; they struck
their bargain for thirty crowns. Shortly after the monk
set out from Leipsic. The gentleman attended by his
servants, laid wait for him in a wood between Jiiterboch
and Treblin, — fell upon him, gave him a beating, and
carried off the rich chest of indulgence money the inquisi
tor had with him. Tetzel clamored against this act of
violence, and brought an action before the judges. But
the gentleman showed the letter signed by Tetzel himself
which exempted him beforehand from all responsibility.
Duke George, who, had at first been much irritated at
this action, upon seeing this writing, ordered that the ac
cused should be acquitted."
As the sale of indulgences went merrily on with an
increasing wave of crime following in the wake of this
horrible traffic, general indignation was aroused on the
part of decent Christian men and women. Leading
bishops and worthy priests and monks made their quiet
but earnest protest in private circles. Not one of them
dared to condemn these evil practices in a public way.
They knew too well the power of Rome and the relentless
punishment that followed disobedience or even criticism

80 The Reformation.
of its mandates. The man whom God had appointed for
this hour was ready for his great task. . From the day
that Luther entered the convent at Erfurt, out of soul
struggles that brought him, through the guidance of the
Holy Spirit and the light of a once more opened Bible,
into an experience of spiritual peace and hope, there had
been intensified within his strong nature a growing dis
satisfaction and condemnation of evils that were making
the Church and its institutions a source of corrupt life
and influence. The facts of the case were undeniable.
Christianity under the leadership of Rome was losing its
hold upon all classes of men.. Luther lamented the situa
tion. He loved the Church as the Bride of Christ. He
had dedicated himself to its service and expected to live
and die in its communion. But Rome, and all the bane
ful influences that flowed from the Papal city with its
mighty power, became more and more abhorrent to him
and the choice group of Christian teachers and leaders
that stood near him in Wittenberg. Something must be
done to rescue the Church from the corrupt and evil
forces that threatened its life.
The miserable travesty of the practice of Indulgences
that had "pervaded the whole penitential system of the
later medieval Church and that had done so from the
Thirteenth Century," was to be the point where the match
was lighted that set Europe on fire and ushered in the
Protestant Reformation. Luther understood full well
the theological hair splitting distinctions by which the
doctrine of indulgences was upheld, but he saw that the
mass of the people did believe that Tetzel handed to
them, in exchange for their hard earned gold and silver
coins, a paper that absolutely removed the guilt of sin.

The Theses Against Indulgences. 8i
Luther when he prepared his famous Theses paid little
attention to theological definitions. "They are simply
ninety-five sturdy strokes struck at a great ecclesiastical
abuse which was starving the consciences of many."1
As Luther strode down the long river side street of
Wittenberg, that fateful October afternoon, four hundred
years ago, with hammer and manuscript in hand, he was
followed by the gaze of a multitude who admired him as
the most eloquent preacher of his time, the great scholar,
the fearless advocate of reform in high places and low
places. They could not know ; even Luther himself could
not know, the far reaching influence of his act that day.
But to himself, and to other thoughtful men and women
in Wittenberg, there must have come a feeling that the
hour was one of epoch making significance. In humble
peasant homes, in cloister cells, in palace halls, prayers
were offered that night that God was to answer in the
unfolding of a fresh chapter in the history of Christianity
and the world.
1Lindsay. History of the Reformation, Vol. I, p. 228.

CHAPTER VIII.
The Opening of the Conflict with Rome. Crisis
Years in the Life of Luther. 1517 — 1520.
"That Luther has a fine genius," laughingly remarked
Leo Tenth, when he learned of the action of the young
Wittenberg professor in posting his Theses against in
dulgences on the Palace Church of Wittenberg.
Little did Leo realize that the vast superstructure of
prelatical power, that had slowly risen out of the life of
the Middle Ages, was to be shaken to its very foundations
by dynamic forces that were exploded by the hammer
blows of the despised German monk. Little did Luther
realize the tasks that lay before him and the wonderful
way in which the divine promise was to be fulfilled in
the bestowal of help for each day and every crisis hour.
Only a man of rare gifts of head and heart, sustained by
unusual physical strength, could have endured the fret
and strain of the burdens of care and leadership that
fell to the lot of the great reformer. Royal gifts of mind
and physique were his heritage in a remarkable degree,
but it is in the lonely spiritual struggles of the monastery
cell, the assiduous study of the Bible, and an intellect and
conscience, clear visioned and courageous, that we dis
cover the secret of Luther's power and leadership, when
the hour of destiny called him to his appointed work. To
what extent in the autumn of 1517 he realized conditions
that swiftly unfolded after his indictment of the sale of
indulgences, we cannot know. This we know, that he was
keenly alive to all the signs of the times. The universities
82

The Dawn of a New Era. 83
that had been founded in England and on the continent
were crowded with restless throngs of students who were
the constant bearers of tidings regarding the work and
prevailing tempter of these centres of intellecual life. That
temper was one of reform and reaction from the methods
and philosophy of the schoolmen. The torch of truth,
lighted by Wiclif and Huss, had been passed on by faith
ful hands and was ready for use in starting a conflagra
tion that was to illumine the skies of all Europe and
destroy much of the "stubble" and debris of corrupt
ecclesiastical institutions that were Anti-Christ in spirit
and structure. The activities of the young Oxford teach
ers — Colet, Erasmus and More — must have been the
source of keen interest in the discussions of the cloisters
of Wittenberg. Luther at this time was in correspond
ence with Erasmus and hailed the publication of his
translation of the Greek New Testament with delight.
With increasing indignation against evils that had cul
minated in Tetzel's horrible traffic, he watched the begin
nings of a struggle that sought to throw off the shackles
of an outworn but still grievous heritage of feudalistic
bondage; secure national independency; and win free
dom from the secular and spiritual sway of Rome.
It was not as a lonely reformer that Luther nailed his
theses against indulgences, upon the door of the Castle
Church. He understood full well that this courageous
act would meet with a silent but heartfelt response in
multitudes of lowly German homes. He was assured
that his associates in the university and most of the lead
ing officials of Saxony, headed by their beloved Elector,
were in sympathy with the reforms which he advocated.
In a general way he realized that there was a stirring of

84 The Reformation.
popular feeling that, if fused into united action, would
carry dismay into the counsels of the impious ecclesias
tical leaders at Rome, whose sole ambition was to gratify
their selfish and sensual tastes and jealously guard their
entrenched hierarchical power. With that lofty spiritual
courage that animated Cromwell as he led the Puritan
army on the fateful field of Nasby, Luther was the great
commanding personality that led the reforming hosts of
Germany and other lands with the Psalmist's battle cry,
"Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered."
October thirty-first, 15 17, was indeed an epoch making
day. "Luther's denunciation of Indulgences," Froude
has eloquently said, "became, like the brazen serpent in
the wilderness, the sign to which the sick spirits through
out the western world looked hopefully and were healed.
In all those millions of hearts the words of Luther found
an echo, and flew from lip to lip, from ear to ear. The
thing which all were longing for was done, and in two
years from that day there was scarcely perhaps a village
from the Irish Channel to the Danube in which the name
of Luther was not familiar as a word of hope and
promise. Then rose a common cry for guidance. Books
were called for — above all things, the greatest book of
all, the Bible. Luther's inexhaustible fecundity flowed
with a steady stream, and the printing presses in Ger
many and in the Free Towns of the Netherlands, multi
plied Testaments and tracts in hundreds of thousands.
Printers published at their own expense as Luther wrote.
The continent was covered with disfrocked monks who
had become the pedlars of these precious wares ; and as
the contagion spread, noble young spirits from other
countries, eager themselves to fight in God's battle, came

The Centuries of Preparation. 85
to Wittenberg to learn from the champion who had struck
the first blow at their great enemy how to use their
weapons." "Students," says Michelet, "from all nations
came to Wittenberg, to hear Luther and Melanchthon.
As they came in sight of the town they returned thanks
to God with clasped hands ; for from Wittenberg, as
heretofore from Jerusalem, proceeded the light of evan
gelical truth, to spread thence to the uttermost parts of
the earth." This picture drawn by the master hand of
one of our great modern historians vividly delineates
conditions that prevailed during the three years that pre
ceded the burning of the Pope's Bull by Luther in the
presence of an immense concourse that gathered on the
banks of the Elbe. (December 10, 1520.)
At this point a backward look over ten centuries will
help us better to understand the impending conflict that
gave birth to Evangelical Christianity as represented,
to-day by world wide Protestantism. The barbarian in
vasion of the Fifth Century while it broke the Roman em
pire into fragments did not destroy the Church. Its
teachings were carried by faithful and devout minis
ters, clothed with priestly authority, into every land that
had been conquered by Rome and knit together by its
magnificent system of roads. These heralds of the Chris
tian faith did not falter in the face of dangers, even unto
death, to convey the story of Redemptive love into the
forest huts of Germany and the rude hovel homes of
Britain. Then, as ever, it wrought salvation. A new
civilization emerged out of the life of Teutonic races that
had heretofore developed only pagan, brute strength.
Before the uplifted Cross these men reverently bowed
and became obedient to its sway. The Church, under the

86 The Reformation.
guidance of ambitious ecclesiastical leaders, was in the
untutored thought of the rude races of the North and the
more cultured races of the South, the embodiment of
imperial power that lifted it above the authority of
princes and emperors. The coronation of Charlemagne
in 800 witnessed the complete triumph of this imperialis
tic conception of the Church that had been diligently
fostered by the papacy from the time Rome was sep
arated from the Eastern Church, and the ancient capital
of the Csesars became the seat of the papal power. When
Otto was crowned in 962, the Holy Roman Empire came
into an existence that did not cease until the opening of
the Nineteenth Century. From the coronation of Otto I,
for three centuries history centres about the relation of the
Empire to the Papacy. During the first hundred of these
years the pope and emperor were acclaimed sovereigns
with coordinate powers. Then followed a period of
humiliation for the popes that was again reversed by in
fluences that gave them leadership in the days of the
Crusades. The Middle Ages are often called the Dark Ages. This
is a misnomer. It is true that in these centuries, as in all
centuries, the darkness of sin and ignorance cast heavy
shadows over the life of humanity. Science and inven
tion, as we now know them, were a sealed book, but brain
power and heart power found wonderful expression in
these centuries when Christianity was the main leavening
life, in church and state, and a slowly emerging social
order. We shall fail to gain a correct impression of the
work wrought in these centuries if we dwell only on the
evils and corruptions that threatened the very founda
tions of Christian faith and society, and that culminated

The Dawn of Modern Civilization. 87
in the Protestant Revolution of the Sixteenth Century.
The very fact of this Revolution gives abundant testimony
that the Church of the Living God : the Church of which
Christ is the Head; rested upon a sure foundation that
could not be destroyed by the selfish ambitions and cor
rupt practices of papal courts, and palace halls.
Historians have dated the era of the Protestant Revo
lution from the latter half of the Fifteenth Century. Mo
hammedan power, that once threatened to overcome
Southern Europe, had been broken and the Moors ex
pelled from Spain. The Crusades, though they had failed
in their purpose to dislodge the "Infidel" out of Jerusalem,
"had awakened Europe to new life. East and West were
brought nearer together. Knights and soldiers and pil
grims brought home from new lands new thoughts and
wider notions." It was a spring time day in the history
of Christianity and of the world. The discovery of the
mariner's compass had given a new impetus to commerce.
Adventurous sailors set sail for lands beyond the horizon
that had long bounded their journeyings. Columbus was
soon to realize his dreams in the discovery of a new
world. The fall of Constantinople scattered the bands
of Greek scholars who carried the New Learning to Italy
and dropped the seed that sprang up with amazing rapid
ity in the "good ground" of more than thirty universities
that had been founded in every part of Christendom. In
these years we note "a succession of poets, painters,
sculptors and historians such as had not been known for
centuries." The opening chapters of a modern civiliza
tion were finding record. The old order was passing.
The last to realize the change that was taking place was
the Roman Church. The Church that thus far had been

88 The Reformation.
the main representative of Christianity. Her ecclesiastical
system had found its inspiration in the imperial structure
reared by the Csesars. Europe was divided into prov
inces at the head of which was an archbishop. They were
obedient to the Pope and his cardinals in Rome. The
archbishops were at the head of the bishops who con
trolled and ordained the parochical clergy. The monks,
represented by the Dominican and Augustinian orders,
had by the favor of the Popes become more powerful
and influential than the parish clergy. The men who
controlled this ecclesiastical system "held in their hands
the keys, as it were, not only of heaven but of earth, they
alone baptized: they alone married people (though un
married themselves) : they alone could grant divorce.
They had charge of men on their death-beds : they alone
buried, and could refuse Christian burial in the church
yards. They alone had the disposition of the goods of
deceased persons. When a man made a will it had to be
proved in their ecclesiastical courts. If men disputed
their claims, doubted their teaching, or rebelled from
their doctrines, they virtually condemned them to the
stake, by handing them over to the civil power, which
acted in submission to their dictates." (Seebohm.)
In time the bequests of the dead brought immense reve
nues under the control of the clergy that were increased by
the right they possessed to a tenth of all the produce of
the land cultivated by a peasantry that groaned under the
oppression of the feudal system that made their lot one
of virtual slavery. The occupants of the monasteries
that had been founded in almost every community, under
the direct protection of the pope were exempted by ec
clesiastical law, from civil responsibility. As their wealth

Internal Corruption of the Roman Church. 89
and revenues increased, multitudes of the monks became
notorious for indolence and gross immorality. We must
remember also that it was from the ranks of the clergy
that men were called to act as ambassadors, prime minis
ters, envoys, diplomats and lawyers. Religion and its
interests were subordinated to political machinations and
selfish ambitions. At the head of this imperial, hier
archical system, stood the Pope. In the progress of the
centuries the papal power had come to its culmination.
This power, that arrogated, supremacy both in the realm
of spiritual and civil life, had been so misused and abused
that in these opening days of the Sixteenth Century "it
was notorious to every one living in Rome that the char
acter of her Popes and the acts of the papal court were
so evil, that she had become both politically and spiritu
ally the centre of wickedness and rottenness in Europe
and especially in Italy."
This desecration of a power that had won such com
plete obedience and acceptance, was the source of the
revolt that changed the currents of history and gave a
mighty impulse to the spirit of democracy that in its
struggles against imperialistic power laid the foundations
of that Evangelical Christianity that has given birth to
republican ideals, institutions and governments.
In tracing the sources of the Protestant Reformation
we must not forget that it was the internal corruption of
the Roman Church, disclosed in the life of wicked popes
and ambitious cardinals, flaunting their selfish and lustful
pride of authority in the eyes of all Europe; dissolute
monks and idle priests greedily fleecing the flocks which
they controlled with abject fear and obedience: that
created the feeling that broke out in the Revolution of

90 The Reformation.
which Luther stands in history as the foremost leader.
From the days of Huss until the dramatic hour when
Luther, at the Diet at Worms, took his stand against
Rome, the men — and they were a host — who mourned
over conditions growing out of the action and sins of
unworthy representatives of the Church they loved as the
Body of Christ, desired and strove to bring about the
reformation of these evils by changes wrought within its
corporate life. For generations humble, devout Christian
men and women, some of them dwellers in monasteries
and nunneries, scholars and teachers in the universities,
and the more thoughtful members of the laity, in an age
in which feudalism imposed its imperious bondage, alike
complained of the evils that had their fountain head in
Rome. Dante had described the Popes of his generation
as men "whose avarice
O'ercasts the world with mourning, under foot
Treading the good, and raising bad men up.
Of Shepherds like to you, the Evangelist
Was aware, when her who sits upon the waves
With kings in filthy^whoredom he beheld !"
The indictment of Petrarch is no less severe. _^,^^^,m
"Once Rome : now false and guilty Babylon !
Hive of deceits ! Terrible prison,
Where the good doth die, the bad is fed and fattened!
Hell of the living!
Sad world that dost endure it : Cast her out !"
The Roman Church, as a human institution, was com
ing to a day of judgment that has not yet passed. The
power that revealed its weakness and ushered in an era

The Victories of Evangelical Faith. 91
that witnessed the victories of evangelical faith was the
Truth of the revealed Word of God. This word, in its
entirety, had been a sealed book for centuries but even a
degenerate hierarchical church of imperialistic power
while it might scatter the dust of Huss upon the waters
of the Danube; exterminate his followers in Bohemia,
and the Albigenses of Southern France, and light the
cruel flames of the Inquisition, could not destroy the
essential truth that was the life of Christianity. In the
lessons of the Breviary, the hymns of Ambrose and Ber
nard, in the organ peals that lifted human voices echoing
through the aisles and under the domes of the marvelous
cathedrals that Christian art had filled with paintings that
are still the world's treasures ; men of intellectual power ;
devout women whose immaculate purity still shone in the
life of palace halls, and rude hovels; teachers and
ecclesiastics of devout and holy character: found the
Christ and were His followers. Their prayers, their
desires, were answered, not as they hoped in a purified
Roman Catholic Church, but in the Protestant Reforma
tion of the Sixteenth Century.

CHAPTER IX.
Luther's Break with Rome. 1517 — 1520.
All Saints' day in 1517 found the great parish church
of Wittenberg crowded with an audience, many of whom
had already read the propositions regarding indulgences
that Luther had posted on its door the previous after
noon. These statements he again repeated at this festival
service. The whole matter might have aroused only local
and neighborhood interest had not Tetzel and the Pope
been aware that the young Wittenberg monk and pro
fessor was backed by strong influential parties. The
Elector of Saxony stood in such relations to the Holy
Roman Empire that he held a key position. A man of
high ideals and Christian character, he was in full sym
pathy with the attack made by Luther upon Tetzel and
his nefarious traffic. It is said that the Elector, a few
days after Luther posted his theses, had a dream in which
he saw the writing on the door of the church which he
had built, in letters so large that he could read them in
his palace, eighteen miles distant. Wonderful to tell he
also, in his dream, saw the pen that Luther used grow
longer and longer until at last it reached Rome and al
most upset the Pope's triple crown. Stretching out his
hand to save it from falling he awoke !
The refusal of the Elector to allow Tetzel to enter his
dominion, conveyed the story of Luther's courageous act
to Rome under circumstances that stirred the Papal
Court and made the incident the theme of conversation
and discussion in the palaces, the universities and the
homes of wealthy burghers and humble peasants.
92

The Theses Against Indulgences. 93
We must not forget that the famous theses were not in
the form of an attack but rather a criticism of the abuse
of indulgences.
The assertions of the Theses were as follows :
i. An Indulgence is and can only be the remission of a
merely ecclesiastical penalty ; the Church can remit what
the Church has imposed; it cannot remit what God has
imposed. ii. An Indulgence can never remit guilt ; the pope him
self cannot do such a thing ; God has kept that in his own
hands. iii. It cannot remit the divine punishment for sin ; that
also is in the hands of God alone.
iv. It can have no efficacy for souls in Purgatory ; pen
alties imposed by the Church can only refer to the living ;
death dissolves them ; what the Pope can do for souls in
Purgatory is by prayer, not by jurisdiction or the power
of the keys.
v. The Christian who has true repentance has already
received pardon from God altogether apart from an In
dulgence, and does not need one; Christ demands this
true repentance from every one.
vi. The Treasury of Merits has never been properly
defined ; it is hard to say what it is, and it is not properly
understood by the people; it cannot be the merits of
Christ and of His saints, because these act of themselves
and quite apart from the intervention of the pope ; it can
mean nothing more than that the pope, having the power
of the keys can remit ecclesiastical penalties imposed by
the Church ; the true treasure-house of merits is the Holy
Ghost of the grace and glory of God.

94 The Reformation.
Luther had no thought at this time of withdrawing
from the Church of his fathers. His soul was firm in the
purpose and desire to do all that was in his power to
cleanse it from the evils that threatened its life. He
hoped to aid in bringing the Church back to the spirit and
teachings of Augustine and the early Fathers. He had
no conception, when he lighted the torch of Truth and
disclosed the iniquities of the traffic endorsed by Rome,
that its sparks would kindle the conflagration that soon
spread all over Europe and Britain. From that epochal
incident on the afternoon of October 31, 1517, events
moved fast. Luther was soon to realize his providential
mission and leadership.
In November ( 1517) the Elector Albrecht of Mayence
sent a message to Rome denouncing the monk of Witten
berg as a promulgator of false doctrines and a seducer of
the common people. As bishop of Albrecht he hastened
to bring suit against the pernicious heretic "through
Master John Tetzel." The suit was not pressed but the
statements upon which it was based especially aroused
the vigorous support of the Dominican order, of which
Tetzel was a member. Cardinal Cajetan, the General of
the order, took up the cudgels in behalf of the opinions
so acutely criticized by Luther. Pope Leo X was wary
and diplomatic. Through the head of the Augustinian
order, with which Luther was connected, he sought to
reach the Wittenberg heretic, in a conciliatory way. This
effort only resulted in strengthening the convictions of
Luther and giving wider dissemination to the views that
had aroused the wrath of Tetzel and his fellow Domini
cans. In this controversy Luther was sustained by
Staupitz and the Elector of Saxony.

Philip Melanchthon. 95
This was a heart-searching and testing period in the
life of Luther, (1518 — 1519). In great loneliness of
spirit, he was called also to walk in a path where old time
friends passed him by. It was a season of reaction in the
tide of popular feeling in the university and city that had
buoyed him up and encouraged his action in attacking
Tetzel. Again he fought over the old battle grounds of
faith and doctrine, and came forth firm in convictions
from which he never again swerved. In these days a
comrade of noble and gentle spirit stood at his side. The
wise Elector never listened to more providential advice
than that which brought Melanchthon to Wittenberg, as
professor of Greek (1518). A graduate of Heidelberg
and Tubingen he was eminently fitted to become a leader
of the "New Learning." His fame as a teacher crowded
the university with an enthusiastic band of students who
caught from him, not only the spirit of the Renaissance,
but a love of the New Testament whose Christian prin
ciples were exemplified in his daily walk and conversa
tion. The personality and courageous attitude of Luther
had been one of the influences that decided Melanchthon
to accept the invitation to Wittenberg. The friendship
that existed between these two great men is one of the
delightful idyls of the Reformation period. They were
providentially fitted to supplement each others work in
the heavy task that was laid upon them. In temperament
Melanchthon was in every way the opposite of Luther
but his gentle and sensitive nature, balanced by a well
trained and scholarly judgment, furnished just the sup
port that Luther needed. The hand and brain that
drafted the Augsburg Confession was that of no ordinary
man.

96 The Reformation.
In this time of heated controversy Luther accepted the
challenge of Eck to dispute with Carlstadt and himself,
at Leipzig, on the papal supremacy. This disputation,
held in June, 1519, was a turning point in Luther's career.
Carlstadt had been connected with the university at Wit
tenberg since 1505 and, first as a teacher of philosophy
and then of theology, had won a position of large in
fluence. He was a pioneer in the Reformation movement
and in some respects he stood, in these early years, in
advance of Luther. But the free thinking spirit and lack
of good judgment, that marked his entire life, did not
permit any close friendship between these fellow teachers.
They were at this time, in some sense, rivals in the leader
ship of affairs and opinions that made Wittenberg the
Mecca of students who sympathized with their attacks on
Roman supremacy.
Eck was a trained debater and profoundly versed in
ecclesiastical tradition and history. In the discussion at
Leipzig he is generally conceded to have won a dialectic
victory over both Carlstadt and Luther. Historians have
called attention to the bouquet of flowers that Luther
held in his hand when he ascended the rostrum of this
debate. Then, as always, the fragrance and beauty of
garden blossoms were a source of pleasure that brought
moments of rest into his storm-tossed life. His garden
at Wittenberg was a means of delightful recreation and
his correspondence with friends, of kindred taste, mingles
suggestions and inquiries about garden seeds and tools,
with weighty doctrinal and ecclesiastical discussions.
Luther, as he walked among his flowers on his return
from Leipzig, needed their cheer and beauty. Shaking
off the depression that followed this seeming defeat by

Luther's Leadership. 97
the wily Dominican, he wrote an account of the Leipzig
Disputation in the form of an appeal to his fellow coun
tryman. In this appeal was gathered the strength of long
maturing convictions crystalized with a white heat of
thought into a message that met a popular response far
beyond his expectations. The keynote of this message
was that of the spiritual priesthood of all believers that
permitted access, by direct approach, to the heart of In
finite Love. This message was followed by a veritable
flood of literature, from his tireless pen, that bore him to
a place of leadership that from this time on remained
unchallenged. Meanwhile the enemies of Luther were busy plotting
schemes that induced the Pope to bring him to trial for
"suspicion of heresy." Prierias, an official expert of the
Curia, prepared the opinion upon which the proceedings
were taken up. He was so well pleased with the argu
ments with which he assaulted the Theses of Luther that
he immediately published them. This rude and weak
"opinion," did little harm to Luther and provoked feeling
in his favor. The citation was issued early in June
(1518), but the official summons did not reach Witten
berg until August. Rome was evidently alarmed. With
out giving Luther due time to make answer the Pope
ordered Cardinal Cajetan to at once examine him and if
he did not immediately recant, have him arrested and
brought to Rome. In case of his escape no time was to
be lost in excommunicating him and all who favored his
opinions. It was a larger contract than Leo surmised.
The good Elector stepped in front of his courageous
Wittenberg professor and the plan failed. Luther met
Cajetan at Augsburg under an assurance that he would
7

98 The Reformation.
not be arrested, and the angry cardinal after a conference
with the "German beast" had to admit that there was
lack of dogmatic basis for condemning him as a heretic.
Another plan was devised. In November the Pope issued
a decretal, that, without mentioning the name of Luther,
condemned his teachings as heretical. A trained diplo
mat, Karl von Miltiz, was sent to the court of Saxony
with instructions to use every effort to secure the ap
proval of the Elector to a scheme that would place Luther
in the power of the Roman See. He quickly discovered
that this was a futile errand, and decided to act the role
of mediator.
Political motives played an important part in this sud
den change of front in the treatment of Luther. The
Emperor Maximilian, head of the Holy Roman Empire,
had died in January, 15 19. His grandson, Charles of
Spain, and Francis I of France were the leading candi
dates for this exalted position. Leo X was bitterly op
posed to the succession of Charles, and favored the
claims of Francis. Realizing that there was little hope
of the French king securing the coveted honor he favored
a plan that brought forward the name of the Elector of
Saxony. This situation made him anxious to hush up the
Luther matter. It has even been surmised that Leo gave
a diplomatic promise to the Elector that in case his
Wittenberg protege would obediently recant and make
no further trouble he might be elevated to the cardi-
nalate. Bribery and promises did not avail. A letter of
Erasmus tells the story. When the imperial crown was
offered to the noble Duke of Saxony he refused the
honor and gave his influence in favor of Charles who was

Rome Prepares to Excommunicate Luther. 99
elected emperor the following day and as such became
head of the Holy Roman Empire.
The heresy trial was reopened. The Elector treated
with disdain the threat of an interdict if he continued to
aid Luther. His reply, framed in the courteous spirit
that marked his noble character, firmly denied the power
of the Curia rtoXejthej? excommunicate Luther or place
his own lands under the interdict while the mediation
ordered by Miltiz had not taken place. Rome made an
swer through a scurrilous address, given by an official
that depicted the Elector in the blackest colors "as a rag
ing, cruel tyrant, as the executioner of the clergy, the
Apostolic See, indeed, the whole Christian religion, and
finally even set him down as the twin head of the hor
rible Hydra Luther."1
In February (1520) a commission, consisting of two
cardinals and several eminent theologians resident in
Rome, advised a partial condemnation oi Luther's Theses
as heretical, and suggested that he be given another op
portunity to recant. A command had gone from Leo,
to the head of the Augustinian order, asking him to make
Staupitz the bearer of a message to this effect, when Eck,
whose personality will soon haye a prominent place, ap
pears upon the scene. In Rome, by invitation of the
Pope, Eck made statements that entirely changed the at
titude of Leo. A bull of excommunication was officially
issued on the 14th of June. This formidable document
opened with these words : "Rise up, O Lord, a wild boar
has invaded your vineyard." It ordered the burning of
iLuther In the Light of Recent Research. Heinrich Bohmer.
Translated by Carl F. Huth, Jr., p. 14.

ioo The Reformation.
all of Luther's books and anathematized forty-one of his
Theses. He was given sixty days after its publication in
certain stated places, to retract. A privilege which under
canon law every heretic enjoyed. To those who think the
Roman Catholic Church is free from party strife and
passion, we commend a study of the part played in these
days by the Dominican order in their defense of their
fellow member Tetzel and their underhanded, bitter as
saults upon the Augustinian order to which Luther
belonged. Protestant "sects" have often clashed in an
un-Christian spirit but the story of these days, in the life
of Luther, disclose a far more malignant type of fratra-
cidal strife. Unity is of the spirit. It cannot be secured
by hierarchical power.

CHAPTER X.
Historical Relation of the Reformation to the
Protestant Churches of the United States.
From their standpoint, we must admit that Leo and the
Roman Curia had good reasons for being angry with Lu
ther and anxious to get rid of him at the earliest possible
moment. The year 1520 covers a wonderful twelve
months in his career as the leader of the Reformation.
Strong as he was; intellectually and physically in the
prime and ripeness of his versatile genius, it seems al
most incredible that he could have accomplished the
amount of work that stands to his credit. As never be
fore he made the printing press the means of propagating
the seed truth that in its scattering, found lodgment in
hearts prepared to welcome their life giving message.
Three of his great pamphlets came in rapid succession
from the press in both German and Latin.
The Address to the Christian Nobility of the German
Nation urged the need of interference by the secular gov
ernment inasmuch as the Church had failed to reform it
self. "The Romanists," says Luther, "have with great
dexterity built themselves about with three walls, which
have hitherto protected them against reform ; and there
by is Christianity fearfully fallen. In the first place, when
the temporal power has pressed them hard, they have
affirmed and maintained that the temporal power has no
jurisdiction over them — that, on the contrary, the spir
itual is above the temporal. Secondly, when it was pro
posed to admonish them from the Holy Scriptures they
said, 'It beseems no one but the pope to interpret the
101

102 The Reformation.
Scriptures,' and thirdly, when they were threatened with
a council, they invented the idea that no one but the pope
can call a council. Thus they have secretly stolen our
three rods that they may go unpunished, and have en
trenched themselves safely behind these three walls in
order to carry on all the rascality and wickedness that
we now see."
He exposes in his trenchant fashion the hypocrisy of
the distinction made between the "spiritual estate," com
posed of the pope and other ecclesiastics, and the "tem
poral estate," made up of princes, artisans and peasants.
"A cobbler, a smith, a peasant, every man has his own
calling and duty," says Luther, "just like the consecrated
priests and bishops, and every one in his calling or office
must help and serve the rest, so that all may work together
for the common good."
The luxurious life of the Papal Court and the tax it
laid upon the hard earned resources of the common peo
ple, are exposed with pitiless frankness. "What the Ro
manists really mean to do," says Luther, "the 'drunken
Germans' are not to see until they have lost everything.
* * * If we rightly, hang thieves and behead robbers,
why do we leave the greed of Rome unpunished? for
Rome is the greatest thief and robber that has ever ap
peared on earth, or ever will; and all in the holy names
of the Church and St. Peter." Asserting the freedom
and duty of the secular power to correct these evils Lu
ther suggested plans for reducing the number of idle
monks, stopping the calls for money to pay for the lux
uries of a foreign court, prohibiting drinking habits, and
reforming matters generally. "Let the power of the
Pope be reduced within clear limits. Let there be fewer

Luther's Attack on Rome. 103
cardinals, and let them not keep the best things to them
selves. Let the national churches be more independent
of Rome. Let there be fewer pilgrimages to Italy. Let
there be fewer convents. Let priests marry. Let begging
be stopped by making each parish take charge of its own
poor. Let us inquire into the position of the Bohemians,
and if Huss was in the right, let us join with him in re
sisting Rome." With a clarion note of defiance he closes
with these words : "Enough for this time ! I know right
well that I have sung in a high strain. Well, I know an
other little song about Rome and her people! Do their
ears itch? I will sing it also, and in the highest notes!
Dost thou know well, my dear Rome, what I mean?"
This "other little song" was an attack upon the doc
trines of Rome. The pamphlet On the Babylonish Cap
tivity, of the Church, denied that the supremacy of the
Pope was of divine right. Luther boldly attacked the sac
ramental system of the Middle Ages, reducing the num
bers from seven to three — Baptism, Penance, and the
Lord's Supper. Declaring the Pope a usurper, and the
Papacy the kingdom of Babylon, he closed his iconoclastic
message with another defiant note. "He heard that Bulls
and other terrible Papistical things were being prepared,
by which he was to be urged to recant or be declared a
heretic. Let this little book be taken as a part of his re
cantation, and as an earnest of what was to come."
Luther had indeed "taken the bull by the horns" ! No
wonder the ease loving Erasmus was disturbed and fear
ful over such defiant words, but we remember the scene
at the Elector's palace fireside when, in reply to the
Duke's question as to "What he really thought of Lu
ther," Erasmus smiled and replied, "Luther has com-

104 The Reformation.
mitted two crimes ! He has hit the Pope on the crown
and the monks on the belly."
Doubtless the Elector recalled his dream. The pen of
Luther had reached Rome. While the friends of the
Wittenberg professor shook their heads and his good
friend the Duke suggested that he tone down his militant
style, it is evident that then, as always, the strong, brave
reformer was not only admired but welcomed as the
providential man for the hour. It was an hour that called
for courage of the highest type. Only drastic remedies
could avail.
Another pamphlet in this year of prolific intellectual
labor gives us the spiritual heart thought and life of the
great Reformer. The Freedom of the Christian is Lu
ther's testimony and doctrinal beliefs as they had been
wrought out in the spiritual struggles and experiences of
early manhood. It was a message that unfolded the
depths of the riches of Divine grace and disclosed a gos
pel of love and hope that brought cheer and light into
multitudes of hearts and homes in Germany and far be
yond its boundaries.
The closing act, in this history making year, was the
burning of the Pope's Bull, December 10, 1520. "Had
there been a mountain at Wittenberg," says Seebohm,
"Luther would have lit the bonfire on the top, and let the
world, far and near, see the Pope's Bull blaze in its
flames. But there was not even a hill in that flat coun
try." Heading the procession with his fellow professors,
and followed by the students of the university and a
crowd of citizens Luther marched through the Elster
gate and on the banks of the Elbe, cast the papal decree
of excommunication into flames that were also fed with

The Foremost Leader of the Reformation. 105
as many Roman law bo»ks as he could secure. The
cheers that rose from the excited crowd were taken up all
over Europe as tidings came of Luther's defiant act. The
Reformation had found its foremost leader. From this
time forth Luther stands in the light that for four cen
turies has kept his work and personality in the eyes of
men of every land where the Bible has given the radiance
of its message. It is a very human life that stands in this
limelight. There is no need to paint him other than he
was. Impetuous in temperament ; moved often by strong
passions and by no means free from habits that marked
the social usages of his age, Luther as he stands in the
light of the flames that consumed the edict of Rome is a
man whose nobility of character, loyalty to Christ, and
imperial qualities of genius, grows upon us as we come
closer to him and follow him in the hard and rugged path
that he trode until release came from earthly labors.
No man was ever called to face more bitter and sub
tile enmity. But the arrows of poisoned malignity fell
harmless at the feet of the great leader who recognized
his human frailties as no one else could do but, through
the pathway of constant prayer and obedient trustful
faith in God and His atoning grace, won the victory over
self, the world and all the powers of darkness.

CHAPTER XI.
Luther at the Diet of Worms.
Sharles V. opened his first German diet at Worms on
the 22d of January, 1521. Among English State papers
a copy has been preserved of "Agenda" entitled, "A
memory of divers matters to be provided in the present
Diet of Worms." Under caption four the diet was asked
"to take notice of the books and descriptions made
by Friar Martin Luther against the Court of Rome."
The battle royal was on. The great question of the hour
was, How to get rid of this troublesome monk? But for
the protection of the Elector of Saxony matters would
have gone hard with Luther. The Pope's envoy, Ale-
ander, was under instruction to secure his condemnation
as an outlaw. The emperor was ready to act within
his own hereditary dominions but he wisely hesitated to
extend this decree within the boundaries of the German
Empire. As the outcome of the prolonged discussion
the emperor agreed to summon Luther to Worms under
a safe conduct.
It was an hour in which the Reformer's courage did not
falter. He was prepared for the worst. "Mydearbrother,"
he said to Melanchthon as he bade him good-bye,
"if I do not come back, if my enemies put me to death,
you will go on teaching and standing fast in the truth ;
if you live, my death will matter little." It was a tearful
company from which he parted as he stepped into the
wagon that carried him on his twelve days' journey to
Worms ; days that were crowded with incidents that dis-
106

Luther on the Way to Worms. 107
closed the popular sympathy and strengthened Luther in
his time of trial. The story is told of his interview with
a priest who kept in his study a portrait of Savonarola.
Taking the picture from the wall, he held it for a mo
ment in silence before his guest. "Stand firm," he at
length said, "in the truth thou hast proclaimed, and God
will as firmly stand by thee." Luther rested one night at
Erfurt and slept in the old convent whose walls had wit
nessed the mental and spiritual struggles of earlier days.
The following morning, regardless of the terms of his
safe conduct, he preached to a crowded congregation in
the convent church.
From Frankfort he wrote Spalatin, "Christ lives, and
we will enter Worms in spite of all the gates of hell and
the powers of the air." At one place a parody on the
Litany gave forceful expression to the excited condition
of public opinion. "Have mercy," it said, "upon the
Germans. From the tyranny of the Roman Pontiff de
liver the Germans. From the insatiable avarice of the
Romans deliver the Germans. That Martin Luther, that
upright pillar of the Christian faith, may soon arrive at
Worms, we beseech thee to hear us. That the zealous
German Knight, Ulrich Hutten, the defender of Martin
Luther, may persevere in upholding Luther, we beseech
thee to hear us." It was a triumphal journey, measured
by the enthusiastic greeting of the populace. Luther en
tered into the spirit of the people with kindly good humor
and for his own relief, as well as the joy of his admirers,
he joined the notes of his favorite flute with their evening
songs and German good cheer. But in it all, as one of the
historians of this scene has wisely said, "The point to
mark is this — it did not turn the head of Luther."

io8 The Reformation.
News of the popular demonstrations that had attended
the journey of Luther and his companions reached
Worms in advance. The young emperor and his papal
advisers were both angry and troubled. Messages of
compromise were sent to Luther but he refused to con
sider them before he arrived at Worms. In answer to a
possible plot of treachery, which called up the story of
Huss, Luther replied: "Huss was burned but not the
truth with him." In after days while recalling, with his
beloved friend, the Duke of Saxony, the experiences of
these times of stress, he said: "The Devil saw in my
heart that even had I known that there would be as many
devils at Worms as tiles upon the housetops still I should
gladly have plunged in among them."
As he drew near the city towards noon of April 16th,
he was met by six knights and a troop of horsemen led
by the emperor's herald. A crowd gathered about him
as he stepped down from the covered wagon dressed in
his plain monk's gown. The rest of the day, we are told,
he spent in prayer, playing at intervals upon his flute, and
administering the communion to a Saxon nobleman, in an
adjoining room, who was dangerously ill.
It was nearly evening of the following day when Lu
ther appeared before the Diet. The crowd within and
without the palace was so great that he was brought into
the presence of the emperor and the archbishops, bishops,
and nobility that surrounded the throne, by a private en
trance. A pile of his books were upon the table before
which he stood. Aleander, the papal Nuncio opened
the examination with the questions, "Do you acknowledge
these books to be yours? Do you retract the heretical
doctrines they contain ?" With demeanor so modest that

Luther at the Diet of Worms, 109
many thought he was ready to recant, Luther replied, "I
think the books are mine." After the titles were read, he
said : "Yes, the books are mine." As to the second ques
tion, he asked for time for reflection. This request was
no doubt made at the suggestion of his legal counsellor.
On returning to his lodgings he wrote an account of the
day's doings to a friend in which he said : "With Christ's
help, I shall never retract one tittle."
The next afternoon the streets were thronged with
people and even the housetops were occupied by spec
tators eager to get a glimpse of the young Wittenberg
professor. As Luther entered the hall several noblemen
took occasion to whisper encouraging words as he passed
them. He spoke that hour not only as a faithful servant of
Christ but the representative of the German people. His
address contended that in his books he had treated of
faith and morals in such a spirit that even his opponents
must admit they were worthy to be read by Christian peo
ple. His books against the papacy had attacked only
those "who had wasted and ruined Christendom, body
and soul." To retract the statements he had made would
only "strengthen this tyranny." As to the books that had
been written against some private individuals he ex
pressed regret that he had sometimes "been more vehe
ment than is consistent with the character and position of
a Christian. For I do not set myself up," said Luther,
"as holy. I do not, however, dispute for my own life,
but the doctrine of Christ. I cannot retract even these
books, but I am ready to listen to anyone who can show
me where in these books I have erred." He had spoken in
German, and was exhausted with the intensity of his feel
ing and the excitement of his surroundings. The em-

no The Reformation.
peror, who understood German imperfectly, ordered him
to repeat his address in Latin. The papal party as well
as the emperor, as they understood his position more
clearly, could not conceal their anger. The court coun
sellor claimed that he was quibbling and demanded a
plain answer. This stirred the indignation of the lion-
hearted Reformer, and we can faintly imagine the tones
of his sonorous voice as he flung back this reply : "Well,
then, if your Imperial Majesty requires a plain answer,
I will give one without horns or teeth ! It is this : that
I must be convinced either by the testimony of the Scrip
tures or clear arguments. For I believe things contrary
to the Pope and Councils, because it is as clear as day that
they have often erred and said things inconsistent with
themselves. I am bound by the Scriptures which I have
quoted ; my conscience is submissive to the Word of God ;
therefore I may not, and will not, recant, because to act
against conscience is unholy and unsafe. So help me
God! Amen."
This hour was a turning point in the history of Chris
tianity and the world. The Diet adjourned to meet the
following morning and receive the decision of the em
peror. The stubborn, relentless nature of Charles V. is
discovered in all his actions at this crucial hour. He
knew full well the iniquities hidden under the pride and
lustful ambitions of the Papal Court. It was his purpose
and desire to secure reforms in the Church, if necessary,
against the Pope's will. These reforms he believed could
be brought about by a council and in the face of many
obstacles and discouragements he labored to this end until
his purpose was accomplished twenty years later in the
assembling of the famous council of Trent.

Luther at the Diet of Worms. iii
The very fact that Charles had become interested in
plans looking to a purging of evil within the Church made
him all the more important with monks and teachers .vho
ventured to raise their voices in condemnation of Rome.
Let this work be done by emperor, princes, and prelates
in an orderly, impressive way, to be sanctioned and pro
claimed by his voice as the head of the Holy Roman Em
pire. The emissaries of Rome had taken every oppor
tunity to blacken the character of Luther and brand him
as a "German beast," and when he came into the royal
presence in the palace hall at Worms he stood before the
emperor as a detested heretic. It is vain to imagine the
feelings that stirred the proud, obstinate nature of
Charles V. as he listened to Luther's final outburst of
eloquent indignation and righteous defiance. It is a pic
ture that has hung in the gallery of the world's thought
and imagination for four centuries. Its colors are mixed
with the realities of eternal truth and will never fade.
In that audience room crowded with the nobility of Eu
rope and the representatives of Rome the lesser figures
have grown dim in the passing years. Two figures abide.
One, raised by birth and heritage to the proudest place
of imperial power in the then known world. The other,
a teacher of theology in the youngest of the multitude of
European universities, facing in his monk's garb, the men
who were hounding him with relentless purpose to a "here
tic's" death. Both of the leading actors in this scene were
young men. Luther was thirty-six years old, and Charles
in his twenty-first. Little could they realize the life work
that was before them. The imperial power of truth was
to win victories that in four centuries has crowned the
monk of Wittenberg as the foremost leader of the Prot-

112 The Reformation.
estant Reformation and given a place to Charles V.,
among the rulers of princely blood, as a foremost expo
nent of imperialistic and hierarchical principles that are
more and more yielding to the principles of democracy;
principles that lie at the foundation of the unity of the
Church and of the State : principles rooted in the Testa
ment of the Incarnate Christ and assuring the final tri
umph of His kingdom in the Brotherhood of humanity.
On the morning of April 19th the Diet assembled to
receive the message Charles V. had written in French
with his own hand, but doubtless with the efficient aid of
Aleander, the astute representative of the Pope. Its
keynote was the young emperor's haughty exclamation:
"What my forefathers established at the Council of Con
stance and other councils, it is my privilege to maintain."
The edict pronounced against Luther condemned him as
an outlaw. The printing, selling and reading of his
books was forbidden "since they are foul, harmful, sus
pected, and come from a notorious and stiff-necked here
tic." These books had previously been branded by the
papal nuncio as having "brought together all previous
heresies in one stinking mass." If, sometimes, in reading
the vigorous lashings of Luther's tongue and pen, we sym
pathize with the feelings of the wise Elector and Me
lanchthon in their plea that milder words be used, it is
well to recall the bitter, vulgar, and utterly false state
ments with which Rome assailed the Wittenberg reformer
and all his teachings.
The populace of Worms, and other German towns, had
given full play to their bitter resentment and feeling
against the Roman hierarchy.' Aleander naturally re
sented the open insults which he and his party had en-

Murmurings of Revolt. 113
dured. Having won over the young emperor to their side
they sought to induce him to withdraw the safe conduct
that still kept Luther out of their clutches. The prec
edent of Huss was recalled. "Why should not Luther
with Huss, be burned, and the Rhine receive the ashes of
the one as it had those of the other?" Changes had come
in the relative position of the princes of Rome and the
nobility of nations, in their birth throes, since the Council
of Constance. This new risen power sheltered Luther
and left the angry ambassadors of Rome to lay further
plans to trap the hated German heretic ; hated the more
because they recognized that he voiced the cry of a nation.
This cry was gathering strength in the very hour when
the edict was read that condemned Luther as an outlaw.
Ulrich von Hutten, of whom we shall hear more later on,
was a leader in the crowd whose murmurings must have
been wafted through the windows of the assembling
place of the Diet that April morning. A few days later
when word came that Luther was missing, an unknown
hand posted a placard on the walls of the Town Hall,
stating that 400 knights and 800 footmen were ready to
avenge Luther if he were harmed by the Romanists. It
bore no signature but underneath the ominous watchword
of peasant revolts was thrice repeated, Bundschuh, Bund-
schuh, Bundschuh. It was indeed a handwriting on the
wall. Revolutions are terrible, but the sins that compel
their dynamic explosions are far more terrible. They
must needs be a part of the world's history in the battle
for democracy and the rights of the people against en
trenched evils and the aristocratic supremacy of vested
powers wrested from their rightful possessors. Luther w-
at Worms stood fast as the servant of God. His courage

114 The Reformation.
was rewarded not only by the Divine approval but in that
hour he was set apart as the religious and ethical leader
of a nation ; nay more as the most prominent personality
in a Reformation that has changed the destinies of hu
manity, a Mt. Blanc, in a world drama when other
names appear whose influence and character was such as
lift them to heights that place them among the immortals
whom the generations will not willingly let die.
Charles V. was reluctantly compelled to give heed to
the appeal of the Electors and granted a few more days
of respite in which every effort was made to shake the
opinions and convictions of Luther. For him the die
was cast. On the 26th of April the emperor ordered him
to leave the city. In twenty-one days his safe conduct
would expire. "He left Worms the hero of the German
nation. Single handed he had fought the battle of Ger
many against the Pope. He had hazarded his life for
the sake of the Fatherland. It was this which made Lu
ther's name a household word with the Germans for ages
to come. There is no name in the roll of German historic
heroes so German, national and typical as Luther's. He
fought a battle at Worms not only for Germany but for
Christendom — not only against the Pope, but against all
powers, religious or secular, who seek to lay chains upon
the human mind and to enthrall the free belief of the
people. Against the emperor as well as the Pope, against
all powers that be, he asserted the right of fredom of
conscience" (Seebohm).
When tidings came to Worms and other German
cities that Luther had been suddenly abducted by a band
of horsemen, intense excitement prevailed. The placard
posted on the Town Hall at Worms expressed the feeling

Luther at the Castle of the Wartbukg. 115
and purpose of the common people and many of the no
bility. The wildest rumors prevailed. A report found
wide credence that Luther's body had been discoverd in a
silver mine pierced with a dagger. That he had been
slain by papal emissaries was generally believed. The
true story of his disappearance was long kept a secret.
Before he left Worms his influential friends among the
nobility had good reason to believe that with the expira
tion of the few days covered by his safe conduct he
would immediately fall a victim to the hate of Rome.
The Elector of Saxony quietly commissioned two of his
officers to seize Luther while on his homeward journey
and convey him to some place of safety without letting
him know where he was going. Indeed several weeks
passed before the Elector knew that Luther was safe in
his own castle of the Wartburg. The final edict against
the arch heretic was delayed until the last of May. While
the German nobility as a rule had little interest in or
knowledge of the doctrinal views of Luther, they had
still less interest in carrying out the mandates of Rome
and the ban that outlawed the Wittenberg teacher and all
his adherents, failed of any general publication.

CHAPTER XII.
The Beginning of the Storm of Revolution.
The angry murmurings of the populace at Worms, and
the hiding of Luther in the fastnesses of the Thuringian
forests, betokened conditions that soon culminated in
revolutionary action that swept with blood red flames
through Germany and startled all Europe. There was a
brief lull before the storm broke. Luther in the seclusion
of the Wartburg castle was busy with his pen in an ex
tended correspondence that kept him in close touch with
the outside world. The manuscript of pamphlet after
pamphlet was completed, and he began the great transla
tion of the Bible into the German tongue, that was to
stand through untold generations as a monument of his
versatile genius and marvelous insight into the treasures
of the Revealed Truth. "The crowning gift of Luther to
the German people was in fact his German Bible and his
German hymns. The earnest, vigorous German in which
they are written fixed the future style of the -language.
The German spoken to-day is the German of Luther's
Bible and hymns. They have been better known by the
German people than any other literature, and so have
done more than perhaps anything else to form the Ger
man language, and with it in no small degree the national
character." (Seebohm.)
Luther was a lover of music and when his pen was
idle his favorite flute woke the echoes of his cloister room
at Wartburg and was wafted through the windows with
their wonderful outlook over the forest-clad mountains
116

The Struggle for European Leadership. 117
that were a source of constant refreshment. While the
date of the writing of his great hymn (Bin Teste Burg ist
unser Gott) "A sure stronghold our God is He," will
probably remain in doubt, it seems most natural that its
marvellous strains should have burst from the heart of
Luther in these days of solitude in the fortress-like castle
of the Wartburg. "It was," says Ranke, "the production
of the moment in which Luther, engaged in a conflict with
a world of foes, sought strength in the consciousness that
he was defending a divine cause which could never per
ish." Heine called it "the Marseillaise of the Reforma
tion," and Carlyle likens it to "a sound of Alpine ava
lanches, or the first murmur of earthquakes."
While Luther is sheltered in the Wartburg how go«
affairs in the outside world ? The story of political feuds,
ecclesiastical intrigues, and religious and social up
heavals, that marked these days, and the years near at
hand, have furnished material for historians whose vol
umes fill libraries. The decision at Worms that con
demned Luther as an outlaw, had its roots in political
as well as religious conflicts. The Reformation period
was preceded by a European struggle in which France
and Spain contended for mastery. Italy was the battle
field and Milan and Naples were prizes to be won. The
moves upon the chess board were swift and in the final
result, Spain held the northern city, and gained control
of Naples, while the Pope united Spain, Germany and
England in an alliance that sought to drive France out of
Italy. Francis I. came to the throne with a proud boast
that his armies would soon make him master of Europe.
The oriflamme banner of France again floated above the
ramparts of Milan. Then followed the struggle for em-

118 The Reformation.
pire. Charles V. won the coveted prize, and as crowned
head of the Holy Roman Empire, ascended the throne of
Germany. The ambitious career of Francis I. was
checked. Leo X. sought an alliance with Charles in the
hope of driving the French out of Italy. Henry VIII. of
England, wished to strengthen the link that, through his
marriage with Catherine of Arragon, Charles's aunt,
brought him into close relation with Spain. He was ready
to break the engagement of the Princess Mary with the
Dauphin of France if he could arrange her marriage with
Charles. Naturally the youthful Emperor was ready to
form alliances that would strengthen his position against
France. He was very unhappy over the conquest of
Milan by his young rival. It was a merry game in which
royal duplicity prepared the way for a seed sowing of
bloody harvest fields. The Pope played a double game.
Francis was preparing to cross the Alps and lead his
armies into Italy. Charles V. and Henry VIII. were
standing together to thwart the ambitious schemes of the
French king. Watching events from his Vatican cham
ber, Leo decided to place himself by the side of Charles
in the hope that he would help him in getting rid of the
pestilent Wittenberg heretic.
These political intrigues must be kept in mind in order
to understand the reasons that determined the action at
Worms that outlawed Luther and his adherents. In the
alliance, concluded May 8th, the Emperor and the Pope
stood together against Francis as well as Luther. This out
come of long and carefully conducted political intrigues
was a bitter disappointment to the German people. They
knew full well that it was the action of the beloved Elec
tor of Saxony that had turned the balance in favor of

Premonitions of Revolution. 119
Charles and crowned him Emperor. And now in the hour
when they hoped for release from the tyranny of Rome
he had linked hands with the Pope. The council of re
gency of which the Elector of Saxony was made the head,
was powerless either to remedy existing evils or stay the
tide of revolution that, like the melting of snow in spring
time, was gathering innumerable rivulets whose united
strength was ready to sweep, as a mighty torrent, through
the forest glades and valleys of Germany.
The Beginning of Revolution (1522).
While Luther is writing, praying, pondering, in his
watch tower at the Wartburg, matters are not going well
at Wittenberg. The university was crowded with stu
dents eagerly drinking in the spirit and teaching of the
man whom Luther never trusted. Carlstadt now came
to the place of leadership that he had long coveted. He
did all he could to foster the restless iconoclastic spirit
that had taken possession of the city and surrounding
country. While many monks deserted the monasteries
and entered various trades, Carlstadt found the way open
for the radical changes in public worship, and other mat
ters that he had long advocated.
At Zwickau in Bohemia, a weaver by the name of Claus
Storch, filled with fanatical zeal, had gained a few fellow
believers in what he asserted was a divinely inspired mes
sage. They posed as prophets of a faith that had no place
for priests or the Bible. Their wild ravings found re
sponse in hearts ready for violence and violent deeds.
Driven out of Zwickau, Storch arid his companions found
their way to Wittenberg. Carlstadt made them welcome
and members in the city and university speedily caught

120 The Reformation.
the frenzy of the wild, ignorant artisans from Bohemia;
the preaching of Carlstadt, and that of a young Augus
tinian monk by the name of Zwilling, had already kindled
a conflagration that had broken out in riots. In vain did
Frederick the Wise and Melanchthon counsel moderation
and a more quiet and lawful spirit of reform. Even the
authorities of the city were restless of restraint. Mat
ters came to such a pass that the altar clergy were stoned
while discharging their duties, so that the mass had to be
omitted. A rabble of students and townsmen seized the
missal from the priest and drove him from the altar.
The following day a company of students affixed a revo
lutionary placard on the door of the Franciscan church,
and they so "intimidated the poor monks that they dared
to read only one mass in the choir and lived in fear of
seeing their monastery stormed during the night." This
rioting was finally stopped by the city council. A more
potent influence came to quell the tumult. On this very
day a dark bearded and handsomely equipped horseman
alighted at the home of Professor Amsdorf . He entered
the house unrecognized. It was Luther. He remained in
secluded consultation with Melanchthon and other friends
for five days and then quietly returned to the Wartburg.
He immediately wrote his treatise : "A True Warning to»
All Christians to Guard Against Sedition and Revolt."
He sent the manuscript to Spalatin with the request that it
be published at once. His friend hesitated to do so be
cause Luther was an outlaw and it did not appear until
the spring of the following year (1522), too late to help
in checking the frenzied action that marked these months
of violence.

Revolution In Wittenberg. 121
The action of the burghers in arresting the leaders in
the riot of December third (1521) was resented by an
increasing number of the citizens. On December ninth
they gathered in force and demanded not only the re
lease of the imprisoned rioters, but the acceptance by
the council of a series of articles that were by no means
inflammatory. They demanded freedom in preaching
God's Word ; the abolishment of all compulsory and va
rious other masses and prayers for the benefit of the dead.
They requested the admission of all citizens to the Evan
gelical communions, the abolition of brothels and re
striction in tavern drinking. The outcome of this attempt
to intimidate the council was to cause the intervention of
the Elector and the punishment of prominent leaders in
the scenes that had brought disgrace on the Reformation
movement and caused Luther profound grief and even
dismay. But the excitement was not over. The profes
sors in the university were at loggerheads and unable to
"come to an agreement of doctrine." The aged Elector
chided them for their lack of unity and ordered that the
old system continue in force "until others also take up the
matter." The hot-tempered Carlstadt paid no attention
to this admonition and before the Elector was able to
intervene held an Evangelical communion service free
from what he termed the customary "froth." Other par
ish priests followed his example. All this stirred up in
tense feeling. It was then the Zwickau fanatics made
their appearance and Carlstadt and Zwilling led the cru
sade that on the eleventh of January (1522) burned every
picture and statue in the chapel of the Black Cloister and
on the following day removed the altars. Melanchthon
and other professors in the university raised their voices

122 The Reformation.
against this action but it is a significant testimony to the
popular feeling that a majority vote within a few days
approved the doings of Carlstadt and his followers by a
regulation that was made a part of the city statutes.
These ordinances were, for the most part, in line with
reforms that Luther had suggested. In one respect, how
ever, they directly opposed his views. It was decreed that
in the eucharist the communicants shall take the bread
and the cup with their own hands.
For a time the ordinance worked well. The city was
freed from prostitutes and beggars. Many of the monks
married and made an honest living as carpenters, shoe
makers, bakers, farmers, and tradesmen. The council
hesitated about removing the pictures and altars of the
parish church. Carlstadt was indignant because they
failed to act and his sermons stirred a mob spirit. On the
sixth of February an excited crowd broke into the church
and with ax and fire destroyed the beautiful pictures,
crowns, and crucifixes they had once adored. The ring
leaders of the mob were immediately arrested and word
was sent to the Elector.
The aged Duke had been busy in moving his court to
Allstedt in Thuringia and had not kept in touch with
affairs in Wittenberg for some weeks. When he learned
of the sacking of the Crown church that he had built and
enriched with gifts, he was deeply affected. The univer
sity professors, Carlstadt, Jonas, Melanchthon, Amsdorf,
and Eisermann were at once summoned to meet him at
Eilenburg. Carlstadt was the main offender and the
Elector's wrath subdued even his high temper. Suing
for pardon he promised to refrain from preaching any
more incendiary sermons.

Luther's Return to Wittenberg. 123
Under the direction of the Elector, nearly all the
ground that had been gained previous to the outbreaks,
under the leadership of Carlstadt and Zwilling, was in
danger of being lost. The Wittenberg counsellors, as they
came to their senses, realized that only one man could
save the situation. Without consulting with the Elector,
a swift messenger was dispatched to the Wartburg, bear
ing an urgent request to Luther, that he return to Witten
berg immediately. Since his clandestine visit to the city
in December he had known but little of what was taking
place. As he read the message of the Council, with its
unwelcome and unexpected tidings, his first thought was
that a sharp letter of reprimand would be sufficient. As
he wrote, the conviction deepened, that it was his duty
to give personal attention and leadership in the matter.
He at once sent a letter to the Elector telling him of his
decision. A reply came back from his solicitous friend
saying that in his opinion the Doctor must not "for the
present by no means betake himself to Wittenberg."
But Luther's mind was made up. His place from this
time forward was at the front of the battle line. In a
now famous letter to his beloved friend and royal pro
tector he states the conditions that compel the decision to
leave the refuge in which he had been sheltered by the
kindness of the Elector. Knowing full well that Rome
was ready to seize him as an outlaw he begs his aged
friend not to give him further aid but to act in accord
with his sense of duty even if he were ordered to "ap
prehend and kill him."
On the ninth of March Luther stood once more in the
pulpit of the parish church upon whose doors years be
fore he had nailed his protest against indulgences. As he

124 The Reformation.
stood before the crowded congregation in the black robe
of the Augustinians they might well have felt that another
Elijah had reappeared to utter a message of prophetic de
nunciation and warning. For a week the most eloquent
voice of the Sixteenth Century each day proclaimed such
a message that "there was great gladness and jubilation
among the learned and simple over his arrival and preach
ing." The spirit of unrest and disorder was quelled and
the reins of leadership fell from the unwilling hands of
Carlstadt. Zwilling confessed that "he had erred and
gone too far." With statesmanlike ability Luther wisely
conserved many of the innovations that had been made
during his absence, and so guided affairs that the way
was prepared in due time for further reforms.
The Bohemian prophets came to see Luther. At first
he was impressed by their fanatical zeal, but warned them
to take heed lest their inspiration should come from
spirits of evil. At this suggestion one of the prophets
with intense excitement of voice and gesticulation ex
claimed, "That thou mayest know, O Luther, that I am
inspired by the Spirit of God, I will tell thee what is pass
ing in thy mind," and solemnly added : "It is that thou
art ready to think that my doctrine is true." Luther de
tecting quickly the sham of this reply, sternly answered :
"The Lord rebuke thee, Satan ; the God whom I worship
will soon put a stop to your spirits."

CHAPTER XIII.
The Peasants' War, 1522-1525.
Two months before Luther returned to Wittenberg
Leo X. had been succeeded by Adrian VI. A man of
devout spirithe mourned over that "corruption which had
spread from the head to the members." He had no sym
pathy with Luther or his followers, but looked upon their
heresies as a judgment of God on the sins of the monks
and ecclesiastical leaders. The Diet which was held in
Nuremberg (1522-1525) refused to enforce the edict of
Worms and urged the calling of a Council to consider the
whole situation. While expressing approval of the list of
abuses submitted at the Diet of Worms, they ordered
that the books of Luther should no longer be printed and
his voice hushed. Repudiating Luther's leadership they
still declined to take active measures to suppress the doc
trines that had taken such deep root. Worn out with
anxiety and the effort he had made to stay the progress of
heresy and secure reforms within the Church, Adrian
died and was succeeded by Clement VII., a man of the
type of Leo.
Clement at once dispatched Campeggio, an able Italian
diplomat, to represent his demands at the Diet held at
Speyer in 1526. The ambassador of Rome quickly dis
covered when he entered Germany that he was in a hos
tile country. Street crowds jeered him, and shouted the
name of the Pope as Antichrist, and the churches were
crowded with communicants who partook of the Sacra
ment of the Supper in both kinds. It was a difficult situ-
125

126 The Reformation.
ation but the wily diplomat noted indications of the weak
ening of the Lutheran movement in certain directions.
The war that crushed the revolution led by Franz von
Sickingen had placed an undue burden of taxation upon
the cities and their wealthy capitalists. Fretting under
this grievance they had entered into a secret alliance with
the Emperor to overthrow the central government. Cam-
peggio took such advantage as he could of the quarrels
growing out of these and other disturbances in the con
duct of civil affairs. He gained the support of Ferdinand,
duke of Austria, the two dukes of Bavaria, the arch
bishops of Salzburg and Trent, and the bishops of sev
eral influential dioceses. They promised to unite in ef
forts to eradicate the Lutheran heresy on condition that
needed reforms should be inaugurated. The scandalous
system of clerical tithes was to be abolished; the abuse
of indulgences stopped ; and the number of holidays re
duced. The states in the Catholic League were to retain
for their own uses one-fifth of the ecclesiastical revenue ;
only authorized preachers were to be tolerated and their
teachings must be in accord with the early Fathers of
the Church. The future history of the Reformation was
deeply affected by this agreement. Austria, Bavaria, and
the great ecclesiastical states of South Germany arrayed
themselves on the side of the Pope and have ever re
mained faithful to Rome. Historians have noted that
Campeggio in his diplomatic yielding to the demands of
the German princes and ecclesiastics started effective re
forms within the old Church. A German Bible with
other literature was published in the interest of a move
ment that became widespread and helpful in restraining
corrupt influences and practices. North Germany re-

The Breaking of the Storm. 127
mained steadfast in her loyalty to Lutheran doctrine and
ecclesiastical reforms.
The Peasants' War.
The return of Luther from the Wartburg brought quiet
and peace to Wittenberg. The Zwickau prophets left the
city to proclaim their fanatical message elsewhere.
Thomas Munzer came to leadership as the eloquent
spokesman of the oppressed peasantry. Unlike Storch,
the artisan prophet, he was a man of university and cler
ical training. Restless in disposition he preached for a
time in Zwickau, where he made the acquaintance of the
artisan group of "prophets" whose fierce attacks on the
monks and the Church stirred the city. Driven from
Zwickau, he journeyed to Prague, where he gained a
large following. Compelled at length to leave the city
he found refuge in Allstedt, where he was appointed
preacher at the Church of St. John, and secured many
changes in the order of services. His violent spirit met
the stern rebuke of Luther and Munzer became the bit
ter enemy of the Wittenberg reformer. In his erratic
career and propagandist labors in Allstedt, Muhlhausen,
and South Germany he was the chief instigator of the
socialistic revolution that broke out in what is known as
the "Peasants' War."
In its origin this conflict was "a revolt against feudal
oppression, it became, under the leadership of Munzer,
a war against all constituted authorities, and an attempt
to establish by force his ideal Christian commonwealth,
with absolute equality and community of goods." We
must not altogether condemn Munzer and the movement
with which his name is identified without looking into the

128 The Reformation.
conditions that brought about the revolt that dismayed
Luther and received a condemnation at his hand that in
its justice may well be questioned in days when most of
the principles for which Munzer contended are founda
tion stones upon which rest the fabric of our democratic
and republican institutions. Revolutions can only be
understood as we trace them back to their sources. The
peasantry that gathered with their joyous shouts about
the wagon that conveyed Luther to the Diet at Worms,
and the knights who escorted him in proud array, were
alike bitter in their feeling toward Rome and the im
perial power that they believed was seeking to crush out
every right of personal liberty they possessed.
Not far from Worms was the castle of Ebernberg, the
home of Franz von Sickingen, a leader among the
knights of Germany. Although, after the manner of the
times, he had bargained on terms of hire to fight with his
soldiers at the command of the Emperor he was a val
iant supporter of Luther. One of his close friends was
Ulrich von Hutten, a knight of the pen. Keen of wit, and
a scholar of ripe proficiency, Hutten became the virile
enemy of Rome and papal abuses. His German songs
woke the echoes of forest glades and palace firesides.
The burden of their cry was "Germany must abandon
Rome. Liberty forever. The die is cast." At the Diet
of Worms these knights of the lance and of the pen
were foremost figures in the crowd that followed Luther
with their plaudits.
When the edict went forth that outlawed the monk of
Wittenberg they numbered themselves among those who
were marked for destruction by the allied power of the
Emperor and the Pope. The council of regency of which

The Defeat and Death of Sickingen. 129
Frederic of Saxony was the head, proved a weak and
powerless instrumentality. Franz von Sickingen and
many of his brother knights looked upon it as a means
through which the princes hoped to lessen the influence
of their order. Sickingen led his forces in a private war
(1522-23) against the archbishop of Treves. The battle-
cry of these fifteen hundred knights and five thousand
foot soldiers was, "Freedom from the Pope and priests
and the punishment of the archbishop for sins committed
against God and the Emperor." Fighting against an army
gathered by neighboring princes, and much larger than
his own, he retired within the fortress of his castle at
Landshut. For months he held the castle until a breach
was made in its walls. Wounded and dying the brave
knight gave this message to his conquerors : "I am going
to render an account to a greater than the Emperor." His
friend Hutten died the same year. As the peasant sol
diers who had fought under their banner scattered to
their homes they remembered the songs of Hutten, and
saw the lance of Sickingen flashing in the light of mem
orable hours of siege and conflict. Carlstadt and Munzer
were journeying from city to city with their fiery message
and Joss Fritz was secretly working in Swabia. The
years of feudal slavery had laid unendurable burdens
upon the toilers in field, and forest, and shop. The voice
of Luther and the ring of his hammer on the Palace
church doors at Wittenberg had wakened hope in the
hearts of these drawers of water and hewers of wood
who had learned in the school of bitter experience to hate
Rome and the dissolute priests and monks whose exac
tions crushed them to the earth. When Rome exulted in
the alliance that had linked, the youthful emperor in plans
9

130 The Reformation.
that made Luther an outlaw and removed him from ac
tive leadership, these men of lowly birth but vigorous
strength were ripe for the seed sowing of brave knights
and the wild prophets of Zwickau.
A slight incident started the insurrection. The peas
ants on the estate of Count von Liipfen in Swabia were
enjoying a holiday when orders came from the castle that
they must at once give up their day of anticipated pleas
ure and gather snail-shells for the guests at the castle.
The hate of long smoldering grievances burst into a flame
that quickly spread through the valleys of Swabia. The
efforts of the council of regency to stay the insurrection
proved fruitless. The peasants demanded religious and
civil freedom. Among these demands were the privilege
of choosing their pastors ; exemption from the payment
of certain tithes ; the right to hunt and gather fire wood
in the forests ; payment of wages for special services ; the
readjustment of rents ; the common use of common land;
the doing away of "death gifts" by which the choicest
chattel of a deceased tenant became the property of the
land owners. Surely these were reasonable demands but
their granting would have made the peasants free men
and this the proud feudal lords would not permit. The
revolution spread far beyond the bounds of Swabia. The
wretched peasants were no match for the trained soldiers
of their over lords. Thousands were slain but the work
of death did not stop. In the valley of the Necker and
Maine the peasants destroyed scores of castles and mon
asteries. The artisans in the towns where Carlstadt and
others had preached joined in the revolt. Sweeping
changes were made in civil and ecclesiastical affairs.
Munzer became the recognized head of the revolutionary

The Proclamation of Munzer. 131
forces. The fiery words of his proclamation aroused the
miners of Mansfield and swept through the region where
the name and work of Luther was best known. "Arise !
fight the battle of the Lord ! On ! on ! on ! Now is the
time : the wicked tremble when they hear of you. Be
pitiless ! Heed not the groans of the impious ! Rouse up
the towns and villages; above all rouse up the miners
of the mountains ! On ! on ! on ! while the fire is burn
ing; on while the hot sword is yet reeking with the
slaughter ! Give the fire no time to go out, the sword no
time to cool ! kill all the proud ones ; while one of them
lives "you will not be free from the fear of man! While
they reign over you it is no use to talk of God ! * * *
Amen." Such was the proclamation "Given at Miihlhausen,
1525," and signed "Thomas Munzer, servant of God
against the wicked." At the final conflict five thousand
peasants, artisans and miners lay dead upon the battle
field near Frankhausen. Munzer fled but was soon seized,
imprisoned, and finally beheaded. It is estimated that at
least one hundred thousand perished in this revolution
that still left the wretched peasantry the victims of feudal
slavery. In these days of tumult and blood Luther sided
with the nobility. He did all that he could to encourage
the princes to crush the rebellion. But was he altogether
right in his bitter denunciation of Carlstadt and Munzer?
Was his harsh treatment of the peasantry, who looked
to him for help, altogether excusable? "It cannot be de
nied that to some extent this revolution had grown from
the dragon's teeth that Luther himself had sown. There
was a time when he himself had used wild language and
done wild deeds. Erasmus had predicted that all Europe

132 The Reformation.
would be turned upside down in a universal revolution ;
and had it not come to pass ? The monks blamed Eras-
mus and the new learning; Erasmus blamed the wildness
of Luther; Luther blamed the wilder prophets. Who
was to blame? History will not lay blame on Erasmus
or Luther, or on the wilder prophets, or on the misguided
peasantry, but on the higher powers whose place it was to
have averted revolution by timely reforms. It was their
refusal of reform which was the real cause of revolution.
It was the conspiracy of the higher powers at the Diet
of Worms to sacrifice the common weal to their own am
bitious objects on which history will lay the blame of the
Peasants' War."1
The fact that Luther denounced Carlstadt and Munzer
in such unmeasured terms ought not to prejudice us in
the study of a revolution that he did so much to bring
about even if without intent on his part. The reforms
for which these men pled are now conceded principles of
a free democracy in Church and State. Regret as we
may the excesses that attend all insurrectionary move
ments, the door opens wider as the years go by that ad
mits Carlstadt and Munzer to a place in history by the
side of the brave spirits who again and again have led
"forlorn hopes" in conflicts whose sacrificial defeats have
opened the way for final victories. The position taken
by Luther no doubt aided in the suppression of this dis
astrous insurrection, but those who sympathize with
the oppressed and love freedom can but regret the words
he uttered and the part he played in these trying days.
His spirit was strangely unlike that of the noble Elector
1Seebohm. Era of the Protestant Revolution, p. 153.

The Proclamation of Munzer. 133
Frederic of Saxony. The revolution was culminating
in its force when he lay dying in his palace home. In a
letter to his brother Duke John, who was with the army,
he counseled him to deal leniently with the misguided
peasantry. "Dear children," was his last message, "if I
have offended any of you, forgive me, for the love of
God ; we princes do many things to the poor people that
we ought not to do."
The Peasants' War, without doubt retarded the Refor
mation movement in Germany. Luther and his adherents
lost to a considerable extent their hold on the people. The
conduct of affairs was again in the hands of the princes
and the Reformation as a national movement was
checked. But Luther was wise and had a statesman's
outlook of a perilous situation. The Reformation in
Germany was saved by his action in cutting it loose from
the revolutionary forces it had encouraged.

CHAPTER XIV.
Diet at Speyer. Origin of the Term "Protestant,"
1526-1555.
The princes favoring the Roman Church flushed with
victories that had suppressed the revolt of their feudal
subjects, gave orders that brought sorrow and death into
multitudes of humble homes. . In South Germany reli
gious persecution was rampant. Lutheran laymen and
ministers were condemned, not on the ground of having
participated in the social revolution, but because of their
adherence to heretical doctrines and teachers. Forty Lu
theran pastors were hung by the roadside in one small
district. The Roman Catholic princes and the Protestant princes
drew closer together in mutually protective alliances. In
this attitude they faced each other in the Diet held in -
1526. The brother of Charles V., Ferdinand of Austria, .
presided over its sessions. The time seemed opportune
to the Roman Catholic partisans to crush the hated Lu
therans. The Emperor had taken the French king cap
tive at the battle of Pavia, and in the terms that set him
free, he was bound to aid Charles in his war against all
heretics. But heresy would not down. The discussions
in the council chamber at Speyer gave brave and eloquent
expression to the German hostility to Rome. The evils
and corrupt doings of the Curia were reopened. The
Peasants' War was shown to be a social revolution that
had been primarily instigated by the exactions laid upon
the peasantry by clerical landholders, and not from the
teaching of Luther. 134

The Diet of Speyer. 135
Ferdinand, acting on instructions from the Emperor,
demanded the enforcement of the Edict of Worms and
a decree that would stop all innovations in worship and
doctrine. If these demands were granted he promised, in
behalf of his brother, that his influence would be used to
secure the calling of a General Council to consider and
settle the doctrinal and ritual questions that had been the
source of so much trouble. Protestant sentiment was
represented by a majority of those attending the Diet.
The Lutheran princes were by no means ready to accede
to the demands laid down by Ferdinand. It was quite
impossible, they said, to enforce the Edict of Worms.
A compromise was suggested that granted almost all the
changes favored by Luther and his adherents. A reso
lution was finally adopted that "the word of God should
be preached without disturbance," an indemnity provided
for past offenses and until the meeting of the pro
posed General Council, "each State should so live as it
hoped to answer for its conduct to God and to the Em
peror." Very reluctantly the Roman Catholic party ac
quiesced in this decision. No doubt the fact that Charles
at this time was in open conflict with the Pope made him
anxious to avoid trouble in Germany. As matters stood he
could use the Lutherans as a club in his fight with Rome.
Naturally the Protestant states and cities felt that the de
cision of the Diet gave them the right to organize terri
torial Churches and make such changes in public worship
as they deemed best. It was an hour of hope for the
Reformation. Within three years nearly all of North
Germany accepted the Lutheran faith.
Soon after the Diet adjourned one of the most promi
nent of the Protestant princes, Philip of Hesse, com-

136 The Reformation.
mitted a most unfortunate political blunder. Philip be
came obsessed with the belief that the Romanist princes
were laying plans to attack the Lutherans and partition
their territory. An under official, who proved to be a
worthless knave, gained the ear of Philip and told him
he had knowledge of a treaty that sustained all of his
suspicions. This document was secured at a cost of 4,000
gulden. Philip hastened to place the copy of the treaty
in the hands of Luther and the Elector of Saxony. They
believed that it was a genuine statement but refused to
aid in a plan to secure assistance outside of Germany.
Philip persisted in his efforts until, to his consternation
and that of his friends, the document for which he had
paid so generously, was proved to be a forgery. The
unhappy incident divided the Lutherans and proved a
weapon in the hands of their enemies.
In the Diet at Speyer in 1529 the Roman Catholic
party was in control. The representatives of the Em
peror declared the clause in the ordinance of 1526, null
and void, that the Lutherans had made the basis of action
in organizing territorial Churches. The Diet declared
that Lutheran polity and doctrine would not be tolerated
in Romanist districts, and in those states that had de
parted from the Edict of Worms ; that no one was to be
prevented from attending mass, and that those sects that
denied the sacrament of the true body and blood of
Christ should have like treatment with Anabaptists. In
addition the Diet declared that no ecclesiastical body
should be deprived of its revenues and authority. This
act in its enforcement sought to make it impossible to or
ganize Lutheran Churches, for it restored the right of

The Diet of Speyer. 137
Roman Catholic bishops to deal with all ministers within
their diocese. 1
Origin of the Term "Protestant."
The decision that so completely reversed the action taken
three years before, led to the famous "Protest" from
which is dated the use of the name "Protestant." Re
fusing any concessions to the Lutheran party they brought
forward the protest that was read at the session of the
Diet, April 19, 1529. In order to meet the obstructions
placed in the way of its publication, a legal instrument
was drafted in which the "Protest" was embodied with
other documents. The Protestants declared that they
should abide by the declarations made in 1526. When
forced to make their choice between obedience to God and
the Emperor they could not hesitate as to their action.
From the decisions of the Diet they appealed to the Em
peror and the next General Council of Christendom, or an
ecclesiastical congress of the German nation. This docu
ment was signed by the Elector of Saxony, Margrave
George of Brandenburg, Dukes Ernest and Francis of
Brunswick-Luneburg, Landgrave Philip of Hesse, and
Prince Wolfgang of Anhalt. Fourteen cities, some of
them Zwinglian in their affiliation, united in this solemn
"Protest" against the action of the Roman Catholic party.
They contended for an ancient principle that permitted
a minority of German States when oppressed by a ma
jority to seek relief in the laws of the Empire. Those
who signed this appeal were called Protestants, and this
name was generally given to all who rejected the su
premacy of the pope ; discarded the Roman conception of
the position of the clergy and the doctrine of the mass ;

138 The Reformation.
and rejected sundry practices of the Church "without,
however, repudiating the Catholic creeds."
The reform party in South Germany came under the
influence of the movement in Switzerland, led by Ulrich
Zwingli, who claimed that he had preached the doctrines
of the Reformation as early as 15 16, "before any one in
my locality had so much as heard the name of Luther."
In 1519 Zwingli began to denounce the scandals of the
Roman Court from the pulpit of the cathedral of Zurich.
In 1523 he issued a statement of his beliefs in which he
maintained that the Church was not the source of au
thority and Christ was the only high priest. His views
in regard to purgatory and other matters were in accord
with those of Luther. The town council ratified his posi
tion and Zurich was no longer under the jurisdiction of
the Roman Church. Within a few months drastic changes
were made. Shrines were opened and relics were burned,
and images were removed from churches where the mass
was no longer observed. A league was formed in 1525-26
— Constance and other Swiss cantons were allied with
Zurich. This league in its active opposition to the house
of Hapsburg represented a principle that Luther strongly
opposed. He did not deem it right to combine religious
and political reform. His attitude was that of a jealous
defender of the rights of princes. This line of cleavage
between the opinions of Luther and Zwingli was made
much broader and deeper by their different interpreta
tions of the eucharist.
Philip of Hesse was the political statesman among the
German princes who supported the Reformation. He
saw the need of unity among all the forces that were op
posed to Rome and deplored the theological differences

The Diet of Speyer. 139
that more and more threatened to separate these forces
into hostile factions. He determined to bring the leaders
together in a conference at his castle at Marburg. The
invitation of Philip met a quick response from Zwingli.
Luther had become prejudiced against the Swiss reformer
and hesitated, as did Melanchthon, about meeting him at
Marburg. These two great leaders were utterly unlike
in temperament and training. Zwingli, from his youth
up, had drank deep at the fountains opened by the New
Learning. Under the guidance of an uncle who was the
parish priest of Wildhaus, he studied the masterpieces of
classical literature. Coming later under the teaching of
Thomas Wyttenbach, he caught the spirit of reform as it
was then urged both by Luther and Erasmus. A thought
ful student of the writings of the earlier Church Fathers,
he gave little attention to the works of the schoolmen.
The social as well as ecclesiastical environment of Zwingli
was entirely different from that of Luther. From boy
hood he breathed the free air of Switzerland; a land
that had never felt the iron hand of Rome laid heavily
upon it ; a land where the cities were little republics, and
asserted their right of supremacy in ecclesiastical as well
as political affairs. Zwingli was not afraid to mix in
political as well as religious affairs, and held that the
Reformation was to be helped and advanced by political
policies. All this was very obnoxious to Luther. He
had long since broken with Erasmus and feared the
rationalistic tendencies of humanistic culture. The views
expressed by the Swiss Reformer regarding the eucharist
seemed to him loose and unscriptural.
Melanchthon was in full accord with Luther in his feel
ing towards Zwingli. He feared that his political activi-

140 The Reformation.
ties would be a source of trouble. The Protest, made at
Speyer under the joint signatures of Lutheran and Swiss
reformers, troubled him. He dreaded the influence it
might have on the Emperor. Was it right, he asked, for
subjects to defend themselves against the civil power or
dained of God? "My conscience," wrote the gentle-
hearted theologian, "is disquieted because of this thing;
I am half dead with thinking about it." Luther learned
with regret of the protest made at Speyer, and this was
an added reason why he hesitated to accept the invitation
to the conference at Marburg. But Philip was persistent
and the Wittenberg leaders sat on one side of the table
in the castle room where the "Colloquy" opened October
30, 1529-
The Marburg Colloquy, while it failed to unite the re
forming parties as Philip of Hesse had hoped, disclosed
that they were in essential harmony as regarded doctrine,
with one exception. That difference was an entrance
wedge that produced the cleavage from which we may
date the separate lines upon which the Lutheran and Re
formed Churches of Europe and America have developed.
Both Luther and Zwingli "found in the medieval doctrine
of the Sacrament of the Supper what they believed to
be an overwhelming error destructive to the spiritual life.
It presupposed that a priest, in virtue of mysterious
powers conferred in ordination, could give or withhold
from the Christian people the benefits conveyed in the
Sacrament. It asserted that the priest could change the
elements Bread and Wine into the very Body and Blood
of Christ, and that unless this change was made there
was no presence of Christ in the sacrament, and no pos
sibility of sacramental grace for the communicant.
Luther attacked the problem as a medieval Christian, con-

The Marburg Conference. 141
tent, if he was able to purge the ordinance of this one
fault, to leave all else as he found it. Zwingli came as a '
Humanist, whose fundamental rule was to get beyond the
medieval theology altogether, and attempt to discover
how the earlier Church Fathers could aid him to solve
the problem. This difference in mental attitude led them
to approach the subject from separate sides; and the
medieval way of looking at the whole subject rendered
difference of approach very easy. The medieval Church
had divided the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper into
two distinct parts — the Mass and the Eucharist. The
Mass was inseparably connected with the thought of the
great Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross, and the Eucha
rist with the thought of the believer's communion with
the Risen Living Christ. Zwingli attacked the Romanist
doctrine of the Mass, and Luther sought to give an evan
gelical meaning to the medieval conception of the Eucha
rist. Hence the two Protestant antagonists were never
exactly facing each other."1
That the participants in the Marburg Conference held
a like faith is seen in the fact that all of them signed
fourteen of the fifteen articles that were submitted. Alas
— as it seems to us — a difference of interpretation, and
not of faith, divided Protestantism at this critical hour.
Philip made one more effort, but in vain, to secure the
unity that he felt was so necessary. Luther might recog
nize Zwingli as a Christian brother holding erroneous
opinions but he would not enter into a compact with him
for united action. Four centuries of theological strife
and division must pass before the larger part of Protest
antism in the United States could clasp hands in the Fed
eral Council of the Churches of Christ in America.
JLindsay. History of the Reformation, Vol. I, pp. 353, 354-

CHAPTER XV.
The Diet of Augsburg. The Augsburg Confession.
The Schmalkald League.
Charles V., since the remarkable days when Luther
stood before him at Worms, had been busy strengthening
his imperial power. Now that he had made vassels,
both of the French King and the Pope, he found time to
again visit Germany and look after its heretics. Well
aware of the progress which the Lutheran movement had
made under the guidance of its founder and his princely
adherents, Charles wisely sought in a conciliatory way to
secure the ends that he desired.
In the early spring of 1530 the Diet was summoned to
meet at Augsburg. This city was then the great trading
centre between the towns of Northern Europe and the
Levant, and its wealthy citizens vied with each other in
making sumptuous preparations for the coming of the
secular and ecclesiastical princes who were to meet the
Emperor. Charles and his retinue reached the city gates
on the evening of June 15th. An incident in connection
with the imperial procession, that was marshalled in
proud and gorgeous array, disclosed the temper of those
who had charge of its arrangement. The Emperor de
sired the papal nuncio, Cardinal Campeggio, to ride by his
side, but the Germans would not allow it. No representa
tive of the Pope was exalted enough to stand in close
proximity to the head of the German Empire. In stately
array the procession moved along the streets of Augs
burg and entered the cathedral whose walls echoed the
Te Deum and the Emperor received the benediction.
142

The Diet of Augsburg. 143
As Charles retired to his rooms in the bishop's palace
he invited the Elector of Saxony, George of Branden
burg, Philip of Hesse, and Francis of Liineburg to meet
him. In this private interview the Emperor discovered
that he was dealing with men who had decided upon a
definite course of action. They declined to accept his
decision that no Lutheran preacher should take part in the
sittings of the Diet. They yielded to his suggestion that
he would appoint the preachers and that the Scriptures
should be read without comment. An invitation to join
the Emperor the following day in the Corpus Christi pro
cession was refused. The brief, rugged speech, with
which the aged George of Brandenburg met the urgent
request of Charles is on record. "Before I would deny
my God and His Evangel, I would rather kneel down here
before your Majesty and have my head struck off." With
these words he hit his neck with the side of his hand.
The sessions of the Diet opened on June 20th. The
address from the throne stated that His Majesty desired
"by fair and gentle means" to bring to an end the reli
gious controversies in Germany. In accord with a re
quest of the Emperor the Protestant leaders had prepared
"a statement of their grievances and opinions relating
to faith." On June 25th the historic Augsburg Con
fession was read by the Saxon Chancellor, Dr. Christian
Bayer, "in such a clear resonant voice that it was heard
not only by the audience within the chamber, but also by
the crowd which thronged the court outside." The Ger
man princes, whose names were appended to this docu
ment, knew full well that it might prove their death war
rant. The Saxon theologians begged Duke John to allow
their names to stand alone. His quiet reply was, "I too,

144 The Reformation.
will confess my Christ." It was not an easy decision for
him to make. He was very fond of his nephew and he
recognized that in signing this "Confession," they must be
irrevocably separated. The story of their parting inter
view has been preserved. "Uncle, Uncle," said Charles
to the Elector, "I did not expect this of you." The Elec
tor's eyes filled with tears as he turned silently and left
the room.
The Augsburg Confession was drafted by the hand of
Melanchthon. His conciliatory spirit, and theological
acuhien, is discovered in every line of this creed "which
has obtained more currency and respect than any other
Protestant symbol."1 The confession sought as far as
possible to minimize the differences between the Lu
therans and the old Church. It repudiated the radical
views of the Anabaptists and Zwingli. The celibacy of
the clergy; the Mass as it was understood; auricular
confession and monastic vows, were vigorously con
demned. "Christian perfection," they said, "is this: to
fear God sincerely, to trust assuredly that we have, for
Christ's sake, a gracious and merciful God; to ask and
look with confidence for help from Him in all our affairs,
according to our calling, and outwardly to do good works
diligently, and to attend to our vocation. In these things
doth true perfection and a true worship of God consist.
It doth not consist in going about begging, or in wearing
a black or a grey cowl."
The confession was placed in the hands of a committee
of conservative theologians. They found it a difficult
task to frame a response that suited the Emperor. Five
1Professor George P. Fisher. The Reformation, p. 105.

The Schmalkald League. 145
different drafts were submitted before he reluctantly ac
cepted the one that was adopted. It made reconciliation
hopeless. The Lutheran princes and fourteen cities pro
tested against the action taken and left the Diet. The
final decisions compelled the enforcement of the Edict of
Worms. The property of the Church was to be restored
and the jurisdiction of the Imperial Court was ex
tended to appeals involving ecclesiastical matters that ef
fected the Protestant party. The time seemed opportune
to crush the Reformation. The differences that separated
Protestantism had been disclosed by the action that placed
before the Diet not only the Lutheran confession but one
sent by Zwingli and still another submitted by the cities
of Strassburg, Constance, Lindau, and Memmingen.
Luther meanwhile was outlawed from attendance at
this memorable Diet. By invitation of the Elector he
was staying in his castle at Coburg and keeping in close
touch with affairs at Augsburg. N° step was taken with
out his knowledge. It was a trying time for the great
reformer and we can well imagine his distress over his
enforced absence from the Augsburg discussions. He
feared especially that Melanchthon would yield too much.
Bidding his dear friend to stand firm he quotes the text,
"Be ye angry and sin not." His stirring messages were
bugle blasts of encouragement to the Lutheran forces that
faced Rome and the Emperor at Augsburg.
In spite of Luther's well known opposition to any
interference with the civil powers most of the Protestant
princes realized that only the sword could save them from
destruction "root and branch." In November they
formed the Schmalkald League, which, following the
death of Zwingli on the battlefield of Cappel, was joined
10

146 The Reformation.
by several south German towns. The day set for re
ducing the Protestants by "fire and sword" (April 15,
1531,) passed without dreaded bloodshed. Charles, just
then, had his hands full in looking after the Turks, who
were nearing the gates of Vienna. The Pope had no rea
son to love the Emperor. Francis was sullenly waiting
an opportunity to revenge his wrongs, and Henry VIII.
was now the enemy of Charles. Matters had taken a
turn favorable to the Reformation. The banished duke
of Wiirtemberg was restored to his hereditary posses
sions through the influence of the "League," and joined
the Protestant forces, as did the new Elector of Branden
burg and Henry, who, in 1539 succeeded his brother
George of Saxony. The spread of Lutheran doctrine into
Denmark, Sweden, and Norway will have mention fur
ther on.1
Charles V., finding it impossible to check the Refor
mation movement by force of arms, again sought by con
ferences between Roman Catholic and Lutheran theo
logians to secure by compromise a staying of the tide of
heresy. His efforts proved futile. Charles was more
successful in plans that disrupted the Schmalkald
League. On political grounds Philip of Hesse and young
Maurice, who had succeeded to the Saxony electorate,
were won over to the Emperor's side. From the begin
ning of his reign he had striven to bring about the calling
of a general council. In the face of persistent opposition
on the part of the popes his efforts were crowned with
success and the great Council of Trent met in 1545.
The Protestants declined to be represented. The
1See pages 156-158.

The Augsburg Interim. 147
Council was dominated by Dominican and Jesuistical in
fluences. The anathemas which it fulminated against the
Protestants strengthened their convictions and widened
the breach that forever separated them from Rome and
her hierarchical, medieval forms of imperial goverment.
Maurice of Saxony, in becoming the political ally of
the Emperor, did not sever his connection with the Lu
therans. With the defeat of John Frederick at Miihlberg
and the winning of Philip of Hesse to his side, the Em
peror made another effort in the interests of religious
unity. Three theologians, one of whom was a Lutheran,
prepared the so-called "Augsburg Interim." While af
firming the seven sacraments, transubstantiation, the
headship of the Pope and the invocation of saints, they
accepted, in a conditional form, Luther's doctrine of jus
tification by faith, modified the practice of the Mass and
made possible the marriage of priests. Charles for four
years put forth every effort to compel the Protestants to
observe the Interim. A feeling of intense hatred of
Charles and his use of the Spanish army in enforcing
his decrees, took possession of the German people.
Maurice of Saxony almost succeeded in capturing him in
1552. At a conference of the German princes at Passan,
Maurice held the place of leadership. At the meeting of
the Diet at Augsburg in 1555, the peace was concluded
that legalized the Lutheran faith. Only those who ac
cepted the Augsburg Confession were included in its
terms. Zwinglians, Calvinists, and Anabaptists were not
tolerated. A secular ruler was permitted to choose be
tween the old faith and the Lutheran. His decision was
binding on all his subjects in case they chose another reli
gion they were compelled to leave the country. Later on it

148 The Reformation.
was decided that ecclesiastical leaders would forfeit their
possessions if they deserted the old faith. The power of
the princes became supreme in religious as well as secular
matters. They alone were permitted freedom of con
science and the shackles of the ancient system still fet
tered their adherents.
The story of the progress of the Reformation outside
the boundaries of the German Empire is one of intense
interest and finds its narrative in the second part of this
history.

CHAPTER XVI.
The Closing Years of the Life of Luther.
From the time of the formation of the Schmalkald
League Luther gradually retired from active leadership
of the movement that had now become so largely involved
in political affairs. His work from this time on was con
nected with reforms in public worship and shaping the
polity of the Evangelical Church. His influence was used
in a conservative spirit. "He disclaimed the right of sug
gesting a common order of worship or a uniform eccle
siastical polity; and Lutheran ritual and polity, while
presenting common features, did not follow one common
use. It may be said generally that while Luther insisted
on a service in the vernacular, including singing of Ger
man hymns, he considered it best to retain most of the
ceremonies, the vestments and the uses of lights on the
altar, which had existed in the unreformed Church, while
he was careful to explain that their retention might be
dispensed with if thought necessary.
"To the popular mind the great distinction between the
Lutheran and the medieval Church service, besides the
use of the vernacular and the supreme place assigned to
preaching, was that the people partook of the cup in the
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper ; and the Lutheran serv
ice became popularly distinguished from the Reformed
because it retained, while the Reformed did away with,
most of the medieval ceremonies and vestments. The
variations in the details of the polity of the Lutheran
churches were very numerous, but they all preserved the
149

150 The Reformation.
same distinctive principles. Two conceptions lay at the
basis — the thought of the spiritual priesthood of all be
lievers and the belief that the State was a divine ordi
nance, that the magistracy might represent the whole body
of believers and that discipline and administration might
be exercised through courts constituted somewhat like
the consistoral courts of the medieval bishops, their mem
bers being appointed by the magistracy."1
Under a grievous burden of ill health Luther toiled on
with indefatigable zeal. He was the confidential adviser
of the evangelical princes. These friendships in one case
left a blot on his record. Philip of Hesse wished to take
a second wife while his first was living. Luther yielded
to his friend's urgent request and with Melanchthon and
Martin Bucer put his name to a document that sought to
excuse this bigamous marriage.
As the years went by Luther accepted with a more
tolerant spirit the differences on the sacramental question
that separated his adherents from the South German
cities but he never changed in his views regarding what
he considered to be the position taken by the Zwinglians.
A conference held at Wittenberg (May- June, 1536,) re
sulted in a discussion of far-reaching importance. After
long debate the differences "narrowed to one point —
the presence of the body of Christ, extended in space in
the Sacrament of the Supper." It was agreed to leave
this an open question and the compromise united North
and South Germany. It is pleasant to recall that in these
days Luther often expressed his admiration of Calvin's
xDr. T. M. Lindsay. Article Martin Luther, Encyclopedia Brit-
tanica. Eleventh edition.

The Death of Luther. 151
writings in their treatment of the subject of the sacra
ment. Melanchthon was also a friend and admirer of
Calvin and some theologians and historians have ex
pressed the belief that if the action of the Swiss churches
in accepting the views of Calvin had been taken before
the death of Luther, they might have been brought
through his influence into the fellowship of the Witten
berg Concord.
There came a message to Luther, one day, in which he
was earnestly requested to act as a mediator in a dispute
about inheritance that threatened division among the
heirs of the house of Mansfield. Against the entreaties
of his wife and other Wittenberg friends, who knew how
frail was his pain-racked body, he decided to render the
desired service. It was midwinter and Luther suffered
severely during his tedious journey from the bitter cold.
He reached his destination and was successful in his er
rand. He preached at Eisleben (February 14th) with all
his old time vigor and eloquence. Suddenly pausing, he
said : "This and much more is to be said about the Gos
pel ; but I am too weak and will close here." It was his
last pulpit message. He was very ill on the 17th, and
died in the early morning of February 18, 1546. The
Eisleben pastors, Jonas and Colius, were with him at the
end. "Reverend father," said one of them, "do you die
in the faith of your Lord Jesus Christ and in the doctrine
which you preached in His name ?" With voice clear and
distinct he answered "Yes." So fell asleep the great Re
former in his sixty-third year. A cortege composed of
light armed troops commanded by the young counts of
Mansfield accompanied the funeral car on the long jour
ney to Wittenberg. Luther was laid to rest in the Castle

152 The Reformation.
church, upon whose door he nailed the words that opened
a new era in the history of Christianity.
One of the great Roman Catholic scholars of the last
century has said : "It was Luther's overpowering great
ness of mind and marvelous many-sidedness which made
him to be the man of his time and of his people ; and it
is correct to say that there has never been a German who
has so intuitively understood his people, and in turn has
been by the nation so perfectly comprehended, I might
say, absorbed by it, as this Augustinian monk of Witten
berg. Heart and mind of the Germans were in his hand
like the lyre in the hand of the musician. Moreover, he
has given to his people more than any other man in Chris
tian ages has ever given to a people; language, manual
for popular instruction, Bible hymns of worship; and
everything which his opponents in their turn had to offer
or to place in comparison with these showed itself tame
by the side of his sweeping eloquence. They stammered ;
he spoke with the tongue of an orator ; it is he only who
has stamped the imperishable seal of his own soul, alike
upon the German language and upon the German mind:
and even those Germans who abhorred him as the power
ful heretic and seducer of the nation, cannot escape;
they must discourse with his words, they must think with
his thoughts."1
The more personal, intimate side of Luther's life is full
of interest. His marriage with Catherine von Bora was
a very happy one. She proved a worthy and affectionate
helpmeet. As mother and wife she assiduously cared for
the husband who from the time of his marriage in middle
Zollinger.

The Death of Luther. 153
life, suffered constantly from physical disabilities that his
overwhelming labors in early years had brought upon
him. Besides his five children, eleven of his orphaned
nephews and nieces found shelter in his home; a home
filled with the laughter of childhood, and echoing often
the notes of his favorite flute. Luther was a great ad
mirer of nature in all its forms. The song of birds, the
beauty and fragrance of the flowers, were to him a
source of perennial joy and pleasure. His warm and
vivid imagination found in sky and field and garden a
wealth of illustrations that enriched his pulpit utterances
and his every-day conversation. Admiring friends pre
served enough of his familiar "table talk" to give us
snatches of his rugged humor, sharp invective, and dog
matic obstinacy of opinion, that disclose a marvelous
range of intellectual power and genius. In the company
of the eminent teachers, theologians, and princes of the
realm who gathered about his hospitable board, Luther
delighted to hold fellowship in discussions of matters both
weighty and light. In conversation, as in his writings, his
language was often rugged to the point of rudeness and
his words were by no means always free from passion and
vulgar allusions. A study of the literature of the Six
teenth Century proves the extent to which language was
then used as an instrument of coarse and vituperate as
sault. The pen of Luther was sharp as a two edged
sword; in the excitement of the great conflict in which
he was the leader he smote his enemies without mercy.
As we look out upon the battlefield and note the char
acter of the forces Luther confronted, is there a sword
stroke of his sturdy arm that we would stay? We must
remember "that from the end of 1517 to his death the

154 The Reformation.
Reformer stood in the midst of one of the most bitter,
spiteful and personal conflicts known to the history of
the world, a controversy in which the honor of his wife,
his children, his parents, his friends and his ruler were
as little spared as his own person."1
A volume could be filled with the panegyrics that have
been written by historians on the character and work of
Luther. "He was," says Professor Lindsay, "the one
great man of his generation, standing head and shoulders
above everyone else. This does not mean that he ab
sorbed in his individual personality everything that the
age produced for the furtherance of humanity. Many
impulses for good existed in the Sixteenth Century which
Luther never recognized; for an age is always richer
than any one man belonging to it. He stood outside the
great artistic movement. He might have learned much
from Erasmus on the one hand, and from the leaders of
the Peasants' War on the other, which remained hidden
to him. He is the greatest in the one sphere of religion
only — in the greatest of all spheres. His conduct towards
Zwingli and the strong language he used in speaking of
opponents make our generation discover a strain of intol
erance we would fain not see in so great a man ; but his
contemporaries did not and could not pass the same judg
ment upon him. In such a divided Germany none but a
man of the widest tolerance could have held together the
Protestant forces as Luther did ; and we can see what he
was when we remember the sad effects of the petty ortho
doxies of the Amsdorfs and the Osianders who came
after him.
1Heinrich Bohmer.

Melanchthon's Last Years. 155
"It is the fate of most authors of revolutions to be de
voured by the movement which they have called into be
ing. Luther occasioned the greatest revolution which
Western Europe has ever seen, and he ruled it till his
death. History shows no kinglier man than this Thur
ingian miner's son."
Melanchthon preached the funeral sermon of Luther
from the pulpit of the Castle church, from which the most
eloquent voice of his age had so often proclaimed mes
sages that had stirred all Europe. In tears and with
broken utterances he paid his tribute to the great leader
of the Reformation whom he had loved so devotedly and
aided with such faithfulness. From this time on until
his death (April 19, 1560,) the mantle of Luther fell
upon Melanchthon in the work that found its guidance
from Wittenberg. The battle of Miihlberg, fought the
year after Luther's death (1547), was a terrible blow to
the Reformation in Germany. In the attempt to find some
common ground to reconcile evangelical and papal doc
trines the Augsburg "Interim" was promulgated. Me
lanchthon, while he considered the "Interim" inadmis
sible, thought that in matters of indifference it might be
received. This attitude involved Melanchthon in contro
versies that saddened the later years of his life. The bat
tle storms raged throughout Europe that finally ended in
the defeat of the hopes and plans of Charles V.
The Diet of Augsburg arranged in 1555 the historic
"Religious Peace." The ecclesiastical and political reser
vations won at this time gave a legal recognition to Prot
estantism but limited the possibility of its universal sway
throughout Germany.

156 The Reformation.
Melanchthon's gentle spirit was broken by the im
placable enmities of men who could not appreciate his
breadth of vision and wise tolerance. "For two reasons,"
he said as he lay upon his death-bed, "I dtfsire to leave
this life; first, that I may enjoy the sight, which I long
for, of the Son of God and of the Church in heaven;
next, that I may be set free from the monstrous and im
placable hatreds of the theologians." He rested from
earthly labor April 19, 1560, in his sixty-third year, and
his body was laid by the side of Luther in the Castle
church at Wittenberg.
The Reformation spread with amazing rapidity through
the German Empire during the life time of Luther. As
early as 1527 the majority of the people in the Electorate
of Saxony embraced the Evangelical faith. Ducal Sax
ony, Leipzig, Dresden and other towns joined the move
ment by 1539. Hessen, under the leadership of Philip,
received the Lutheran doctrines as early as 1526. Bavarian
Brandenburg followed in 1528 and Electoral Brandenburg
ten years later. Luneburg, Mecklenburg, Holstein and
Pomerania were among the first to join the movement.
In East Friesland and Silesia Lutheranism found an
early welcome. The same was true of Eastern Prussia.
As early as 1526 Lutheran preachers spread their doc
trines in Denmark. Frederick I. was converted to the
movement and in 1527 "liberty of conscience" was
granted to all parties. Christian III., who succeeded his
father in 1533, was an ardent reformer. He was present
at the Diet at Worms and became a great admirer of
Luther. The Confession of Augsburg was accepted by
Denmark in 1569.

Progress of Lutheranism. 157
Norway and Iceland became Lutheran about 1539.
Students from Wittenberg brought the doctrines taught
by Luther into Sweden as early as 15 19. Gustavus Vasa,
who came to the throne in 1529, supported the Reforma
tion. He not only staid the persecution of "heretics," but
assumed ecclesiastical power and deposed bishops, sup
pressed monasteries and organized a national Church on
the lines of the Reformed Church in Denmark. After
considerable internal strife Lutheranism triumphed and
the Augsburg Confession was adopted in 1593. The
Reformation found adherents in Poland, Bohemia and
Moravia. In these countries as well as in Hungary and
Transylvania Protestantism did not gain a strong hold.
Days near at hand were to usher in the terrible strug
gle of political and religious forces known in history as
the Thirty Years' War. This struggle, and the further
development of the great Lutheran Church, does not fall
within the limits of our story. "It was the lack of unity
between German Protestants that was responsible for
most of the trials through which Protestantism in Ger
many had to pass and for the misfortunes which so nearly
overwhelmed it. Had the leaders of the German Refor
mation, during the first century of its existence, been able
to come together and to stand together in a common cause
neither the Pope nor the Emperor, or both together, could
have done the harm they did. Both Luther, Zwingli, and
later also Calvin, desired harmony between the opposing
parties and sought some sort of agreement by means of
which it might be secured. The fact that neither they nor
their successors seemed able to find it, means not that it
could not be found at all, but only that they as children
of their time, did not see clearly enough to discern the

158 The Reformation.
deeper unity of the Spirit beneath the outward differences
of opinion. They had to fight so hard to make the Church
a holy Church and a Christian Church that the one uni
versal Church seemed for the time being of a secondary
importance, and they fought the good fight of the faith
against error and corruption of every kind so bravely and
faithfully that we shall not blame them for not compre
hending fully the larger and higher plans of the divine
Commander-in-chief. Even to-day, after four centuries
of steady struggle and study, it is not easy for the fol
lowers of the Master to realize the infinitely great impor
tance of His prayer, not only for the few disciples gath
ered round Him in the upper room, but for them also that
would come to believe on Him through their word, 'that
they may all be one ; even as Thou Father art in me and
I in Thee, that they also may be in us; that the world
may believe that Thou didst send me.' 'n
The Reformation as it developed under the spiritual
and moral leadership of Luther, Melanchthon, and other
noble Christian teachers in Wittenberg and throughout
Germany was, so far as they controlled it, a religious
movement. But Luther, as he nailed his Theses on the
church door in the autumn of 1517, and in 1521 stood
before Charles V. at Worms, all unconsciously set in mo
tion dynamic forces that not only shook the foundations
of hierarchical supremacy but brought about civil conflicts
and political changes the end of which has not yet come.
It was the beginning of the victories of democracy in
Church and State.
*J. H. Horstmann, D.D.

PART II.
The Reformation in England; Scotland; Switzer
land; France; The Netherlands.

CHAPTER I.
The Reformation in England During the Reign of
Henry VIII.
In a dramatic manner, Luther's affixing of his theses
on the church door at Wittenberg (October 31, 1517,)
and his burning of the papal decrees outside the city walls
(December 10, 1520,) opened the conflict that ushered
in the Protestant Reformation. But in every world chang
ing battle a long preparation antidates the hour when the
first gun is fired. The Lexingtons and Sumters, of his
tory, are culminating acts that fuse in decisive moments,
discussions and protests that have gathered strength
through many generations. As we have seen, this was
peculiarly true of the Protestant revolution in Europe.
The magnitude of the changes wrought under the lead
ership of Luther, is most fully realized when we remem
ber that before his death not only Germany but England,
Scotland, the Dutch Netherlands, Scandinavia, and por
tions of Switzerland, had broken loose from the papal
supremacy. In this secession of the Teutonic nations
from Rome, great personalities appear upon the stage of
a history that early divided Protestantism into Lutheran
and Reformed Churches, separated widely in their doc
trinal tenets and ecclesiastical government.
Before entering on our story of the development of the
Reformed Churches of Europe, that were later on to lay
the foundations of Protestantism in the United States, the
question naturally arises, What did these Churches in
their origin owe to Luther? In answer to this query it
161

162 The Reformation.
has been wisely said: "It is vain to speculate on what
might have been, or to ask whether the undoubted move
ments making for reformation in lands outside Germany
would have come to fruition had not Luther's trumpet-
call sounded over Europe. It is enough to state what did
actually occur. If it cannot be said that the beginnings
of the Reformation in every land came from Luther, it
can scarcely be denied that he gave to his contemporaries
the inspiration of courage and of assured conviction. He
delivered men from the fear of priestcraft; he taught
men, in a way that no other did, that redemption was not
a secret science practiced by the priests within an insti
tution called the Church ; that all believers had the privi
lege of direct access to the very presence of God; and
that the very thought of a priesthood who alone could
mediate between God and man was both superfluous and
irreconcilable with the truest instincts of the Christian
religion. His teaching had a sounding board of dramatic
enviroment that compelled men to listen, to attend, to be
impressed, to understand, and to follow."1 ^-
It is true, however, that the Reformation had its begin
nings in England, and other countries, long before the
birth of Luther. He himself bore witness to the inspira
tion and help that he had received from Wiclif, Huss,
and other early reformers. Outside of Germany and
Scandinavia the Reformation developed along lines that
diverged very widely from Lutheranism. English Prot
estantism finds its roots in the pioneer labors of Wiclif.
In Scotland John Knox is the great dominating person
ality. From Geneva, John Calvin sent out messages of
1Lindsay. History of the Reformation, Vol. II, p. 14.

The Reformation In England. 163
truth that have been as iron in the blood of generations
of strong men who laid the foundations of Puritan faith
and are the acknowledged founders of a democracy in
Church and State that has already won victories that
promise world leadership in the Twentieth Century of
history. The story of the rise of the Reformed Churches of
Europe is one that finds its springs in differing national
life and institutions. But these streams more and more
unite as the centuries go by. In the nation they founded
across the Atlantic the fullest expression of this unity is
disclosed in the Federal Council of the Churches of
Christ in America. The Reformation in England.
More than one third of the pages of John Richard
Green's "History of the English People," are taken up
with that part of the history of England that in its story,
social, religious, and political, is but a chapter in the rise
and progress of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Cen
tury. Nor is this an undue granting of space to a period
that takes us back to the times of Chaucer and Wiclif ;
gives us the record of the conflict of Henry VIII. with
Rome; the founding of the Church of England; the dis
solution of the monasteries; the marvelous spring time
of Elizabeth's reign with its voyaging into new lands ; the
unfolding of the language in which the genius of Shake
speare and Milton disclosed its power and, above all, the
period in which Puritanism won leadership as a source
of life that is still working as a leavening power. .
The Reformation in England, at every step in its
course, gives testimony that the protests that arose against

164 The Reformation.
the corruptions and hierarchical supremacy of the Ro
man Church, were inextricably connected with the de
velopment of the national consciousness that, from the
days of Magna Charta, had won the battles of a demo-
racy that only believed in a king and royal privileges, held
in check and subservient to the will of the people as ex
pressed through its Parliament. It was a conflict between
imperialistic ambitions and papal authority and a democ
racy that finally won victories, the significance and worth
of which are yet to come to their full appraisal as a unify
ing, and saving power in State and Church.
Let us again take up the threads of English history al
ready noted in former chapters. The early years of the
reign of Henry VIII., with the high hopes cherished by
the Oxford reformers, soon passed into the struggles that
made this period fateful in English history. The char
acter of Henry VIII. is one of the most complex among
the sovereigns of Britain, if we may judge from the atti
tude and verdict of historical writers. That he was a man
of selfish ambitions, imperious will, and intellectual
strength, all are agreed. A superficial study of his career
finds little to redeem him from the charge of direst cruelty
and lustful purpose. A deeper probing does not free him
from these charges but it does place many of his acts in a
light where it is difficult to see how he could have decided
differently than he did.
It was the pressure of national sentiment that enabled
Henry, with the aid of Cardinal Wolsey to thwart the
power of a Pope who> was but a tool in the hands of
Charles V., and place himself at the head of a national

160

Founding of the Church of England. 165
Church controlled by the Crown and bidding defiance
to Rome : a defiance that brought about the dissolution
of the monasteries and poured their long accumulated
wealth, not into the treasury of the Roman See, but into
channels that strengthened the position of the royal house,
and laid the foundations of the Church of England. In
these mighty changes we see the melting, into a roaring
tumultuous stream, of glaciers that had been slowly mov
ing forward through centuries to a point when their gath
ered strength broke loose and destroyed ecclesiastical
citadels of power, that for a thousand years had been con
trolled by Rome.
The revolt of England against papal supremacy was
brought about through political causes, the narrative of
which is indeed a fateful chapter in English history.
Henry VIII. came to a throne that had been placed upon
a strong foundation. It represented the will of the peo
ple, and king and parliament worked together in the great
change that transferred to the Crown the ecclesiastical
jurisdiction that had been exercised hitherto by the Pope.
In the early years of his reign Henry VIII. was a sup
porter of Rome and bitterly opposed to Luther. At the
time of the Diet of Worms he wrote a book denouncing
the German reformer. It pleased Julius II. so much that
he publicly named Henry as "Defender of the Faith."
The years near at hand changed this friendship into fierce
enmity. This story compels reference to the marital
troubles of Henry VIII, that, in their unfolding, disclose
the fact that the women whose lives were so sadly in
volved were but pawns in the game of royal and papal
efforts to secure supremacy in the affairs of Europe.
Henry VII., like his son, had an overruling desire to fix

166 The Reformation.
himself and his heirs firmly on the throne. In order to
strengthen this purpose he arranged the alliance by which
Catherine of Arragon, the daughter of Ferdinand of
Spain, was married to Arthur, the Prince of Wales. The
untimely death of Arthur disarranged the plans that his
father so fondly cherished. The laws of the Church for
bade marriage with a brother's wife. But royal wills do
not easily accept restriction. By miserable subterfuges a
decree was secured from Pope Julius II. that expressed
doubt as to the validity of the former marriage and Cathe
rine was betrothed to Henry VIII. He was but a boy
at the time and Catherine was nine years older than him
self. Upon his accession to the throne it became neces
sary for him to make final decision as to his marriage.
At his father's suggestion, at the time of his betrothal to
Catherine, he had signed a protest, locked up as a court
secret, that opened the way if he desired to do so, when
he came of age, to repudiate his promise. But the alliance
with Spain was alluring in its promise of power in the
affairs of Europe, and the marriage was consummated.
We can see that Henry VIII. had a personal interest in
taking up the cudgels in behalf of the Pope when Luther
made his attack upon the Roman Church. He understood
very well that the validity of his marriage depended upon
the upholding of these claims by papal authority. Chil
dren were born of this marriage but all, with one excep
tion, died in infancy. The Princess Mary survived.
Upon her the succession depended. Another alluring al
liance became the hope of her father. The marriage of
the Princess to Charles V. would make the Spanish and
Papal Courts the friend and ally of the English Crown.
Two men played a large part in the tragic drama of these

The Betrayal of Henry VIII by Rome and Spain. 167
days. One of these men, Thomas More, has already
found a place in our narrative. The other is Thomas
Wolsey, now cardinal and Archbishop of York, and
Henry's war minister. More had become a member of
the king's privy council. When Luther made his fierce
reply to Henry VIII.'s book More defended it. As time
went on his sympathy with the Reformation movement
also cooled and he became a staunch upholder of the au
thority of the Papal See. Erasmus yielded to his impor
tunity to use his influence against Luther and during the
Peasants' War More wrote letters "charging the Lu
theran movement with having lit the flame of sedition and
set Germany on fire." From this time onward when,
from the height of power he fell, like Wolsey, a victim to
the cruel hate and treachery of Henry VIII., he upheld
the claims of Rome and died in her communion.
The hoped for Spanish alliance, by the marriage of
Charles V. to the Princess Mary, was not consummated.
The marriage of Charles to the Infanta of Portugal
opened the eyes of the proud English sovereign to the
fact, long suspected by Wolsey, that he had been be
trayed both by Spain and Rome. In this hour, that threat
ened the life of the Crown, Henry VIII. made resolu
tions prompted by selfish ambitions, that in the end were
providentially overruled in bringing about the Reforma
tion that placed England among Protestant nations.
Angered by the treachery of the Pope and Charles V.
and deeming it doubtful if England in the event of his
death would place Mary on a throne that a queen had
never occupied, he decided with the help of Wolsey to

168 The Reformation.
secure at all hazards a divorce from Catherine of Arragon.
Wolsey employed his adroit powers to the utmost to se
cure the sanction of the Pope to this separation from the
wife who had met her every duty in faithfulness, but the
negotiations failed. Henry knew the existing temper and
feeling of the English people against the autocratic rule
of Rome. "The time had come when England was to
claim for herself the fulness of power ecclesiastical as
well as temporal, within her bounds ; and in the concen
tration of all authority within the hands of the sovereign
which was the political characteristic of the time, to claim
this power for the nation was to claim it for the king."1
Henry consummated a secret marriage with Anne
Boleyn, a union that in its tragic end, disclosed the dis
solute life that was hidden behind palace doors and royal
favor. To those who wish to know the facts of this tragic
history we commend a reading of the testimony that
ended the life of this consort of England's despotic
sovereign. In this drama we remember that Anne Boleyn
was the mother of Elizabeth, under whose reign Prot
estantism was, by the will of the people, firmly estab
lished. Now that we can happily cease mention, for the most
part, of Henry VIII. and his marital troubles, we turn
again to the history of the people and some of the leaders
whose support made it possible for an imperious king to
break away from the control of Rome and lead in political
action that founded a National Church and after his death
made England a foremost power in the Protestant Refor
mation. nGreen. History of the English People.

Last Days of Erasmus. 169
The closing years in the life, both of Erasmus and
More, are not altogether pleasant to dwell upon. We
have already referred to the remarkable influence that
followed the publication of the Greek New Testament by
Erasmus. "It revealed the fact that the Vulgate, the
Bible of the Church was not only a second-hand docu
ment, but in places an erroneous document. A shock was
thus given to the credit of the clergy in the province of
literature, equal to that which was given in the province
of science by the astronomical discoveries of the Seven
teenth Century."1 Basil was the home of Erasmus for
many years, and here he filled the position of general edi
tor and literary adviser of the famous Frobrin Press.
For a time he resided in Freiburg, but finally returned to
Basel, where he continued his literary activities until his
death the 12th of July 1536, in his 70th year.
Erasmus was not a reformer of the type of Luther or
Knox. He was keenly alive to the evils that had become
entrenched in the Roman Church. He earnestly favored
the suppression of the monasteries and the overthrow of
the power of the clergy, but these reforms he desired to
secure from within the Church. His position brought
him again and again into conflict with Luther. "In the
mind of Erasmus there was no metaphysical inclination;
he was a man of letters, with a general tendency to
rational views on every subject which came under his pen.
His was not the mind to originate, like Calvin, a new
scheme of Christian thought. He is at his weakest in de
fending free will against Luther, and indeed he can
hardly be said to enter on the metaphysical question. He
Encyclopedia Brittanica. Article Erasmus. Eleventh edition.

170 The Reformation.
treats the dispute entirely from the outside. Though
Erasmus did not intend it, he undoubtedly shook the
ecclesiastical edifice in all its parts."1
Tidings of the execution of Sir Thomas More (1535)
reached Erasmus in his home at Basel, where he was then
suffering greatly from illness and the infirmities of age.
He was writing a book on the "Purity of the Church" in
which he spoke of his friend as "a soul purer than
snow." The verdict of history has dealt with More as a
man of noble and generous spirit, strong intellectually and
far-visioned as a statesman. The royal master, whom he
so faithfully served, but to whom he would not yield in
matters of conviction, could send him to the block but he
could not break the temper of his noble spirit. While he
was lord chancellor, by virtue of his office, he became
prosecutor of heretics. Tolerance in these times, as both
Geneva and Rome gave illustration, was an unknown
virtue. Christian men of all parties deemed it their
bounden duty to destroy, root and branch, any denial
of truths they held as the foundation of their faith. If
men would not renounce their heresies death was the
penalty. But we are assured that More's gentleness
showed itself even when he was an official prosecutor.
He left no means unused to secure the abjuring of the
heretics brought to trial during his chancellorship. So
well did he succeed that only three were burned at the
stake and these martyrs died with the prayer upon their
lips, "May the Lord forgive and open the eyes of Sir
Thomas More."
"Strange was it that during these sad months, while
ilbid.

Thomas Cromwell. 171
More was persecuting others for consciences' sake, he
himself had to choose between his own conscience and
death." (Seebohm.) Among his last acts was the prepa
ration of a paper in which he warned his friends, in met
ing out punishment to heretics, not to let their zeal outrun
their charity. His heart was saddened over the conflicts
that were disrupting the Church and it was his prayer in
the closing days of his life that there might be a recon
ciliation brought about between Catholics and Protestants.
After the fall of Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell became the
parliamentary agent through whom Henry pushed for
ward his plans. Like his master he was a man of un
scrupulous ambition. He toiled unremittingly to secure
the temporal sovereignty for the Crown in all matters of
government. He was a Protestant because they repre
sented the partisan supporters of the absolute monarchy
he upheld with all the vigor of his immense strength.
Henry and his minister were of kindred cruelty of spirit.
"He used the ax with as little passion as the surgeon does
the knife, and he operated on some of the best and noblest
in the land." Parliament stood by the king in his strife
with Rome. The historic Act of Supremacy ordered that
the king "shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only
supreme head on earth of the Church of England, and
shall have and enjoy annexed and united to the imperial
crown of this realm as well the title and state thereof as
all his honors, jurisdiction, authorities, immunities, profits
and commodities to the said dignity belonging, with full
power to visit, repress, redress, reform, and amend all
such errors, heresies, abuses, contempts, and enormities,
which by any manner of spiritual authority or jurisdic
tion might or may lawfully be reformed." The full sig-

172 The Reformation.
nificance of this Act was made clear when in the fol
lowing year (1535) Henry formally assumed the title of
"on earth supreme head of the Church of England."
Thomas Cromwell became the King's vicegerent. Under
the Act of Supremacy even the bishops of the Church of
England were dependents of the Crown. "That the
power of deposition was at a later time quietly abandoned
was due not so much to any deference for the religious
instincts of the nation as to the fact that the steady ser
vility of the bishops rendered its exercise unnecessary."1
The Articles of Religion of the new National Church
were drafted by the hand of Henry himself. The Bible
and the three historic Creeds were made the sole grounds
of faith. The Sacraments were reduced from seven to
three. Following the action of the Lutheran churches
the doctrines of Transubstantiation and Confession were
maintained. A place was found for the doctrine of Jus
tification by Faith. The doctrine of purgatory, of par
dons, and of masses for the dead, were condemned, but
prayers for the dead were permitted and the ceremonies
of the Latin Church were retained with slight changes.
At this point the name of William Tyndale may well
find mention. While a student at Oxford, and then at
Cambridge, he came under the influence of Erasmus's
New Testament. "If God spare my life." he replied to a
learned professor, "ere many years I will cause a boy
that driveth the plow shall know more of the Scripture
than thou doest." In middle life his dream was realized.
Drawn by the fame of Luther he joined the company of
students that were flocking to Wittenberg. In 1525 he
1Green's History of the English People.

William Tyndale. 173
completed his version of the New Testament. Six thou
sand copies of its first edition were sent to England. De
nounced, by reason of its Lutheran origin, as heretical it
was burned with other books in the presence of Wolsey
in St. Paul's churchyard. Only eleven years later, under
the avowed patronage of Henry, Miles Coverdale was em
ployed to revise the translation of Tyndale and it became
the Bible of the people, bearing the approval of the
Crown at the time, when by royal command, the Creed,
the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments were
rendered into English and ordered to be taught by every
schoolmaster to his pupils and by every father to his
children. The execution of Bishop Fisher and Sir
Thomas More, and the martyrdom of the brethren of the
Charter house, stirred intense feeling throughout every
part of the realm. Even radical supporters of Henry, in
his conflict with Rome and the purpose to rear the super
structure of a National Church, were dismayed at the
ruthless decisions of his prime minister. The revolt in
the north and west of England and the marriage of
Henry to Anne of Cleves, revealed alike the strength and
weakness of the counsellor who had done so much to
realize the ambitions of his sovereign. But the self-
seeking and cold-hearted king, hearing the mutterings of
popular condemnation, sends Cromwell to his death.
Rome no longer controlled either the secular or ecclesi
astical affairs of Britain. England was to be the leader,
side by side with Scotland and the Netherlands, of the
new democracy that was to lay the foundations of free
Reformed Churches, that gave birth to the national life
that now holds sway in North America. Surely this is
sufficient reason for dwelling at full length upon the his-

174 The Reformation.
tory of the Reformation in the countries where democ
racy won victories that are the heritage of the Churches
that numerically and historically hold the foremost place
of influence and leadership in the United States and the
Dominion of Canada.

CHAPTER II.
The Reformation In England From the Closing
Years of the Reign of Henry VIII. Until
the Accession of Elizabeth.
In the torrential rush of changes that tore away cen
tury-old foundations, there were counter currents that dis
closed opposing forces that strove to stay the destructive
flood. But in vain. The decree of an angry Pope, excom
municating the King of England and calling upon the
Emperor, all Christian Princes, and even his own sub
jects, to execute it by force of arms, marked the final
breach with Rome. Acts of Parliament (1534) of the
most drastic nature were adopted. The payment of "first
fruits" to the Pope were forbidden, as well as the pay
ment of Peter's pence. The validity of the king's mar
riage was affirmed and the Supremacy Act declared that
the king was rightfully the Supreme Head of the Church
of England, and that it was within his powers to make
ecclesiastical visitations and redress ecclesiastical abuses.
To this was added an Act that marked as treason the
calling of the king a heretic or schismatic or the denial
that he was the Supreme Head of the Church. Convo
cations held at Canterbury and York ratified this action
by declaring that "the Roman Pontiff had no greater
jurisdiction bestowed on him by God in the Holy Scrip
tures than any other foreign Bishop."
It is well to note that this change was at first almost
entirely confined to the temporal control and headship of
the English Church. The changes in doctrine were
175

176 The Reformation.
slight. The ecclesiastical courts did not lose their power
and place. Appeals from their decisions were no longer
taken to Rome but settled by the king's courts. We have
already referred to the outcome of discussions that, at an
early date, under the leadership of Cranmer, Thomas
Cromwell and Bishop Latimer, secured what are known as
the Ten Articles. In their adoption we find the spirit of
Wiclif and the aspirations of the Oxford Reformers com
ing to their realization. "These Articles," says Professor
Lindsay,1 "are anything 'but essentially Romish with the
Pope left out in the cold.' They are rather an attempt
to construct a brief creed which a pliant Lutheran and a
pliant Romanist might agree upon — a singularly success
ful attempt, and one which does great credit to the theo
logical attainments of the English king."
A committee composed mostly of Bishops were em
powered "to compile certain rudiments of Christianity
and a Catechism." This little volume, popularly known
as the Bishop's Book, was issued in 1537. The clergy
were ordered to read lessons from its pages on every
Sunday. The Catechism, provided at the same date, had
wide circulation. When the Bishop's Book was published
the king found "no time convenient to overlook the great
pains" that had been taken in its compilation. Later on
the royal intermeddler found leisure to revise its pages
and this edition, known as the King's Book, was pub
lished in 1543. Six years previous to this date, under the
Injunctions of 1536, a copy of the Bible had been placed
in all the churches. Thus was the power in high places
1History of the Reformation, Vol. II, p. 335.

Cranmer's Bible. 177
that, in pursuit of selfish ambitions, separated England
from the supremacy of Rome, overruled in ways that
gave the Light that, in its transforming power in the life
of English homes and hearts from this time forward,
made the Reformation in Britain a source of spiritual
awakening and preparation for world leadership in a
democracy that found its fountain head in the teachings
of Christ and the institutions that flourished in the early
days of Christianity.
It was Tyndale's version, with some additions, and a
preface by the Archbishop, popularly named the Great
Bible or Cranmer's Bible, that was read each Sunday
from every pulpit in the land. There was a time in these
years when Henry, ready to break all commandments,
but over anxious to ease his conscience and strengthen
the succession to the Crown by securing approval of his
divorce from Catherine of Arragon, turned for assistance
to the leaders of German Protestantism. An influential
embassy was sent to Wittenberg. They were courtiers
and had a courteous reception. But the Lutheran leaders
did not change their opinion of the King of England and
the hypocritical part they believed he was playing in
transferring the power of Rome into his own hands. The
death of Queen Catherine (January 7, 1536,) relieved
Henry of further desire for outside approval.
Thomas Cromwell had in charge the superintendence
of the visitation of monasteries that led to their dissolu
tion under the Act of Parliament (1536).1 This change,
far-reaching in its influence, was brought about by what
JA full account, based upon original documents and reports, is
easily accessible in Froud's Henry VIII. (Everyman's Library),
Vol. II, pp. 109-181.
12

178 The Reformation.
has been truthfully called "the first great parliament of
the Reformation." Unfortunately almost all of the re
ports of the discussions, that resulted in drastic decisions,
have been lost, but we know the conditions that were
dominant in the action taken at this time. The feudal
system had lost its power in England. "The Lords had
ceased to be the leaders of the English people; they ex
isted as an ornament rather than a power; and under
the direction of the council they followed as the stream
drew them, when individually, if they had so dared, they
would have chosen a far other course. The work was
done by the Commons ; by them the first move was made ;
by them and the king, the campaign was carried through
to victory. And this one body of men, dim as they now
seem to us, who assembled on the wreck of the admin
istration of Wolsey, had commenced and had concluded
a revolution which had reversed the foundations of the
State. They found England in dependency upon a for
eign power; they left it a free nation. They found it
under the despotism of a Church establishment saturated
with disease; and they had bound the hands of that es
tablishment ; they had laid it down under the knife, and
carved away its putrid members; and stripping off its
Nessus robe of splendor and power, they had awakened
in it some forced remembrance of its higher calling.
"The elements of a far deeper change were seething;
a change, not in the disposition of outward authority, but
in the beliefs and convictions which touched the life of
the soul. This was yet to come; and the work so far
was but the initial step or prelude leading up to the more
solemn struggle. Yet where the enemy who is to be con
quered is strong, not in vital force, but in the prestige of

Dissolution of the Monasteries. 179
authority, and in the enchanted defences of superstition,
those truly win the battle who strike the first blow, who
deprive the ideal of its terrors by daring to defy it" (An
thony Froude) .
The feeling had gained strength through generations
that the monasteries were the source of unspeakable evils.
Protected by Rome from civil responsibility their inmates
were more and more looked upon as the selfish users of
inherited wealth, given for noble purposes, but now em
ployed in ways that made once venerated religious houses
breeding places of superstition, indolence and corrupt
practices. There are good reasons for the belief that it was not
sympathy with popular feeling that made Henry VIII.
anxious to suppress the monasteries. He was quite ready
to understake this work as a means of strengthening his
kingly power. The great fortune that had come to him
from his father had dwindled under the demands of plans
that sought under the administration of Wolsey to win
leadership in the affairs of Europe. The looting of the
wealth of the monasteries offered an easy way of filling
the royal treasury. More than this it enabled Henry to
enrich the rapacious company of courtiers upon whose
good will so much depended. The visitation uncovered
iniquities that an indignant House of Commons would no
longer endure. They were the agents of reform. The
king reaped the benefits he desired. Not only was the
monastic property vested in his name but quantities of
jewels and precious metal. Testimony is on record that
the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury furnished twenty-
six cartloads of gold and silver.

180 The Reformation.
In this overturn of ancient foundations the priesthood
lost their influence and they abjectly sued for aid from
the men whom they had persecuted. Cranmer became
Archbishop of Canterbury and Hugh Latimer, the farm
er's son, who had won high honors at Cambridge and had
gained renown as a preacher of remarkable power and
courage, was appointed Bishop of Worcester.
The pendulum of popular feeling now swung to an oppo
site extreme. The friends of Rome, and they were many,
were embittered by the sacrilegious way in which the ob
jects of their superstitious worship were cast into the
mire. Even Henry complained that the new Scriptures
were "disputed, rhymned, sung and jangled in every tav
ern and ale-house." Even the Mass "was held up to
scorn in ballads and mystery plays." These insults of the
populace caused a reaction. The Parliament, at the in
stigation of the king, enacted the statute well termed "the
bloody whip with six strings." It was made a felony, pun
ishable with death "to teach that it was necessary to com
municate in both kinds in the Holy Supper," or that
priests, monks or nuns vowed to celibacy might marry.
There were other "strings," equally severe, under the
lash of which heretics suffered, even unto death, in the
later years of Henry's reign. With vindicative haste the
prime minister who, like Wolsey, had given his life to
the task of making the Crown the source both of ecclesi
astical and political authority was hurried to the block.
Cranmer barely escaped the same fate. Three Lutheran
clergymen and three Romanists were beheaded for deny
ing the King's supremacy.
A manual that was essentially a revision of the Six
Articles, prepared in part by Cranmer and carefully con-

The Six Articles. 181
sidered both by Convocation and the King, was published
in the spring of 1543.1 It differed from the former manual
in that it distinctly taught the doctrines of Transubstan
tiation, the Invocation of Saints, and the Celibacy. "It
may be said that it very accurately represented the the
ology of the majority of Englishmen in the year 1543.
For king arid people were not very far apart. They both
clung to medieval theology; and they both detested the
Papacy and wished the clergy to be kept in due subordi
nation. There was a widespread and silent movement to
wards an Evangelical Reformation always making itself
apparent when least expected ; but probably three- fourths
of the people had not felt it during the reign of Henry.
It needed Mary's burnings in Smithfield and the fears of
a Spanish overlord, before the leaven could leaven the
whole lump."2 While in a general way this summing up
of conditions at the close of the reign of Henry VIII. is
correct, we must not lose sight of the effect that the action
of the Council of Trent (1545) had, both upon the king
and the English people, Henry was not only strengthened
in his resolution to withstand the reasserted supremacy
of Rome, but even offered to unite in a "League Chris
tian" with the Lutheran princes of Germany. At the sug
gestion of Cranmer he allowed the Mass to be changed
into a Communion Service. The Duke of Norfolk, the
leader of the Roman Catholic nobility, was locked within
a traitor's cell in the tower, and his son, the Earl of Sur
rey, sent to the block.
1A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man;
set forth by the King's Majesty of England.
2Lindsay. History of the Reformation, Vol. II, pp. 349, 350.

182 The Reformation.
The last scene in the life of the man whose imperious
will and selfish ambitions freed England from papal pre
tensions and the supremacy of Rome, was in keeping with
a career that in its strange mingling of strength, weakness
and cruel actions, has received such differing verdicts
from the pen of historians. As the shadows were falling
over the streets of London on the evening of Jan. 28,
1547, the watchers by the bedside of Henry VIII. saw
that the end was near at hand. At his request Cranmer
was summoned. When the bishop reached the palace the
King, though conscious, was speechless. Cranmer "speak
ing comfortably to him, desired him to give some token
that he put his trust in God through Jesus Christ ; there
with the king wrung hard the archbishop's hand, and ex
pired."1 Edward the Sixth was but nine years old when he suc
ceeded his father. His brief life gave but little oppor
tunity for personal influence. So far as it was exerted
he strengthened the hands of those who upheld the divine
rights of kings, and he did all that lay in his power to en
courage the Protestant leaders and exclude Mary and
Elizabeth from succeeding him on the throne. The politi
cal leadership of these years was in the hands of the
Dukes of Somerset and Northumberland. Cranmer
guided the strong current that set in favor of Protestant
ism. He was especially active in the revisions that gave
to the Church of England and the American Episcopal
Church the Prayer Book, that for four centuries has led
the public and private devotions of their great host of
communicants. Many whose connection has been with
1Strype's Life of Cranmer, Vol. I, p. 190.

Repeal of the Six Articles. 183
other communions have given heartfelt response to the
words of the English historian. "As the translation of
the Bible bears upon it the imprint of the mind of Tyndal,
so, while the Church of England remains, the image of
Cranmer will be seen reflected on the calm surface of the
Liturgy. The most beautiful portions of it are transla
tions from the Breviary; yet the same prayers translated
by others would not be those which chime like church
bells in the ears of the English child. The translations
and the addresses which are original, have the same sil
very melody of language, and breathe the same simplicity
of spirit."1
Very different are the verdicts that time has past upon
the characters of the two great political leaders of the
reign of Edward the Sixth. Somerset was the victim of
the unscrupulous and treacherous Northumberland. "It
is well to remember," says Professor Lindsay, "in these
days when the noble character of the Duke of Somerset
has received a tardy recognition, that John Knox, no
mean judge of men, never joined in the praise of North
umberland, greatly preferred his predecessor, although
his advance in the path of Reformation had been slower
and much more cautious."2
The repeal of the "Six Articles" and the treason laws
brought back to England many of the refugees who had
found a home in Germany and Switzerland. The vic
tories won by the Emperor Charles V. led a large number
of continental Protestants to seek refuge in England from
the penalties of the Interim. Some of these men found
iFroud's. Edward the Sixth, Everyman's Library, p. 237.
2History of the Reformation, Vol. II, p. 359.

184 The Reformation.
places as teachers at Oxford and Cambridge, and their
influence became a leavening power. The New Learning
penetrated into every class in society. Edition after edi
tion of the Bible found ready sale. In sympathy with the
tide of reformation Northumberland and the Council de
prived the Romanist prelates of their sees. These places
were filled by men like Coverdale and Ridley. John
Knox, but recently from the French galley, where he had
been held prisoner after the seizure of the garrison of St.
Andrews, was offered the bishopric of Rochester but pre
ferred his duties as one of the King's preachers.
The act of parliament that enforced the use of the Book
of Common Prayer1 did away with all reference to a
propitiatory Mass. The word table is used instead of
altar. Minister and priest were employed as equivalent
terms. The communion table was removed from the east
end of the church and placed within the chancel. The
Ten Commandments were read for the first time. Sev
eral rubrics were omitted and changes made in the serv
ices for baptism, confirmation and ordination. Some of
the ardent Reformers even desired to do away with the
rubric that required communicants to receive the elements
kneeling. The most important change was that made in
the words addressed to the partaking communicants. In
the First Prayer Book the words were : "When the priest
delivereth the sacrament of the Body of Christ, he shall
say to every one these words: The Body of our Lord
Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body
and sold unto everlasting life. And the minister deliver
ing the sacrament of the Blood and giving every one once
xThe Second Prayer Book of King Edward.

Closing Days of the Reign of Edward VI. 185
to drink and no more, shall say : The Blood of our Lord
Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body
and soul unto everlasting life."
In the Second Prayer Book the rubric read as follows :
"Then the minister when he delivereth the bread, shall
say: 'Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died
for thee, and feed on Him in thy heart by faith and ivith
thanksgiving.' And the minister that delivereth the cup
shall say : 'Drink this in remembrance that Chrisfs blood
was shed for thee and be thankful.' "
It is interesting to note that these words are to-day re
peated by tens of thousands of ministers to kneeling com
municants at the celebration of the Lord's Supper in
churches throughout the United States representing more
than one-half of the eighteen millions and over, enrolled
as members of Churches in the fellowship of the Federal
Council of the Churches of Christ in America.1
The closing days of the brief reign of Edward VI. were
marked by conflicting and irritating influences that, as
conditions favored, kindled the lurid flames of Smithfield
and gave the name of "Bloody Mary" to the daughter'
of Henry VIII. and Catherine of Arragon. In times
when we can look dispassionately into the records of
these sad years in English history, we discover that the
actors in this drama were none of them free from blame.
The zeal of some of the reformers, fanned into white heat
by the fiery spirit of refugees who had fled from the Con
tinent to escape the persecution of Rome, was so icono
clastic in its action that a reaction of popular feeling fol-
1This statement includes the membership of all branches of the
Methodist Church, the Protestant Episcopal Church, and the Re
formed Episcopal Church.

186 The Reformation.
lowed. Agrarian troubles that were the source of great
distress in the rural countries, combined with the fierce
political struggles of which Somerset and Northumber
land were the leading figures, were potent factors in
bringing about a situation that lit the skies of England
with the flames that consumed the "earthly tabernacles"
of the martyr host who for Christ's sake, in loyalty of
faith and confession, gave their bodies to be burned.
The schemes of ambitious prelates and statesmen by
which they hoped to place Lady Jane Grey, the daughter
of a Margaret, the eldest sister of Henry VIII., upon the
throne came to nought. To their surprise the people of
England rallied to the support of the daughter of Cather
ine of Arragon. Mary was a devout Catholic. Her one
overruling purpose and desire was to turn back the tide
that had swept away the old foundations and bring Eng
land back again into the Roman communion. We must
not forget that great multitudes of the people and many
of the nobility still clung to the old Church. They shared
to a large extent in the feeling that clamored for reform
of the monasteries. They were ready to strengthen the
throne against the arrogant supremacy of Rome, but they
still clung to the old forms of worship and symbols of
faith and deplored the innovations that swept away the
former landmarks.
Had Mary and her advisers been satisfied to act a me
diating part in these troubled days the course of history
might, at least for a time, have turned into its ancient
channels. But this was not to be. Her Roman faith and
training, combined with bitter resentment and memories
of her father's treatment of her mother, strengthened the
firm will that sent Lady Jane to her execution, and fal-

The Reign of Queen Mary. 187
tered not in the purpose to destroy the fabric of Prot
estantism that had been so quickly reared. At the time
of her coronation (October 1, 1553,) the first Parliament
that met four days later disclosed the fluctuating state of
public opinion. Mary found herself "in the anomalous
position of being the supreme head of the Church in Eng
land while she herself devoutly believed in the suprem
acy of the Bishop of Rome. The title and the powers it
gave were useful to restore by royal proclamation the
medieval ritual and worship, and Mass was reintroduced
in December."1
The marriage of Mary with Philip of Spain was at
tended by an outburst of popular indignation. "In Sep
tember (1553) the pronouncedly Protestant Bishops who
had returned to England to face the storm, Cranmer, Rid
ley, Cover dale, Latimer were ejected and imprisoned ; the
Protestant refugees from France and Germany and many
of the eminent Protestant leaders had sought safety on
the Continent ; the deprived Romanist Bishops, Gardiner,
Heath, Bonner, Day had been reinstated ; and the vener
able Bishop Tunstall, who had acted as Wolsey's ambas
sador at the famous Diet of Worms, had been placed in
the See of Durham."2 With a hand and heart that was
true to her heritage, Mary quelled uprisings and sent to
the block not only Lady Jane Grey but proud members of
the nobility. Had the advice of Charles V. been followed
the Princess Elizabeth would have met the same fate.
Passing over the efforts that were made by Mary and
the King consort to secure peace with Rome we quickly
iLindsay. History of Reformation, Vol. II, p. 370.
2Ibid. p. 731.

188 The Reformation.
come to the culmination of this drama in which the spirit
that invented the instruments of torture used to enforce
the decrees of the Inquisition, leaped with tiger-like feroc
ity upon the men who had led the forces of Protestant
ism in the days of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. In this
company of "noble martyrs" were a multitude of men
and women some of whose names we do not know.
"Faithful unto death," they are "written in the Lamb's
Book of Life." Strype, in his catalogue of the two hun
dred and eighty-eight persons who were burned during
the reign of Mary, adds, "besides those who dyed of
famyne in sondry prisons."1 We get glimpses of these
dungeon cells sufficient to reveal unspeakable suffering.
In many cases the stake must have been looked forward
to as a welcome release.
It is difficult to understand a spirit of intolerance that
could mete out such punishment to men and women who
held to the great verities of Christian faith but denied the
dogmas of Purgatory and the Mass, holding "that Baptism
and the Lord's Supper were the Sacraments instituted
by Christ." John Rogers, who had aided Tyndale in his
translation of the Bible, was burned February 4, 1555.
The French ambassador reported to his royal master
that the crowd cheered the heretic martyr on his way to
the stake "as if he were going to his wedding." It was
the rumble of another swift coming change that forever
was to make England and English Protestantism the leader
of a new democracy that should battle for freedom of
conscience and liberty of thought and turn back the faith
of men to the days of Pentecost and the Acts of the Apos
tolic Church.
1 Strype. Memorials, Ecclesiastical and Civil.

The Martyr Death of Cranmer. 189
We come now to the closing scene in the life of Thomas
Cranmer, the great ecclesiastical leader in the days that
laid the foundations of the Church of England. Mary
received her orders from Rome. The aged bishop, so in
tensely hated by the arrogant prelates whose power he
had weakened by sturdy strokes at the very root of their
existence, "was found guilty of contumacy and the com
mand went forth that he was to be deposed, degraded, and
punished as a heretic." The story of the closing days of
Cranmer may well be transcribed to these pages as they
find vivid narration from the pen of John Richard Green.1
"The moral cowardice which Cranmer had displayed in
his miserable compliance with the lust and despotism of
Henry displayed itself again in six successive recantations
by which he had hoped to purchase pardon. But pardon
was impossible ; and Cranmer's strangely mingled nature
found a power in its very weakness when he was brought
into the Church of St. Mary at Oxford to repeat his re
cantation on the way to the stake. 'Now,' ended his ad
dress to the hushed congregation before him, "now I come
to the great thing that troubleth my conscience more than
any other thing that ever I said or did in my life, and
that is the setting abroad of writings contrary to the
truth, which here I now renounce and refuse as things
written by my hand contrary to the truth which I thought
in my heart, and written for fear of death to save my life,
if it might be. And, for as much as my hand offended
in writing contrary to my heart, my hand therefore shall
be the first punished ; for if I come to the fire, it shall be
the first burned.' 'This was the hand that wrote it,' he
again exclaimed at the stake, 'therefore it shall suffer

-'a

iHistory of the English People, Vol. I, pp. 462, 463.

190 , The Reformation.
first punishment ;' and holding it steadily in the flames 'he
never stirred or cried' till life was gone.
"It was with the unerring instinct of a popular move
ment, that, among a crowd of far more heroic sufferers,
the Protestants fixed, in spite of his recantations, on the
martyrdom of Cranmer as the death blow to Catholicism
in England. For one man who felt within him the joy of
Rowland Taylor at the prospect of the stake, there were
thousands who felt the shuddering dread of Cranmer.
The triumphant cry of Latimer could reach only hearts as
bold as his own ; but the sad pathos of the primate's hu
miliation and repentance struck chords of sympathy and
pity in the hearts of all. It is from that moment that we
trace the bitter remembrance of the blood shed in the
cause of Rome; which, however, partial and unjust it
must seem to an historic observer, still lies graven deep
in the temper of the English people."
A temper that, we may truthfully add, was not lost in
the life of the Puritan emigration of the Seventeenth Cen
tury that laid the foundations of the religious and national
life that controls to-day the destinies of North America.
Following the death of Cranmer, Cardinal Pole be
came the Archbishop of Canterbury. His time serving
career, with its shifting policies, is a matter of historic
record. He was the chief adviser of Mary. The fires at
Smithfield still burned. Every effort was made to restore
confiscated lands and rebuild the monasteries. But public
sentiment resented this action. The new Pope Paul IV.
detested Philip, who had deserted the wife whose affec
tion clung to him to the last. He disliked Pole and the
lack of sympathy on the part of the Pope filled Mary's
cup of misery, full to the brim. Long broken in health
the end came November 17, 1558.

CHAPTER III.
The Reformation in England During the Reign of
Queen Elizabeth.
By reason of their exalted station and influence, kings
and queens often fill a place in the narration of history
that overrates their influence as factors in movements that
change the currents of national life. As the fires of
Smithfield die down and the half crazed, fanatical Mary
goes to her grave execrated and unmourned by the great
body of the English people, let us rapidly look back over
the centuries that prepared England for the reign of the
proud, wilful, masculine daughter of Henry VIII. and
Anne Boleyn.
The suns of a thousand years had risen and set since
Gregory discovered the fair-haired Saxon lads in the
slave mart at Rome. In all the vast missionary work
that faithful priests carried forward with implicit obedi
ence under the Papal See, none bore richer and more
beneficial fruit than the work inaugurated by St. Au
gustine in Britain. It was the labors of these earnest
men that lifted the shadows of pagan superstition from
the dull, brute, minds of the conquered natives of the
soil and the Saxon marauders who had crossed the stormy
channel from their rude forest homes in North Germany.
In this story that tells of human weakness, prostituting
and poisoning the very sources of Christian life, we must
not forget the blessings and guidance that the Roman
Church in the early centuries gave in the conversion and
uplifting of the barbarian races of the North. Her mis-
191

192 The Reformation.
sionaries carried the uplifted Cross into every nook and
corner of the then forest covered and untitled lands where
dwelt the fierce tribes whose massed forces in their brute
strength had overrun and destroyed imperial Rome and
made possible the rearing of the ecclesiastical structure
that was to be the dominant influence in coming cen
turies. The "old, old" story of the "Man of Galilee" had
subdued rough pagan hearts. These fathers and mothers
of the Teutonic races gave birth to leaders of a democ
racy, who, in due time, broke the shackles alike of feu
dalism and papal supremacy. They were the converts of
a Church whose fountain head we trace back to Apostolic
days. Many a traveller, looking out over the broken columns
and triumphal arches of ancient Rome has shared in the
feelings so vividly pictured in the pages of Gibbon. Mul
titudes of travellers from the New World, visiting for
the first time Netley Abbey, or some other ruined Eng
lish monastery, has been deeply moved. There have come
thoughts of thanksgiving for the faith that impelled men
to carry the Gospel tidings into this land, now so fair, but
then rude and desolate, the dwelling place of paganism.
How real and dominant was the Christian faith that
illuminated these ignorant hearts. It may appear to us,
in our boasted wisdom, a very childish, limited vision;
but it wrought mighty changes. It lifted the imagination
of men, whose ancestors were dwellers in caves and rude
hewers of stone, to heights where they reared such walls
and domes and spires that men gaze with wonder at the
handiwork of genius, inspired by spiritual vision; and
worship at altars whose foundations were laid by humble,
devout hands centuries before the discovery of America.

The Conversion of Britain to Christianity. 193
But spiritual pride and idleness, born of ill-gotten
bounty, wrought mischief. The day came when a proud,
wilful king was to be providentially used as an instru
ment in razing to the ground the walls of monasteries that
had become foul breeding places of sin. But we ought not
to forget the days when devout men dwelt within their
walls ; men who chanted the prayers and hymns of Au
gustine and Bernard of Clairvaux with spiritual fervor;
men who went forth to daily toil that subdued the land
and made it bud and blossom as the rose ; men who were
the teachers of the people in the years that gave birth to
the English language and its marvellous heritage of lit
erature. Protestantism did not spring out of the ground.
It was a part of that struggle for democracy as opposed
to monarchical principles, that goes back in its beginnings
to the teachings of Christ and the day of PentecOst. The
history of the English people is the history of the vic
tories of a Christian democracy. We dwell upon this fact
because of its significance in the life of Christianity and
the continuity of faith, and its relation to the history of
the Teutonic races and nations whose life and institutions
have come to their highest realization in the United States
and the British Dominion of North America. Further on
we shall refer to the profound significance of these facts
of history in their bearing upon those questions of Chris
tian Unity and Church Unity that are matters of crucial
importance in this Twentieth Century.
Cathedral towers, university cloisters, palace walls and
monasteries, well tilled fields, and growing towns, with
their signs of material wealth, give evidence of the civil
izing, uplifting power of Christianity in the centuries
before the full dawn of the Reformation. But these
13

194 The Reformation.
were the outward signs of the struggles through which
democracy came to its leadership in Church and State.
The Norman conquest mingled gentle blood with the
tough fibre of S^xon strength. The French and Latin
tongues, woven into the Anglo-Saxon dialect, gave that
medium of speech and letters that made possible the work
of John Wiclif and scholars who were the advance guard
of the New Learning. Common interests and common
enemies at last welded together Norman and Saxon life.
The Thirteenth Century begins to shape the constitution
of unwritten law that lies to-day at the foundation of
English and American democratic institutions.
The Great Charter (121 5) by which the rights of the
people were confirmed, established the Parliament that
enforced and sustained them. In all this history we dis
cover a providential preparation for the great change that
was to destroy papal supremacy; give an open Bible to
the people ; quicken intellectual and moral life ; and sup
press sources of ecclesiastical corruption. In brief sur
vey, this is the story of years, filled with struggle, and
often dark with battle storms, that made possible the
progress of the Reformation under Henry the VIII. and
so welded the temper of the people in the fires of Smith-
field that the power of Rome was forever broken.
The Princess Elizabeth succeeded to the throne of
England at a time when her masculine strength of mind
and will, combined with an intuitive tactfiilness, enabled
her to make wise use of the shifting winds of political and
ecclesiastical life. Proud and imperious, with a beauty
of person that gave a queenly stamp to her every action,
Elizabeth kept such a firm hold upon state affairs that her
decisions did much to guide England through days that

The Genesis of Puritan Life. 195
were filled with stormy conflicts on the Continent that
threatened, in connection with the plottings of the Queen
of Scotland and Roman Catholic emissaries at home and
abroad, to undermine the throne to which they, and Rome,
said she had no legitimate right. The policies of Eliza
beth were dictated by neither strong convictions or a de
sire to further the interests of the Protestant party. The
lips that again and again opened to break in bursts of
wrathful profanity at the council board surrounded by
venerable prelates, revealed a heart that had little space
for religious feeling or convictions. Wisely she sought
the aid of men like Cecil and Archbishop Parker. They,
and men of kindred spirit, were the leaders who during
the reign of Elizabeth, laid firm the foundations of the
Church of England, and guided civil and ecclesiastical af
fairs. Protestantism came more and more to the front in
the life of the people. It was the spring time hour of a
new democracy that found its seed thought in the Old as
well as the New Testament ; thought and principles that
were as iron in the blood, that produced what Lord
Macauley named as "the most remarkable body of men,
perhaps, the world has ever seen,"- — the Puritans of Eng
land and Scotland.
The early years of Elizabeth's reign were marked by a
trend of civil affairs and material prosperity that strength
ened the hold of Protestantism on the life of the English
people. Its young intellectual life was in sympathy with
the new democracy. The daughters of the nobility, and oi
prosperous middle class homes that were enjoying the
prosperity that attended the increase of commerce and
manufactures, emulated the example of the Queen and
many became proficient scholars in Latin, Greek, and

196 The Reformation.
Italian. They were for the most part the children of
Protestant homes and devout members of the Church of
England. The indignation that had flamed into a white
heat at the burning of Cranmer was widespread, but con
ditions existed that only astute statesmanship could con
trol. Elizabeth was singularly fortunate in the choice of
Cecil as her minister. He "was eminently a safe man,
not an original thinker, but a counsellor of unrivaled wis
dom." The encomium to his worth from the queen her
self was rightly won. "This judgment," she said, "I have
of you that you will not be corrupted with any manner
of gifts, and that you will be faithful to the State." Un
like his royal mistress, whom he so faithfully served, Cecil
had convictions and the courage to assert them. If he
was unwilling to jeopardize the safety and prosperity of
England by aiding the Dutch and French Protestants in
the struggles that threatened their existence, he did not
take counsel with timid fears in the conduct of national
affairs. Again and again he struck with a heavy hand as
he felt the occasion demanded. This was illustrated in
the stern decree that sent Mary, queen of Scots, to the
scaffold. It was this, and other stern actions, that broke
the plans and spirit of traitors who, in the interest of
Rome, plotted the assassination of Elizabeth and the
wresting of the Crown from the control of Protestant
leaders. As the days went on Cecil became more earnest
in his adherence to the Protestant faith.
It is evident that Elizabeth at the time of her corona
tion, if not an ardent Protestant, had little love for Rome.
At this period the ceremonials of the Roman Church, re
vived by Mary, were conducted in the churches by the

The Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity. 197
bishops she had appointed and the priests whom they
controlled. The newly crowned queen "went to Mass, but
asked the Bishop officiating not to elevate the Host for
adoration ; and when he refused to comply, she and her
ladies swept out of church immediately after the Gospel
was read. Parliament was opened in the usual manner
with the performance of the Mass, but the Queen did not
appear until it was over; and then her procession was
preceded by a choir which sang hymns in English. When
the Abbot of Westminster met her in ecclesiastical pro
cession with the usual candles sputtering in the hands of
his clergy, the Queen shouted, 'Away with these torches ;
we have light enough.' "J
The Spanish ambassador, early in her reign, reported
to his royal master that the Queen "is every day standing
up against religion (Roman) more openly and all the
heretics who had escaped are beginning to flock back
again from Germany." At this time the clergy, appointed
during the reaction under Mary, taught transubstantia
tion, offered the sacrifice of the Mass and upheld the su
premacy of the Pope. Parliament however, through the
House of Commons, reflected popular opinion and feel
ing. In spite of the opposition of the bishops appointed
by Mary, the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity were
adopted and Elizabeth received the title, Supreme Head
of the Church of England, and it was enjoined that the
communion should be given in both "kinds."
The Act of Uniformity restored the order of public
service and the administration of ordinances as set forth
in the "Book of Common Prayer" authorized by Parlia-
^indsay. History 6f the Reformation, Vol. II, pp. 389, 390.

198 The Reformation.
ment in the reign of Edward VI. Freedom of thought
was fully granted, but the line was drawn hard as to the
form of worship. Long and wearisome discussions de
layed this enactment. Easter Day (1559) was approach
ing when the Canon law required every one to attend com
munion. On this day "Her Majesty appeared in chapel,
where Mass was sung in English, according to the use of
her brother Edward."1
The Act of Uniformity, with slight changes, restored
the Prayer Book of 1552. Even the advanced reformers
appear to have been satisfied. A rubric that enjoined the
use in public worship of vestments in the early reign of
Edward VI. was the cause of sharp contention. Just how
this rubric found a place in the Elizabethan Prayer Book
is an unsolved mystery. We know it was ignored by the
Protestant bishops and, under their direction, by the
clergy. Even the surplice was not always worn. Drastic
action in the removal of ecclesiastical "ornaments" was
taken. A letter of the Spanish Ambassador (State
papers, 1559,) informs Philip that "they are now carry-
2The chronicle further on says (see Calendar of State Papers
Venetian, 1558-80, p. 57) : "Since that day things have returned
to their former state, though unless the Almighty stretch forth
His arm a relapse is expected. These accursed preachers, who
have come from Germany, do not fail to preach in their own
fashion, both in public and in private, in such wise that they per
suaded certain rogues to forcibly enter the church of St. Mary-
le-Bow, in the middle of Cheapside, and force the shrine of the
most Holy Sacrament, breaking the tabernacle and throwing the
most precious consecrated body of Jesus Christ to the ground.
They also destroyed the altar and the images, with the pall and
church linen, breaking everything into a thousand pieces. This
happened this very night, which is the third after Easter.''

England a Stronghold of Protestantism. 199
ing out the law of Parliament respecting religion with
great rigour. * * * They have just taken the crosses,
images, and altars from St. Paul's and all the other Lon
don churches."
In pursuing her policy of pleasing, as far as possible,
all parties, Elizabeth permitted the use of vestments and
lights on the altar of the Royal Chapel, but she was care
ful not to antagonize the influential Lutheran leadership
that was now active in Protestant circles. She under
stood full well the attitude of Rome. The Peace of
Augsburg was the convenient shelter to which she pur
posed to flee if the thunder of the papal excommunica
tion broke in upon her days of strangely mingled state
craft, intellectual employments, and frivolous pleasure.
The death of Cardinal Pole opened the way for the ap
pointment of Matthew Parker as Archbishop of Canter
bury. With his consecration an end came to much of the
bitter dissension that of necessity had arisen out of the
reaction under Mary that had reinstated Roman Catholic
bishops in the English dioceses. As death caused vacan
cies Protestants were appointed and changes that were
revolutionary in their character, were brought to pass
without special disturbance. England was more and
more becoming a stronghold of Protestantism. Elizabeth
and her chief counsellors wisely recognized the trend of
popular feeling and sentiment. The second Parliament
of the Queen's reign and the Convocation of 1563 brought
about the adoption of the Thirty-nine Articles. They
laid firm the foundations of the Church of England. Ma
terial prosperity and political conditions at home and
abroad strengthened the power and influence of Protest
antism. A debased coinage, that had been the source of

2oo The Reformation.
evils that were a constant irritant and menace, was re
placed with honest gold and silver. Some of it not alto
gether honestly filched from Philip's treasure ships laden
with the spoils of the New World. Thriving commerce
and manufactures and agriculture gave shipowners, mer
chants, farmers, and tradesmen the wealth that built
streets of stately houses in London and reared country
homes whose palatial architecture and beautiful gardens
vied with the royal palaces that Elizabeth loved to build
and visit with her gay retinue of flattering courtiers.
The adventurous voyages of Drake, and seamen of like
spirit, opened gateways to the outer world that kindled
the imagination of a generation that finds in Shakespeare
the consumate flowering of its intellectual quickening and
genius. But there were deeper influences than these working
with a mighty leavening power in the life of England.
The Bible became the one book of the people. It was the
fountain of devotional exercises in church and home. Its
revealed truths, as taught in history and biography, and
lifted in the strains of sublime Psalmody and prophecy;
the marvellous messages uttered by the wayside and sea
shore by the Divine Teacher who spoke as man never
spoke — were reverently accepted as the bread and water
of life ; food that nourished the spiritual life of fathers
and mothers whose sons and daughters were to be the
Puritan leaders of democracy both in the Old and New
World. Of this life and the part it has played in the
history of American Christianity reference will be made
in a later chapter.

CHAPTER IV.
The Reformation In Scotland.
Scotland emerged very slowly out of the early period
in which her kings and barons struggled for power in
fierce and lawless warfare. The feudal assembly, known
as the Estates of the Realm, was controlled by contending
factions whose quarrels robbed it of stable influence. For
more than seven centuries the old Celtic Church was the
source not only of the religious life of the people, but of
the educational privileges that taught the boys and girls
to read. Every Celtic monastery was a centre of educa
tional influence. From them came many of the teachers
who built up the reputation of the older universities of
the North. When the Roman Church supplanted the
Celtic Church its educational system remained an active
and potent force. The love of learning found many
Scotch students in the crowd of wandering scholars who
filled the universities of Europe in medieval times.
"The country," says Professor Lindsay, "had been pre
pared for the Reformation by the education of the peo
ple, especially of the middle class, by constant intercourse
between Scotland and France and the Low Countries, and
by the sympathy which Scottish students had felt for the
earlier movements towards Church reform in England
and Bohemia; while the wealth and immorality of the
Romish clergy, the poverty of the nobility and landed gen
try, and the changing political situation, combined to give
an impetus to the efforts of those who longed for a Refor
mation."1 1Lindsay. History of the Reformation, Vol. II, p. 275.
201

202 The Reformation.
The influence of Wiclif and the Lollards was widely
felt. As early as 1433, Paiu Craw, who had visited Scot
land, with the purpose of advancing the Hussite move
ment, fell a victim to the Inquisition, and was burned at
the stake. The wealth that had come into the hands of
the Roman Church attracted into its service many of the
younger sons of the nobility whose lives were often
shameful. The ships that carried on an active commerce
with the Continent, in spite of the Edicts of Parliament,
hid Lutheran books and pamphlets in their cargoes that
found eager buyers and readers. Patrick Hamilton, of
noble lineage, was the first in the line of Scotland's mar
tyrs. While a student in the University of Paris he be
came interested in the work of Luther. On his return
home he came under the suspicion of the heresy hunters.
Escaping to Germany he was active in the councils of the
Lutheran leaders. His heart turned homeward with the
desire to advance the Reformation in Scotland. His mes
sage found a ready welcome but his voice was soon
hushed in flames kindled by the hands of Romish perse
cutors (February 27, 1528). A long line of "noble mar
tyrs" are found in the years that follow. In Scotland,
as in other lands, the burning of heretics increased rather
than lessened the number of those who joined the ranks
of the Reformers.
On the death of James V. (1542) his infant daughter,
Mary, became the Queen of Scotland. Under the Re
gency the years are filled with plots and counter-plots by
which the Tudor kings sought to secure control of the
country beyond their northern boundary and break up
threatening alliances with France. David Beaton, Arch
bishop of St. Andrews, was the astute leader of the

George Wishart. 203
French and Romanish partisans in Scotland. He was an
instrument ready to do the bidding of the Pope in the
coming conflict with Henry VIII. In the struggle for the
Regency, under Mary, Beaton was defeated and impris
oned. For a little space the hunting of heretics ceased.
Then came a period of truce in which the contending
leaders made peace. With the reconciliation of the Earl
of Arran and Cardinal Beaton the days of persecution re
opened. Mary, under the tutelage of the French court,
was being trained for the sad after years of her unhappy
reign. In the midst of all this political tumult and strife for
supremacy in the civil affairs of Scotland, the leaven of a
pure, spiritual faith was effectively working in Scottish
homes and hearts. George Wishart, fleeing from perse
cution, had come into close touch with the leaders of the
Reformation in England, Germany and Switzerland. Re
turning to Scotland about 1543, he proclaimed his mes
sage in Montrose, Dundee and other places. After a
preaching tour in the Lothans he was seized by the com
mand of Beaton and after confinement in the dungeon at
St. Andrews, was tried in the cathedral and sent to the
stake (March 1, 1546).
At this point the foremost figure in the history of the
Reformation in Scotland appears upon the stage. John
Knox was the close companion of Wishart in his tour in
the Lothians. The friendship of these men was like that
of David and Jonathan. The early life of Knox is
shrouded in obscurity. We only know he enjoyed the
blessings of a home of frugal habits and prosperity, based
upon religious principles. After his graduation from St.
Andrews we know little of his career for twenty years.

204 The Reformation.
In 1543 he signed himself "minister of the sacred altar"
under the Archbishop of St. Andrews. Three years later
he was standing by the side of Wishart. After Wishart's
execution he became a fugitive from the Romish hate that
planned the death of every heretic.
Learning of the assassination of Cardinal Beaton he
hastened to join the party that had plotted the death of
this cruel murderer of men whose shoes lachet he was
unworthy to unloose. While making his home in the
castle of St. Andrews Knox taught "John's Gospel" and
had charge of a catechetical class of children. He at first
declined the urgent request to accept "the public office and
charge of preaching." This call was finally pressed from
the pulpit itself with unanimous approval. "Whereat,
the said John, abashed, burst forth in most abundant tears
and withdrew himself to his chamber." He came forth
from the consecration and decisions of that hour changed
in spirit and filled with courage that never faltered. From
that hour until his death John Knox, in his wonderful
ministry and leadership as a reformer, feared not the face
of man.
Taken prisoner when the garrison of St. Andrews sur
rendered to the French fleet (1547), Knox was carried
to France. With his companions he was made a galley-
slave. For nineteen months he sat chained with four to
six others, to the rowing benches. Day and night, even
when they slept, they were chained under the benches.
Fed with the poorest food and placed in close companion
ship with the vilest malefactors it is difficult to conceive
what the French Papists could have done more to add to
the misery of these innocent prisoners. The narrative
penned by Knox vividly recalls this terrible experience.

The Leadership of John Knox. 205
"How long I continued prisoner, what torment I sustained
in the galies, and what war the sobbes of my harte, is now
no time to receat. This only I can nocht conceall, which
mo than one have hard me say, when the body was far
absent from Scotland, that my assured houp was in opp
in audience to preach in Sauctandrois befoir I depairted
this lyeff."1
Released at last, Knox began his great work as a leader
and preacher of the Reformation. In 1552 he was offered
an English bishopric but declined.2 His suggestion se
cured the Prayer Book rubric which explains that when
kneeling at the sacrament is ordered, "No adoration is in
tended or ought to be done." When Mary came to the
throne of England Knox for a time tarried in London.
While there he "had the courage to rebuke the rejoicings
of the crowd at her (Mary's) entry into the capital — a
fearless, outspoken man who could always be depended
on for doing what no one else dared."
We now find Knox on the Continent in consultation
with Calvin at Geneva, and Bullinger at Zurich. With
the exception of a brief visit to Scotland the years 1554-58
were spent on the continent. He was forging the thun
derbolts that were afterwards launched in asserting the
rights of the people to restrain tyrannical sovereigns. His
pastorate at Geneva was a happy and peaceful one. With
other scholarly exiles he prepared the English version of
the Bible that in the reign of Elizabeth became "the
household book of the English speaking nations." Days
that were to be filled with stormy conflict were near at
Works of John Knox, I, p. 349.
2See page 184.

206 The Reformation.
hand. From the pleasant Geneva home in which he had
enjoyed the loving care both of his wife and mother,
Knox hurried to Edinburgh in the spring of 1559 and was
soon in "the brunt of the battle." Condemned as an out
law he fearlessly preached in the chief towns of Scotland.
The support given to him by the civic authorities of St.
Andrews, and, as he notes, by "the rascal multitude" of
Perth reveals the temper of the people. Even in Edin
burgh the queen regent permitted an arrangement, under
the pressure of popular feeling, that permitted Knox and
his associates to give their message from the pulpits that
faced crowded congregations.
In the alliance by which Scotland came into close union
with Protestant England Knox was a foremost leader.
But it was his destiny, while aiding in this work, "beyond
all other men, to leave the stamp of a more inward inde
pendence upon his country and its history." In 1560, at
the request of the Estates, Knox and three others drafted
a confession of faith. It bears the stamp of his Genevan
training and ministry. A Calvinistic confession it re
mained for two centuries the authorized Scottish creed.
Acts passed at this time reveal that Protestants had not
learned the spirit or meaning of tolerance. The Pope's
authority and jurisdiction were abolished and heavy pen
alties, with death on third conviction, were inflicted on
those who should attend mass or even be present at it. The
Reformed churches grew so rapidly that before the close
of the year the first General Assembly made up of their
representatives, became "the whole Church convened."
Knox was the chief framer of the Book of Discipline
which provided a rigid Presbyterian system of govern
ment. Special attention was given to the religious in-

John Knox and Mary, Queen of Scotland. 207
struction of the young from elementary schools up to the
universities. These schools, as well as the poor, and the
ministers, were to be supported from the "tithes of yearly
fruits." This plan was at first opposed by some of the
lords who had acquired much of the ancient Church prop
erty. Seven years later the Crown acknowledged the
Kirk the only Church of Scotland with full jurisdiction
over all outsiders. The stipends of the ministers of the
Scottish Church were paid out of the "yearly tithes" and
until recent times the administration of the schools and
the Poor Laws were in its hands.
When Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1561 returned from
France to her native land, she put forth every effort to
destroy the "Kirk" that had so swiftly swept away the
old foundations. There are few episodes of more dra
matic interest in the history of the Reformation than that
which tells the story of John Knox and his contention
with the proud Queen whose fascinating personality and
urgent appeals could not swerve him in the least from
what he conceived to be the path of duty. In the prog
ress of events there came an hour of such distress that
even the spirit of Knox standing in its shadow, cried out,
"Lord Jesus, put an end to this my miserable life, for
justice and truth are not to be found among Ihe sons of
men." During a visit to England, where two of his sons
were being educated at Cambridge, word came to him
of the tragic events following the murder of Darnley.
Returning to Scotland he took a leading part in the As
sembly that met June 25, 1567. His voice uttered the
pulpit message at Stirling at the coronation of James VI.,
the infant son of the deposed Queen. Parliament again
voted the Confession of Faith and engrossed it in their

208 The Reformation.
Acts, which were signed by the Regent acting for the
king. From this time on the Reformed Church was le
gally recognized in Scotland and its Confession became
part of the law of the land.
While his great life work was accomplished the figure
of Knox holds a foremost place in Scottish history from
this time on until his death. Mary's escape in 1568 was
followed by the defeat of her adherents at Langside and
her long imprisonment and final execution in England.
The Civil War, brought on by the assassination of Knox's
friend, the regent Moray, did not succeed in its plans.
When tidings came of the massacre of St. Bartholomew
Knox, from the pulpit of St. Giles, "challenged the
French Ambassador to report his words, and denounced
God's vengeance on the crowned murderer and his pos
terity." When the civil conflict broke out between the ad
herents of Mary and the town of Edinburgh both parties
agreed to the removal of Knox, who had suffered an at
tack of paralysis, to St. Andrews. He here published his
last book and wrote his last will. In the preface to his
book he says : "I heartily take my good-night of the faith
ful in both realms * * * for as the world is weary of
me, so am I of it." Returning to Edinburgh in the au
tumn he died on the 24th of November, 1572. As Mor
ton, the new regent of Scotland said at his burial in St.
Giles Churchyard, looking back over the stormy life of
Knox, it was a matter of surprise that the man who had
"neither flattered nor feared any flesh had ended his days
in peace and honor."
As long as Scotland exists and the story of the Refor
mation and the Reformed Churches that sprang out of it
is told, the name and fame of John Knox will not be
forgotten.

CHAPTER V.
The Reformation In Switzerland. Zwingli and
Oecolampadius.
The story of the Reformation in Switzerland centres
especially about two men, Ulrich Zwingli and John Cal
vin. Zwingli was the chief founder of the Reformed
Churches of Europe and America. Calvin holds the same
relation to the great Presbyterian fellowship throughout
the world. Like the Alpine heights that overlooked the
scenes of their earthly labors the nearer they are ap
proached the loftier and grander is seen to be the range
of their character and influence. They were pioneers in
recovering the long lost principles of democracy laid down
in the New Testament, upon which to-day rests the super
structure of republican institutions. Great in character
and great in intellectual and statesmanlike qualities,
they were called to their providential work in the en
vironment of a land whose valleys and mountains from
the days when the Waldensens sought their shelter, have
been a place of refuge for brave spirits who have led the
battle hosts of God's elect against the serried ranks of
hierarchical supremacy and oppression.
Ulrich Zwingli was born in a free peasant's chalet in
one of the Swiss valleys.1 Early destined for the Church
he made his home, when but a lad, with an uncle who was
the parish priest of Wildhaus. From the schools of
January i, 1484, at Wildhaus in the Toggenburg valley, in the
canton of St. Gall. 209
14

210 The Reformation.
Basel and Berne he came under the training of the Do
minican monastery in that city. An enthusiastic student
of classical literature, after his graduation from the Uni
versity at Basel, he became a teacher of this literature
that, in its higher ethical expression, left an abiding im
pression upon his life and thought. "Luther," says Pro
fessor Armitage, "never quite shook off scholasticism,
whereas Zwingli had early learned from Dr. Thomas
Wyttenbach that the time was at hand when scholastic
theology must give place to the purer and more rational
theology of the early Fathers and to a fearless study of
the New Testament. He heard from this same teacher
bold criticisms of Romish teaching concerning the sacra
ments, monastic vows and papal indulgences, and uncon
sciously he was thus trained for the great remonstrance
of his later years."1
The name of this Basel university professor is worthy
of special mention. Wyttenbach, ten years before Luther
nailed his theses on the church door at Wittenberg, had
posted theses of similar import at Basel, and boldly taught
that the Bible and not the Church was the supreme guide
and that forgiveness of sin came through Jesus Christ
and not by the importunity of the Virgin Mary and the
saints. At the age of twenty-two Zwingli was appointed
parish priest of Glarus. Continuing his favorite classical
studies he gave special attention to Greek that he might
"learn the teaching of Christ from the original sources."
At this time he came under the influence of Erasmus, with
whom he was in frequent correspondence.
In the history of these days, in which political
1Article Zwingli. Encyclopedia Brittanica. Eleventh edition.

Ulrich Zwingli. 211
and religious affairs are so inextricably mingled, it will
help us to better understand the work of Calvin and.
Zwingli if we remember that "no nation was so abso
lutely without a central government as the Swiss." In
the Swiss cantons the people governed themselves. There
were no feudal lordships. The communes and villages
were little republics of a primitive Teutonic type. "If
therefore in a Swiss canton the civil power took to itself
the ecclesiastical power hitherto held by the Pope, that
power became vested in the people, not as in other coun
tries, in the prince or king." Political opinion at Glarus
favored alliance with France that was disapproved by
Zwingli and he was glad to accept the position of priest
at Einsiedeln. At this time (1516-19) his religious con
victions became fixed and he entered upon labors as an
evangelical leader and teacher that continued until his
death. "He had none of Luther's distrust of the 'common
man' and fear of popular government, and this fact won
for his teaching the favour of the towns of South Ger
many not less than Switzerland."
In 1518, Zwingli, in the face of considerable opposi
tion, sought and obtained the place of people's priest as
the Great Minister of Zurich. Already he was a marked
man. His sermons, founded upon a profound mastery of
the New Testament, attracted wide attention. Corruption
in State and Church alike met his scathing condemnation.
It was in these days that we find his views conflicting with
those of Luther. Mention has already been made of the
unhappy outcome of efforts that sought to remove these
differences.1 Zwingli always contended that he had dis-
iS'ee page 139-

212 The Reformation.
covered the Gospel message before the name of Luther
was known in Switzerland. Following an illness, in
which he fell the victim of a prevailing plague, he
preached more earnestly than ever before against the cele-
bacy of priests, fasting and saint worship. With others
of like spirit he joined in an address to the Bishop of
Constance asking him to grant permission to the priests
to marry. The contention reached the Pope (Adrian
VI.), who asked the Zurichers to dismiss the recreant
priest. But the eloquent and courageous preacher was
upheld in his course and the canton voted to sever its
connection with the bishopric of Constance.
Strong opposition to the Reformation arose in the five
Forest Cantons.1 A league of defence was formed and
as the result of a great public disputation in Berne that
brought together 350 ecclesiastics, that important canton
was won over to the party led by Zwingli. The propo
sitions defended in this meeting went to the root of the
matter.2 1Lucerne, Zug, Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden.
2They were as follows: (1) That the Holy Christian Church
of which Christ is the only Head, is born of the Word of God,
abides therein, and does not listen to the voice of a stranger ; (2)
that this Church imposes no laws on the conscience of the people
without the sanction of the Word of God, and that the laws of
the Church are binding only in so far as they agree with the
Word; (3) that Christ alone is our righteousness and our sal
vation, and that to trust to any other merit or satisfaction is to
deny Him ; (4) that it cannot be proved from the Holy Scripture
that the body and blood of Christ are corporeally present in the
bread and wine of the Lord's Supper; (5) that the mass, in
which Chirst is offered to God the Father for the sins of the
living and of the dead, is contrary to Scripture and a gross affront
to the sacrifice and death of the Saviour; (6) that we should not

Doctrinal Views of Zwingli. 213
Zwingli held that the congregation, and not the hi
erarchy, was the representative of the Church. He led
the contest that sought to incorporate in the Swiss Con
stitution the principles of representative democracy.
Many of his colleagues followed his example in publicly
celebrating his happy marriage with Anna Reinhard. The
same year (1524) he published a pamphlet giving his
views regarding the Lord's Supper. In a congress that
was attended by about 900 delegates his voice was raised
against the use of images and the doctrine of the mass
with such effect that the churches were stripped of their
ornaments and many festivals and ceremonies abolished.
This action aroused the fierce opposition of the dominant
Roman Catholic party in the Forest Cantons. A diet held
at Lucerne (January 26, 1524,) sent a message of rebuke
to Zurich that met a response declaring that she would
listen to no interference "in matters relating to the Word
of God and the salvation of souls."
In the spring of 1525 Zwingli published his Commen
tary on the True and False Religion. "Like others of the
Reformers he had been led independently to preach justi
fication by faith and to declare that Jesus Christ was the
one and only Mediator between sinful men and God ; but
his construction rested upon what he regarded as Biblical
pray to dead mediators and intercessors, but to Jesus Christ
alone; (7) that there is no trace of purgatory in Scripture; (8)
that to set up pictures and to adore them is also contrary to
Scripture, and that images and pictures ought to be destroyed
where there is danger of giving them adoration; (9) that mar
riage is lawful to all, to the clergy as well as to the laity; (10)
that shameful living is more disgraceful among the clergy than
among the laity.

214 The Reformation.
conceptions of the nature of God and men rather than
upon such private personal experiences as those which
Luther had made basal. In this commentary there ap
pears the mature views of Zwingli on the subject of the
Elements of the Lord's Supper. He was quite as clear as
Luther in repudiating the medieval doctrine of transub
stantiation, but he declined to accept Luther's teaching
that Christ's words of institution required the belief that
the real flesh and blood of Christ co-exist in and with the
natural elements. He declared that Luther was in a fog,
and that Christ had warned His disciples against all such
notions, and had proclaimed that by faith alone could His
presence be received in a feast which He designed to be
commemorative and symbolical."1
In the autumn of 1529 the landgrave of Hesse brought
the leaders of the Reformation together for conference.
The hope that the Lutheran and Reformed Churches
might be united in the contest against Rome was not real
ized. Luther could not forget the friendship of Zwingli
and Erasmus, and was unwilling to change his literal in
terpretation of the words of consecration for the more
spiritual and mythical conception of Zwingli. Luther was
human. It was not in his nature to yield at any point when
he had taken a position. His violent dislike of Erasmus,
and those who were at all rationalistic in their views and
philosophy, added to an evident personal prejudice against
Zwingli, appears in the action on his part that closed
this conference. It was the parting of the ways con
tinued until to-day. Again we have come to a century in
Professor Armstrong. Article Zwingli. Encyclopedia Brit-
tanica. Eleventh edition.

Death of Zwingli. 215
which we hope and pray and rejoice in signs that promise
the growing unity of the Church of which Christ is the
Head, but the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in
its liberation of thought and freedom of opinion must
needs be an era of division. It is a wonderful history that
both the Reformed and Lutheran Churches have made
in the past four centuries in advancing the kingdom of
God and His righteousness. Who shall say that it was
not best that October day in 1529 that Luther and
Zwingli went their separate ways?
The work of Zwingli was drawing to a tragic close.
The Romanist cantons in 1529 made an attack on Zurich
that was averted by a truce that lasted only for a few
months. In 1531 the second Cappel war broke out. In the
battle, where Romanist strength and numbers prevailed,
Zwingli, who as chaplain, was carrying the Protestant ban
ner, was struck down and killed with barbarous cruelty.
Upon the hugh boulder that marks the place where he
fell these words are inscribed : " 'They may kill the body
but not the soul,' so spoke on this spot Ulrich Zwingli,
who for truth and the freedom of the Christian Church
died a hero's death, Oct. 3, 1531."
"Thus died," says Dr. James I. Good, " 'for his faith
and his country,' the only one of the first four leading
Reformers (Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, and Ecolam-
padius) who gave his life for his faith. He was not a
martyr as were the martyr-Reformers Cranmer, Ridley,
and Latimer, who were burned at the stake. And yet
he no less gave his life for his religion, for he knew that
Zurich would be defeated at Cappel. He was the only
one of the great Continental Reformers who sealed his
faith with his blood. He was a great man in many ways,

216 The Reformation.
great as a theologian, as patriot, as a musician, as an ora
tor and as a Reformer." The story of the Reformed
Church, which Zwingli founded, is woven into the history
of Southern Switzerland, Holland, Germany, Hungary,
France, Scotland, and the United States, and lives in mis
sionary activities that have carried their influences to the
ends of the earth.
John Oecolampadius was the leader of the Reformation
in Basel. A zealous student of the new learning he was
appointed cathedral preacher at Basel in 1515. In 1520
he was called to preach in the high church at Augsburg
and soon became an earnest champion of Luther. After
a brief experience of monastic life he returned to Basel
and from this time on stood by the side of Zwingli. To
gether they led in the movement that brought Berne and
Basel into the Reformed ranks.

CHAPTER VI.
The Reformation In Geneva Under John Calvin.
Next to Wittenberg, Geneva was the fountain head of
the Reformation. It has been truthfully said that "Lu
ther was too national — too German — a reformer, to ad
mit of his becoming the universal prophet of Protestant
ism all over the world. Denmark, Sweden, and Norway
coming under German influence, did indeed become Lu
theran ; but the Protestants of France, Holland, Switzer
land, England, Scotland, and their descendants in Amer
ica are not and never have been Lutherans."1 Geneva,
under Calvin, and Zurich under Zwingli, were the source
of influences that were dominant in the Reformed faith.
Under its ancient constitution (1387) Geneva recog
nized the triple authority of the Bishop as sovereign
Prince; the Count who held the citadel; and the Free
Burghers. In the conflicts between these parties the
bishops and the burghers generally united against the
Count who represented the House of Savoy. For many
decades the Church, by a wise recognition of the rights
of the people, held the place of leadership. This place it
lost when the bishopric finally came under the control of
the House of Savoy. Episcopal scandals and misused
power aroused fierce indignation and the Genevans sought
an alliance with the cantons of Freiburg and Berne. This
alliance brought about arrangements (1530) by which
Geneva was governed by a two chambered Council whose
iSeebohm. The Era of the Protestant Revolution, p. 201.
217

218 The Reformation.
decisions were submitted for final adoption to a General
Council composed of all the citizens.
Already the leaven of Reformed truth was working in
the life of the city. In the summer of 1532 this ferment
of feeling found popular vent. Following the publication
of a papal Indulgence, the burghers discovered one morn
ing posted on all the church doors, the announcement that
"plenary pardon would be granted to every one for all
their sins on the one condition of repentance, and a living
faith in the promises of Jesus Christ." The city was in
a tumult of commotion. Priests hastened to tear down
the placards sorely alarmed over the evidence that hated
Lutherans were at work undermining their influence. In
the autumn of 1532 a reformer entered the city who was
to be a John the Baptist in preparing the way for Calvin.
William Farel was born of a noble family (1489), hav
ing their home near Gap, in France. A graduate of the
University of Paris he was for a time professor in the
college of Cardinal Lemoine. In 1521 he joined the com
pany at Meaux that sought to stem the tide of Reforma
tion by instituting reforms within the Church of Rome.
When persecution dispersed this group, Farel found his
way to Basel. Welcomed by Oecolampadius in 1524 he
issued thirteen theses, "sharply antagonizing Roman doc
trine." The heat of temper in which he defended his po
sition stirred the indignation of Erasmus, then a resident
of the city, and with the help of others, he made it so un
comfortable for Farel that he sought refuge elsewhere.
Wandering for a time from one place to another he finally
secured a license to preach anywhere within the Canton
of Berne. In his evangelistic tours he ventured into
neighboring cantons. Undaunted by persecution he ut-

William Farel. 219
tered his denunciatory messages with eloquent and rest
less energy. "In October, 1530, he broke into the Church
of Neuchatel with an iconoclastic mob, thus planting the
Reformation in that city." Two years later he visited the
Waldenses and on his return stopped at Geneva. Condi
tions, as we have seen, favored the restless spirit of Farel.
He began to preach in a room where he lodged and his
message attracted wide attention. Summoned before the
bishops' court he was treated shamefully and commanded
to leave the city within three hours. By this time the
Protestant canton of Berne felt compelled to come to the
support of their brother in Geneva, and through their in
tervention, liberty of worship, in the spring of 1533, was
granted the Reforming party in that city. Farel returned
from his brief exile and at once gained a place of leader
ship. Events moved fast. The bishop on the first day of
January, 1534, interdicted all unauthorized preaching and
ordered the burning of all Protestant Bibles. This action
added fuel to the flame of popular indignation, and Farel
took part in public disputations that resulted in a decree
(August 27, 1535,) that supressed the mass and estab
lished the reformed religion.
It was during this very month that Calvin, in his re
treat at Basel, penned the closing lines of his Institutes
of the Christian Religion. "In this work, though pro
duced when the author was only twenty-six years of age,
we find a complete outline of the Calvinistic theological
system. In none of the later editions, nor in any of his
later works do we find reason to believe that he ever
changed his views on any essential point from what they
were at the period of its first publication. Such an in
stance of maturity of mind and of opinion at so early an

220 The Reformation.
age would be remarkable under any circumstances ; but in
Calvin's case it is rendered peculiarly so by the shortness
of the time which had elapsed since he gave himself to
theological studies. It may be doubted also if the history
of literature presents us with another instance of a book
written at an early age, which has exercised such a pro
digious influence upon the opinions and practices both of
contemporaries and of posterity."1
Having completed his great work in August, 1535 (pub
lished in 1536), Calvin left Basel for a short visit to the
court of Renee, then graced by the devout Duchess of
Ferrara. Returning to Basel he soon went on to France
to complete arrangements to settle in Strasburg and de
vote himself to study. The unsettled condition of af
fairs, owing to the war between Francis I. and CharlesV.
compelled him to take a circuitous route that brought him
to Geneva. Here he met Farel and found his providential
life work in that city. The story is vividly told by Calvin
in the preface to his Commentary on the Psalms. "As the
most direct route to Strasburg," he says, "to which I then
intended to retire, was blocked by the wars, I had resolved
to pass quickly by Geneva without staying longer than a
single night in that city. * * * A person (Louis du
Tillet), who has now returned to the Papists, discovered
me and made me known to others. Upon this Farel, who
burned with an extraordinary zeal to advance the Gospel,
immediately strained every nerve to detain me. After
having learned that my heart was set upon devoting my
self to private studies, for which I wished to keep myself
1Dr. William Lindsay Alexander and Professor Alexander
James Grieve. Article Calvin. Ency. Brittanica. Eleventh edition.

John Calvin. 221
free from other pursuits, and finding that he gained noth
ing by entreaties, he proceeded to utter an imprecation
that God would curse my retirement and the tranquility
of the studies which I sought, if I should withdraw and
refuse assistance when the necessity was so urgent. By
this imprecation I was so stricken with terror that I de
sisted from the journey which I had undertaken."
We can scarcely imagine two men of more dissimilar
temperaments than Calvin and Farel, but their friendship
was such that the younger of these two men could say in
after years, "We had one heart and one soul." Calvin
when he yielded to the stern importunity of his future co
worker, was twenty-seven years of age, and Farel, twenty
years his senior.
Before we enter upon the story of Calvin's great work
in Geneva let us briefly recall the preceding years of his
life. He was born at Noyon, in Picardy, France, July 10,
1509. His father was a man of considerable importance
in the community, and his mother was a woman of un
usual charm of person and character. John was the second
of five sons. His early education, the expenses of which
were defrayed by his father, was in the household of the
noble family of de Montmor. Destined to an ecclesiastical
career when but a youth he was officially attached to the
cathedral of Noyon. From the income of this benefice he
studied in Paris, making his home with an uncle. The
regent of the college which he attended, Mathurin Cor-
dier, a man of repute as a scholar, in after years followed
his eminent pupil to Switzerland and died at Geneva in
1564. Calvin dedicated to him his Commentary on the
First Epistle to the Thessalonians, expressing the "wish
to testify to posterity that if any utility accrue to any

222 The Reformation.
from my writings they may acknowledge it as having in
part flowed from thee."
Making rapid progress in his studies and outstripping
all of his competitors, especially in the languages and
scholastic philosophy, he returned to Noyon to become
curate of St. Martin. When the time arrived for a final
decision regarding his ordination to the priesthood, there
was hesitation on his part. His father used his influence
to turn him to the profession of law. The career of a
priest did not have the attractions of earlier years. Com
plying with his father's wish he entered upon the study
of law at Orleans, and afterwards at Bourges. One of
his Orleans friends, Melchor Wolmar, who also came to
Bourges, taught him Greek. This opened to him the
treasures of the New Testament that were then attracting
attention in all the universities of Europe. We can easily
imagine that the exciting events of these times had a
large place in the thought of the brilliant young law stu
dent. The twelve years that had past since Luther nailed
his theses on the door of the Crown church at Witten
berg had witnessed the kindling of a conflagration that
was extending far beyond the bounds of Germany. Mul
titudes in France sympathized with the Reformation
movement, although, as yet, there was no open revolt.
Following the death of his father (May, 1531,) Calvin
returned to Paris, and while pursuing his classical studies
issued his first publication — a commentary in Latin on a
tract of Seneca. In 1533 came the change in the life of
Calvin which he describes as his "sudden conversion." A
change by which his heart was "so subdued and reduced
to docility that in comparison with his zeal for true piety
he regarded all other studies with indifference, though

John Calvin. 223
not entirely forsaking them. Though himself a beginner,
many flocked to him to learn the pure doctrine, and he
began to seek some hiding-place and means of with
drawal from people."
In this experience he was brought into close sympathy
with an old friend of early student days, Nicholas Cop,
who had been appointed rector of the university. In an
address on All Saints, Cop uttered opinions regarding the
reformed faith that aroused such opposition that he
deemed it wise to seek a refuge in Basel. An attempt
was made at the same time to seize Calvin, but he es
caped and made his home for a time in Noyon. Return
ing to Paris, early in 1534 he accepted an invitation to
become the guest of Louis du Tiller, a canon of the
cathedral of Angouleme. Here in the splendid library
of his friend he began the studies which bore fruit in his
immortal work, The Institutes.
Calvin as he neared his twenty-fifth birthday made the
decision that cast in his fortune with the reforming party.
He suffered two short terms of imprisonment on charges
that could not be sustained. For a time he made his
home at Poiters and it was in a grotto near the town
that he celebrated for the first time the communion in
the Evangelical Church of France. In 1534, accompanied
by his friend Tillet, he went to Basel, where he "was wel
comed by the band of scholars and theologians who had
conspired to make that city the Athens of Switzerland."
Calvin at once came to a position of marked influence.
The double dealing policy of Francis I. in seeking to
avoid a break with the Protestant princes of Germany by
an assurance that his persecution of the French reformers
was directed only against those who called in question the

224 The Reformation.
power of civil magistrates, aroused his indignation and
with almost incredible celerity he prepared his Institutes
of the Christian Religion for publication. It was sent
forth anonymously with the purpose, as its author said,
"that I might vindicate from unjust affront my brethren
whose death was precious in the sight of the Lord, and,
next, that some sorrow and anxiety should move foreign
peoples, since the same sufferings threatened many." The
book was first written in Latin, "that it might find access
to the learned in all lands." At an early date Calvin
translated it into French. As edition after edition was
called for the work was much enlarged. Little could the
young reformer realize that the brief manual of Christian
doctrine which he penned in such a white heat of intel
lectual vigor, was to be numbered among the books that
have profoundly influenced the thought and convictions
of untold multitudes of men and women ; a book that has
given guidance and strength to great leaders in Church
and State, through the past four centuries of the Chris
tian era. Calvin and Farel In Geneva.
As we have seen it was an unexpected providence that
turned Calvin from the seclusion that he desired for the
pursuit of his favorite studies, and placed him in the fore
front of affairs at Geneva. The more we learn of Farel
the better we like him. He certainly never let his tem
pestuous spirit act to better purpose than in the "impre
cation" that startled the young friend whom he felt was
the man to guide the reformation forces at a critical hour
when the fate of Protestantism in Geneva and Switzer
land was in the balance. Farel knew his own limitations.

The Beginning of Calvin's Work in Geneva. 225
His mission was to stir the hearts of men with a fiery
message. He had not the qualities of statesmanship and
theological insight that he felt Calvin possessed to a
marked degree. His judgment proved correct. The man
whom Erasmus could not abide because of his earnest
evangelistic spirit and whom he helped to drive from
Basel was to be the right hand of Calvin in his work at
Geneva. This work began with no blare of trumpets. A minute
of the city Council under date of September 5, 1536, says :
"Master William Farel stated the need for the lecture
begun by this Frenchman in St. Peter's." These daily
lectures were on the Epistles of St. Paul. The room was
soon crowded and the reputation of the young professor
grew apace. At an early date an occasion arose that
tested his strength as a leader in action as well as thought.
The Protestant canton of Berne had gained control of the
larger part of The Pays de Vaud. In order that the peo
ple might gain a clear knowledge of evangelical prin
ciples arrangements were made for a public discussion at
Lausanne (October, 1536). An invitation Avas extended
to all the priests and inmates of the abbeys and convents
in the conquered lands to attend the Disputation, with the
privilege of the utmost freedom in discussing the ten
evangelical theses prepared by Farel and Viret. In the
invitation to this conference Farel wrote: "You may
speak here as boldly as you please ; our arguments are
neither faggot, fire nor sword, prison nor torture ; public
executioners are not our doctors of divinity. * * .*
Truth is strong enough to outweigh falsehood; if you
have it, bring it forward." Only a fraction of the Ro
manists accepted this urgent invitation. The conference
15

226 The Reformation.
opened October 1st, with a sermon preached by Farel in
the Cathedral of Lausanne. The public discussion began
on Monday and the great church was crowded to the
doors by the people of the city and the surrounding coun
try. The disputants took their assigned place in the mid
dle aisle. Among them sat the representatives from
Berne "distinguished by their black doublets and shoul
der-knots faced with red, and by their broad-brimmed
hats ornamented with great bunches of feathers — hats
kept stiffly on their heads as befitting the representatives
of such potent lords."
Farel and Viret were the Protestant orators. Calvin
was present but had not purposed to speak. In the course
of the discussion one of the Romanist defenders asserted
that the Protestants were afraid to quote from the ancient
Fathers, knowing that they were opposed to their doc
trines. The young, and then but little known teacher
from Geneva, rose to his feet and observed with sar
castic tone that those who professed to reverence the
Fathers might profitably study their writings. Quoting
from memory from Cyprian, Tertullian, St. Augustine,
and others, he completely refuted the assertion of the
Romanist speaker. He went out of the church a marked
man. That address was soon a theme of interest in every
Protestant home in Switzerland.
Calvin was now to prove his ability as a statesman.
Matters were at loose ends in the civic life of Geneva and
he set to work preparing a draft of needed reforms. It
was accepted and became the basis of the ecclesiastical
work accomplished by Calvin with the help of Farel and
other associates. In this memorandum he urged the fre
quent celebration of the Lord's Supper; the congrega-

The Work of Calvin in Geneva. 227
tional singing of the Psalms; the religious instruction of
the young; and the lawful ordinance and duty of mar
riage. The articles received the general approval of the
city Council and were in force until superseded by the
ordinances adopted in the autumn of 1541. It must not
be forgotten as we note the influence that Calvin exerted
through municipal regulations that the free Swiss cities
permitted to their Councils control over both large and
petty affairs, a control that left little room for personal
liberty and action. We quite agree with Professor Lind
say that in looking over the pages of the Swiss town rec
ords "the thought cannot help arising that the Civic
Fathers, like some modern law-makers, were content to
place stringent regulations on the statute books, and then,
exhausted by their moral endeavor, had no energy left to
put them in practice. But every now and then a righteous
fit seized them, and maid servants were summoned before
the Council for wearing silk aprons, or fathers for giving
too luxurious wedding feasts, or citizens for working on
a Church festival, or a mother for adorning her daughter
too gaily for her marriage. The citizens of every medi
eval town lived under a municipal discipline which we
would pronounce to be vexatious and despotic."1
Only as we give careful attention to the conditions that
Calvin had to accept in working out his plans can we un
derstand the use he made of them. He was not only a
diligent and profound student of the New Testament and
the Early Fathers, but he had caught the spirit and pur
pose of the democracy they taught, and so became one
of the world's great leaders in the removal of the rubbish
iHistory of the Reformation, Vol. II, p. 108.

228 The Reformation.
and superstitions of medieval centuries and laying the
foundations of republican institutions and forms of gov
ernment in Church and State. A work that restored the
rights of the people, denied the supremacy of hierarchical
princes, and opened the way for the fulfillment of that
unity of spirit and brotherhood for which our Lord
prayed. In the matter of excommunication of unworthy mem
bers Calvin "insisted that the secular power should en
force the censures of the Church." In taking this posi
tion, however mistaken it may seem to us, he was in ac
cord with the leaders of the Reformation, although some
of them, like Zwingli, did not believe the Church should
exercise the right of excommunication. Calvin's ambition
was to lay the foundations in Geneva of a theocracy. An
ambition, however noble its aims and ideals, impossible of
realization in a world where personal rights as well as
personal obligations co-exist. The effort to impose a
Confession of Faith upon the Genevians while approved
by a majority of the Council met with opposition that
was a source of growing irritation. This, with differences
of opinion regarding discipline and methods of excom
munication, aroused discontent that finally won over the
Council to action that was in direct opposition to the
views of Calvin and Farel. There were many in Geneva
who still adhered to the Roman faith and others had no
special interest in the Reformation movement further
than as it was a means of freeing the city from the rule
of the Bishop. The Anabaptist propaganda found ad
herents in this time of intellectual and religious ferment
and they were glad to join the ranks of those who de
sired to destroy the work of the reformers and their

Calvin Hampered by Political Differences. 229
drastic plans for purifying the civic as well as spiritual
life of the community. Another source of disturbance
at this time originated in a trial which deposed Pierre
Caroli, the chief pastor at Lausanne. Calvin stood by the
side of those who condemned Caroli as a man of loose
character and belief. In turn he brought charges against
the Geneva pastors because "they would not enforce the
Athanasian Creed and had not used the words 'Trinity'
and 'Person' in the confession they had drawn up." The
verdict was favorable to the Genevan divines and their
accuser, after his return to France, rejoined the Roman
Church. More serious troubles were near at hand. The ritual
which Farel had introduced and which Calvin vigorously
supported, was the source of continued strife. Berne
was seeking to strengthen its position as the controlling
power among the Protestant cantons. While Geneva was
independent it was bound by an alliance that admitted
the Bernese into the city at all times and forbade the
making of any treaty without their consent. The Council
of Berne was the last court of appeal in Romance Swit
zerland and its leadership everywhere, but in Geneva, con
trolled ecclesiastical arrangements. The unrest that now
divided the Genevans into different parties was taken ad
vantage of to secure a closer alliance that would
strengthen the political control of Berne over Geneva.
This alliance would be advanced if uniformity in ecclesi
astical usages could be secured. The Council of Berne
called a Synod of the Protestant churches of Western
Switzerland to consider this matter. The outcome of
this, and a second meeting of the Synod, discloses that
mischief makers were at work in underhanded ways. The

230 The Reformation.
Genevan magistrates, without consulting Calvin or the
other pastors of the city, resolved to introduce the Bernese
forms of Church ceremonies. The following day their
action was reported to Calvin and Farel with an admoni
tion that it would not be wise to criticize this decision
from theirpulpit. Meanwhile invitations had been received
to the Synod that was to meet at Lausanne (March 30,
1538,) intimating that if the Genevan pastors were not
ready to accept the Berne proposals they would not be
welcome. Farel and Calvin attended the Synod and ac
quiesced in the decision that adopted the Bernese usages.
Under ordinary circumstances the change would have
been made in a quiet and orderly way. But there were
hot-tempered men in the Genevan Council who desired to
make the position in which Farel and Calvin were placed
as uncomfortable as possible. The situation reminds us
of the experience of Jonathan Edwards, the great New
England theologian, in the controversy that compelled
him to resign his pastorate at Northampton. Truth tell
ing is not popular with sin-loving pew holders any more
than with the world outside.
The drama that brought future days of humiliation and
regret to the Genevans, comes to its culminating scene.
The Council demanded that the Bernese form of cele
brating the Lord's Supper should be immediately intro
duced. If Farel and Calvin refused other ministers were
to be engaged. One of the pastors of the city, the blind
preacher Elie Coraut, had criticized the Council severely
and had been forbidden to preach under threat of im
prisonment. He gave no heed to the threat and was at
once arrested and put in the city jail. Farel and Calvin
demanded his release. The ears of the magistrates must

Calvin Banished From Geneva. 231
have burned as with fiery denunciation Farel reminded
them that their official position and honors were due to
Calvin and his own labors. But the tide of reaction was
running with something of the swiftness with which the
Rhone carries the waters of Lake Leman on its way to
the far off sea. The voices of the noble Christian mes
sengers to whom the people of Geneva had so often lis
tened with breathless interest, were silenced. In those
days of undeserved humiliation Farel must have won
dered if his "imprecation" that changed the plans of Cal
vin, was a Divine call, and Calvin must have pondered
upon the mysteries of providence. With unseemly haste
the faithful preachers were driven out of the city.
Calvin has left on record the story of these sad days.
Street rowdies sang ribald and obscene songs under the
windows of his house. They threatened to "throw him
into the Rhone" and made the nights hideous by firing
guns before his door, — "more than enough," he says in
a letter to a friend, "to astonish a poor scholar, timid as
I am, and as I confess I have always been."
Calvin and Farel at once laid their case before the
Council of Berne and the Synod of Swiss Churches which
met at Zurich April 28, 1538. Evidently the Bernese
councillors, whose actions had aided in the fanatical out
break at Geneva, were stricken with a sense of remorse
and regret. They hastened to communicate with the
Council at Geneva and urged them to undo their hasty
action. Their reply disclosed the sinister influences that
had gained control in its decisions.
From Berne the exiled ministers went on to Zurich to
attend the Synod of Swiss Churches. They presented
their case with "proud humility." As to the matter of

232 The Reformation.
ceremonial observance they were quite ready to act in
harmony with the prevailing customs of the Reformed
Churches. "But on the question of principle and on the
rights of the Church set over against the State, they were
firm." The Synod sent a special message to the Council of Ge
neva and asked the deputies from Berne to use their best
endeavors to secure the reinstatement of Farel and Cal
vin. The two pastors waited at the frontier while the
deputies proceeded on their errand of reconcilement. The
continued bitterness of feeling at Geneva is disclosed in
the unanimous vote that repeated the sentence of exile
and forbade the three pastors entering the Genevan terri
tory. Calvin would gladly have sought seclusion and the
opportunity for study that was his most delightful em
ployment. But imperative calls came in many ways. The
small, jealous minded burghers of Geneva, might vent
their spleen against the man whose loyalty to truth had
stirred their evil and selfish passions, but they could not
rob him of the crown of fidelity and leadership that the
Protestant leaders in every land where the Reformation
was making progress, had placed upon him. Accepting
an invitation to become the pastor of the French refugees
who had found a home within the protecting walls of
Strasburg, he found time to attend many influential con
ferences. At Worms and Regensburg he received a wel
come from the Protestant German leaders such as had
been given to no other representative from Switzerland.
Luther was an admirer of the theological attainments of
Calvin and the warm-hearted Melanchthon numbered him
among his best beloved friends.

Calvin Returns to Geneva. 233
The name of Calvin was again mentioned with the old-
time affection and devotion in many of the homes of Ge
neva. The rabble that had insulted the great preacher
was less in evidence but the sins they practiced had
dragged the city into a condition of low immorality. The
strict laws of the Articles were still enforced. Every
householder was compelled to go to church and the Ana
baptists and Romanists had a hard time. But matters
were not moving along satisfactorily. Political compli
cations threatened the independent existence of the city.
Private correspondence was followed by overtures from
the Council, asking Calvin to state the terms under which
he would be willing to return to Geneva. The memory
of those April nights and days of terror could not be
easily effaced. But Calvin loved Geneva. The urgent
appeals that came from the Council and old-time friends,
who had never faltered in their attachment, overcame
the distress with which he recalled the treatment that had
sent him forth as an exile. Farel was ready to return
and his sonorous voice again urged his more timorous
friend to heed the call of duty.
"Calvin was in Geneva for the second time," says Pro
fessor Lindsay, "dragged there both times unwillingly,
his dream of a quiet scholar's life completely shattered.
The work that lay before him proved to be almost as
hard as he had forseen it would be. The common idea
that from this second entry Calvin was master within
the city, is quite erroneous. Fourteen years were spent
in a hard struggle (1541-55) ; and if the remaining nine
years of his life can be called his period of triumph over
opponents (1555-64), it must be remembered that he
was never able to see his ideas of an ecclesiastical organi-

234 The Reformation.
zation wholly carried out in the city of his adoption. One
must go to the Protestant Church of France to see Cal
vin's idea completely realized."1
During these years of unremitting toil in the face of
increasing physical infirmities Calvin recodified the laws
and constitution of Geneva and made it a welcome city of
refuge to persecuted Protestants from every land. Drawn
into many theological conflicts he sturdily defended the
doctrinal system that he had wrought out in early man
hood. The most memorable of these controversies was
that which ended with the trial and burning of Servetus.
"It can be justly charged against Calvin in this matter
that he took the initiative in bringing on the trial of
Servetus, that as his accuser he prosecuted the suit
against him with undue severity, and that he approved
the sentence which condemned Servetus to death. When,
however it is remembered that the unanimous decision of
the Swiss Churches and of the Swiss State governments
was that Servetus deserved to die ; that the general voice
of Christendom was in favor of this; that even such a
man as Melanchthon affirmed the justice of the sentence ;
that an eminent English divine of the next age should
declare the process against him 'just and honorable,' and
that only a few voices here and there at the time were
raised against it, many will be ready to accept the judg
ment of Coleridge, that the death of Servetus was not
'Calvin's guilt especially, but the common opprobrium of
all European Christendom.' "2
1History of the Reformation, Vol. II, p. 127.
2Professors Alexander and Grieve. Article Calvin. Ency.
Brittanica.

Last Days of Calvin. 235
The men whom Calvin trained for the ministry caught
his spirit and carried his principles and doctrines over the
Continent and into England and France. His influence
and counsel permeated every part of the religious, social,
civic and business life of Geneva. To him, it is said, the
city owed its prosperous trade in cloths and velvets. In
the midst of all these varied duties his pen was busy to
the very last. On the 16th of February, 1564, he
preached his last sermon. During months of illness and
severe suffering he attended to such duties as his strength
would permit. Only a few days before his death he
penned his last letter to his old co-laborer Farel, who has
tened from Neuchatel for what proved a farewell visit.
On the evening of May 27, 1564, he expired in the arms
of his friend, Theodore Beza, in the fifty-fifth year of his
age. "I have been a witness of him for sixteen years,"
said Beza, "and I think I am fully entitled to say that in
this man there was exhibited to all an example of the
life and death of the Christian, such as it will not be easy
to deprecate, such as it will be difficult to emulate."
Among the numberless tributes that, in the last four cen
turies, have been paid to the memory and character of
Calvin one of the most remarkable was penned by his
countryman, Ernest Renan. "It is surprising," says
Renan, "that a man who appears to us in his life and
writings so unsympathetic should have been the centre of
an immense movement in his generation, and that this
harsh and severe tone should have exercised so great an
influence on the minds of his contemporaries. How was
it, for example, that one of the most distinguished women
of her time, Renee of France, in her court at Ferrara, sur
rounded by the flower of European wits, was captivated

236 The Reformation.
by that stern master, and by him drawn into a course that
must have been thickly strewn with thorns? This kind
of austere seduction is exercised only by those who work
with real conviction. Lacking that vivid, deep, sympa
thetic ardor which was one of the secrets of Luther's suc
cess, Calvin succeeded, in an age and in a country which
called for a reaction towards Christianity, simply because
he was the most Christian man of his generation."
John Calvin was preeminently the theologian of the
Reformed Churches. His thought and doctrine is still a
mighty factor of influence in the belief of a large section
of the Church that holds to Christ as the Head. But it
is the influence that went out from his teachings, as they
have promoted the cause of civil liberty, that has placed
every lover and supporter of democratic institutions
under deepest obligation to the great Genevan reformer.
He was the seed sower of principles that have made Prot
estantism what it is to-day; principles that have found
leadership on the battlefields where the people have won
their rights and withstood the arrogancy and tyranny of
civil and spiritual rulers ; principles that lie at the foun
dation of the New Testament conception of Church and
State and that alone can be the basis of a living, perma
nent unity.
In closing this story of the Reformation in Geneva we
again recall the important part played by Farel. No one
rejoiced more than he in the work and leadership of Cal
vin. Soon after he was recalled to Geneva with Calvin
in 1541 he accepted an invitation to aid the cause of
Reformation at Metz. There is a tradition that when he
preached in the Dominican church his enemies tried to
drown his voice by the ringing of bells. The result was

Death of Farel. 237
that a congregation of some three thousand gathered to
hear his next sermon. The vigor and fervency of his
preaching continued into old age. He was deeply affected
by the death of Calvin. Revisiting Metz the following
year he preached in his old pulpit a sermon that was filled
with the fire and energy of early years. It proved a con
suming flame and he died a few days later.

CHAPTER VII.
The Reformation In France.
From the days in the Thirteenth Century when the
Albigensians were exterminated by fire and sword the
torch of spiritual light and dissent against the supremacy
of Rome was handed on, not through revolution, but by
the religious aspirations of the common people, led by
choice spirits some of whom were born in palace homes.
The story of Peter Waldo and his Waldensian followers
has already been told.1
At the opening of the Sixteenth Century a remnant of
the Waldensians survived in Southern France, and the
memory of the Albigensian martyrs was kept alive in song
and legend. The New Learning found an early welcome
in France and a large number of Italian scholars and
artists accepted the invitation that assured royal favor as
they made it their home. In spite of the opposition of the
Sorbonne, humanistic studies, as well as the study of He
brew, were enthusiastically taken up by an increasing
number of scholars. Jacques Lefevre, a native of
Picardy, has been called the father of the French Refor
mation. Born at Staples about 1455, after his graduation
at the University of Paris, he remained as a teacher of
philosophy and became a prolific writer. In 1509-12 he
published commentaries on the Psalms and Pauline Epis
tles. "God will renovate the world, and you will be a
witness to it," he once said to his pupil Farel, afterward
the associate of Calvin at Geneva.
JSee page 8. 238

Margaret of Navarre and Francis I. 239
In 1 521 the Sorbonne condemned Luther as a heretic
and blasphemer. Lefevre came under their ban and in
company with Farel, Roussel, and other priests, they
found an asylum at Meaux. The protection of Briconnet
was soon withdrawn and Lefevre fled to Strasburg.
Later on he returned and became attached to the court of
Margaret of Navarre, the sister of Francis I.
This remarkable woman holds a unique place in the
story of the Reformation in France. While she did not
withdraw from the old Church she became a devoted be
liever in Protestant tenets of faith. Her influence pro
tected the persecuted Protestants and she was in full sym
pathy with her brother in his patronage of artists and men
of letters. It is to the credit of Francis I. that he resented
the action of the Sorbonne in its efforts to suppress
heresy. Had not the fortune of battle gone against him at
Pavia there would not have been cruel burnings at Paris
and in the provinces. Both Francis and his sister suffered
from the hate of those who sought to extirpate and de
stroy the Reformation movement in France. In this time
of upheaval swift changes came in the life of all the Teu
tonic nations. Half of Germany and Switzerland had
broken their allegiance to Rome. England (1534), Den
mark (1526), Sweden (1527), had joined in this great re
volt. The attitude of the French king was watched with
deep solicitude. He chose a vacillating course. It has
been truthfully said, Francis I. became "not the arbiter,
but the prey of Europe." The soil of France was "the
frightful theater of the battle of sects and nations. His
dynasty perished in blood and mire."1
1Martin.

240 The Reformation.
Francis deplored the tendencies in the Reformation that
threatened religious divisions in his kingdom. As he saw
the sentiments cherished by scholars and theologians op
posed to Rome, taking root in the life of the common
people he became alarmed. Now taking part in Catholic
processions; now inviting Melanchthon to visit him at.
Paris ; now lifting no word against the cruel burning of
heretics, his conduct was that of a weak and shifty poli
tician. We have already noted the part which Calvin had
in his early life in the Protestant movement in France.
As the days and'years went by Calvinism came to leader
ship in the French churches ; churches tested by the fires
of cruel persecutions.
The Reformation made rapid headway especially in
Southern France. Henry II., unlike his father, had no
sympathy with Protestantism, but the progress of the
reformed faith was not staid. It is estimated that in 1558
not less than four hundred thousand members worshipped
in the two thousand churches organized in accord with
the Presbyterian polity and doctrine established by Calvin
at Geneva. Persecution proved a seed sowing of the
truth. "The fanatics," says Martin, "and the politicians
had thought to annihilate heresy by the number and atroc
ity of their punishments ; they perceived with dismay
that the hydra multiplied itself under their blows. They
had succeeded in exalting to a degree unheard of before,
all that there are of heroic powers in the human soul.
For one martyr who disappeared in the flames, there pre
sented themselves a hundred more; men, women, chil
dren, marched to their punishment singing Psalms and

The French Martyrs. 241
hymns. Many expired in ecstasy, insensible to the re
fined cruelties of the savages who invented tortures to
prolong their agony. More than one judge died of con
sternation and remorse. Others embraced the faith of
those whom they sent to the scaffold. The executioner
at Dijon was converted at the foot of the pyre. All the
great phenomenon, in the most vast proportions, of the
first days of Christianity, were seen to reappear. Most of
the victims died with their eyes turned towards that New
Jerusalem, that holy city of the Alps, where some had
been to seek, whence others had received the Word of God.
Not a preacher, not a missionary was condemned who did
not salute Calvin from afar. They no more thought of
reproaching Calvin for not following them into France
than a soldier reproaches his general for not plunging
into the thick of the fight."
When Francis II. came to the throne, in his minority,
his ambitious mother, Catherine de Medici, hoped to hold
the reins of power. This hope was early thwarted by her
son's marriage with Mary Stuart, queen of Scotland.
Through her influence over the weak and sickly king her
uncles, the Constable Francis and the Cardinal of Lor
raine, of the family of the Guises, came to power. They
took the government out of the hands of the Constable
de Montmorency and the princes of the blood who en
tered into alliance with the Calvinists and other parties
opposed to the Guises. Dangers thickened about the
Protestants when the death of Francis in 1560 again
brought relief.
Charles II. was but a boy and came under the influence
of his grandmother, Catherine de Medici, who now re
joiced in the power she had so long coveted. The Cal-
16

242 The Reformation.
vinistic churches, under the guidance of their pastors,
stood firm in their faith. Leaders of power joined their
ranks. "Hence those wars of religion which were to
hold the monarchy in check for many years and even
force it to come to terms." Catherine enjoyed political
intrigue and was indifferent to religious matters except
as she feared "the royal authority might be endangered
both by Calvinistic passions and Catholic violence."
With the aid of her ministers she sought to quiet the con
flicting parties by a truce of peace, but the storm had in
it elements beyond their power to quell.
The Huguenot forces, led by Conde and Coligny, had
secured liberty of conscience and early in 1561 they de
manded liberty of worship. A "colloquy" held at Poissy
in September, 1561, between the cardinals of Lorraine
and Theodore Beza failed in its purpose and the Duke
of Guise helped in a quarrel that broke out between the
French Calvinists and German Lutherans. In spite of
the efforts of the new order of the Jesuits, and other ad
verse circumstances, the edict promulgated January 17,
1562, enfranchised the Protestants. The Council of
Trent rendered the edict of no avail. The party of the
Guises had gained complete control over both Catherine
and the King. The massacre of Vassy, in which two
hundred Protestants perished, occurred March 1, 1562.
It was the beginning of fratricidal strife in which fero
cious passions had full play. The contestants sought the
aid of their allies outside of France. English cavalry and
German soldiers fought for Protestant ascendency
against Italian, Spanish and Swiss emissaries employed
by the royal army. In Normandy, the valley of the Loire,
and in Orleans these religious conflicts were fought with

The Massacre of St. Bartholomew. 243
relentless passion. The death of the foremost leaders
of the Guises placed Catherine at the head of the Catholic
party. The patched up peace of Amboise (1563) lasted
for three years. The Guises then reopened the conflict
against Coligny and the religious war was again in full
force. The treaty signed at St. Germain, August, 1570, con
ceded liberty of conscience and worship to the Protest
ants. Coligny was now supported by the Queen of Na
varre and Charles IX. This favor increased the anger
of Catherine de Medici. Following the failure of plans
that sought the life of Coligny Catherine, with the help
of the Guises, arranged the plot that culminated in the
massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve and the murder of
Coligny. It was a sad hour for the Protestants of France. The
intrigues of court and camp and an excess of repressive
measures brought some relief. The Peace of Monsieur
(1576) again secured freedom of worship and the sur
vivors of the massacre of 1572 and their fortified towns
were given an equal representation in the parliaments.
Taking another line of attack a Catholic League was
formed under the leadership of the Guises, and efforts
were made to destroy Calvinism through an imitation of
the Protestant form of organization. This scheme of
colossal hypocrisy led to complications that cover the
pages of the history of France at this period with the
cruel deeds of warring factions. The Protestants gained
in strength, the League dissolved, and Henry IV. came to
terms by the edict signed at Nantes, April 13, 1598. This
compromise between the royal government and the Hu-

244 The Reformation.
guenot government gave the Protestants rights and privi
leges beyond that enjoyed in any other country. "But if
the accession of Henry IV. brought a comparative se
curity to the Calvinists of France, this was the limit of its
advantages to them. From a religious body, animated
with the purpose to bring the whole country to the adop
tion of their principles, they were reduced to the con
dition of a defensive party, confined by metes and
bounds, which it could not overpass; a party more and
more separated from the Catholic population, and ex
posed, besides, to the evils consequent on keeping up a
political and military organization. From this moment
Protestantism in France ceased to grow."1
The horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572), in
which the great Huguenot leader Coligny lost his life, is
the tragic hour in civil wars that did not cease until the
Edict of Nantes (1598). Its revocation in 1685 was fol
lowed by the banishment of the Huguenots from France.
Some of them found homes in England, and their silk and
looms added to its wealth. Others crossed the Atlantic
and in family groups settled in the vicinity of New York
and at points on the seaboard as far south as Charleston.
It has been truthfully asserted by a modern historian, re
calling the persecutions and outrageous breaking of
every law of liberty and treaty rights in the revocation of
the Edict of Nantes, "was committed one of the most
flagrant political and religious blunders in the history of
France, which in the course of a few years lost more
than 400,000 of its inhabitants, men who, having to choose
between their conscience and their country, endowed the
1Professor George P. Fisher. The Reformation, p. 244.

The French Protestant Churches. 245
nations which received them with their heriosm, their
courage and their ability."1
The recent rehabilitation and growth of French Prot
estantism is a matter of profound gratitude throughout
the world. In 1802 it numbered scarcely 100 pastors.
To-day it has over 900 churches and 180 presbyteries.
In the war that has tested France as by fire these churches
have suffered beyond measure. The United States,
through the Federal Council of the Churches, has given
welcome aid in this hour of sore distress.
1Peaux. Article Huguenots. Ency. Brittanica. Eleventh edi
tion.

CHAPTER VIII.
The Reformation in the Netherlands.
The Netherlands were the last of the European powers
to revolt from Rome, but within their national life the
forces had long been gathering strength for the conflict
that fills one of the great pages of history; a conflict that
finally secured their religious and civil freedom and made
the Netherlands a foremost champion of Protestant prin
ciples. Originally a part of the Burgundian provinces, the
Netherlands came to the Spanish crown by the marriage
alliance of the mother of Charles V. The seventeen prov
inces of the Duchy of Burgundy were nearly co-extensive
with the territory that now includes Holland and Bel
gium. The skill and intelligence of her thrifty artisans,
farmers, and burghers, had made the entire country a
veritable beehive of prosperous industry. Antwerp was
the chief among the three hundred and fifty cities of the
Low Countries. Science and letters flourished. "It was
their boast that common laborers, even the fishermen who
dwelt in the huts of Friesland, could read and write, and
discuss the interpretation of Scripture. Local govern
ment existed to a remarkable extent throughout the sev
enteen provinces. Each had its own chartered rights,
privileges, and immunities, and its immemorial customs,
which the sovereign was bound to keep inviolate. The
people loved their freedom."1
1Professor George P. Fisher. The Reformation, p. 245.
246

The Netherland Martyrs. 247
The doctrines and reforms promulgated by Luther
found large welcome in the Netherlands. They were by
no means new to this liberty-loving people. "Nor did the
Rhine from Germany, or the Meuse from France," says
the Jesuit historian Strada, "send more water into the
Low Countries than by the one the contagion of Luther,
by the other of Calvin, was imported into the same Belgic
provinces." Charles established the Inquisition1 in the Low Coun
tries in 1522. Its first victim was Cornelius Grapheus,
town clerk of Antwerp and a friend of Erasmus. He
suffered imprisonment and banishment. The first mar
tyrs of the Reformation were two Augustinian monks,
Henry Voes and John Esch. They died in the triumph of
faith. On their way to the stake (Antwerp, July 31,
1523,) "they cried with a loud voice that they were Chris
tians." As the flames swept about them they recited the
Creed and "after that the hymn Te Deum laudamus,
which each of them sang verse by verse alternately until
the flames deprived them both of voice and life."2
When Luther learned of the martyrdom of these
Netherland monks — members of the order to which he
belonged — he wrote a message of condolence and hope to
the persecuted Christians of the Low Countries, and his
heart broke forth in the inspiring strains of his hymn, A
New Song of the two Martyrs of Christ Burnt at Brus-
!This terrible instrument of persecution was founded by Inno
cent III. in 1215. Its horrors constitute one of the darkest, sad
dest, pages in all history. "The prisoners of the Inquisition were
never confronted by witnesses, but were imprisoned and tor
tured to make them confess and recant their errors.''
2Brandt. The History of the Reformation, Vol. I, p. 49,

248 The Reformation.
sels. One of its stanzas has been translated in these
words : "Quiet their ashes will not lie;
But scattered far and near,
Stream, dungeon, bolt, and grave defy,
Their foeman's shame and fear.
Those whom alive the tyrant's wrongs
To silence could subdue,
He must, when dead, let sing the songs
Which in all languages and tongues,
Resound the wide world through."
Proclamation after proclamation was issued by Charles
condemning heresy and forbidding the printing of books
that were not approved by the censors. The holding of
meetings to "read or preach about the Gospel or other holy
writings in Latin, Flemish or Walloon, was forbidden."
These edicts had for their purpose the suppression of the
teaching of Lutheran doctrines. Anabaptists were looked
after in other ways.
Circumstances held somewhat in abeyance the perse
cution of heretics during the reign of Charles V. His
aunt, Margaret of Austria, who was regent till 1530, was
not eager to carry out her nephew's edicts and his sister
Mary, who ruled from 1530 until Charles' abdication in
1555, was even suspected in early life of being a Lutheran
convert. There is little doubt but that she sympathized
for a time with the views of her sister, the Queen of Den
mark, who had joined the Lutheran Church. After en
tering on the duties of the Regency she appears to have
become thoroughly imbued with the purposes and plans

Extermination of Lutherans. 249
of her brother. His reiterated and vindictive commands
brought a multitude of victims to the stake. The fanat
ical outbreak under the leadership of John Boccold of
Leyden, was made an excuse also for exterminating the
followers of Luther. "Thousands and tens of thousands
of virtuous, well disposed men and women, who had as
little sympathy with anabaptistical as with Roman de
pravity, were butchered in cold blood, under the san
guinary rule of Charles, in the Netherlands. In 1533
Queen Dowager Mary of Hungary, sister of the Em
peror, Regent of the provinces, the 'Christian widow' ad
mired by Erasmus, wrote to her brother that 'in her opin
ion all heretics, whether repentant or not, should be prose
cuted with such severity as that error might be, at once,
extinguished, care being only taken that the provinces
were not entirely depopulated.' With this humane limi
tation, the 'Christian widow' cheerfully set herself to su
perintend as foul and wholesale a system of murder as
was ever organized. In 1535 an imperial edict was issued
at Brussels, condemning all heretics to death; repentant
males to be executed with the sword; repentant females
to be buried alive; the obstinate, of both sexes, to be
burned. This and similar edicts were the law of the land
for twenty years, and rigidly enforced. Imperial and
papal persecution continued its deadly work with such
diligence as to make it doubtful whether the limits set by
the Regent Mary might not be overstepped. In the midst
of the carnage the Emperor sent for his son Philip, that
he might receive the fealty of the Netherlands as their
future lord and master. Contemporaneously a new edict
was published at Brussels (April 29, 1549,) confirming
and reenacting all previous decrees in their most severe

250 The Reformation.
provisions. Thus stood religious matters in the Nether
lands at the epoch of the imperial abdication."1
At the time when Charles V. dropped the reins of im
perial power he was a broken, decrepit, disappointed man
of fifty-five years. His son, Philip the Second, was
twenty-eight years old. The scene in the great hall of
the palace of Brussels (October 25, 1555,) when Charles
V. abdicated his throne in favor of his son, is one that
historians have painted in vivid colors. Supported by a
crutch and with one hand resting upon a young prince of
the realm, William of Orange, he made the notable ad
dress in which under the most spectacular surroundings
he transferred his royal prerogatives to Philip II, "whose
single will was, for the future, to shape the fortunes of
every individual then present of many millions more in
Europe, America, and at the ends of the earth, and of
countless millions yet unborn."2
Charles in the retirement of the cloister did not change
in character. Brooding over his failure to crush the
Reformation he cherished an implacable hatred of its
great leader. To the last he expressed his regret that he
had allowed Luther to escape out of his hands at the
Diet of Worms. Notwithstanding his cruel persecution
of the Lutherans, and others of the Reformed faith, the
Netherlands never forgot that he was of blood akin to
their own. Philip had been born in Spain. They looked
upon him as a foreigner and from the beginning of his
reign his cold, cruel nature repelled his subjects in the
Low Country at every point. His marriage with the
1Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic.
2Ibid.

William Prince of Orange. 251
Queen of England (July 25, 1554,) was fraught with
far-reaching influences that, out of the welter of blood
and heroic endurance that marked the birth of the Dutch
Republic, advanced in ways that he little imagined the
work of Reformation and the victories of Protestant
faith. The first four years of his reign Philip II. spent in the
Netherlands. He sought to carry out his father's policies.
The feeling of opposition to the burdensome exactions
that had long oppressed the nation more and more found
expression through the States General. Philip detested
the liberty-loving and prosperous Netherlands and they
detested him. In 1559 he left the country never to re
turn. Margaret of Parma, his half-sister, was appointed
Regent. She followed the advice of three Councils that
were presided over by three men chosen by Philip. The
Council of State virtually controlled affairs and this
Council was guided by the three presidents : the Bishop
of Arras (Cardinal de Granvelle) ; the Baron de Barlay-
mont, and Virgilius van Aytta; and two Netherland
nobles, Lamoral, Count of Egmont, and William Prince
of Orange. These nobles seldom attended the sessions
of the Council. From his room in the Escurial in Mad
rid Philip kept his hands, with indomitable industry, upon
the strings that controlled the multiplied activities that
sought to destroy heresy and heretics. The Reformation
staid not in its course. Political blunders still further
aroused feeling on the part of the nobility and gradually
the Prince of Orange and Count Egmont became the
leaders in a growing revolt against Spanish rule. The
way in which they had been virtually ignored as members
of the Council gave these men an excuse for resigning

252 The Reformation.
their office. The growing opposition was founded both
on political and religious grounds and aggravated by
Philip's failure to keep his promise in withdrawing the
Spanish troops from the country. William of Orange
now comes to the front as the champion of the people
whose fury waxed to white heat. Not only were the
hated Spanish soldiers billeted upon them but the inquisi
torial courts in pushing their wretched work had violated
many of the charters of the provinces. Matters came to
a head in the sending of Count Egmont to Madrid. The
duplicity of Philip was finally illustrated. He met the
Count with so pleasant a welcome that when he started
homeward he supposed his appeals had secured a favor
able response. When the sealed letter which he bore to
the Council was opened he discovered how cruelly he had
been deceived.
A dispatch from the Escurial later on (November 5,
1565,) ordered the immediate enforcement of the Decrees
of the Council of Trent in every part of the provinces.
The Netherlands rose in arms. The official leaders of the
towns declared that they would resign their places before
they would execute these decrees. The wheels of busy
industries were idle. The main object of thought and
action was to discover the path of deliverance from Span
ish oppression and papal tyranny. Pamphlets aflame with
passionate appeals were scattered broadcast through the
provinces. "We are ready to die for the Gospel," they
said, "but we read therein, 'Render unto Caesar the things
which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are
God's.' We thank God that even our enemies are con
strained to bear witness to our piety and innocence, for
it is a common saying: 'He does not swear, for he is a

The Compromise of 1566. 253
Protestant. He is not an immoral man or a drunkard,
for he belongs to the new sect'; yet we are subjected to
every kind of punishment that can be invented to tor
ment us."
The famous Compromise issued early in the year 1566
brings upon the stage leaders whose names are among the
founders of the Dutch Republic and the Reformed faith.
Foremost among them is Francis Junius, pastor of a con
gregation of Huguenots who met in secret at Antwerp. The
son of a noble French family, he had studied at Geneva.
He was noted alike for his eloquence and his courage.
Daring even to proclaim Evangelical doctrines in a room
that at the very moment looked out upon the market
place where heretics were burning, it is little wonder that
his message found response in the hearts of men who then
and there resolved that they would form a league against
"the barbarous and violent inquisition." A like resolve
was taken about this time by other influential men and
not long after the Compromise, probably drafted by the
accomplished Sainte Aldegonde, was circulated for signa
tures. Among the more than two thousand names ap
pended to this document were not only Lutheran but Cal
vinist and Roman Catholic nobles. Unfortunately this
movement fell into the hands of a group of the younger
nobility who disgraced both themselves and the cause they
represented by riotous excesses. The Prince of Orange
held aloof from the secret gatherings of this league and
its turbulent spirit. But the Compromise set forth griev
ances and made an appeal that had the full approval of
Orange and other great nobles.
While Margaret of Parma was bitterly bewailing the
conditions stirred up by the inquisitorial decree of her

254 The Reformation.
brother, Philip was busy in preparation for the contest
he knew could not long be delayed. It was a time of deep
distress in the Netherlands. Trade had almost ceased;
grass was growing in the once busy streets of her chief
cities ; large numbers were finding refuge from persecu
tion in Protestant England, and famine was causing acute
suffering. It was estimated that at least fifty thousand
victims had been executed under the decrees of Philip. In
this hour of distress the calm but noble form of William,
Prince of Orange, comes to the front. Rebuking turbu
lent spirits, he gave counsel and encouragement to his
fellow nobles and also to those who with patriotic zeal
sought to secure the rights that the King of Spain was
trampling upon. Philip thought to stay the storm by his
old-time policy of duplicity. He sent messages to Marga
ret that promised relief. Refugees returned from England,
Germany, France, and Switzerland. Religious services
were held in the fields, where armed men surrounded as
sentinel guards, the congregations that again sang in Flem
ish, Dutch and French the hymns and Psalms they loved
so well and that had been upon the lips of beloved friends
and companions as they had gone to their martyr's death.
The Spanish soldiers feared to molest these devoted wor
shipers. Emboldened, the reformers marched through the
streets singing their hymns of praise. Great conferences
were held in which men like Louis of Nassau took part.
These demonstrations of popular feeling impressed even
Philip and he sent word in the summer of 1566 that he
was about to withdraw the papal Inquisition from the
Netherlands and grant a large measure of tolerance. He
declined, however, to allow the States General to be sum
moned.

The Sacking of Antwerp. 255
The astute Prince of Orange had long fathomed the
double dealing treacherous character of Philip. His
promises had little worth in his estimation. Again the
great Protestant leader, and the cause he advocated, had
to suffer sadly from the mob turbulance that was incited
by the social and economic distress caused by the persecu
tions of the Inquisition. The sacking of the great cathe
dral of Antwerp was the culmination of this mad out
break of iconoclastic fury. The effects of this disastrous
storm of angry and ill advised conflict was far-reaching
in its influence. The more liberal Roman Catholics were
alienated and the cleavage began that separated the Prot
estants of the North from the Romanists of the South.
Margaret was enraged and as far as possible withdrew
the privileges that had been granted to the Reformed
faith. Having done all that lay in his power to stay the tide
of anarchy William of Orange retired to his ancestral
home at Dillenburg. Here he watched for the path in
which Philip would disclose his duplicity. He had not
long to wait. Word came that the Duke of Alva with a
strong force of veteran Spanish soldiers were making
their way over the Alps and through France. When he
arrived at Brussels he presented credentials that virtually
made him dictator. The Counts Egmont and Hoorn,
with many others, were arrested. Alva at once created a
judicial chamber popularly known as The Bloody Tri
bunal, that paid no attention to the Council of State and
overruled in its decisions every other court in the Nether
lands. The work of this horrible Council of Tumults was
almost inconceivable in its cruelty and injustice. A con
temporary historian says : "The gallows, the wheel, stakes,
trees along the highways were laden with carcasses or

256 The Reformation.
limbs of those who had been hanged, beheaded, or
roasted ; so that the air which God made for respiration
of the living, was now become the common grave or habi
tation of the dead. Every day produced fresh objects of
pity and of mourning, and the noise of the bloody passing-
bell was continually heard, which by the martyrdom of
this man's cousin and the other's brother or friend, rang
dismal peals in the hearts of the survivors."1
The Prince of Orange was outlawed and his property
confiscated. The "lion" within him was aroused and he
bent every energy to enlist an army and face the Spanish
forces in the Netherlands. His brother, John of Nassau,
aided him even to the pledging of his estate. Defeat after
defeat in the conflict with the trained soldiers of Alva
did not dishearten or dismay the Prince. "With God's
help," he wrote to his brother Louis, "I am determined
to go on." The days brought no relief and difficulties
thickened. Pursued by creditors, to meet whose claims
he had sold his plate and jewels, in fear of assassination,
and burdened with domestic troubles, the man who was
finally to achieve a place among the immortal characters
of history, wandered from place to place. He was lit
erally homeless. But the barbarities of Alva became un
endurable and the indefatigable efforts of William and
his brother were finally crowned with success. The revolt
that started with the seizure of the seaport of Flushing
in 1572 spread through Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, and
Friesland. The Prince of Orange was acclaimed on
every side. After varying fortunes in arms he settled at
Delft and thenceforth became the leader of the Holland-

1Brandt. History of Reformation, p. 261.

The Work of William of Orange. 257
ers and Zealanders in the struggle that founded the
Dutch Republic.
'In order to identify himself more closely with the cause
for which he was fighting, Orange had, on October 23,
x573. made a public confession of the Calvinist religion.
But he was never a bigot in religious matters. The three
conditions which he laid down as the irreducible minimum
on which negotiations could be based, and from which
he never departed, were (1) freedom of worship and
liberty to preach the Gospel according to the Word of
God; (2) the restoration and maintenance of all the
ancient charters, privileges and liberties of the land; (3)
the withdrawal of all Spaniards and other foreigners
from all posts and employments, civil and military. On
these points he was inflexible, but he was a thoroughly
moderate man. He hated religious tyranny whether it
were exercised by Papist or Calvinist and his political
aims were not self-seeking. His object was to prevent
the liberties of the Netherlands from being trampled
under foot by a foreign despotism, and he did not counsel
the provinces to abjure their allegiance to Philip until
he found the Spanish monarch was intractable. But
when the abjuration became a necessity he sought to find
in Elizabeth of England or the Duke of Anjou, a sov
ereign possessing sufficient resources to protect the land
from the Spaniard."1
In the spring of 1576 a union was consummated be
tween Holland and Zeeland by which William was given
supreme authority as ad interim ruler. Southern Nether-
George Edmunson. Article William of Orange. Ency. Brit-
tanica. Eleventh edition.
r7

258 The Reformation.
lands, this same year, suffering from the excesses of
Spanish soldiers, was ripe for revolt. The so-called
"Spanish Fury" on the morning of November 5th (1576),
found the city of Antwerp a scene of desolation and
death. "Of all the deeds of darkness yet compassed in
the Netherlands, this was the worst. The city which had
been a world of wealth and splendor was changed to a
charnel-house, and from that hour its commercial pros
perity was blasted."1
The outcome of this burst of Spanish hate was the
adoption of the "Pacification of Ghent," by which, under
the leadership of the Prince of Orange, the entire seven
teen provinces formed a league to drive the hired soldiers
of Philip from the Netherlands. In January (1577), the
southern provinces supplemented this action by a pledge
to maintain the Roman Catholic religion and continue
their allegiance to the authority of the King. This action
was assented to by William and he himself acted as a
stadtholder under the King's commission. September
23d was a triumph hour for the great leader of the Neth
erlands. In the procession that filled the streets of Brus
sels Catholics and Protestants marched side by side. This
hour of triumph was soon shadowed by the intrigues of
ambitious men who sought to gain the place of leadership.
Philip discovered in Alexander Farnese, Prince of
Parma, whom he appointed governor general, a foeman
whose ability put William of Orange to the severest test.
Stirring up the jealousy. of the Catholic nobles of the
South, Farnese won their adherence. From the time of
the signing of the "Union of Utrecht" (January 29, 1579),
1Motley. The Rise of the Dutch Republic.

Assassination of the Prince of Orange. 259
Northern and Southern Netherlands opened separate
chapters in history.
In 1 581 Philip published the ban that denounced the
Prince of Orange as a traitor and outlaw. This action
drew from the pen of William the Apology that arraigned
Philip for his horrible treatment of his Netherland sub
jects and gave an outline of his own career. The Prince
at this juncture sought the aid of France and proposed
to make the Duke of Anjou King of the United Prov
inces. This suggestion did not meet the approval of Hol
land and Zeeland. Contrary to his wish he finally yielded
to their request to accept their countship. Two days later
(July 26, 1581,) Brabant, Flanders, Utrecht, Gelderland,
Holland, and Zeeland in council at the Hague, abjured
the sovereignty of Philip and agreed to accept the king
ship of Anjou, who was inaugurated as Duke of Brabant
at Antwerp, February 19, 1582. A few days later Wil
liam nearly lost his life by the shot of an assassin. But
his work was not yet done. Anjou proved a weak and
treacherous leader. The fiasco, known as the "French
Fury," by which he hoped to strengthen his royal author
ity, brought upon him a contempt in which, for a time,
William innocently suffered. In the spring of 1583 the
Prince married the widowed daughter of Coligny, the
great Huguenot leader, and made his permanent home at
Delft. As the beloved and trusted head of his loyal Hol
landers and Zeelanders he lived a quiet unostentatious
life until his enemies compassed their long planned pur
pose in his assassination, July 9, 1584.
"Of his moral qualities," says Motley, "the most promi
nent was his piety. He was more than anything else a
religious man. From his trust in God he ever derived

260 The Reformation.
support and consolation in the darkest hours. Implicitly
relying upon Almighty wisdom and goodness, he looked
danger in the face with a constant smile, and endured in
cessant labors and trials with a serenity which seemed
more than human. While, however, his soul was full of
piety, it was tolerant of error. Sincerely and deliberately
himself a convert to the Reformed Church, he was ready
to extend freedom of worship to Catholics on the one
hand, and to Anabaptists on the other, for no man ever
felt more keenly than he, that the reformer who becomes
in his turn a bigot is doubly odious."
The sufferings of those who held to the Reformed faith
in these years, in which the foundations of the Dutch
Republic were laid, forms a sad but heroic chapter of the
Protestant Reformation. During the period in which the
Spanish Fury raged in the streets of Antwerp more vic
tims were massacred than on the night of St. Bartholo
mew. The sufferings of the burghers of Ghent who were
loyal to Christ and the Reformed faith in the days when
the Duke of Parma reduced the once proud and wealthy
city to a condition of poverty and anarchy, revealed a
heroic steadfastness of character that is a heritage both
of blood and faith that has been a powerful factor of in
fluence in the political and religious life of both England
and the United States. The memorable treaty of union,
published January 29, 1579, from the town-house of
Utrecht, may well stand by the Declaration of Independ
ence signed at Philadelphia, July 4, 1776, and the por
traits of Washington and William, Prince of Orange,
are worthy to hang side by side in the gallery of history.
While the storm of persecution was raging about them
the Netherlanders organized churches and history makes

Founding of the Reformed Church. 261
record of a synod held in 1563 in which the delegates
bound themselves in a compact of doctrine and discipline.
The first preachers of the Reformation in the Low Coun
tries were Lutherans, and they found followers especially
among the lesser nobility and the wealthy burghers. The
views of Zwingli were favored by many. The Southern
provinces, where French was spoken, came under the in
fluence of the teachers trained by Calvin at Geneva. In
time Lutheranism and Zwinglianism gave place in the
Netherlands to Calvinistic doctrine and discipline. Church
organization as it developed was marked by two peculi
arities. "The consistory or kirk session is the court which
rules the individual congregation in Holland as in all
other Presbyterian lands; but in the Dutch Church all
Church members are regarded as one congregation; the
ministers are the pastors of the city, preaching in turn in
all its buildings set apart for public worship."1 The
whole city constitutes one consistory. The civil consti
tution compelled each province to regulate its own eccles
iastical affairs, and this made it difficult to arrange for a
National Synod. The creedal statement known as the
Belgic Confession was approved at Dordrecht in 1572,
and the Heidelberg Catechism was adopted for the reli
gious instruction of the young. The Reformed Church
in Holland that in the Seventeenth Century nourished
names famous in Church and State, gave to the United
States a stream of life that blending with the Puritan
emigration laid the foundations of the great Republic : a
Republic that had as its forerunner the Dutch Republic,
whose leading founder was William, Prince of Orange,
the forerunner of Washington.
iLindsay. History of the Reformation, Vol. II, p. 272.

CHAPTER IX.
The Home Life of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and
Knox.
Few leaders in the making of history stand more fully
in the limelight of contemporary narrative than Martin
Luther. His life, not only in its public labors, but in the
intimacy of the home and his daily intercourse with his
friends, is an open book. Luther was many sided in his
genius and exceedingly human. The blood that ran with
tempestuous force through his veins nourished a tem
perament that in its creative power made him the peer
less pulpit orator and the fiery pamphleteer. His "Table
Talk," preserved by admiring friends, discloses a racy
command of language that enabled him to clothe his sug
gestive everyday conversation with a wealth of helpful
illustration. He loved the out of door world. The bou
quet of flowers which he held in his hand when in dispu
tation with Eck, at Leipsic, was not an affectation, but a
simple expression of his enjoyment of the fragrance and
beauty of the flowers that always made him a garden
lover and cultivator. He knew the birds and their songs
stirred the melody that dwelt so richly in his nature.
Music, from the years when his boyish voice gladdened
the Cotta home at Erfurt, was an abiding joy and solace.
The flute of Luther brought rest in the midst of nerve-
racking tasks. If sometimes his over-wrought strength
gave way to outbursts of wrath and temper we may be
sure that after the storm' of his indignation against the
vindicative persecution and cruel accusations of enemies
262

The Home Life of Luther. 263
had past, the flute and guitar that was near at hand would
bring peace into his troubled heart by strains of melody
akin to those welling out of the throat of some songster
of the field as the sun breaks through the clouds whose
lightnings and thunder are spent. The great reformer
bore testimony in praise of the art of music, saying:
"Music is the best cordial to a person in sadness; it
soothes, quickens and refreshes the heart."
Luther was especially happy and fortunate in his home
life. His marriage in middle life to Katharina von Bora
was an ideal union in many ways. A strong, well-bal
anced character, in full accord with the work and mis
sion of her husband, with womanly devotion she min
istered to a domestic life that became the center of power
and influence as the place where Luther welcomed the
friends and guests that gathered about his table from
day to day. The Augustinian cloister, where Luther had
lived from the time he came to Wittenberg, was given to
him by the Elector Friedrick as a wedding gift. It was
a roomy building and at one time accommodated forty
monks. This splendid gift was deeded to Luther and his
wife jointly. The most famous of its many rooms was
that where the family gathered for their meals. About
this table Luther delighted to welcome his friends. It
was a place of high thinking and very generous living.
His enemies laid much stress upon the personal habits
and generous provision of this ample board. That it was
ample we cannot doubt. That more beer was drank than
was necessary we have reason to believe, but the stories
of intemperance circulated by those who hated the re
former were lies of the vilest kind. The home life of
Luther was a type of the best domestic life of his times.

264 The Reformation.
The "Table Talk," that in its rich suggestiveness reveals
his super-abundant genius in every theme his thought
illuminated, discloses also the crass habits of the Six
teenth Century. Language was a medium used in a
rough, open way that falls harshly at times upon ears ac
customed to the usages of society in the Twentieth Cen
tury. Besides his five children Luther and his wife cared for
eleven of his orphaned nephews and nieces. "This repri-
mander of Popes and Kings," says Koepchen, "was loved
by the children, and the great champion was as playful
among them as though he were himself again a child. He
could fight fiercely all day for his cause and in the eve
ning take his lute, gaze at the stars, sing psalms and
muse upon the clouds, the fields, the flowers, the birds,
dissolved in melody and devotion."
The ban of the Diet of Worms made Luther legally an
outlaw. When absent from his Wittenberg home his
friends were in constant fear that harm might come to
him through the machination of enemies who sought to
destroy him. At the time of the famous Diet at Augs
burg, Luther was a guest of the Elector at his castle in
Coburg. While waiting daily for tidings from Augsburg
and keeping in close touch with Melanchthon, and other
friends, he found time to write home letters that bear tes
timony to his affectionate nature and the tender ties that
bound him to his family. To help him in his avowed
homesickness, at this time, his wife engaged Lucas
Cranach to paint a portrait of their baby daughter Mag-
dalena and sent it to Coburg. Luther hung the picture
where he could see it as he sat at his writing table. He
tells us "that the sweet little face looking down upon

Home Life of John Calvin. 265
him gave him courage during his dreary months of wait
ing." A charming letter written in these days to his
youngest son is still preserved. The death of Magdalena
in her thirteenth year was a heart-breaking sorrow. She
fell asleep in her father's arms. "As they laid her in the
coffin he said, 'Darling Lena, it is well with you. You
will rise and shine like a star, yea like the sun. * * * I
am happy in spirit but the flesh is sorrowful and will not
be content ; the parting grieves me beyond measure. It is
strange that she is certainly in peace and happy and yet I
so sorrowful. * * * j j^ye sent a sa[n^ to heaven."1
The herculean labors of Luther in early manhood im
paired his strong constitution and brought upon him
physical disabilities that were the source at times of great
depression of spirit and much suffering. He has left tes
timony as to the loving care and devotion that in his home
ministered to his every want. The world owes much to
the noble wife and mother whose thrift and management
made possible the home life and hospitality of the great
reformer.

The married life of John Calvin discloses a tempera
ment utterly unlike that of Luther. Outwardly undemon
strative the great Genevan reformer and theologian was
by no means lacking in warmth of feeling. Cool and
logical in all the processes of his nature there were hidden
resources of affection that bound him in close ties to
the friends who shared his intimacy. No> man could have
been blessed with such loyalty of love, as well as admira
tion, on the part of a host of friends, if his blood had
^Conversations with Luther, p. 47.

266 The Reformation.
run cold and selfish. Calvin was essentially a scholar.
His study was a place of unremitting toil and he be
grudged any pleasures that kept him from the tasks that
were to him the source of his highest joy.
Like Luther, Calvin had come to middle life when he
decided to seek a helpmeet to share his home. Evidently
the great leader of affairs in Geneva was well aware that
there were those ready to take this place. In a character
istic way he took up the matter in a business-like fashion.
In a letter to his friend Farel, under date of May, 1539,
he writes : "I am not of that insane class of lovers who,
once captivated by beauty, kiss even its faults. The only
comliness that attracts me is this : that she be modest,
complaisant, unostentatious, thrifty, patient, and likely to
be careful of my health."
In the following year (1540) negotiations were opened
with the friends of a nobly born young woman of con
siderable wealth. These endowments did not appeal to
Calvin and nothing came of the matter. His brother
Antoine was the go-between in considering another lady
"who, if she answers to her reputation, would bring
dowry enough without any money." Final inquiries in
this case were unsatisfactory. The wife whom he chose
and to whom he was probably married in the summer of
1540, "with the aid and advice of Bucer," was "a grave
and honorable woman," Idelette de Bure, widow of Jean
Stordeur of Liege, whom Calvin had converted from
Anabaptist views.
This marriage gave Calvin a home life for a few years
that was the source of much joy and blessing even under
the shadow of the prolonged illness of his estimable wife.
His only child, Jaques, born July 28, 1542, lived but a

Home Life of Zwingli. 267
few days, and the wife and mother never regained her
health. After her death (March 29, 1549,) Calvin wrote
these lines to his friend Viret : "I have been bereaved of
the best companion of my life, who, if our lot had been
harsher would have been not only the willing sharer of
exile and poverty, but even of death. While she lived,
she was a faithful helper of my ministry. From her I
never experienced the slightest hindrance."
Calvin in his habits led a sedentary and semi-invalid
life. In spite, however, of physical hindrances he was
an unceasing and tireless worker. His active brain toiled
on when the body was suffering from severe pain. A
single meal was his only daily repast and his exercise was
confined to short walks and sometimes a game of quoits
in his garden, or "clef" on the table in his living rooms.
In the days of extreme weakness that preceded his last
illness he clung with increasing effection to his friends.
Beza "was to him as a son in his last days," and Farel
came from Basel to cheer the great reformer whom he
had providentially aided in bringing him to his life-work
in Geneva.

Zwingli was married to Anna Reinhard, widow of
Hans Meyer von Knonau, in 1524. This happy union
was attended in its beginning with both romance and
some difficulties. When Zwingli came to Zurich in 15 19
he first met the beautiful widow who five years later be
came his wife. Her son, a promising lad, was a member
of his Church school. There is a tradition that the visits
of the popular young preacher to the home of his fair
parishioner were so frequent that it became a matter of
pleasant town gossip. The marriage was somewhat de-

268 The Reformation.
layed by troubles in connection with the adjustment of
the inheritance of her children. Both to them and the
mother the union with the great Swiss preacher and re
former was one of unalloyed happiness.

John Knox was twice married. His first wife was
Marjory Bowes. During the years spent in Geneva two
sons were born (1557-1558). Two years later, in 1560,
the happy home was suddenly shadowed by the death of
the devoted wife and mother whose beautiful Christian
character was delineated by Calvin in an eloquent tribute
to her memory. Eight days after the death of their
father the two sons matriculated at the University of
Cambridge. In 1564 Knox married Margaret, daughter of Andrew,
Lord Stewart of Ochiltru, a distant connection of the
royal house. There was a great disparity in their age.
Knox was fifty-nine; his bride sixteen. The marriage
proved a happy one and three daughters were born in the
home that gave its sheltering ministry of love in the years
that closed the stormy public life of the great Scotch
leader and reformer.

CHAPTER X.
Historical Relation of the Protestant Churches of
the United States to the Reformation.
Protestantism laid the foundations of the American Re
public. This statement is substantiated by the facts of
history. Columbus never set foot on the soil now cov
ered by the United States. It was John Cabot, captain of
an English vessel, who first explored our Atlantic sea
board. With the exception of Maryland, men of Prot
estant affiliation were the founders of the thirteen colo
nies that formed the Union that within a century and a
half has expanded into a nation the wealthiest in the
world and having a population of over one hundred mil
lions. The part played by the Reformation in this history
is one in which all of the denominational Bodies in the
fellowship of the Federal Council of the Churches of
Christ in America, have a share.1
The story of the Reformation, as it is woven into the
history of the United States, is one of romantic interest.
It was in the New World that the work begun by Luther,
Calvin, Zwingli, Knox, and other great Protestant leaders,
was to come to its largest fulfillment as a seed sowing of
democratic principles and the founder of republican insti
tutions. As early as 1562 a company of Huguenots at
tempted to plant a colony at what is now Port Royal, in
South Carolina. It was the beginning of an emigration
iSanford's Origin and History of the Federal Council of the
Churches of Christ in America, pp. 317-389-
269

270 The Reformation.
that the Protestant French leader, Admiral Coligny,
hoped might establish a great commonwealth. Philip II.
followed this heroic band with the hate that kept alive
the fires of the Inquisition in Europe and the massacre of
the colonists at St. Augustine (1565) closed the opening
chapter of Protestant emigration to the Atlantic seaboard.
In the years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth a remark
able group of men became sea rovers and helpers in the
founding of English colonies in America. The names of
Drake, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and Sir Walter Raleigh,
head a list of navigators who assisted in many ways to
make England the dominant power in the founding of
the colonies.
"It cannot be denied," says Daniel Webster, "that with
America and in America a new era commences in human
affairs." In that era Protestant Christianity was to act
the leading part. The English settlement at Jamestown
in 1607 antedates by seven years (1614) the unfurling
of the flag of the Dutch Republic at the southern ex
tremity of Manhattan Island. New Netherlands was the
name first given to the spot upon which the commercial
metropolis of the New World has been built. There is a
bell in the city of New York that may well be placed in a
historic niche by the side of the liberty bell in Independ
ence Hall in Philadelphia. It hangs in the steeple of the
Reformed (Dutch) church at the corner of Fifth Avenue
and Twenty-ninth Street. Cast in Holland in Reforma
tion days it still calls the hour of Sabbath worship.
During the half century that the Dutch held possession
of Manhattan Island and the Hudson River Valley, the
Reformed Church laid deep the foundations of its Prot
estant faith and doctrine. New Amsterdam, before it be-

The Puritan Emigration. 271
came New York, won a heritage of history and ancestry
that is still one of the proudest possessions of the city,
and the story of the Rise of the Dutch Republic and the
Reformed Church of the Netherlands is vitally related to
the history of the United States.
The landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, on the New
England coast in 1620, brought to our shores the little
company of Seperatists who, leaving their humble English
homes, first found refuge in Holland before they crossed
the stormy Atlantic. Ten years later began the great
Puritan emigration that gave to the New World the
"sifted wheat" of the Protestant life of England. The
foremost place filled by the leaders of this emigration, as
well as the rank and file, in the history of Church and
State in the United States is unquestioned.
American Congregationalism and the great Baptist fel
lowship came to their birth through this Puritan life.
Roger Williams, a graduate of Oxford University, was
an ordained minister of the Church of England at the
time he landed in Boston and settled at Salem (1631).
Embracing Baptist views, and rejecting all union between
Church and State he became the founder of Rhode Island
and the leader in promulgating Baptist principles and
founding churches now numbering several millions of
communicants. As the advocate in early colonial days, in
the face often of bitter persecution, of the distinctive
American Protestant principle of the separation of
Church and State, Baptists have reason to rejoice in the
contribution that is their due credit in the victories of
democracy for which their forerunners in stormy Refor
mation days so valiantly continued. Men of the stamp
and character of Blaurock, Grebel, Hubmaier, and Denck

272 The Reformation.
are now recognized by historians as the true and able
leaders of the Anabaptists of the Sixteenth Century and
not revolutionary fanatics of the type of John of Leyden
or the "prophets of Zwickau."
All of the New England colonies were founded by Puri
tan leaders. The elder Winthrop, Mather, Bradford and
a long line of able ministers and laymen guided the affairs
of Massachusetts and the adjacent colonies of Maine,
New Hampshire, and Vermont. Roger Williams founded
Rhode Island and its chief city of Providence. In Con
necticut, John Davenport, like Calvin at Geneva, hoped at
New Haven to found a theocracy, but his large visioned
neighbor, Thomas Hooker of Hartford, caught the true
spirit of democracy and voiced for the first time on
American soil the principles that a century and a half
later were wrought into the Constitution of the United
States. Referring to the famous sermon preached by
Hooker at Hartford in May 31, 1638, Professor Alex
ander Johnston1 says : "Here is the first practical asser
tion of the right of the people not only to choose but to
limit the powers of their rulers, an assertion that lies at
the foundations of the American system. There is no
reference to a 'dread sovereign,' no reservation of def
erence due to any class, not even to the class to which
the speaker himself belonged. Each individual was to
exercise his rights 'according to the blessed will and law
of God,' but he was to be responsible to God alone for
his fulfillment of the obligation. The whole contains the
germ of the idea of the commonwealth, and it was de-
JOne of the ablest of our American historians. His "writings
represent original research and rare talent for terse narrative and
keen analysis." Encyclopedia Brittanica.

The Presbyterian Church. 273
veloped by his hearers into the constitution of 1639. It is
on the banks of the Connecticut under the mighty preach
ing of Thomas Hooker and in the constitution to which
he gave life, if not form, that we draw the first breath
of that atmosphere which is now so familiar to us. The
birthplace of American democracy is Hartford, Connecti
cut. "They who judge of men by their services to the
human race," says Bancroft, "will never cease to honor
the memory of Hooker."1
The Presbyterian Church in the United States shares
with Congregationalists in this Puritan heritage. "Amer
ican Presbyterianism as a whole," says Dr. William H.
Roberts, "is as diverse in its origin as are the peoples who
have blended to form the American nation. The earliest
American Presbyterian Churches were established in New
England, Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia, from about
1630 to 1680, and were in large part of English origin,
their pastors as a rule being Church of England ministers
holding Presbyterian views."
It is interesting to note that "the earliest Presbyterian
emigration in the colonial period consisted of the French
Huguenots," who attempted to form settlements in South
Carolina and Florida in 1562- 1565. Huguenot churches
were formed on Staten Island, New York, in 1665 ; in
iThomas Hooker was born at Marfield, England, July 7, 1586.
A graduate of Cambridge University he became a minister of the
Church of England. Silenced in 1630 for nonconformity he spent
three years in Holland. In 1633 he sailed with a company of
Puritan friends and old parishioners for Boston. He did not
sympathize with the autocratic views of Mather and with his
Cambridge congregation in 163S settled in Hartford, where he
died, July 7, 1647.
18

274 The Reformation.
New York City in 1683; at Boston in 1687; at New
Rochelle, New York, in 1688, and in other places. The
Charleston church, founded in 1686, is the only independ
ent Huguenot church in the United States existing at the
present time. This Huguenot emigration, while not large,
had a distinctive influence in colonial days that is a right
ful heritage of American Presbyterianism. It is to be
remembered that John Calvin in early manhood not only
"took a foremost place among the leaders of the whole
Reformation movement but molded in his plastic hands
the Reformation in France. * * * He had an extraor
dinary power over his co-religionists in his native land.
He was a Frenchman — one of themselves; no foreigner
speaking an unfamiliar tongue ; no enemy of the Father
land to follow whom might seem to be unpatriotic. It is
true that his fixed abode lay beyond the confines of
France ; but distance, which gave him freedom of action,
made him the more esteemed. He was the apostle who
wrote 'to all that be in France, beloved of God, called to
be saints.'"1
The Alliance of Reformed Churches holding the Pres
byterian System, includes in its world-wide membership
all of the Reformed and Presbyterian Churches in the
fellowship of the Federal Council of the Churches of
Christ in America. In their historic life they represent
the streams of influence that had their fountain head in
the Reformation movement in Geneva, Switzerland,
France, the Netherlands, Bohemia, England, Scotland,
Wales, and North Ireland. Calvinistic and Puritan lead
ership planted not only the Cross of Christ in American
aLindsay. History of the Reformation, Vol. II, pp. 153, 154.

The Moravian Church. 275
out in "the doctrine of the unconditioned sovereignty
of God," and "the sovereignty of the Word of God as the
supreme and infallible rule of faith and practice," they
found the principles of democracy that gave them a fore
most place, with those of like Puritan faith and doctrine,
in laying the foundations of the United States and secur
ing to the people both civil and religious liberty.
The story of the Reformation in Bohemia and the rise
of the Moravian fellowship has already been briefly
noted.1 When Luther nailed his theses on the door of the
Crown church in Wittenberg "the Unit as Fratrum em
braced about four hundred parishes and two hundred
thousand members." Within a limited area this earliest
Protestant Church has been a potent influence in the
United States but its largest contribution has been as a
leavening inspiration in lifting up the commission of the
Risen Lord and Saviour. "Go ye therefore, and make
disciples of all the nations."
The Protestant Episcopal Church did not come to its
organization until after the War of the Revolution. In
colonial days it was represented by the Church of Eng
land. When the war broke out there were about two hun
dred and fifty clergymen in the colonies who ministered
to congregations that comprised a large number of the
wealthy and influential families in Virginia and other
middle and southern colonies. A large number of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence were members
of the Church of England, and George Washington at
tended its services. Naturally the sympathy of many of
the clergy and the members of the Church of England
iSee pages 30-32.

276 The Reformation.
were with the royalists and in the success of the American
contention for independence from English control, the
close of the war found this branch of the Christian
Church in a broken and distressed condition. As an
American Church it has come to its present strength and
influence. In its divided counsels there has always been,
as in no other American Communion, a contention in
which the forces representing democracy and autocracy
have striven for leadership. This conflict still continues.
If true to its Reformation heritage there can be but one
conclusion in this strife of parties. Having achieved
unity within its own ecclesiastical life the Protestant
Episcopal Church will be in a position to unite with sister
Churches of the Reformed faith in achieving the unity
for which our Divine Lord and Redeemer prayed.
The Lutheran Church now numbering, in its twenty
ecclesiastical groups, a membership in the United States
of two and a half millions, dates its marvelous growth
from the great emigration that set in from Europe early in
the Nineteenth Century. A little company of Lutherans
joined the Dutch colony on Manhattan Island in 1632.
They were treated shamefully. If apologies would mend
the historic record every inheritor of the Reformed faith
would hasten to give them. In 1638 a company of
Swedes settled where the city of Wilmington, Del., now
stands. They were the vanguard of that great Scandi
navian emigration that has populated especially the states
of the Interior and the Northwest.
The German branch of the Lutheran Church dates its
American history from the coming of emigrants from the
Palatinates to Pennsylvania in 1680. Prior to 1750 over
60,000 Germans settled in this state. It was not, how-

Lutheran Churches. 277
ever, until 1742 that the Lutherans were fully organized
in synodical relations. The oldest of the general bodies
of the Lutheran Church, the General Synod, founded in
1826, has always maintained friendly relations with other
religious bodies. Under the leadership of Professor
Samuel S. Schmucker, of the Gettysburg, Pa., Theological
Seminary, overtures were sent out to other ministers and
Churches in 1838 that outlined in spirit and purpose the
plan of federation that is now incorporated in the Con
stitution of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ
in America.1
At present the General Synod is the only Lutheran
body in the United States that affiliates with other evan
gelical Churches. "The non-English Lutheran bodies,
whose members do not come into close personal contact
with the people in purely English Churches, naturally are
unconscious of any pressing need of unity with non-
Lutheran bodies. They have little in common with them
in language, usages, and traditions. Their respective
tasks seem to be diverse also. The Lutherans have a great
work in caring for their own kindred who come here from
other lands."2
As the great host of Lutherans, that in the last half
century have settled in the Middle and Northwestern
states, become assimilated into the national life of the
United States we anticipate that this strong, conservative
body of Protestant churches will desire closer fellowship
1Sanford's Origin and History of the Federal Council of the
Churches, pp. 80-02.
2Rev. J. A. Singmaster, D.D., President of the Evangelical Lu
theran Theological Seminary, Gettysburg, Pa., in Churches of the
Federal Council, p. 223.

278 The Reformation.
with their brethren who hold the Reformation faith and,
alike with themselves, honor the names of Luther, Me
lanchthon, and the great leaders of the Evangelical
Churches of Germany.
"The German Evangelical Synod of North America
stands in the United States for the fundamental positive
and progressive principles of German Evangelical Chris
tianity established in 1817 by the union of the Reformed
and the Lutheran elements in Prussia. In the next quar
ter of a century some of the ministers and members of
that body came to the United States and in 1840 at a set
tlement near St. Louis, Mo., the first organization was
formed. It was then known as the German Evangelical
Church Association of the West. This body expanded,
and changed to 'Synod of the West' in 1866. In 1877 the
body now known as 'the Evangelical Synod of North
America' came into being. It works particularly among
the German people, although English as well as German is
used in many churches and especially in Church litera
ture."1 This body of earnest Christian men and women, while
numerically one of the smallest in the fellowship of the
Federal Council of the Churches, holds an unique posi
tion, both in its Reformation heritage and its lifting up,
"next to the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
and Him crucified, the ideal of Christian unity as the
chief aim of its organization and activity." This Brother
hood of believers stands for that longing for unity be
tween the Lutheran and Reformed Churches that dates
1Rev. J. J. Hortsman, D.D. In Churches of the Federal Coun
cil, p. 226.

Methodist Episcopal Churches. 279
back to the conference held at Marburg in 1529. In the
Providence of God they have a special mission that in its
fulfillment will witness the passing of differences that
have long divided the ranks of Protestantism.
The United Brethren in Christ, with a membership of
nearly four hundred thousand, is a fellowship of German
origin. Reformed and Mennonite and Lutheran influ
ences blended in its organization in the United States in
the latter part of the Eighteenth Century. The United
Brethren Church, true to its evangelical heritage, has wel
comed every opportunity to join in fellowship with the
followers of Christ of every name.
The "Evangelical Association" and the "United Evan
gelical Church" are of German origin and share in the
Reformation history and heritage. Both organizations
welcomed the invitation to unite in the fellowship of the
Federal Council of the Churches, and have given it their
loyal support.
The Disciples fellowship, that has grown into one of
the largest Christian forces in the United States, was
founded in the interest of Christian unity by men con
nected with Churches of the Reformed faith.
The Methodist Episcopal Churches, that stand numer
ically, at the head of the evangelical Churches of the
United States, also share in this heritage. Their origin
and history is linked with the great Wesleyan revival
movement that stirred the life of England in the latter
half of the Eighteenth Century and placed the name of
John Wesley among the leaders of Christian history.
It was a dark hour in the spiritual life of Britain when
the young Oxford graduate and clergyman of the Church
of England began his work of reformation. It is true,

280 The Reformation.
as John Richard Green, says, "That in the middle class
the old Puritan spirit lived on unchanged, and it was
from this class that a religious revival burst forth which
changed after a time the whole tone of English society.
The Church was restored to life and activity. Religion
carried to the hearts of the people a fresh spirit of moral
zeal while it purified literature and manners. * * *
John Wesley embodied in himself not this or that side of
the new movement, but the movement itself."
The story of Wesley's conversion reads like a chapter
taken out of the Reformation days. He tells us that it
was the calm confidence of the Moravian passengers, in
the storms that tossed the vessel that conveyed him across
the Atlantic on his way to engage in missionary labors in
Georgia, that convinced him that he did not possess the
faith that casts out fear. From this time on he came
under Moravian influence and guidance. Peter Bohler,
the devout Moravian minister, in a very real sense, be
came his spiritual father. It was in a meeting where Lu
ther's Preface to the Epistle to the Romans was being
read, that Wesley tells us "About a quarter before nine,
while he was describing the change which God works in
the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely
warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for
salvation ; and an assurance was given that He had taken
away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of
sin and death." Lecky, in his "History of England in
the Eighteenth Century," referring to this incident, says :
"It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the scene which
took place at that humble meeting in Aldersgate Street
forms an epoch in English history. The conviction which
then flashed upon one of the most powerful and most ac-

Protestant Churches of America. 281
tive intellects in England is the true source of English
Methodism," and we can add of American Methodism.
Little did Martin Luther realize that the words penned
out of his own soul experience would prove to be the
Light of the Spirit that two centuries later would
illumine the life of the founder of world-wide Methodism
that in the year that celebrates the four hundredth anni
versary of the Reformation numbers churches having al
most ten million communicants and ministering to a popu
lation estimated at over thirty-eight millions. In this her
itage not only does the Methodist Episcopal Churches
share but also the Methodist Protestant Church, the
"Christian" Church, and the African M. E. Churches.
With gratitude to Almighty God millions of Christian
communicants, connected with Protestant evangelical
Churches, recall the names of their heroic founders ; but
there is a Name above every Name, in whose presence
all earthly leaders bow with penitent, obedient, trusting
hearts. Above the tumult of strifes that so often, in cen
turies past, have divided the Church, of which Christ is
the Head, may we not hope and believe that this Twen
tieth Century of the Christian era shall rejoice in the an
swer to our Saviour's prayer as He entered the path that
led through Gethsemane to the Cross — and then to the
morning of the Resurrection and the Day of Pentecost — ;
"that they may all be one ; even as thou Father, art in me,
and I in thee, that they also may be in us ; that the world
may believe that thou didst send me."

INDEX.

Act of Supremacy, 171.
Acts of Uniformity, 197, 198.
Adrian V., 125.
Albigenses, 91, 228, 238.
Alva, Duke of, 225.
Anabaptists, 228, 260, 272.
Antwerp, City of, 246, 258, 260.
Articles, Six, 172, 180; Thirty-
nine of Church of England,
199.
Augsburg Confession, 143.
Augsburg, Diet of (1526), 134;
(1530), 142; (1555),
Augsburg Interim, 155.
Augustine, St., 64.
Augustinians, 88.
Avigon, Popes at, 20.
Bacon, Roger, 16.
Baptists in America, 271.
Barbarian Invasion, The, 85.
Bartholomew, Massacre of St.,
244.
Bayer, Christian, 143.
Beaton, David, 202.
Bernard of Clairvaux, 91, 193.
Beza, Theodore, 242.
Bishop's Book, 176.
Boehler, Peter, 32, 280.
Bohmer, Heinrich, 154.
Bohemia, 25.
Brandenburg, George of, 143-
Britain, Conversion of, 14, 191.
Calvin, John — early life, 221 ;
writes the Institutes of the
Christian Religion, 223, 219,
220; his conversion, 222;
casts in his lot with reform
ing party, 223 ; at Basel, 223 ;
publication of Institutes, 224;
in Geneva, 224 ; takes part in
discussion at Lausanne, 225;
leadership at Geneva, 226;
opposition arises, 228; exiled
from Geneva, 231 ; recognized

as a great theologian and
leader by the German and
French reformers, 232; re
called to Geneva, 233; trial
and death of Servetus, 234;
last days, 235 ; tribute of
Renan, 235; the theologian
of the Reformed Churches,
236 ; influence in France, 240,
241, 274 ; influence in Nether
lands, 247; home life, 265.
Campeggio, Cardinal, 125, 142.
Carlstadt, 119, 121-124.
Cecil (Baron Burleigh), 195,
196.
Chaucer, 22.
Charles V., 98, m, H4> 135.
142, 146, 167, 183, 247, 250.
Charles II. of France, 241.
Chelcic, Peter of, 30.
Christianity in Middle Ages, 7.
Church, Monarchical Concep
tion of, 14.
Clement VII., 125.
Coligny, Admiral, 242, 244, 270.
Colet, John, 42, 43, 44, 52.
Commerce and Manufactures,
36.
Common Prayer, Changes in
Book of, 184.
"Compromise," Netherland,
Communion of Brethren. See
Moravian Church.
Conde, 242.
Congregationalists in America,
271.
Constance, Council of, 27.
Constantinople, New Learning
carried from, 87.
Cordier, Mathurin, 221.
Coverdale, Miles, 173.
Cranmer, Archbishop, 180, 181,
182, 189, 190.
Cromwell, Thomas, 171, 177.

283

284

Index.

Crusades, The, 37, 87.
Dante, Description of Popes by,
90.
Davenport, John, 272.
D'Aubigne, 72, 74.
Denmark, Reformation in, 156.
Disciples, The, 279.
Dollinger, Tribute to Luther by,
152.
Dominicans, 12, 88.
Dominic, St., 11.
Drake, Sir Francis, 270.
Edward VI., 182, 183, 185.
Elizabeth, Queen, 182, 194-200.
England, Reformation in, 163-
200.
Egmont, Count, 251, 255.
Episcopal Church, Protestant,
275, 276.
Erasmus, Desiderius, 42-48, 167,
172, 169, 210.
Esch, John, 247.
Evangelical Association, 279.
Farnese, Alexander, 258.
Farel, William, 218, 221, 224-
226, 230, 236.
Feudal System, 35, 38.
Fisher, Bishop, 173.
Fisher, George P., 244, 246.
Federal Council of the Churches
of Christ in America, 269, 274.
Florence, Centre of New Learn
ing, 41.
France, Reformation in, 238-
^245'. „
Francis, St., 11.
Franciscans, 13.
Francis I., 117, 223, 239.
Frederick the Wise, Elector,
74, 75, 92, 98, 115, 118, 122,
137.
French Martyrs, 240, 241.
French Protestantism, 245.
Friars. See Mendicant Friars.
Fritz, Joss, 129.
Froude, Anthony, 18, 49, 84, 178,
183.
Gaunt, John of, 21.

Geneva, Reformation in, 217-
237-
Germain, Treaty of St., 243.
German Evangelical Synod of
North America, 278.
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 270.
Good, James I., 215.
Grapheus, Cornelius, 247.
Green, John Henry, 19, 68.
Gregory the Great, 14.
Grosseteste, Robert, 16.
Hamilton, Patrick, 202.
Henry VIII., 118, 164, 172, 175,
182.
Hesse, Philip of. See Philip of
Hesse.
Hooker, Thomas, 272.
Horstman, J. J., 158, 278.
Huguenots, The, 242, 244, 252,
269, 273.
Huss, John, 28-30, 162.
Hutten, Ulrich von, 113, 128.
Iceland, Reformation in, 157.
Inquisition, The, 247.
James V., 202.
Junius, Francis, 253.
Johnston, Professor Alexander,
272.
John III., Pope at calling of the
Council of Constance, 28.
Knox, John — early life, 203;
aids George Wishart, 204;
teaching at St. Andrews, 204 ;
prisoner in French galley,
204 ; reformation leader, 205 ;
at Geneva with Calvin, 205;
in Scotland, 206; prepares
Calvinistic confession, 206 ;
contest with Queen Mary,
207; closing days of his life,
208; home life, 268.
Langton, Bishop of Winchester,
47-
Latimer, Hugh, 176, 180.
Latin, Use of, 34.
Learning, Revival of, 40.
Learning, New, 11, 184, 194,
238.

Index.

285

Leo X., 94, 1 18, 125.
Lefevre, Jacques, 238.
Linsday, Thomas M„ 150, 154,
162, 176, 187, 197, 201, 227,
233, 261, 274.
Lollards, 52, 202.
Lutheranism, spread of, 156-158.
Lutheran Church in United
States, 276-278.
Lutheran Ritual and Polity, 149.
Luther, John, 54, 61.
Luther, Margaret, 64.
Luther, Martin — affixes Theses
against Indulgences on
church door at Wittenberg, 1,
6; parentage and birth, 54;
boyhood and student days, 55-
59 ; spiritual struggles, 60-62 ;
enters monastery, 62-65 ;
friendship with Staupitz, 66;
ordained as priest, 67 ; work
as professor of divinity, 68;
visit to Rome, 69-72; made
doctor of divinity, 72 ; friend
ship with Spalatin, 73 ; power
as a lecturer, 74; promulga
tion of theses, 80; opening
conflict with Rome, 82; lit
erary fecundity, 84; the
Theses against Indulgences,
93; suit brought through Tet
zel, 94; dispute with Eck, 96 ;
pursued by Rome, 97 ) heresy
trial reopened, 99; utilizes
printing press, 101 ; burning
of Pope's Bull, 104; at the
Diet of Worms, 106 ; at the
castle of Wartburg, 114; be
gins translation of Bible, 116;
clandestine visit to Witten
berg, 120; return to Witten
berg, 123 ; peasants' war, 127 ;
spread of Lutheran faith,
135 ; differences with Zwingli,
138-141; relation to Augs
burg Confession, 145 ; closing
years of his life, 149; illness
and death, 151; home life,

152; personality and charac
ter, 154; home life 262-265;
hymn in memory of Nether
land martyrs, 247; hymn
writer, 72, 107.
Lyons, Poor Men of, 9.
Mary, Queen, daughter Henry
VIII., 185-187.
Mary, Queen of Scots, 202, 203,
207.
Mary, Sister Charles V., 248,
249.
Marburg Coloquy, 140.
Margaret of Navarre, 239.
Maximilian, Emperor, 98.
Maurice of Saxony, 147.
Medici, Catherine de, 241, 242.
Mendicant Friars, 13.
Melanchthon, Philip — professor
at Wittenberg, 95; Luther's
message, 106; consultation
with Luther, 120, 122; rela
tion to Zwingli, 139; prepares
Augsburg Confession, 144;
friend of Calvin, 151 ;
preaches funeral sermon of
Luther, 155; last days, 156;
moral leadership, 158.
Methodist Episcopal Churches,
279-281.
Middle Ages, Conditions in, 7,
86.
Milman, Henry Hart, 21, 22, 27.
Monasteries, Dissolution of,
177-179.
Moravian Church, 30, 275.
More, Thomas, 42, 169, 170, 173.
Motley, John Lothrop, 249, 250,
258, 259.
Munzer, Thomas, 127, 129-131.
Netherland Martyrs, 252, 255.
Netherlands, Reformation in,
246-261.
Norfolk, Duke of, 181.
Northumberland, Duke of, 182,
183.
Norway, Reformation in, 157.
Nuremberg, Diet of, 125.

286

Index.

Occam, William of, 16, 19.
Oecolampadius, John, 216.
Oxford University, 16, 21.
Papal Power, Abuse of, 89.
Paris, Matthew, 17.
Parker, Archbishop, 195, 199.
Peasants' War, 127-133.
Philip II., 250-252, 255, 259, 270.
Philip of Hesse, 135, 137, 138,
150.
Pilgrim Fathers of Reforma
tion, 10.
Pole, Cardinal, 199.
Prague, Jerome of, 28.
Prayer Book, Church of Eng
land, 182.
Printing Press, Invention of,23.
Presbyterianism in France, 240.
Presbyterian Churches in
United States, 273, 274.
Protestant, Origin of Term,
137-
Puritan England, 161-200.
Puritan Emigration to New
England, 271.
Puritan Founders of United
States, 272, 274.
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 270.
Reformation to a large extent
not only a religious but secu
lar revolt, 33.
Reformation Conditions — Edu
cational, Social, Industrial
and Moral in the Sixteenth
Century, 38.
Reformed Churches, Rise of,
163 ; in Netherlands, 261.
Reformed Church in New York
and Vicinity, 270.
"Religious Peace" arranged at
Diet of Augsburg (1555), 155.
Roberts, W. H., 273.
Robinson, J. H., 39.
Rogers, John, 188.
Roman Church — Control of
secular affairs in Middle
Ages, 88 ; internal corruption,
89; preserved the essential
truths of Christianity, 91.

Roman Empire, Holy, 5.
Savonarola, 42.
Schmalkaldic League, 145, 149.
Scotus, Duns, 16.
Scotland, Reformation in, 201-
208.
Seebohm, Frederic, 51, 114,116,
132, 217.
Servetus, Trial and Death of,
234-
Sickengen, Franz von, 128, 129.
Singmaster, J. A., 277.
Somerset, Duke of, 182, 183.
Spalatin, George, 120, 107, 120.
Speyer, Diet of (1526), 125;
(1529), 136.
Stanley, Dean. Description of
transition from age of Apos
tles to medieval times, 3.
Staupitz, Vicar-General of the
Augustines, 65, 66, 72, 75, 94,
99-
Storch, Claus, 119.
Sweden, Reformation in, 157.
Swiss Free Government, 211.
Switzerland, Reformation in,
209-216.
"Table Talk," Luther's, 153.
Taine, H. A., Extract from, 23.
Tetzel, John, Work and Char
acter of, 77-80.
Thirtv Years' War, 157.
Trebonius, John, 58.
Trent, Council of, no, 181, 242,
252.
Tribunal, "Bloody," 255.
Tyndale, William, 172, 177.
United Brethren in Christ, 279.
United States, Historical Rela
tion of Reformation to, 269-
281.
United Evangelical Association,
279-
Universities of Middle Ages, 12.
Utopia of Sir Thomas More, 51.
Utrecht, Treaty of, 260.
Vassy, Massacre of, 242.
Voes, Henry, 247.

Index.

287

Waldo, Peter, 8, 238.
Waldenses, 9, 238.
Walsingham (Roman Catholic
historian), 22.
Warham, Archbishop of Can
terbury, 47.
Wesley, John, 32, 279-281.
Wiclif, John, 17, 18, 21-25, 35,
162, 202.
William, Prince of Orange,
250-260.
Williams, Roger, 271.
Wishart, George, 203, 204.
Wolmar, Melchar, 222.
Wolsey, Cardinal, 167, 171.
Wittenberg Conference (1536),
150.

Wykeham, William of, 21.
Wyttenbach, Thomas, 210.
Zwilling, 121, 124.
Zwingli, Ulrich— chief founder
Reformed Churches, 209 ;
early life, 209 ; influenced by
Wyttenbach, 210; parish
priest at Glarus, 210; at
Zurich, 211; disputation at
Berne, 212; marriage with
Anne Reinhard, 213; pub
lishes Commentary on the
True and False Religion, 213 ;
The Marburg conference,
214 ; death on the battle field,
215; home life, 267.

Books By Elias B. Sanford, D.D.
Published By S. S. Scranton, Company, Hartford, Conn.
Origin and History of the Federal Council of the
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Books By Elias B, Sanford, D. D.
Published By S. S. Scranton, Company, Hartford, Conn.
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Books By Elias B. Sanford, D.D.
Published By S. S. Scranton Company, Hartford. Conn.
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