ation
lasting long." On the other hand Zwingli predicted that the Swiss creed
would be handed down from generation to generation, crossing the Elbe
and the Rhine. Prophet against prophet, if success be the test of truth,
Luther will inevitably have to yield in this point.

The Reformation, which at first was entirely a religious phenomenon,
soon assumed a political character; it could not fail to do so. When
people began to exclaim, like Luther, on the house-tops: "The Emperor
Charles V ought not to be supported longer; let him and the Pope be
knocked on the head;" that "he is an excited madman, a bloodhound, who
must be killed with pikes and clubs," how could civil society continue
subject to authority? It was natural that the monk's virulent writings
against the bishops' spiritual power should be reduced by the subjects
of the ecclesiastical superiors into a political theory. When he
proclaimed that the yoke of priests and monks must be shaken off, we
might expect that this wild appeal would be directed against the tithes
which the people paid to the prelates and the abbots. The Saxon's
doctrine being based wholly on the holy Scriptures, the peasant
considered himself authorized in virtue of their text to break violently
with his lord; hence that long war between the cottage and the castle.
This it was that made Erasmus write sorrowfully to Luther: "You see that
we are now reaping the fruits of what you sowed. You will not
acknowledge the rebels; but they acknowledge you, and they know only too
well that many of your disciples, who clothed themselves in the mantle
of the Gospel, have been the instigators of this bloody rebellion. In
your pamphlet against the peasants, you in vain endeavor to justify
yourself. It is you who have raised the storm by your publications
against the monks and the prelates, and you say that you fight for
gospel liberty, and against the tyranny of the great! From the moment
that you began your tragedy I foresaw the end of it."

That civil war, in which Germany had to mourn the loss of more than a
hundred thousand of her children, was the consequence of Luther's
preaching. It is fortunate that, through the efforts of a Catholic
prince, Duke George of Saxony, it was speedily brought to an end. Had it
lasted but a few years longer, of all the ancient monuments with which
Germany was filled, not a single vestige would have remained. Karlstadt
might then have sat upon their ruins, and sung, with