self-government. He developed this in various ways till
his audience felt that it was to be the touchstone of the question
between the churches. He then exhibited the Protestant teaching on
human virtue and human depravity, quoting extensively from Luther and
from Calvin, as well as from the creeds of the principal Protestant
sects, until the contrast between their teaching and the fundamental
American principle was painfully vivid. There was no escape;
doctrinal Protestantism is un-American. He then gave the Catholic
doctrine of free will, of merit, of human dignity, and of the
equality of men and human brotherhood. The impression was profound.
Great mountains of prejudice were lifted up and cast into the sea.
The elevating influences of the Church's faith fixed men's eyes and
won their hearts. To have it demonstrated that Catholicity was not a
gigantic effort to combine all available human forces to maintain a
central religious despotism in the hands of a hierarchy, was a
surprise to multitudes of Protestants. To not a few intelligent
Catholics the style of argument was a great novelty. Father Hecker's
success proved that the claim of authority on the part of the Church
could be established without much difficulty in men's minds, if it
were not associated with the enslavement of reason and conscience,
and if shown to be consistent with rational liberty. He insisted upon
the positive view of the subject. He proclaimed the purpose of
Catholic discipline to be essentially conservative of human rights, a
divinely-appointed safeguard to the liberty and enlightenment of the
soul of man. He further proclaimed that the infliction of penalties
by Church authority was an accidental exercise of power provoked by
disobedience to lawful authority.

_Luther and the Reformation_ excited widespread remark, and yet to
one accustomed to old-time controversy it seemed but a fragment of an
argument. The lecture proved that Luther was not an honest reformer,
because, having started to reform inside the Church and as a
Catholic, he finished by leaving the Church and therefore the real
work of reform. At the outset Father Hecker proved that Luther was
but one, and by no means the most important one, of the great body of
Catholic reformers of his time. These set to work to remedy abuses
which had grown to such an extent as to have become intolerable. The
genuine reformers, led by the Popes, went right on and did reform the
Church most thoro