t must necessarily be subject to some of the
disadvantages which he himself had so grandly combatted in the
Catholic Church. His mental makeup was firmly decided and unyielding:
he was born to be a ruler if ever a mortal was; but this gigantic,
daemonic character of his will inevitably made him sometimes a tyrant.
Although he practised tolerance in many important matters, often as
the result of self-restraint and often with a willing heart, this was
only the fortunate result of his kindly disposition, which was
effective also here. Not infrequently, however, he became the pope of
the Protestants. For him and his people there was no choice. He has
been reproached in modern times for doing so little to bring the laity
into cooeperation by means of a presbyterial organization. Never was a
reproach more unjust. What was possible in Switzerland, with
congregations of sturdy free peasants, was utterly impracticable at
that time in Germany. Only the dwellers in the larger cities had among
them enough intelligence and power to criticise the Protestant clergy;
almost nine-tenths of the Protestants in Germany were oppressed
peasants, the majority of whom were indifferent and stubborn, corrupt
in morals, and, after the Peasant War, savage in manners. The new
church was obliged to force its discipline upon them as upon neglected
children. Whoever doubts this should look at the reports of
visitations, and notice the continued complaints of the reformers
about the rudeness of their poverty-stricken congregations. But the
great man was subject to still further hindrances. The ruler of the
souls of the German people lived in a little town, among poor
university professors and students, in a feeble community of which he
often had occasion to complain. He was spared none of the evils of
petty surroundings, of unpleasant disputes with narrow-minded scholars
or uncultured neighbors. There was much in his nature which made him
especially sensitive to such things. No man bears in his heart with
impunity the feeling of being the privileged instrument of God.
Whoever lives in that feeling is too great for the narrow and petty
structure of middle-class society. If Luther had not been modest to
the depths of his heart, and of infinite kindness in his intercourse
with others, he would inevitably have appeared perfectly unendurable
to the matter-of-fact and common-sense people who stood indifferent by
his side. As it was, however, he came only on r