e excessive exploitation of the practice of
indulgences by Leo X for the purpose of completing the cathedral of
St. Peter's at Rome. It was this, coming on the top of the exactions
already rendered necessary by the increasing luxury and debauchery of
the Papal Court and those of the other ecclesiastical dignitaries,
that directly led to the dramatic incidents with which the Lutheran
Reformation opened.

The remarkable personality with which the religious side of the
Reformation is pre-eminently associated was a child of his time, who
had passed through a variety of mental struggles, and had already
broken through the bonds of the old ecclesiasticism before that
turning-point in his career which is usually reckoned the opening of
the Reformation, to wit--the nailing of the theses on to the door of
the Schloss-Kirche in Wittenberg on the 31st of October, 1517. Martin
Luther, we must always bear in mind, however, was no Protestant in the
English Puritan sense of the word. It was not merely that he retained
much of what would be deemed by the old-fashioned English Protestant
"Romish error" in his doctrine, but his practical view of life showed
a reaction from the ascetic pretensions which he had seen bred nothing
but hypocrisy and the worst forms of sensual excess. It is, indeed,
doubtful if the man who sang the praises of "Wine, Women, and Song"
would have been deemed a fit representative in Parliament or elsewhere
by the British Nonconformist conscience of our day; or would be
acceptable in any capacity to the grocer-deacon of our provincial
towns, who, not content with being allowed to sand his sugar and
adulterate his tea unrebuked, would socially ostracise every one whose
conduct did not square with his conventional shibboleths. Martin
Luther was a child of his time also as a boon companion. The freedom
of his living in the years following his rupture with Rome was the
subject of severe animadversions on the part of the noble, but in this
respect narrow-minded, Thomas Muenzer, who, in his open letter
addressed to the "Soft-living flesh of Wittenberg," scathingly
denounces what he deems his debauchery.

It does not enter into our province here to discuss at length the
religious aspects of the Reformation; but it is interesting to note
in passing the more than modern liberality of Luther's views with
respect to the marriage question and the celibacy of the clergy,
contrasted with the strong mediaeval flavour of his bel