ou have seen--the greatness, the splendor, the
savagery, the greed, the pride, the hate, the mercilessness, into one
colossal, terrifyingly Satanic woman-face. The first was clothed in a
simple, soft, white robe; the other in a befitting tragic splendor,
mostly blood-red. I looked from one to the other. What immeasurable
distance between them! What single point have they in common? But as
I look back and forth I seem to see a certain formal similarity. It
grows upon me. I am incredulous. I am appalled. Then one touches me
and whispers: 'They are the same. It is the Church.' In London I saw
this--in the air."--WILLIAM LOWE BRYAN.

Four centuries ago began the great struggle for freedom of thought
which has made our modern civilization possible. I wish here to give
something of the story of a man who in his day was not the least in
this conflict--a man who dared to think and act for himself when
thought and act were costly--Ulrich von Hutten.

Near Frankfort-on-the-Main, on a sharp pinnacle of rock above the
little railway station of Vollmerz, may still be found the scanty ruins
of an old castle which played a brave part in German history before it
was destroyed in the Thirty Years War.

In this castle of Steckelberg, in the year 1488, was born Ulrich von
Hutten. He was the last of a long line of Huttens of Steckelberg,
strong men who knew not fear, who had fought for the Emperor in all
lands whither the imperial eagle had flown, and who, when the empire
was at peace, had fought right merrily with their neighbors on all
sides. Robber-knights they were, no doubt, some or all of them; but in
those days all was fair in love and in war. And this line of warriors
centered in Ulrich von Hutten, and with him it ended. "The wild
kindred has gone out with this its greatest."

Ulrich was the eldest son, and bore his father's name. But he was not
the son his father had dreamed of. Slender of figure, short of
stature, and weak of limb, Ulrich seemed unworthy of his burly
ancestry. The horse, the sword, and the lute were not for him. He
tried hard to master them and to succeed in all things worthy of a
knight. But he was strong only with his books. At last to his books
his father consigned him, and, sorely disappointed, he sent Ulrich to
the monastery of Fulda to be made a priest.

A wise man, Eitelwolf von Stein, became his friend, and pointed out to
him a life braver than that of a priest, more noble tha