"What can be offered in justification, that these poor people have hitherto been left in such great ignorance and stupidity? My heart bleeds when I regard this misery. Often when we have completed the visitation of a place, I go to one side and pour forth my distress in tears. And who would not mourn to see the faculties of man so utterly neglected, and that his soul, which is able to learn and grasp so much, does not even know anything of its Creator and Lord?"

After the visitation of the churches of Saxony, in 1528, Luther wrote in the preface of his "Small Catechism": "The pitiable need which I recently witnessed, as visitor, has compelled me to prepare this catechism on Christian doctrine in such simple form. Alas! what a sad state of things I witnessed! The common people, especially in the villages, are utterly ignorant of the Christian doctrine; even many pastors are wholly unqualified to teach; and yet all are called Christians, are baptized, and partake of the sacrament, knowing neither the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, nor the Ten Commandments, and living and acting like irrational beasts. Nevertheless, now that the precious gospel has appeared again, they readily learn to abuse all freedom. O you bishops! how will you ever answer to Christ for having so shamefully neglected the people, and for not having exercised one moment your office that you might escape all evil?"

Another passage or two from Luther must suffice, in addition to what has already been said, to indicate the wretched state of education at the time of the Reformation. "Is it not truly pitiable," he says, "that a boy has been obliged to study twenty years or longer to learn

enough bad Latin to become a priest and read mass? And whoever has accomplished that has been called blessed, and blessed the mother who has borne such a child; and yet he has remained a poor, ignorant man all his life long, unfit for any useful vocation. Such teachers and masters we have been obliged to have everywhere, who have known nothing themselves, and have been able to teach nothing good or useful; yea, they have not known the way in which one should learn and teach." Elsewhere he says: "Is it not obvious that a boy can now be instructed so that he knows more in his fifteenth or eighteenth year than all the universities and convents have hitherto known? Yea, what have they taught in the universities and convents but to become blockheads? A man has studied twenty, forty years, and has learned neither Latin nor German. Of the shameful, licentious life, by which the generous youth have been destroyed, I say nothing."

(B.) PRINCIPLES OF PROTESTANTISM.

The fundamental principles of Protestantism are favorable to education. The two great truths underlying the Reformation are-1. Man is justified by faith alone; 2. The Bible is the only rule of religious faith and practice. In the Protestant Church, all become by faith kings and priests unto God. The only mediator between God and man is Jesus Christ; and, through him, all believers, without the intervention of priest, saint, or pope, have immediate access to the Father. With the Scriptures and his conscience for guides, every man is elevated to the freedom and dignity of ordering his own religious life. The feeling of individual responsibility

is awakened, and the spirit of inquiry fostered. Intelligence becomes a necessity. The Bible must be studied; teachers must be provided; schools must be established. Protestantism becomes the mother of popular education.

Justification by faith goes further. It makes Christ, and not the Church, the center of Christianity. Personal union with him constitutes the Christian. Religion consists in exemplifying his principles in all the relations of life; in being pure, humble, temperate, honest, loving; in being like the great Teacher himself. It involves a thorough transformation of individual character. It does not withdraw man from the ordinary callings and relations of life; it makes him a steward of God in the world, and exalts his daily labors in the household, in the school-room, in the workshop, on the farm, into a divine service. The Protestant view restores Nature, as a subject of investigation, to its rights. The whole circle of knowledge-whatever is elevating, whatever prepares for useful living-is held in honor. Primary and secondary schools are encouraged; the best methods of instruction, based upon a study of man's nature and not upon the interests of the Church, are sought out; education is based upon a broad and solid foundation. Protestantism is the friend of universal learning.

"In rendering man responsible for his faith, and in placing the source of that faith in holy Scripture," says Michel Bréal, an able French scholar, "the Reformation contracted the obligation of placing every one in a condition to save himself by reading and studying the Bible. Instruction became then the first of the duties of charity; and all who had charge of souls, from the father of a

family to the magistrates of cities and to the sovereign of the state, were called upon, in the name of their own salvation, and each according to the measure of his responsibility, to favor popular education. Thus Protestantism, by a connection of ideas whose philosophic value can not be here discussed, but whose practical consequences were of inestimable value, placed in the service of education the most effective stimulus and the most powerful interest that can be brought to bear upon men."

3. THE REFORMERS.

(A.) LUTHER.

The greatest of the Reformers, whether we consider his relation to the Church or to education, was Martin Luther. Carlyle has paid him a glowing tribute. "I will call this Luther," he says, "a true great man; great in intellect, in courage, affection, and integrity; one of our most lovable and precious men. Great not as a

hewn obelisk, but as an Alpine mountain, so simple, honest, spontaneous, not setting up to be great at all; there for quite another purpose than being great! Ah, yes, unsubduable granite, piercing far and wide into the heavens; yet in the clefts of it fountains, green and beautiful valleys with flowers! A right spiritual hero and prophet; once more a true son of Nature and fact, for whom these centuries, and many that are to come yet, will be thankful to Heaven."

Luther was born at Eisleben, Germany, November 10, 1483. His father was a miner in humble circumstances. The home-training which he received was se

vere and hardening. His father sometimes whipped him "for a mere trifle till the blood came." At school, he came under the prevalent cruel discipline, and was flogged, as he tells us, fifteen times during a single forenoon. After studying at schools in Magdeburg and Eisenach, he entered the University of Erfurt at eighteen, and in three years took his degree of Master of Arts. He was designed by his father for the law; but, finding a copy of the Bible in the university library one day, he was moved by its contents, and resolved upon devoting himself to the monastic life. He entered the Augustinian convent at Erfurt. Here he spent three years in profound study, passed through great spiritual trials, and laid the foundation of those doctrinal convictions which were shortly to shake the world. In 1508 he was called to a chair in the University of Wittenberg, and the following year he commenced lecturing upon the holy Scriptures. "This monk," said the rector of the university, "will puzzle our doctors and bring in a new doctrine." About the same time he began to preach, profoundly moving his hearers. "His words," Melanchthon said, "were born not on his lips but in his soul." In 1511 he made a visit to Rome, and observed the profligacy of the papal court. After his return to Wittenberg the sale of indulgences by Tetzel aroused his indignation, and he prepared ninety-five theses, in which he maintained that only God can forgive sin. He nailed his theses to the church-door, October 31, 1517, and offered to defend them against the world. This was the birth-hour of the Reformation. He was soon brought to open rupture with the Church, and in 1521 he was summoned before the Imperial Diet at Worms to answer