. 147.)

Under the restriction under which this book was written as regards
space, we cannot enter as we would like to upon an exhaustive
discussion of Luther's political views. Luther was in this respect the
most enlightened European citizen of his age. He has voiced sound
principles on the rights of the State and its limitations and the
objects for which the State exists and does not exist, on the separation
of Church and State, on the removal of bad rulers from authority, and
especially on liberty. The power of the State he values because it
secures to each individual citizen the highest degree of liberty
possible in this life. Those who represent Luther as a defender of
anarchy or tyranny either do not know what they are talking about, or
they do it for a purpose, and deserve the contempt of all intelligent
men.

24. Luther the Destroyer of Liberty of Conscience.

Catholics claim that Luther's work, though ostensibly undertaken in
behalf of religious liberty, necessarily had to result in the very
opposite of freedom. They point to the fact that in most countries which
accepted the Protestant faith the Church became subservient to the
State. These state churches of Europe, however, which in the view of
Catholics are the product of Luther's reform movement, are to be
regarded as only one symptom of the intolerance which characterizes the
entire activity of Luther. He had indeed adopted the principle of
"private interpretation" of the Scriptures, however, only for himself.
He was unwilling to accord to others the right which he claimed for
himself. All who dissented from his teaching were promptly attacked by
him, and that, in violent and scurrilous language. The Protestant party
in the course of time became a warring camp of Ishmaelites, Luther
fighting everybody and everybody fighting Luther. Religious intolerance
and persecution became the prevailing policy of Protestants in their
dealings with other Protestants. The burning of Servetus at Geneva by
Calvin was the logical outcome of Luther's teaching. The maxim, _Cuius
regio, eius religio,_ that is, The prince, or government, in whose
territory I reside determines my religion, became a Protestant tenet.
America got its first taste of religious liberty, not from the original
Protestant settlers, but from the Catholic colonists whom Lord
Baltimore brought to Maryland, etc., etc.

The view here propounded is in plain contravention of what the world has
hitherto