ried in his loyal admiration of the illustrious
Oratorian. That admiration, however, was purely personal, and did
not affect in any degree the staunchness of Froude's principles. In
1883 Protestant Germany celebrated the four hundredth anniversary of
Luther's birth, and Froude wrote for the occasion a short biography
of the rebellious monk who changed the history of the world. He
founded on the larger Life by Julius Koestlin, which had then just
appeared, this little book makes no pretence to original learning or
research. It is a polemical pamphlet by a master of English, and a
fervent admirer of the illustrious Martin. "When the German states
revolted against the Roman hierarchy," says Froude in his Preface,
"we in England revolted also," and Luther's name was as familiar as
Bunyan's to the Protestant Churches of England. The Catholic revival
of which Froude had seen so much at Oxford was still in full swing.

"Nevertheless, we are still a Protestant nation, and the majority of
us intend to remain Protestant. If we are indifferent to our
Smithfield and Oxford martyrs, we are not indifferent to the
Reformation, and we can join with Germany in paying respect to the
memory of a man to whom we also, in part, owe our deliverance.
Without Luther there would have been either no change in England in
the sixteenth century, or a change purely political. Luther's was
one of those great individualities which have modelled the history
of mankind, and modelled it entirely for good. He revived and
maintained the spirit of piety and reverence in which, and by which
alone, real progress is possible."

Such was the temper in which Froude set about his task, and which
made it a labour of love. Besides the great public events in
Luther's career which are familiar to all, he gave a charming
picture of the affectionate father, the genial host, the eloquent,
humourous talker whose fragments of conversation, his Tischreden,
are in Germany almost as popular as his hymns. Luther's dominant
quality was force, and that was a quality which Froude, like
Carlyle, honoured above all others. Luther was not in all respects
like a modern Protestant. He had a great respect for authority, when
it was genuine, and he believed in transubstantiation, which Leo X.
regarded as a juggle to deceive the vulgar. If Luther's appearance
before the Diet of Worms was, as Froude says, "the finest scene in
human history," it is so because this solitary monk stood no