ON THE REVIVAL OF LITERATURE. 



321 



liius, Melancthon, Bucer, and Luther, coincided : but the three former, being 

 of mild, conciliatory tempers, remained quiet ; while the natural hardihood and 

 high spirit of the last incited him to open resistance. Our time will not 

 allow us to enter into the dispute : the high pontiff, whose natural disposition, 

 it must be admitted, was also conciliatory, stood aloof from it as long as it 

 was possible ; but his delegates were, for the most part, incautious, violent, 

 and overbearing; and Luther, in almost every instance, had the advantage of 

 them, as much in dexterity of management as in soundness of cause. The 

 controversy grew wider and warmer : one step led on to another; and the 

 inflexible champion who, at first, only intended to controvert the infallibility 

 of the Pope, at length found himself compelled to controvert that of the 

 Church, and, finally, to regard the high pontiff as Antichrist. The conten- 

 tion had now reached its extreme point; and the only alternative that re- 

 mained to the intrepid monk of St. Augustin was retraction or excommuni- 

 cation. He halted not between two opinions, but boldly braved the latter ; 

 and addressing himself to the emperor Charles V., who presided at the august 

 and crowded diet before which he was summoned, "As your majesty," said 

 he, " and the sovereigns now present, require a simple answer, I reply thus, 

 without vehemence or evasion : Unless I be convinced, by the testimony of 

 Scripture, or of plain reason (for on the authority of the Pope and Councils 

 alone 1 cannot rely, since it appears that they have frequently erred and con- 

 tradicted each other), and unless my conscience be subdued by the word of 

 God, I neither can nor will retract any thing; seeing that to act against my 

 own conscience is neither safe nor honest." After which he added, in his 

 native German, the preceding having been spoken in Latin, " Here I take my 

 stand. I cannot act otherwise. God be my help. Amen." 



|l|te Httkt tcH. 35ch km ntcJit antJers. iBrOtt firlft mtn. Amen. 



With this noble protest was laid the key-stone of the Reformation : the 

 pontifical hierarchy shook to its centre ; and the great cause of truth and re- 

 . generate religion, which had already made its appearance in Switzerland, 

 under the honest-hearted and undaunted Ulric Zwingle, spread with electric 

 speed over a considerable portion of Germany ; and, within the space of four 

 years, extended itself from Hungary and Bohemia to France and Great Bri- 

 tain. That, in the infancy of its progress, various enormities were perpe- 

 trated, and that even the conduct of its mighty leader was, in this respect, 

 not at all times irreproachable, must be equally admitted and lamented ; but 

 they were enormities merely incidental to the inexperienced season of infancy, 

 and which disappeared as the cause ripened into mature age ; while, whatever 

 may have been tiie occasional violence of Martin Luther, " all parties must unite 

 in admiring and venerating the man who, undaunted and alone, could stand be- 

 fore such an assembly, and vindicate, with unshaken courage, what he conceived 

 to be the cause of religion, of liberty, and of truth ; fearless of any reproaches 

 but those of his own conscience, or ofany disapprobation but that of his God."* 



Such is a brief glance at the wonderful periods that anticipated and have 

 introduced our own unrivalled era. Long and doubtful was the conflict be- 

 tween intellectual life and death: glimmering slowly succeeding to glimmer- 

 mg; light still struggling with suffocating darkness, not for weeks, or months, 

 or years, but for centuries upon centuries, before the day-spring became mani- 

 fest. Yet, no sooner had the long-delayed and long-wished-for fulness of the 

 times at length arrived, than the marble tomb of ignorance and error gave way, 

 as it were, of a sudden ; a thousand glorious events and magnificent disco- 

 veries thro-nged upon each other with pressing haste, to behold and congra- 

 tulate the mighty birth, the new creation of which they were the harbingers ; 

 when, with a steady and triumphant step, the peerless form of human intel- 

 lect rose erect; and, throwing off from its freshening limbs the death-shade and 

 the grave-clothes by which it was enshrouded, ascended to the glorious resur- 

 rection of that noontide lustre which irradiates the horizon of °our own day, 

 rejoicing like a giant to run his race. 



*Boscoe's Life of Leo. X. vol, iv. p. 3fl 



