The church no
longer assumed the sole power to think for the people.

Again, it may be said that the Reformation improved man's material
progress. The development of the independent individual life brought
about strength of character, industry, and will force, which, in turn,
built up material affairs and made great improvements in the economic
conditions of man. Everywhere that Protestantism prevailed there was a
rapid increase of wealth and better economic conditions. Trade and
commerce improved rapidly, and the industrial life went through a
process of revolution. Freedom upon a rational basis always brings
about this vital prosperity, while despotism suppresses the desires of
man for a better economic life. So we shall find that intellectual and
material progress followed everywhere in the course of the Reformation,
while those states and nations over which the papal authority retained
its strongest hold began to decline in intellectual power and material
welfare. Such was the force of the Reformation to renovate and
rejuvenate all which it touched. It made possible the slow evolution
of the independence of the common man and established the dignity of
labor.

Finally, let it be said that the Reformation caused a
counter-reformation within the Catholic Church. For many years {391}
there was an earnest reform going on within the Romanist Church.
Abuses were corrected, vices eradicated, the religious tone of church
administration improved, and the general character of church polity
changed in very many ways. But once having reformed itself, the church
became more arbitrary than before. In the Council of Trent, in clearly
defining its position, it declared its infallibility and absolute
authority, thus relapsing into the old imperial regime. But the
Reformation, after all, was the salvation of the Roman Church, for
through it that church was enabled to correct a sufficient number of
abuses to regain its power and re-establish confidence in itself among
the people.

The Reformation, like the Renaissance, has been going on ever since it
started, and we may say to-day that, so far as most of the results are
concerned, we are yet in the midst of both.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. Needed reforms in the church and why they failed.

2. Enumerate the causes that led to the Reformation prior to Luther.

3. Compare the main characteristics in the Reformation in the
following countries: Germany, Englan