s like
Waitz and Kurtz.

Naturally, all was not as bad as this. A rather attractive form of the
thesis was presented by Karl Sell. Whereas, he thinks, Protestantism has
died, or is dying, as a religion, it still exists as a mood, as
bibliolatry, as a national and political cult, as a scientific and
technical motive-power, and, last but not least, as the ethos and pathos
of the Germanic peoples.

[Sidenote: The Great War]

In the Great War Luther was mobilized as one of the German national
assets. Professor Gustav Kawerau and many others appealed to the
Reformer's writings for inspiration and justification of their cause; and
the German infantry sang "Ein' feste Burg" while marching to battle.

Even outside of Germany the war of 1870 meant, in many quarters, the
defeat of the old liberalism and the rise of a new school inclined, even
in America--witness Mahan--to see in armed force rather than in
intellectual and moral ideas the decisive factors in history. Many
scholars noticed, in this connection, the shift of power from the
Catholic nations, led by France, to the Protestant peoples, Germany,
England and America. Some, like Acton, though impressed by it, did not
draw the conclusion ably presented by a Belgian, Emile de Laveleye, that
the cause of national superiority lay in Protestantism, but it doubtless
had a wide influence, partly unconscious, on the verdict of history.

[Sidenote: Reaction against German ideals]

But the recoil was far greater than the first movement. Paul Sabatier
wrote (in 1913) that until 1870 Protestantism had enjoyed the esteem of
thoughtful {738} men on account of its good sense, domestic and civic
virtues and its openness to science and literary criticism. This high
opinion, strengthened by the prestige of German thought, was shattered,
says our authority, by the results of the Franco-Prussian war, its train
of horrors, and the consequences to the victors, who raved of their
superiority and attributed to Luther the result of Sedan.

The Great War loosed the tongues of all enemies of Luther. "Literary and
philosophic Germany," said Denys Cochin in an interview, "prepared the
evolution of the state and the cult of might. . . . The haughty and
aristocratic reform of Luther both prepared and seconded the aberration."

[Sidenote: Paquier]

Paquier has written a book around the thesis: "Nothing in the present war
would have been alien to Luther, for like all Germans of to-day, h