REFORMATION.

A work of such magnitude as the Reformation could not easily be
consummated in one generation. The real severance from the Roman
Catholic church was effected by Luther and Melanchthon; but these men
did not live long enough to give the symmetry and polish to their work
which it really needed. Unfortunately, their successors failed to
perform the necessary task. But lofty as our ideas of the Reformation
should be, we must not be blind to the fact that German Protestantism
bears sad evidences of early mismanagement. To-day, the Sabbath in
Prussia, Baden, and all the Protestant nationalities is hardly
distinguishable from that of Bavaria, Austria, Belgium, or France. But a
few bold words from Martin Luther on the sanctity of that day, as the
Scriptures declare it, would have made it as holy in Germany as it now
is in England and the United States. Another error, not so great in
itself as in the evils it induced, was the concessions which
Protestantism granted to the civil magistrate. The friendly and heroic
part which the Elector of Saxony took in the labors of the Reformers,
made it a matter of deference to vest much ecclesiastical authority in
the civil head. But when, in later years, this confidence was abused, it
was not so easy to alter the conditions of power. We see in this very
fact one of the underlying causes of the great Rationalistic defection.
The individual conscience was allowed almost no freedom at certain
periods. The slightest deviation from the mere expression of doctrine
was visited with severe penalty. Strigel was imprisoned; Hardenberg was
deposed and banished; Peucer doomed to ten years' imprisonment; Cracau
put to death on the slightest pretenses; and Huber was deposed and
expatriated for a mere variation in stating the Lutheran doctrine that
none are excluded from salvation.[11]

There were several causes which contributed to the intemperate
controversies that sprang up immediately after the Reformation. The
Reformers were involved in serious disputes among themselves. Had Luther
and Zwinglius never uttered the word _Consubstantiation_ they would have
gained multitudes to the cause they both loved so dearly. Many other
questions, which unfortunately occupied so much public attention, caused
minute divisions among those who should have stood firm and united in
that plastic period of the great movement. But it is to the numerous
confessions of faith that we must attribute most of th