weaving the web of a Protestant scholasticism, strengthening and
defending their favourite dogma of justification by faith, abusing and
persecuting such as differed from them on some all-important question of
dogma or doctrine, framing propositions of passive obedience, and other
such congenial pursuits.

Of the moral effect of the Reformation, of its effect on the general
character of the people who came under its influence, which is the one
test by which every such movement can be judged, we need say but little.
To put it as mildly as possible, it must be admitted, to use the words
of one of its modern admirers,[10:1] that "the Reformation did not at
first carry with it much cleansing force of moral enthusiasm." In the
hands of men more logical or of a less healthy moral fibre, Luther's
favourite dogma, of justification by faith alone, led to conclusions
subversive of all morality. However this may be, enemies and friends
alike have to admit that the immediate effects of the Reformation were a
dissolution of morals, a careless neglect of education and learning, and
a general relaxation of the restraints of religion. In passage after
passage, Luther himself declared that the last state of things was worse
than the first; that vice of every kind had increased since the
Reformation; that the nobles were more greedy, the burghers more
avaricious, the peasants more brutal; that Christian charity and
liberality had almost ceased to flow; and that the authorised preachers
of religion were neither heeded, respected nor supported by the people:
all of which he characteristically attributed to the workings of the
devil, a personage who plays a most important part in Luther's theology
and view of life.

Thus, to judge by its immediate effects, the Reformation appears to have
been conducive neither to moral, to social, nor to political progress.
And yet to-day we know that the intellectual movement of which it was
the outcome contained within itself inspiring conceptions of social
justice, political equality, economic freedom, aye, even of religious
toleration and moral purity, unknown to any preceding age, and the full
fruits of which have yet to be harvested to elevate and to bless
mankind.

FOOTNOTES:

[4:1] Luther's _Works_, ed. Walch, viii. 2043: "Erklaerung der Ep. an die
Galater." Quoted by Beard, _The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century_,
p. 163.

[7:1] See Thorold Rogers' _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, p.