ings of literature could not disable;
to offset whose opinions the greatest general council the Church of
Rome ever held had to be convened, and, after sitting eighteen years,
could not adjourn without conceding much to his positions; and whose
name the greatest and most enlightened nations of the earth hail with
glad acclaim,--necessarily must have been a wonder of a man.[24]

To begin with a minority consisting of one, and conquer kingdoms with
the mere sword of his mouth; to bear the anathemas of Church and the
ban of empire, and triumph in spite of them; to refuse to fall down
before the golden image of the combined Nebuchadnezzars of his time,
though threatened with the burning fires of earth and hell; to turn
iconoclast of such magnitude and daring as to think of smiting the
thing to pieces in the face of principalities and powers to whom it
was as God--nay, to attempt this, _and to succeed in it_,--here was
sublimity of heroism and achievement explainable only in the will and
providence of the Almighty, set to recover His Gospel to a perishing
race.[25]

FOOTNOTES:

[24] "In no other instance have such great events depended upon the
courage, sagacity, and energy of a single man, who, by his sole and
unassisted efforts, made his solitary cell the heart and centre of the
most wonderful and important commotion the world ever witnessed--who
by the native force and vigor of his genius attacked and successfully
resisted, and at length overthrew, the most awful and sacred authority
that ever imposed its commands on mankind."--A letter prefixed to
Luther's _Table-Talk_ in the folio edition of 1652.

[25] "To overturn a system of religious belief founded on ancient and
deep-rooted prejudices, supported by power and defended with no less
art than industry--to establish in its room doctrines of the most
contrary genius and tendency, and to accomplish all this, not by
external violence or the force of arms, are operations which
historians the least prone to credulity and superstition ascribe to
that divine providence which with infinite ease can bring about events
which to human sagacity appear impossible."--Robertson's _Charles V._

HIS IMPRESS UPON THE WORLD.

To describe the fruits of Luther's labors would require the writing of
the whole history of modern civilization and the setting forth of the
noblest characteristics of this our modern world.[26]

On the German nation he has left more of his impress than any