Reformation

The four most prominent events of modern history are the invasion of the barbarians, which blended the German and Roman elements of civilization, and subjected the new nations to the influence of Christianity; the crusades, which broke up the stagnation of European society, and by inflicting a blow upon the feudal system opened a path for the centralization of the nations and governments of Europe; the Reformation, in which religion was purified and the human mind emancipated from sacerdotal authority; and the French Revolution, a tremendous struggle for political equality. The Reformation, like these other great social convulsions, was long in preparation. Of the French Revolution, the last upon the list of historical epochs of capital importance, De Tocqueville observes: "It was least of all a fortuitous event. It is true that it took the world by surprise; and yet it was only the completion of travail most prolonged, the sudden and violent termination of a work on which ten generations had been laboring."

Notwithstanding that three centuries have since elapsed, the real origin and significance of the Reformation remain a subject of controversy. The rapid spread of Luther's opinions was attributed by at least one of his contemporaries "to a certain uncommon and malignant position of the stars, which scattered the spirit of giddiness and innovation over the world.

Even a living German historian, a learned as well as brilliant writer, speaks of the Reformation as an academical quarrel that served as a nucleus for all the discontent of a turbulent age. It is true that an Augustinian monk began the conflict by assailing certain practices of a Dominican, that each found much support in his own order, and that the rival universities of Wittenberg and Leipsic enlisted on opposite sides in the strife. But these are mere incidents. To bring them forward as principal causes of a mighty historic change, is little short of trifling. A class of persons dispose of the whole question in a summary manner by calling the Reformation a new phase of the old conflict which the Popes had waged with the Hohenstaufen Emperors; of the struggle between civil and ecclesiastical authority.

The Reformation, in his judgment, was an effort to deliver human reason from the bonds of authority; "it was an insurrection of the human mind against the absolute power of the spiritual order." It was not an accident, the result of some casual circumstance; it was not simply an effort to purify the Church. But he is careful to add that his definition does not describe the conscious purpose of the actors who achieved the revolution. The Reformation, he says, "in this respect performed more than it undertook, - more, probably, than it desired." "In point of fact, it produced the prevalence of free inquiry; in point of principle, it believed that it was substituting a legitimate for an illegitimate power."

The distinction between the conscious aims of the leaders in a revolution, and the real drift and ultimate effect of their work; between the direct end which they endeavor to secure, and the deeper, hidden impulse, the undercurrent by which they are really impelled, is one that is proper to be made. Yet we venture to consider the interpretation of Guizotdefective as confining the import 1nd effect of the Reformation within too narrow limits. The Reformation claimed to be a reform of religion; it was certainly a religious revolution; and religion is so great a concern of man and so deep and pervasive in its influence, that this distinctive feature of the Reformation must be held to belong to its essential character.