t; as Paul before him sought to plant new
sentiments and ideas in the Roman world, indifferent to the arts of
Greece, and even the beauties of nature, in his absorbing desire to
convert men to Christ. And who, since Paul, has rendered greater service
to humanity than Luther? The whole race should be proud that such a man
has lived.

We will not follow the great reformer to the decline of his years; we
will not dwell on his subsequent struggles and dangers, his marvellous
preservation, his personal habits, his friendships and his hatreds, his
joys and sorrows, his bitter alienations, his vexations, his
disappointments, his gloomy anticipations of approaching strife, his
sickened yet exultant soul, his last days of honor and of victory, his
final illness, and his triumphant death in the town where he was born.
It is his legacy that we are concerned in, the inheritance he left to
succeeding generations,--the perpetuated ideas of the Reformation, which
he worked out in anguish and in study, and which we will not let die,
but will cherish in our memories and our hearts, as among the most
precious of the heirlooms of genius, susceptible of boundless
application. And it is destined to grow brighter and richer, in spite of
counter-reformation and Jesuitism, of Pagan levities and Pagan lies, of
boastful science and Epicurean pleasures, of material glories, of
dissensions and sects and parties, as the might and majesty of ages
coursing round the world regenerates institutions and nations, and
proclaims the sovereignty of intelligence, the glory and the power
of God.

AUTHORITIES.

Ranke's Reformation in Germany; D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation;
Luther's Letters; Mosheim's History of the Church; Melancthon's Life of
Luther: Erasmi Epistolae; Encyclopaedia Britannica.

THOMAS CRANMER.

* * * * *

A. D. 1489-1556.

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION.

As the great interest of the Middle Ages, in an historical point of
view, centres around the throne of the popes, so the most prominent
subject of historical interest in our modern times is the revolt from
their almost unlimited domination. The Protestant Reformation, in its
various relations, was a movement of transcendent importance. The
history of Christendom, in a moral, a political, a religious, a
literary, and a social point of view, for the last three hundred years,
cannot be studied or comprehended without primary reference to that
mem