ferred upon no one from without. The soul is
dependent for it upon no organization, no traditions, no dogma, no
sacred performances. It is a transaction between the {8} individual
soul and God, and the person who lays hold on God in living faith
thereby has salvation, assurance, and joy. With this principle of
individualism there came naturally to Luther a new conception of the
Church altogether.[11] It was for him, in ideal at least, a community
or congregation ["Gemeinde"] of believers, each member a spiritual
priest, ministering to the spiritual and social life of all: "I believe
that there is on earth, wide as the world is, not more than one holy
universal Christian Church, which is nothing else than the community or
assembly of the saints. . . . I believe that in this community or
Christendom, all things are common, and each one shares the goods of
the others and none calls anything his own. Therefore all the prayers
and good works of the entire community help me and every believer, and
support and strengthen us at every time in life and in death."[12]

This ideal of a priesthood of believers, ministering to each other in
mutual service and practising neighbourly love in daily life, would, if
it had been actually carried into effect, have marked a great step in
the direction in which the Humanists were going, namely, the transfer
of the emphasis from dogma to life, from doctrine to ethics, from
ecclesiasticism to personality. Luther's great discovery that personal
faith is the only thing which counts toward God, and that love and
service are the only things in the human sphere which have religious
significance would have introduced, if it had been put full into play,
a new era of personal freedom and a new stage in the progress of the
Kingdom of God as a world-wide brotherhood of men engaged in mutual
service.

{9}

II

But the young Luther of these glowing ideals is not the actual Luther
of the Protestant Reformation, any more than the Augustine of the
mighty spiritual experiences portrayed in the _Confessions_ is the St.
Augustine of history. The historical Luther had the hero-spirit in him
in high degree; he had mystical depth and inward experience as we have
seen, and he possessed the prophetic power of vision and forereach
which makes him often seem far in advance of his time; but these
dynamic traits were more than overbalanced by his fundamentally
conservative disposition and by his determinat