The Ptolemaic hypothesis of the universe was then in fashion. It was supposed that the earth was the centre of celestial motions, that the sun, the moon, and the stars revolved around the world which we inhabit. Not that the Pythagorean hypothesis was totally forgotten. There were those who believed that the sun, not the earth, is the centre of the great circle in which the heavenly bodies perform their evolutions; but the Ptolemaic hypothesis had the ascendency beyond all doubt; and with this hypothesis Copernicus could not rest satisfied. It appeared to him beset with insuperable difficulties. True enough, the rotation of the heavens around the earth seemed to be what the human eye beheld, as anyone watched sunrise and sunset. But what the senses thus presented, reason, in its ponderings, was led to contradict. For the notion of a huge mechanism like the celestial sphere, spinning round the terraqueous globe as its pivot looked unreasonable. To explain it in any way on mathematical principles needed a most complicated array of cycles and epicycles. Symmetry and simplicity were wanting in the theory. A priori objections started up against it. If the senses pointed to the earth as a centre, reason pointed to a centre elsewhere. Copernicus studied the works of ancient philosophers on the question. He examined mathematical traditions and criticised the opinions of learned professors. He found accounts of those who had asserted the motion of the earth. "Though," he says, "it appeared an absurd opinion, yet, since I knew that in former times liberty had been permitted to others to figure as they pleased certain circles for the purpose of demonstrating the phenomena of the stars, I considered that to me also it might be easily allowed to try whether, by a supposition of the earth's motion, a better explanation might be found of the revolution of the celestial orbs. Having assumed," he goes on to say, "the motions of the earth, by laborious and long observation I at length found that if the motions of the other planets be compared with the revolution of the earth, not only these phenomena follow from the suppositions, but also that the several orbs and the whole system are so connected in order and magnitude, that no one part can be transposed without disturbing the rest and introducing confusion into the whole universe." What Copernicus was in search of was some simple and symmetrical theory of the appearances of the heavens which would relieve him of the complexity and confusion attendant on the Ptolemaic system so popular in the schools. He started from an a priori point of reasoning—the only one thought of in his day—but he came to certain conclusions which a posteriori examination in after times abundantly confirmed.



He believed that the earth is spherical; that the earth and the sea constitute a wonderful globe; that the motions of the heavenly bodies are circular and uniform, or compounded of circular and uniform motions; that the earth revolves on its own axis, and also performs a journey along its own orbit round the sun; that the sphere of the fixed stars is immensely distant, and that it is impossible to explain the motion of the planets upon the supposition of the earth being their centre. And he distinctly remarks: "It does not shame us to confess that the whole space in which the moon revolves, together with the earth, moves along a great orbit among the planets, round the sun every year; that the sun remains permanent and immovable, whatever may be its apparent motion." It must be kept in mind throughout any careful study of his theory, that it was an hypothesis framed to remove difficulties connected with older systems; that he sought to bring conceptions of the universe into harmony with reason, instead of giving way to impressions made by the senses, or to the authority of world-honored teachers, either in other days or in his own; nor can we omit adding that, while he found fault with the Ptolemaic cycles and epicycles, he constructed similar devices of his own.

"As the real motions, both of the earth and the planets, are unequable, it was requisite to have some mode of representing their inequalities; and accordingly the ancient theory of excentrics and epicycles was retained so far as was requisite for this purpose." In the case of Mercury's orbit he makes suppositions which are extremely complex, although they manifest his apprehension of the difficulties attendant on the common theory of his own time; but he verified many of his views by astronomical observations; and his approximations to modern science, and the light he threw on preceding discoveries, establish the fame of Nicholas Copernicus.

On a review of the life of Copernicus, and the conclusions he reached, the mental and moral qualities of the man come out with conspicuous and extraordinary lustre.

He was a mathematician, thus walking in the footsteps of Roger Bacon. This science, since the days of Euclid, had been pursued with untiring ardor, and many who neglected to study, or who, by their own imagination, distorted the actual phenomena of nature, addicted themselves to the investigation of the abstract properties of magnitude and number. Copernicus, in his knowledge of mathematical principles, and in his skilful application of them to astronomical inquiries, probably surpassed all his contemporaries. And, at the same time, he had that inventive genius which is fruitful in suggestions, such as become pioneers in the path of scientific demonstration. His independence of mind, his real originality, and his boldness in the pursuit of truth are quite as remarkable as the qualities just noticed; indeed, they are involved in or they led to the latter of these. "I beg you," says one of his admiring disciples, "to have this opinion concerning that learned man, my preceptor, that he was an ardent admirer and follower of Ptolemy; but when he was compelled by phenomena and demonstration, he thought he did well to aim at the same mark at which Ptolemy had aimed, though with a bow and shaft very different from his." We must recollect that Ptolemy says 'He who is to follow philosophy must be a freeman in mind.' Copernicus knew very well that there were many prepared to challenge his conclusions, and perhaps to bring theological objections to the principles of science which he had been constrained to adopt. "If, perchance," it is said in the preface to his book on astronomy, "there be vain babblers who, knowing nothing of mathematics, yet assume the right of judging, on account of some place of Scripture, perversely wrested to their purpose, and who blame and attack my undertaking, I heed them not, and look upon their judgments as rash and contemptible."

Copernicus had a profound reverence for Scripture. He regarded it as the Word of God, able to make us wise unto salvation; and none of his discoveries pertaining to the laws of nature shook for one moment his confidence in the revelation of the gospel. Copernicus delayed for years the publication of his discoveries to the world. That delay had been thought to have proceeded from something like fear, or, at least, caution, lest views in some respects so novel should rouse ecclesiastical antagonism and expose him to serious persecution. But the words used in the dedication of his astronomical work seem to point in another direction. It is there said that he had kept it four times the nine years recommended by Horace, and published it at last in compliance with the entreaties of his friend, Cardinal Schomberg. "Though I know," it is added, "that the thoughts of a philosopher do not depend on the judgment of the many, his study being to seek out truth in all things as far as that is permitted by God to human reason, yet when I considered how absurd that doctrine would appear, I long hesitated whether I should publish my book, or whether it were not better to follow the example of the Pythagoreans and others, who delivered their doctrines only by tradition and to friends." From this passage we should infer that he apprehended controversy rather than persecution, that for the former he had no desire, that he was without ambition, and felt no wish to found a new school, but would rather leave truths he had learned quietly to make their way through the world.

The fame of Copernicus is now wide as the world. He painted a portrait of himself which fell into the hands of Tycho Brahe; and he wrote an epigram upon the subject, to the effect that the whole earth could not contain the whole of the man who whirled it along the ocean of ether. Less extravagant was the grateful enthusiasm of Rhiticus, a disciple of Copernicus, when he wrote, "God has given to my excellent preceptor a reign without end, which may He vouchsafe to guide, govern, and increase, to the restoration of astronomical truth. Amen!"

"The Copernican system" is the name now generally given to the almost universal scientific belief that the earth and the planets revolve around the sun, though the system carried out and perfected by Kepler, Newton, Halley, Laplace, and others is by no means perfectly identical with the theory of the German astronomer. But the inextricable interweaving of his name with opinions sanctioned by the entire scientific world, is one of the noblest conceivable tributes to the magnitude and lustre of his renown.

His death was in harmony with his life. Shortly before he expired he repeated these words:

"Non parem Paulo gratiam requiro, Veniam Petri neque posco; sed quam In crucis ligno dederat latroni Sedulus oro."

He had lived a life of Christian virtue—imitating his master, who went about doing good, healing the sick and preaching the gospel to the poor—yet, so far from having anything whereof to boast before God, he said himself that he felt his need of infinite mercy, and in seeking the pardon of his sins he would not place himself on a level with Paul or Peter, but rather choose a point of self-humiliation by the side of the penitent thief.

His work on the revolution of the celestial bodies was passing through the press at the time of his fatal illness in 1543, when he had completed his seventieth year and was brought to him just before he breathed his last; and thus, as has been beautifully expressed, he was "made to touch the first printed copy of his book when the sense of touch was gone, seeing it only as a dim object through the deepening dusk."

He is buried under a flat stone in one of the side aisles of his own cathedral at Frauenburg. On his monument is painted a half-length portrait, pale, thin, aged, but with an expression of countenance intelligent and pleasant. His hair and eyes are black; he is habited as a priest; his hands are joined in prayer; before him is a crucifix, at his feet a skull, and behind him are a globe and a pair of compasses. His devotion, his deadness to the world, and his love of science are thus aptly symbolized.



MARTIN LUTHER

(1483-1546)

]

Martin Luther, the greatest of the Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century, was born at Eisleben on November 10, 1483. His father was a miner in humble circumstances; his mother, as Melancthon records, was a woman of exemplary virtue, and particularly esteemed in her walk of life. Shortly after Martin's birth his parents removed to Mansfeld, where their circumstances ere long improved by industry and perseverance. Their son was sent to school; and both at home and in school his training was severe. His father sometimes whipped him, he says, "for a mere trifle till the blood came," and he was subjected to the scholastic rod fifteen times in one day! Luther's schooling was completed at Magdeburg and Eisenach, and at the latter place he attracted by his singing the notice of a good lady of the name of Cotta, who welcomed the lad into her family and provided him with a comfortable home during his stay there. Here under Trebonius he made good progress in Latin. In 1501, when he had reached his eighteenth year, he entered the university of Erfurt, with the view of qualifying himself for the legal profession. He went through the usual studies in the classics and the schoolmen, and took his degree of doctor of philosophy, or master of arts, in 1505, when he was twenty-one years of age.

Previous to this, however, a profound change of feeling had begun in him. The death of a friend, and the terror of a thunder-storm, deeply impressed him. Chancing one day to examine the Vulgate in the university library, he saw with astonishment that there were more gospels and epistles than in the lectionaries. He was arrested by the contents of his newly found treasure. His heart was deeply touched, and he resolved to devote himself to a spiritual life. He separated himself from his friends and fellow-students, and withdrew into the Augustinian convent at Erfurt. Here he spent the next three years of his life—years of peculiar interest and significance; for it was during this time that he laid, in the study of the Bible and of Augustine, and with the assistance of his life-long friend Staupitz, the foundation of those doctrinal convictions which were afterward to rouse and strengthen him in his life-long struggle. He describes very vividly the spiritual crisis through which he passed, the burden of sin which so long lay upon him, "too heavy to be borne," and the relief that he at length found in the clear apprehension of the doctrine of the "forgiveness of sins," through the grace of Christ.

In the year 1507 Luther was ordained a priest, and in the following year he removed to Wittenberg, destined to derive its chief celebrity from his name. He became a teacher in the new university founded there by the Elector Frederick of Saxony. At first he lectured on dialectics and physics, but his heart was already given to theology, and in 1509 he became a bachelor of theology, and commenced lecturing on the Holy Scriptures. His lectures made a great impression, and the novelty of his views already began to excite attention. "This monk," said the rector of the university, "will puzzle our doctors and bring in a new doctrine." Besides lecturing, he began to preach, and his sermons reached a wider audience, and produced a still more powerful influence. They were printed and widely circulated in Germany, France, and England, so that his doctrines were diffused throughout Europe. His words, as Melancthon says, were "born not on his lips, but in his soul," and they moved profoundly the souls of all who heard them. In 1511 he was sent on a mission to Rome, and he has described very vividly what he saw and heard there. His devout and unquestioning reverence—for he was yet in his own subsequent view "a most insane papist"—appears in strange conflict with his awakened thoughtfulness and the moral indignation at the abuses of the papacy beginning to stir him.



On Luther's return from Rome he was made a doctor of the Holy Scriptures, and his career as a reformer may be said to have commenced. The system of indulgences had reached a scandalous height. The idea that it was in the power of the Church to forgive sin had gradually grown into the notion that the Pope could issue pardons of his own free will, which, being dispensed to the faithful, exonerated them from the consequences of their transgressions. The sale of these pardons had become an organized part of the papal system. Money was largely needed at Rome, and its numerous emissaries sought everywhere to raise funds by the sale of "indulgences;" the principal of these was John Tetzel, a Dominican friar, who had established himself at Jueterberg (1517). Luther's indignation at the shameless traffic which this man carried on, finally became irrepressible. "God willing," he exclaimed, "I will beat a hole in his drum." He drew out ninety-five theses on the doctrine of indulgences, which on October 31st he nailed up on the door of the church at Wittenberg, and which he offered to maintain in the university against all impugners. The general purport of these theses was to deny to the Pope all right to forgive sins. This sudden and bold step of Luther was all that was necessary to awaken a wide-spread excitement. Tetzel was forced to retreat from the borders of Saxony to Frankfort-on-the-Oder, where he drew out and published a set of counter-theses and publicly committed those of Luther to the flames. The students at Wittenberg retaliated by burning Tetzel's theses. The elector refused to interfere, and the excitement increased as new combatants—Hochstratten, Prierias, and Eck—entered the field. Eck was an able man, and an old friend of Luther's, and the argument between him and the reformer was especially vehement. In 1518 the latter was joined by Melancthon, who became one of his dearest and most trusted friends.

At first the Pope, Leo X., took little heed of the disturbance; he is reported even to have said, when he heard of it, that "Friar Martin was a man of genius, and that he did not wish to have him molested." Some of the cardinals, however, saw the real character of the movement, which gradually assumed a seriousness evident even to the Pope; and Luther received a summons to appear at Rome, and answer for his theses (1518). Once again in Rome, it is unlikely he would ever have been allowed to return. His university and the elector interfered, and a legate was sent to Germany to hear and determine the case. Cardinal Cajetan was the legate, and he was but little fitted to deal with Luther. He would enter into no argument with him, but merely called upon him to retract. Luther refused, and fled from Augsburg, whither he had gone to meet the papal representative. The task of negotiation was then undertaken by Miltitz, a German, who was envoy of the Pope to the Saxon court, and by his greater address, a temporary peace was obtained. This did not last long. The reformer was too deeply moved to keep silent. "God hurries and drives me," he said; "I am not master of myself; I wish to be quiet, and am hurried into the midst of tumults." Dr. Eck and he held a memorable disputation at Leipsic (1519), in which the subject of argument was no longer merely the question of indulgences, but the general power of the Pope. The disputation, of course, came to no practical result; each controversialist claimed the victory, and Luther in the meantime made progress in freedom of opinion, and attacked the papal system as a whole more boldly. Erasmus and Hutten joined in the conflict, which waxed more loud and threatening.

In 1520 the reformer published his famous address to the "Christian Nobles of Germany." This was followed in the same year by a treatise "On the Babylonish Captivity of the Church." In these works, both of which circulated widely and powerfully influenced many minds, Luther took firmer and broader ground; he attacked not only the abuses of the papacy and its pretensions to supremacy, but also the doctrinal system of the Church of Rome. "These works," Ranke says, "contain the kernel of the whole Reformation." The papal bull containing forty-one theses was issued against him; the dread document, with other papal books, was burned before an assembled multitude of doctors, students, and citizens, at the Elster Gate of Wittenberg. Germany was convulsed with excitement. Eck (who had been the chief agent in obtaining the bull) fled from place to place, glad to escape with his life, and Luther was everywhere the hero of the hour.

Charles V. had at this time succeeded to the empire, and he convened his first diet of the sovereigns and states at Worms. The diet met in the beginning of 1521; an order was issued for the destruction of Luther's books, and he himself was summoned to appear before the diet. This was above all what he desired—to confess the truth before the assembled powers of Germany. He resolved—having received a safe-conduct—to obey the summons, come what would. All Germany was moved by his heroism; his journey resembled a triumph; the threats of enemies and the anxieties of friends alike failed to move him. "I am resolved to enter Worms," he said, "although as many devils should set at me as there are tiles on the housetops." His appearance and demeanor before the diet, and the firmness with which he held his ground and refused to retract, all make a striking picture. He was not allowed to defend his opinions. "Unless I be convinced," he said, "by Scripture and reason, I neither can nor dare retract anything, for my conscience is a captive to God's word, and it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. There I take my stand. I can do no otherwise. So help me God. Amen."

On his return from Worms he was seized, at the instigation of his friend, the Elector of Saxony, and safely lodged in the old castle of the Wartburg. The affair was made to assume an aspect of violence, but in reality it was designed to secure him from the destruction which his conduct at Worms would certainly have provoked, he having been placed under the ban of the empire. He remained in this shelter for about a year, concealed in the guise of a knight. His chief employment was his translation of the Scriptures into his native language. He composed various treatises besides, and injured his health by sedentary habits and hard study. His imagination became morbidly excited, and he thought he saw and heard the Evil One mocking him while engaged in his literary tasks; the blot from the inkstand that he hurled at him is still shown on the wall of his chamber. The subject of the personality and presence of Satan was a familiar one with Luther, and he has many things about it in his Table-talk.



The disorders which sprang up in the progress of the Reformation recalled Luther to Wittenberg. He felt that his presence was necessary to restrain Carlstadt and others, and, defying any danger to which he might still be exposed, he returned in 1522 to the old scene of his labors, rebuked the unruly spirits who had acquired power in his absence, and resumed with renewed energy his interrupted work. He strove to arrest the excesses of the Zwickau fanatics, and counselled peace and order to the inflamed peasants; while he warned the princes and nobles of the unchristian cruelty of many of their doings, which had driven the people to exasperation and frenzy. At no period of his life is he greater than now, in the stand which he made against lawlessness on the one hand and tyranny on the other. He vindicated his claim to be a reformer in the highest sense by the wise and manly part which he acted in this great social crisis in the history of Germany. In this year also he published his acrimonious reply to Henry VIII. on the seven sacraments. Although he had been at first united in a common cause with Erasmus, estrangement had gradually sprung up between the scholar of Rotterdam and the enthusiastic reformer of Wittenberg. This estrangement came to an open breach in the year 1525, when Erasmus published his treatise "De Libero Arbitrio." Luther immediately followed with his counter-treatise "De Servo Arbitrio." The controversy raged loudly between them; and in the vehemence of his hostility to the doctrine of Erasmus, Luther was led into various assertions of a very questionable kind, besides indulging in the wild abuse of his opponent's character. The quarrel was an unhappy one on both sides; and it must be confessed there is especially a want of generosity in the manner in which Luther continued to cherish the dislike which sprang out of it.

In the course of the same year Luther married Katharina von Bora, one of nine nuns who, under the influence of his teaching, had emancipated themselves from their religious vows. The step rejoiced his enemies and even alarmed some of his friends, like Melancthon. But it greatly contributed to his happiness, while it served to enrich and strengthen his character. All the most interesting and touching glimpses we get of him henceforth are in connection with his wife and children.

Two years after his marriage he fell into a dangerous sickness and depression of spirits, from which he was only aroused by the dangers besetting Christendom from the advance of the Turks. Two years later, in 1529, he engaged in his famous conference at Marburg with Zwingli and other Swiss divines. The following year finds him at Coburg, while the diet sat at Augsburg. It was deemed prudent to intrust the interests of the Protestant cause to Melancthon, who attended the diet, but Luther removed to Coburg to be at hand for consultation. The drawing up of the Augsburg Confession marks the culmination of the German Reformation (1530); and the life of Luther from henceforth possesses comparatively little interest. He survived sixteen years longer, but they are years marked by few incidents of importance. He died at Eisleben on February 18, 1546, and was buried at Wittenberg.

Luther's character presents an imposing combination of great qualities. Endowed with broad human sympathies, massive energy, manly and affectionate simplicity, and rich, if sometimes coarse humor, he is at the same time a spiritual genius. His intuitions of divine truth were bold, vivid, and penetrating, if not comprehensive; and he possessed the art which God alone gives to the finer and abler spirits that He calls to do special work in this world, of kindling other souls with the fire of his own convictions, and awakening them to a higher consciousness of religion and duty. He was a leader of men, therefore, and a Reformer in the highest sense. His powers were fitted to his appointed task; it was a task of Titanic magnitude, and he was a Titan in intellectual robustness and moral strength and courage. It was only the divine energy which swayed him, and of which he recognized himself the organ, that could have accomplished what he did.

View him as a mere theologian, and there are others who take higher rank. There is a lack of patient thoughtfulness and philosophical temper in his doctrinal discussions; but the absence of these very qualities gave vigor to his bold, if sometimes crude, conceptions, and enabled him to triumph in the struggle for life and death in which he was engaged. To initiate the religious movement which was destined to renew the face of Europe, required a gigantic will, which, instead of being crushed by opposition, or frightened by hatred, should only gather strength from the fierceness of the conflict before it. To clear the air thoroughly, as he himself said, thunder and lightning are necessary. Upon the whole, it may be said that history presents few greater characters—few that excite at once more love and admiration, and in which we see tenderness, humor, and a certain picturesque grace and poetic sensibility more happily combined with a lofty and magnanimous, if sometimes rugged, sublimity.

Luther's works are very voluminous, partly in Latin, and partly in German. Among those of more general interest are his Table-Talk, his letters, and sermons. His Commentaries on Galatians and the Psalms are still read; and he was one of the great leaders of sacred song, his hymns, rugged but intense and expressive, having an enduring power.

As an example of his more tender writing, take his letter to his little son Hans:

"Grace and peace in Christ. My dear little son, I am glad to hear that thou learnest well and prayest diligently. Do this, my son, and continue it; when I return home I will bring thee a fine fairing.

"I know a beautiful, cheerful garden, in which many children walk about. They have golden coats on, and gather beautiful apples under the trees, and pears, and cherries, and plums; they sing and jump about, and are merry; they have also fine little horses with golden bridles and silver saddles. And I asked the man, 'Whose children are they?' He replied, 'These are the children who like to pray and learn and are pious.' Then I said, 'My good man, I have a son; his name is Hans Luther; may he not also come to this garden to eat such nice apples and pears, and ride such fine little horses, and play with these children?' And the man said, 'If he likes to pray and learn, and is pious, he shall come to this garden with Lippus and Just; and when they all come together, they shall have pipes and cymbals, lutes, and other musical instruments; and dance and shoot with little cross-bows.'

"And he showed me a fine meadow in the garden, prepared for dancing: there being nothing but golden pipes, cymbals, and beautiful silver cross-bows. But it was yet early, and the children had not dined. Therefore I could not wait for the dancing, and said to the man, 'My good master, I will go quickly and write all this to my dear little son Hans, that he may pray diligently, learn well, and be pious, that he also may be admitted into this garden; but he hath an aunt Lena whom he must bring with him.' The man answered, 'So be it; go and write this to him.'

"Therefore, my dear little son Hans, learn and pray with all confidence; and tell this to Lippus and Just, that they also may learn and pray; and ye will all meet in this beautiful garden. Herewith I commend thee to Almighty God. Give greetings to Aunt Lena, and also a kiss from me,

"Thy loving father,

"MARTIN LUTHER."



CHARLES V. OF GERMANY

(1500-1558)

]

Charles V., who ruled over more kingdoms than any other European monarch before or since, who was the most powerful ruler of his century, and who, on the whole, used his great power wisely and well, was born at Ghent, February 24, 1500. His parents were the Archduke Philip, son of the Emperor Maximilian, and Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. To those united kingdoms Charles succeeded on the death of his grandfather Ferdinand, in 1516. The early part of his reign was stormy; a Flemish regency and Flemish ministers became hateful to the Spaniards, and their discontent broke out into civil war. The Castilian rebels assumed the name of The Holy League, and seemed animated by a spirit not unlike that of the English Commons under the Stuarts. Spain was harassed by these internal contests until 1522, when they were calmed by the presence of Charles, whose prudence and, we may hope, his humanity, put an end to the rebellion. He made some examples, but soon held his hand, with the declaration, that "too much blood had been spilt." An amnesty was more effectual than severities, and the royal authority was strengthened, as it will seldom fail to be, by clemency. Some of his courtiers informed him of the place where one of the ring leaders was concealed. His answer is worthy of everlasting remembrance: "You ought to warn him that I am here, rather than acquaint me where he is."

Spain, the Two Sicilies, the Low Countries, and Franche Comte, belonged to Charles V. by inheritance; and by his grandfather Maximilian's intervention he was elected king of the Romans; nor had he to wait long before that prince's death, in 1519, cleared his path to the empire. But Francis I. of France was also a candidate for the imperial crown, with the advantage of being six years senior to Charles, and of having already given proof of military talent. The Germans, however, were jealous of their liberties; and not unreasonably dreading the power of each competitor, rejected both. Their choice fell on Frederic, Elector of Saxony, surnamed the Wise, celebrated as the protector of Luther; but that prince declined the splendid boon, and recommended Charles, on the plea that a powerful emperor was required to stop the rapid progress of the Turkish arms.

The political jealousy, embittered by personal emulation, which existed between the Emperor and the King of France, broke out into war in 1521. France, Navarre, and the Low Countries were at times the seat of the long contest which ensued; but chiefly Italy. The duchy of Milan had been conquered by Francis in 1515. It was again wrested from the French by the emperor in 1522. In 1523, a strong confederacy was formed against France, by the Pope, the Emperor, the King of England, the Archduke Ferdinand, to whom his brother Charles had ceded the German dominions of the House of Austria, the states of Milan, Venice, and Genoa; all united against a single power. And in addition, the celebrated Constable of Bourbon became a traitor to France to gratify his revenge; brought his brilliant military talents to the emperor's service, and was invested with the command of the Imperial troops in Italy. To this formidable enemy Francis opposed his weak and presumptuous favorite, the Admiral Bonnivet, who was driven out of Italy in 1524, the year in which the gallant Bayard lost his life in striving to redeem his commander's errors.

The confidence of Francis seemed to increase with his dangers, and his faults with his confidence. He again entered the Milanese in 1525, and retook the capital. But Bonnivet was his only counsellor; and under such guidance the siege of Pavia was prosecuted with inconceivable rashness, and the battle of Pavia fought without a chance of gaining it. Francis was taken prisoner, and wrote thus to his mother, the Duchess of Angouleme: "Everything is lost, except our honor." This Spartan spirit has been much admired; but whether justly, may be a question. From a Bayard, nothing could have been better; but the honor of a king is not confined to fighting a battle; and this specimen, like the conduct of Francis in general, proves him to have been the mirror of knighthood, rather than of royalty.

Charles, notwithstanding his victory at Pavia, did not invade France, but, as the price of freedom, he prescribed the harshest conditions to the captive king. At first they were rejected, but his haughty spirit and conscience were at length both reconciled to the casuistry that the fulfilment of forced promises may be eluded. Francis, therefore, consented to the treaty of Madrid, made in 1526, by which it was stipulated that he should give up his claims in Italy and the Low Countries; surrender the Duchy of Burgundy to Spain; and return into captivity if these conditions were not fulfilled in six weeks. When once at large, instead of executing the treaty, he formed a league with the Pope, the King of England, and the Venetians, to maintain the liberty of Italy. The Pope absolved him from his oaths, and he refused to return into Spain. The passions of the rival monarchs were now much excited, and challenges and the lie were exchanged between them. No duel was fought, nor probably intended; but the notoriety of the challenge went far to establish a false point of punctilio, we will not call it honor, among gentlemen, and single combats became more frequent than in the ages of barbarism.

In 1529, the course of these calamities was suspended by the treaty of Cambray, negotiated in person by two women. The Duchess of Angouleme and Margaret of Austria, governess of the Low Countries, met in that city, and settled the terms of pacification between the rival monarchs.

For Charles's honorable conduct on Luther's appearance before the diet of Worms, the reader may refer to the life of the reformer in the present volume. The cause of Lutheranism gained ground at the diet of Nuremberg; and if Charles had declared in favor of the Lutherans, all Germany would probably have changed its religion. As it was, the Reformation made progress during the war between the emperor and Clement VII. All that Charles acquired from the diet of Spire, in 1526, was to wait patiently for a general council, without encouraging novelties. In 1530, he assisted in person at the diet of Augsburg, when the Protestants (a name bestowed on the reformers in consequence of the protest entered by the Elector of Saxony and others at the second diet of Spire) presented their confession, drawn up by Melancthon, the most moderate of Luther's disciples. About this time Charles procured the election of his brother Ferdinand as king of the Romans, on the plea that, in his absence, the empire required a powerful chief to make head against the Turks. This might be only a pretence for family aggrandizement; but the emperor became seriously apprehensive lest the Lutherans, if provoked, should abandon the cause of Christendom, and policy therefore conceded what zeal would have refused. By a treaty concluded with the Protestants at Nuremberg, and ratified at Ratisbon in 1531, Charles granted them liberty of conscience till a council should be held, and annulled all sentences passed against them by the imperial chamber; on this they engaged to give him powerful assistance against the Turks.

In 1535, Muley Hassan, the exiled king of Tunis, implored Charles's aid against the pirate Barbarossa, who had usurped his throne. The emperor eagerly seized the opportunity of acquiring fame by the destruction of that pest of Spain and Italy. He carried a large army into Africa, defeated Barbarossa, and marched to Tunis. The city surrendered, being in no condition to resist, and while the conqueror was deliberating what terms to grant, the soldiery sacked it, committed the most atrocious violence, and are said to have massacred more than thirty thousand persons. This outrage tarnished the glory of the expedition, which was entirely successful. Muley Hassan was restored to his throne.

In 1536 a fresh dispute for the possession of the Milanese broke out between the King of France and the Emperor. It began with negotiation, artfully protracted by Charles, who promised the investiture, sometimes to the second, sometimes to the youngest, son of his formerly impetuous rival, whom he thus amused, while he took measures to crush him by the weight of his arms. But if misfortune had made the King of France too cautious, prosperity had inspired Charles with a haughty presumption, which gave the semblance of stability to every chimerical vision of pride. In 1536 he attempted the conquest of France by invading Provence; but his designs were frustrated by a conduct so opposite to the national genius of the French that it induced them to murmur against their general. Charles, however, felt by experience the prudence of those measures which sacrificed individual interests to the general good by making a desert of the whole country. Francis marked his impotent hatred by summoning the emperor before parliament by the simple name of Charles of Austria, as his vassal for the counties of Artois and Flanders. The charge was the infraction of the treaty of Cambray, the offence was laid as felony, to abide the judgment of the court of peers. On the expiration of the legal term, two fiefs were decreed to be confiscated. A fresh source of hostility broke out on the death of the young Dauphin of France, who was said to have been poisoned, and the king accused Charles V. of the crime. But there is neither proof nor probability to support the charge; and the accused could have no interest to commit the act imputed to him, since there were two surviving sons still left to Francis.

But the resources even of Charles were exhausted by his great exertions; arrears were due to his troops, who mutinied everywhere from his inability to pay them. He therefore assembled the Cortes, or states-general, of Castile, at Toledo, in 1539, stated his wants, and demanded subsidies. The clergy and nobility pleaded their own exemption and refused to impose new taxes on the other orders. Charles, in anger, dissolved the Cortes, and declared the nobles and prelates forever excluded from that body, on the ground that men who pay no taxes have no right to a voice in the national assemblies. But the people of Ghent made a more serious resistance to authority, on account of a tax which infringed their privileges. They offered to transfer their allegiance to Francis, who did not avail himself of the proposal, not from either conscientious or chivalrous scruples, but because his views were all centred in Milan; he therefore betrayed his Flemish clients to the emperor, in hopes of obtaining the investiture of the Italian duchy. By holding out the expectation of this boon, Charles obtained a safe-conduct for his passage through France into Flanders, whither he was anxious to repair without loss of time. His presence soon reduced the insurgents. The inhabitants of Ghent opened their gates to him on his fortieth birthday, in 1540; and he entered his native city, in his own words, "as their sovereign and their judge, with the sceptre and the sword." He punished twenty-nine of the principal citizens with death, the town with the forfeiture of its privileges, and the people by a heavy fine for the building of a citadel to coerce them. He broke his word with Francis by bestowing the Milanese on his own son, afterward Philip II.

Our limits will not allow of our detailing the circumstances of the emperor's calamitous expedition against Algiers; but his courage, constancy, and humanity in distress and danger, claim a sympathy for his misfortunes which is withheld from the selfish and wily career of his prosperity.

Francis devised new grounds for war, and allied himself with Sweden, Denmark, and the Sultan Soliman. This is the first instance of a confederacy with the North. But he had alienated the Protestants of Germany by his severe measures against the Lutherans, and Henry VIII. by crossing the marriage of his son Edward with Mary of Scotland, yet in her cradle. Henry therefore leagued with the emperor, who found it convenient to bury the injuries of Catherine of Aragon in her grave. The war was continued during the two following years with varying success: the most remarkable events were the capture of Boulogne by the English, and the great victory won by the French over the Imperialists at Cerisolles, Piedmont, in 1544. In the autumn of that year a treaty was concluded at Crespi, between Charles and Francis, involving the ordinary conditions of marriage and mutual renunciations, with the curious clause that both should make joint war against the Turks. In the same year the embarrassments created by the war, and the imminent danger of Hungary, increased the boldness of the German Protestants belonging to the league of Smalkald, and the emperor, while presiding at the diet of Spire, won them over by consenting to the free exercise of their religion.

The Catholics had always demanded a council, which was convened at Trent in 1545. The Protestants refused to acknowledge its authority, and the emperor no longer affected fairness toward them. In 1546 he joined Pope Paul III. in a league against them, by a treaty in terms contradictory to his own public protestations. Paul himself was so imprudent as to reveal the secret, and it enabled the Protestants to raise a formidable army in defence of their religion and liberties. But the Electors of Cologne and Brandenburg, and the Elector Palatine, resolved to remain neuter. Notwithstanding this secession, the war might have been ended at once, had the confederates attacked Charles while he lay at Ratisbon with very few troops, instead of wasting time by writing a manifesto, which he answered by putting the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse under the ban of the empire. He foresaw those divisions which soon came to pass by Maurice of Saxony's seizure of his cousin's electorate.

Delivered by the death of Francis in 1547, in which year Henry VIII. also died, from the watchful supervision of a jealous and powerful rival, and relieved from the fear of the Turks by a five years' truce, Charles was at liberty to bend his whole strength against the revolted princes of Germany. He marched against the Elector Frederick of Saxony, who was defeated at Mulhausen, taken prisoner, and condemned to death by a court-martial composed of Italians and Spaniards, in contempt of the laws of the empire. The sentence was communicated to the prisoner while playing at chess; his firmness was not shaken, and he tranquilly said, "I shall die without reluctance, if my death will save the honor of my family and the inheritance of my children." He then finished his game. But his wife and family could not look at his death so calmly; at their entreaty he surrendered his electorate into the emperor's hands. The other chief of the Protestant league, the Landgrave of Hesse, was also forced to submit, and detained in captivity, contrary to the pledged word of the emperor; who, fearless of any further resistance to his supreme authority, convoked a diet at Augsburg in 1548. At that assembly Maurice was invested with Saxony, and the emperor, in the vain hope of enforcing a uniformity of religious practice, published by his own authority a body of doctrine called the "Interim," to be in force till a general council should be assembled. This necessarily was unsatisfactory to both parties, but its observance was enforced by a master with whom terror was the engine of obedience.

These measures, however, did not preserve tranquillity long in Germany. Maurice of Saxony and the Elector of Brandenburg urged the deliverance of the Landgrave of Hesse, as having made themselves sureties against violence to his person. Charles answered by absolving them from their pledges. The Protestants, of course, charged him as arrogating the same spiritual authority with the popes. And Maurice, offended at the slight put upon him, directed his artful policy to the humiliation of Charles. He had compelled his subjects to conform to the Interim by the help of the timid Melancthon, who was no longer supported by the firmness of Luther. On the other hand, he had silenced the clamors of the more sturdy by a public avowal of his zeal for the Reformation. In the meantime the diet of Augsburg, completely at the emperor's devotion, had named him general of the war against Magdeburg, which had been placed under the ban of the empire for opposition to the Interim. He took that Lutheran city, but by private assurances regained the good-will of the inhabitants. He also engaged in a league with France, but still wore the mask. He even deceived the able Granville, Bishop of Arras, afterward cardinal, who boasted that "a drunken German could never impose on him;" yet was he of all others most imposed on. At last, in 1552, Maurice declared himself; and Henry II. of France published a manifesto, assuming the title of "Protector of the liberties of Germany and its captive princes." He began with the conquest of the three bishoprics of Toul, Baden, and Metz. In conjunction with Maurice he had lain a plan for surprising Charles at Innspruck, and getting possession of his person, and the daring attempt had almost succeeded. Charles was forced to escape by night during a storm, in a paroxysm of gout, and was carried across the Alps in a litter. These disputes were adjusted in 1555, at the diet of Augsburg, by the solemn grant of entire freedom of worship to the Protestants. The King of France was abandoned by his allies, and scarcely named in the treaty.



Henry resolved to defend his acquisition of the three bishoprics, and Charles to employ his whole force for their recovery. The Duke of Guise made adequate preparations for the defence of Metz, the siege of which the emperor was compelled to raise after sixty-five days spent in fruitless efforts, with the loss of 30,000 men by skirmishes and battles, and by diseases incident to the severity of the season. "I perceive," said he, "that Fortune, like other females, forsakes old men, to lavish her favors on the young." This sentiment probably sunk deeper into his reflections than might be inferred from the sarcastic terms in which it was clothed: for in the year 1556, after various events of war, alternately calamitous to the subjects of both nations, he astonished Europe by his abdication in favor of his son. In an assembly of the states at Brussels, he addressed Philip in a speech which melted the audience into tears. The concluding passage, as given by Robertson, is worth transcribing. "Preserve an inviolable regard for religion; maintain the Catholic faith in its purity; let the laws of your country be sacred in your eyes; encroach not on the rights and privileges of your people; and if the time should ever come when you shall wish to enjoy the tranquillity of private life, may you have a son endowed with such qualities that you can resign your sceptre to him with as much satisfaction as I give up mine to you!" Charles retired into a monastery, where he died after more than two years passed in deep melancholy, and in practices of devotion inconsistent with sound health, when only between fifty-eight and fifty-nine years of age. His activity and talents had been the theme of universal admiration, the ardor of his ambitious policy had been extreme, and his knowledge of mankind profound; but he should have followed up the objects of his high aspirations by a straighter road. His glory would have been truly enviable had he devoted his efforts to the happiness of his subjects, instead of harassing their minds by dissensions, and mowing down their lives by hundreds of thousands in war.

To the statesman or the politician the history of this period is an inexhaustible fund of instruction and interest, and to the general reader it is rendered more than usually attractive by the almost dramatic contrast of character among the principal actors in the scene. Francis seems to have been the representative of the expiring school of chivalry; Charles was not the representative, but the founder of the modern system of state policy; Henry was the representative of ostentation, violence, and selfishness, to be found in all ages.



JOHN CALVIN

(1509-1564)

]

John Calvin was born at Noyon, in Picardy, on July 10, 1509. His father, Gerard Caulvin or Cauvin, was procureur-fiscal of the district of Noyon, and secretary of the diocese. He was one of six children—four sons and two daughters. All the three sons who survived were ecclesiastics; and the reformer himself, while still only twelve years of age, was appointed to a chaplaincy in the cathedral church of Noyon. Calvin was educated in circumstances of ease and even affluence. The noble family of De Mortmar, in the neighborhood, invited him to share in the studies of their children; he was in some measure adopted by them; and when the family went to Paris, in his fourteenth year, he accompanied them. He was entered as a pupil in the College de la Marche, under the regency of Mathurin Cordier, better remembered, perhaps, by his Latin name of Corderius. It was under this distinguished master that Calvin laid the foundation of his own wonderful mastery of the Latin language. During this early period he was so distinguished by the great activity of his mental powers and the grave severity of his manners that his companions, it is said, surnamed him "The Accusative."

For a while his attention was directed to the study of law, and his father sent him to the university of Orleans, then adorned by Pierre de l'Etoile, one of the most famous jurists of his day. At Orleans he continued the same life of rigorous temperance and earnest studiousness for which he was already noted. It was while a law-student in Orleans that he became acquainted with the Scriptures, and received his first impulse to the theological studies which have made his name so distinguished. A relative of his own, Pierre Robert Olivetan, was there engaged in a translation of the Scriptures; and this had the effect of drawing Calvin's attention, and awakening within him the religious instinct which was soon to prove the master-principle of his life. The seeds of the new faith were now beyond doubt sown in his heart, and from this time, although he still continued for a while longer to pursue his legal studies, his main interests appear to have been religious and theological. From Orleans he went to Bourges, where he acquired the knowledge of Greek, under the tuition of a learned German, Melchior Wolmar. He began here to preach the reformed doctrines, and passed over into the ranks of Protestantism, under the slow but sure growth of his new convictions rather than under the agitation of any violent feeling. Here, as everywhere, his life presents a marked contrast to that of Luther.

He proceeded to Paris in 1533, which at this date had become a centre of the "new learning," under the teaching of Lefevre and Farel, and the influence of the Queen of Navarre, sister of Francis I. The Sorbonne itself had not escaped the infection. There was a growing religious excitement in the university, in the court, and even among the bishops. This, however, was not to last. The king was soon stirred up to take active measures to quell this rising spirit, and the result was that Calvin and others were obliged to flee for their lives. After this he repaired for a short time to his native place, resigned the preferment he held in the Roman Catholic Church, and for a year or two led a wandering life, sheltered in various places. We find him at Saintorge; at Nerac, the residence of the Queen of Navarre; at Angouleme, with his friend Louis du Tillet; then for a brief while at Paris again. Persecutions against the Protestants at this time raged so hotly that Calvin was no longer safe in France, and he betook himself to Basel, whence he issued, in the year 1536, the first edition of his "Christianae Religionis Institutio," with the famous preface addressed to Francis I. The concentrated vigor and intensity of feeling of this address, rising into indignant remonstrance, and at times into pathetic and powerful influence, make it one of the most memorable documents in connection with the Reformation. After completing this great service to the cause of Protestantism, he made a short visit to Italy, to Renee, the Duchess of Ferrara. Finally, he revisited his native town, sold the paternal estate, which had devolved to him on the death of his eldest brother, and, bidding Noyon adieu, set out, in company with his younger brother and sister, on his way to Strasbourg. The direct road being rendered dangerous by the armies of Charles V., which had penetrated into France, he sought a circuitous route through Savoy and Geneva.

The result of this journey was memorable for the cause of the Reformation. Arrived in Geneva, in the autumn of 1536, he met there his friend, Louis du Tillet, who communicated the fact of his arrival to Farel, then in the very midst of his struggle to promote the Reformation. Farel hastened to see him, and urge upon him the duty of remaining where he was, and undertaking his share of the work of God. Calvin did not at first respond to the call. He was given, he himself says, to his "own intense thoughts and private studies." He wished to devote himself to the service of the reformed churches generally, rather than to the care of any particular church. By some strange insight, however, Farel penetrated to the higher fitness of the young stranger who stood before him, and he ventured to lay the curse of God upon him and his studies if he refused his aid to the church of Geneva in her time of need. "It was," Calvin said, "as if God had seized me by his awful hand from heaven." He abandoned his intention of pursuing his journey, and joined eagerly with Farel in the work of reformation.

Having entered upon his task, he soon infused an energy into it which crowned the struggling efforts of Farel with success. The hierarchical authority was already overturned before his arrival; the citizens had asserted their independence against the Duke of Savoy. The magistrates and people eagerly joined with the reformers in the first heat of their freedom and their zeal. A Protestant Confession of Faith was drawn out, approved of by the Council of Two Hundred, and then proclaimed in the cathedral church of St. Peter. Great and marvellous changes were wrought in a short time upon the manners of the people; where license and frivolity had reigned, a strict moral severity began to characterize the whole aspect of society. The strain, however, was too sudden and too extreme. A spirit of rebellion against the rule of Calvin and Farel broke forth; but they refused to yield to the wishes of a party animated by a more easy and liberal spirit than themselves, and known in the history of Geneva under the nickname of Libertines; and the consequence was that they were both expelled from the city after less than two years' residence.

]

Calvin retreated to Strasbourg, and devoted himself to theological study, especially to his critical labors on the New Testament. Here, in October, 1539, he married the widow of a converted Anabaptist.

The Genevans found, after a short time, that they could not well get on without Calvin. His rule might be rigid; but an authority even such as his was better than no settled authority at all; and the Libertine party seem to have been unable to construct any efficient and beneficent form of government. Accordingly, they invited Calvin to return; and, after some delay on his part, in order to test the spirit in which they were acting, he acceded to their invitation, and in the autumn of 1541, after three years' absence, once more made his entry into Geneva.

Now, at length, he succeeded in establishing his plan of church-government. By his College of Pastors and Doctors, and his Consistorial Court of Discipline, he founded a theocracy, which aimed virtually to direct all the affairs of the city, and to control and modify both the social and individual life of the citizens. The Libertines still remained a strong party, which was even augmented after Calvin's return, by men such as Ami Perrin, who had strongly concurred in the invitation to Calvin, but who were afterward alienated from him by the high hand with which he pursued his designs, as well as by their own schemes of ambition. The struggle with this party lasted, with varying fortune, for no less a period than fifteen years, and was only terminated in 1555, after a somewhat ridiculous emeute in the streets. Perrin and others, driven from the city, were executed in effigy; and the reformer's authority from this date was confirmed into an absolute supremacy. During the long struggle with the Libertines occurred also Calvin's controversies with Sebastian Castellio, Jerome Bolsec, and above all, Michael Servetus.

After the execution of Servetus, and the expulsion of the Libertines two years later, Calvin's power in Geneva was firmly established, and he used it vigorously and beneficently for the defence of Protestantism throughout Europe. By the mediation of Beza he made his influence felt in France in the great struggle that was there going on between the hierarchical party, with the Guises at its head, and the Protestants, led by Conde and Coligny. In 1561 his energies began to fail. He had been long suffering from bad health, though his strength of will and buoyancy of intellect sustained him; but his health grew very much worse, and although he survived for more than two years, he never regained any vigor. He died on May 27, 1564.

Very different estimates have been formed of Calvin's character. None, however, can dispute his intellectual greatness or the powerful services which he rendered to the cause of Protestantism. Stern in spirit and unyielding in will, he is never selfish or petty in his motives. Nowhere amiable, he is everywhere strong. Arbitrary and cruel when it suits him, he is yet heroic in his aims, and beneficent in the scope of his ambition. His moral purpose is always clear and definite: to live a life of duty, to shape circumstances to such divine ends as he apprehended, and in whatever sphere he might be placed, to work out the glory of God.

He rendered a double service to Protestantism, which, apart from anything else, would have made his name illustrious: he systematized its doctrine, and he organized its ecclesiastical discipline. He was at once the great theologian of the Reformation, and the founder of a new church polity which did more than all other influences together to consolidate the scattered forces of the Reformation and give them an enduring strength. As a religious teacher, as a social legislator, and as a writer, especially of the French language, whose modern prose style was then in process of formation, his fame is second to none in his age, and must always conspicuously adorn the history of civilization.

His famous "Institutio" entitles Calvin to the foremost place among the dogmatic theologians of the Reformed Church. This masterpiece of luminous argument presents a complete system of Christian faith, based on the Protestant principle that the Scriptures are the source of Christian truth. "Two things there are," says Hooker, in the preface to the "Ecclesiastical Polity," "which have deservedly procured him honor throughout the world—the one, his exceeding pains in composing the 'Institutions of the Christian Religion;' the other, his no less industrious travails for exposition of Holy Scripture." His Commentaries embrace the greater part of the Old Testament and the whole of the New, except the Revelation, and place him in the front rank of expositors of Scripture.



JOHN KNOX

By P. HUME BROWN

(1505-1572)

]

John Knox, the great Scottish Reformer, was born at Giffordgate, a suburb of the town of Haddington, in 1505, the year preceding the birth of his famous countryman, George Buchanan. Knox has himself told us in a single sentence all that is definitely known of his family connections: "My lord," he represents himself as saying to the notorious Earl of Bothwell, "my grandfather, grandsire (maternal grandfather), and father have served under your lordship's predecessors, and some of them have died under their standards." He received the elements of his education in the grammar school of his native town, and in 1522 was sent to the University of Glasgow. St. Andrews was nearer his home, and possessed the more famous university; but he was probably drawn to Glasgow by the fame of the most distinguished literary Scotchman of his generation—John Major, the schoolman. For this reason, at least, Buchanan was sent to St. Andrews, though Glasgow was nearer his native place, when Major had migrated to the former university. At Glasgow, under Major, Knox could have been subjected to none of the influences of the great intellectual revolution which substituted for the studies and methods of mediaevalism the ideas of the Revival of Letters. Like all his educated contemporaries, he learned to speak and write Latin with perfect fluency; but it was always with an idiom that showed he had none of the humanist's scruples regarding purity of language. What he learned from Major was the art for which that scholar was renowned throughout Europe—the art of logical exercitation; and Knox's writings everywhere show that all through life he had a natural delight in the play of dialectic. He left the university without taking the degree of master of arts, thus by the conditions of all the mediaeval universities precluding himself from the career of an academic teacher.

During the eighteen years that follow his leaving the university, Knox passes completely out of sight. All that is known of him during this period is that, from 1540 to 1543, he acted as notary in his native town of Haddington. As in the documents that establish this fact his name appears with the addition of "Sir," the title of priests who were not Masters of Arts, Knox must have been in orders in the Church of Rome till as late as 1543. In 1544 we find him acting as tutor to the sons of Douglas of Lorgniddry and Cockburn of Ormiston—families, it is to be noted, both favorably disposed to the new opinions in religion now making their way in Scotland. Through these families he was brought into contact with George Wishart, who had lately returned from travelling in Germany and England, with the burning zeal to gain his country to the Lutheran reformation. From this period the future direction of Knox's life was decided, and thenceforward, with an intensity and self-devotion never surpassed, he is the apostle of the cause with which his name is forever identified—the establishment in Scotland of what he deemed the only true conception of the primitive church as based on the teaching of Christ and the apostles. We have reason to believe that, even before this date, his sympathies were on the side of reform in religion, but the teaching and example of Wishart seem first to have brought to him the clear consciousness of his mission. Knox identified himself with Wishart with all the impetuosity of his character, and was in the habit, he tells us, of carrying a two-handed sword before the preacher. When Wishart was seized by the emissaries of Cardinal Beaton, Knox would willingly have attended him to the last; but Wishart, who knew the fate in store for him, rejected the offer. "Return to your bairns" (meaning Knox's pupils), he said, "and God bless you. One is sufficient for one sacrifice."

Wishart was burned in St. Andrews in March, 1546, and in May of the same year Cardinal Beaton was murdered. The cardinal's murderers held possession of the castle of St. Andrews; and, as Knox was known to be the enemy of Beaton (though he had no share in his assassination), he was forced (1547) for his own safety to join them with his pupils. Here his zeal and theological attainments made him so conspicuous that, at the instance of the leaders of the reforming party (Sir David Lyndsay among the rest), he was formally called to the ministry, and preached with much acceptance in the castle and parish church of St. Andrews. A few months later the castle surrendered to the French; and, in the teeth of the express terms of capitulation, the more prominent of the besieged party were sent as prisoners on board the French galleys. For eighteen months Knox remained a captive, his first winter being spent in a galley on the Loire, the second in prison in Rouen. His constitution was not naturally robust, and his hard experience during these two years seriously impaired his health for the rest of his life. The breach of faith on the part of the French, and the ignominy to which he was subjected, were never forgotten by Knox, and must in part explain and justify his life-long conviction that no good thing could come of French policy or French religion.

In February, 1549, on the express intercession of Edward VI., Knox regained his liberty. As it was still unsafe for him to return to Scotland, for the next four years, till the death of Edward VI., he made his home in England. From all that is known of him during these years, it is clear that he made himself a person to be reckoned with by those at the centre of authority in the country. By his preaching at Berwick he gave such offence to the Bishop of Durham that he was removed to Newcastle, where it was supposed his influence would be less mischievous. In 1551 he was appointed one of six chaplains to Edward VI., and in 1552, at the suggestion of the Duke of Northumberland, he was offered the bishopric of Rochester. As the duke's object in suggesting the appointment was simply to check, as far as he could, what he deemed the dangerous activity of Knox, the offer was unhesitatingly rejected. Knox's importance in England is still further proved by the fact that, along with five others, he was consulted by Archbishop Cranmer regarding his forty-five (afterward forty-two) articles of religion.

On Mary's accession, Knox, like the majority of the Reformed ministers, had to seek refuge on the continent. That he might be within call, should circumstances permit his return either to Scotland or England, he took up his abode at Dieppe till the beginning of the following year (1554), when he proceeded to Geneva. In July of this year he was again in Dieppe, "to learn the estate of England;" but with Mary of Lorraine as regent in Scotland, and Mary Tudor as Queen of England, he was convinced that for the present both these countries were closed against him. He accordingly accepted a call from the English congregation at Frankfort-on-the-Main, where, however, on account of a dispute regarding the use of the Book of Common Prayer, he remained only a few months. At Geneva he found a congregation of his own way of thinking; but, eager to be an apostle in his own country, he once more returned to Dieppe (August, 1555), whence he ventured into Scotland in September. He remained in Scotland till July of the next year, residing chiefly in Edinburgh, but making preaching journeys into various parts of the country. The new doctrines were steadily spreading in Scotland, but as yet their supporters were not strong enough to present a confident front against the government. It was at his own risk, therefore, that Knox remained in the country; and at the prayer of the congregation in Geneva, he returned to that town in July, 1556. It was probably during this visit to Scotland that he married his first wife, Marjory Bowes, to whom he seems to have been engaged during his sojourn in Newcastle. For the next two years he remained in Geneva, ministering to his congregation, and seeing much of Calvin, whose influence on Knox regarding all the great questions of the time was afterward to bear fruit in the ordering of affairs in Scotland. To this period also belong several of his minor writings, and notably his "First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women," the publication of which he must afterward have regretted in the interest of the cause he had most at heart.

Meanwhile, in Scotland the ground was being prepared for the great work in store for Knox. Under Mary of Lorraine as regent, the French influence had come to be regarded as a danger to the independence of the country, and a sense of this danger threw many into the party of reform. The unworthy lives of the old clergy, and the cupidity of many of the nobles, worked in the same direction. In 1557 the advocates of reform bound themselves, by what is known as the First Covenant, to do all in their power to effect a religious revolution, and by 1558 they felt themselves strong enough to summon Knox to their aid in the work he deemed the mission of his life.

In May, 1559, Knox found himself again in Scotland, which he never again left for a prolonged period. He at once became the life and soul of his party. At the moment of his arrival the Lords of the Congregation, as the Protestant nobility termed themselves, were in open revolt against the regent. By his preaching at Perth and St. Andrews Knox gained these important towns to his cause, and by his labors in Edinburgh, of which he was appointed minister, he also won a strong party against the government. But the reformers, of their own resources, could not hold their ground against the regent, subsidized by France with money and soldiers. Mainly, therefore, through the efforts of Knox, who all through his public career was deep in the politics of the time, the assistance of England was obtained against what was now deemed the French invasion. The help of England proved effective, and by the treaty of Leith (1560), and the death of the regent the same year, the insurgent party became masters of the country. The estates of Parliament having met on August 1st, the ministers were ordered to draw up a Confession of Faith which should embody the new teaching, and on August 17th Protestantism was formally established as the religion of the country. Having gained thus much, the ministers, desirous of practical results from their victory, drew up the first Book of Discipline—a document ever memorable in the history of Scotland, and admirable in itself for its wise and liberal suggestions for the religious and educational organization of the country. These suggestions, however, were little to the mind of the majority of the Protestant nobles, who, "perceiving their carnal liberty and worldly commodity to be impaired thereby," sneeringly spoke of them as "devote imaginationis." In the revolution that had been accomplished Knox had been the leading spirit; but he saw that the victory was as yet only half gained, and that the deadliest struggle had still to be decided.

The return of the young queen to Scotland (August, 1561) revived all the old dissensions, and introduced new elements into the strife of parties. By every opinion she held on religion, on the relations of prince and subject, on the fundamental principles of life, Mary was separated as by an abyss from the party represented by Knox. If we may judge from the language which each used of the other, Knox and she failed to find one point on which genial intercourse was possible. As the minister of St. Giles (then the only Reformed church in Edinburgh), Knox believed that Mary was his special charge. Her personal conduct, therefore, no less than her public policy, were made the subject of his most stringent criticism; and during the six years of her reign his attitude toward her was that of uncompromising insistence. The celebration of mass in Holyrood Chapel, in defiance of the late religious settlement, first roused his wrath; and a sermon delivered by him in St. Giles led to the first of those famous interviews with Mary, the record of which makes such a remarkable portion of his "History of the Reformation." The division of ecclesiastical property, by which those in actual possession received two-thirds, the reformed ministers one-third, was a further ground of quarrel with the new government. The delay of Mary to confirm the late religious settlement also gave rise to the greatest anxiety on the part of Knox and his brother ministers. In view of the precarious interests of the great cause, Knox spoke out with such frankness as to alienate the most powerful noble in the country, and the one whom he respected most—Lord James Stuart, afterward the Regent Moray. The marriage of Mary with Darnley (1565), again, however, led them to common counsels, as both saw in this marriage the most serious menace against the new religion. In the subsequent revolt, headed by Moray and the other Protestant nobles, Knox nevertheless took no part, and remained at his charge in Edinburgh. But after the murder of Rizzio, he deemed it wise, considering Mary's disposition toward him, to withdraw to Kyle, in Ayrshire, where he appears to have written the greater part of his history.

The events of the next two years—the murder of Darnley, Mary's marriage with Bothwell, and her subsequent flight into England—again threw the management of affairs into the hands of the Protestant party; and under Moray as regent the acts of 1560, in favor of the reformed religion, were duly ratified by the estates of the realm. As in the former revolution, Knox was still the same formidable force the nobles had to reckon with; and at Stirling, at the coronation of James VI. (1567), he preached in that strain which gave his sermons the character and importance of public manifestoes. The assassination of Moray, in 1570, and the consequent formation of a strong party in favor of Mary, once more endangered the cause to which he had devoted his life, and the possession of the castle of Edinburgh by the queen's supporters forced him to remove to St. Andrews for safety. He had already had a stroke of apoplexy, and he was now but the wreck of his former self, but his spirit was as indomitable as ever. The description of him at this period, by James Melville, can never be omitted in any account of Knox. "Being in St. Andrews, he was very weak. I saw him every day of his doctrine go hulie and fear with a furring of martricks about his neck, a staff in the one hand, and good, godly Richart Ballanden, his servant, holding up the other, oxter from the abbey to the parish church; and be the said Richart and another servant lifted up to the pulpit where he behooved to loan, at his first entry, but or he had done with his sermon, he was so active and vigorous that he was like to ding that pulpit in blads, and fly out of it."

It was the desire of his congregation of St. Giles to hear him once more before he died. Accordingly, by short stages, he made his way to Edinburgh, and on November 9, 1572, at the induction of his successor in office, he made his last public appearance. He died the same month, at the age of sixty-seven, and was buried in the churchyard then attached to St. Giles, behind which church a small square stone in the pavement of Parliament Square, marked "J. K., 1572," now indicates the spot where he is supposed to lie. The saying of Regent Morton at his grave, "Here lieth a man who in his life never feared the face of man" (Calderwood), was the most memorable panegyric that could have been pronounced to his memory.

Knox was twice married. His first wife, Marjory Bowes, died in 1560, leaving him two sons. By his second wife, Margaret Stewart, daughter of Lord Ochiltree, whom (little more than a girl) he married in 1564, he had three daughters. His widow and all his family survived him.

In their broader features the character of Knox and of the work he achieved cannot be misread. In himself he stands as the pre-eminent type of the religious reformer—dominated by his one transcendent idea, indifferent or hostile to every interest of life that did not subserve its realization. He is sometimes spoken of as a fanatic; but the term is hardly applicable to one who combined in such a degree as Knox, the shrewdest worldly sense with an ever-ready wit and a native humor that declares itself in his most serious moments and in the treatment of the loftiest subjects. To blame him for intolerance or harshness is but to pass judgment on his age and on the type to which he belongs. It is his unquestionable tribute, that the work he accomplished was the fashioning anew of his country's destinies. It has to be added that by his "History of the Reformation in Scotland," Knox holds a place of his own in the history of literature. His narrative, as was to be expected, is that of one who saw only a single aspect of the events he chronicles; but the impress of the writer's individuality, stamped on every page, renders his work possibly unique in English literature.



ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF ENGLAND

By SAMUEL L. KNAPP

(1533-1603)

]

If the question respecting the equality of the sexes was to be determined by an appeal to the characters of sovereign princes, the comparison is, in proportion, manifestly in favor of woman, and that without having recourse to the trite and flippant observation, proved to have been ill-founded, of male and female influence. Elizabeth of England affords a glorious example in truth of this position.

Daughter of Henry VIII., a capricious tyrant, and of the imprudent and unfortunate Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth was born at Greenwich, on the banks of the Thames, September 7, 1533. Her infancy was unfortunate through the unhappy fate of her mother, but she was nevertheless educated with care and attention; in her yet infant faculties her father had the discernment to perceive uncommon strength and promise. Lady Champernoun, an accomplished and excellent woman, was appointed by Henry governess to the young princess. It appears to have been the custom of the times to instruct young women in the learned languages, an admirable substitute for fashionable and frivolous acquisitions; habits of real study and application have a tendency to strengthen the faculties and discipline the imagination. Mr. William Grindal was Elizabeth's first classical tutor; with him she made a rapid progress. From other masters she received the rudiments of modern languages; at eleven years of age she translated out of French verse into English prose "The Mirror of the Sinful Soul," which she dedicated to Catherine Parr, sixth wife to Henry VIII. At twelve years of age she translated from the English into Latin, French, and Italian, prayers and meditations, etc., collected from different authors by Catherine, Queen of England. These she dedicated to her father, December 30, 1545; MS. in the royal library at Westminster. She also, about the same period, translated from the French "The Meditations of Margaret, Queen of Navarre, etc.," published by Bale, 1548.

Mr. Ascham thus speaks of Elizabeth in a letter to Sir John Cheke: "It can scarcely be credited to what degree of skill in the Latin and Greek she might arrive, if she should proceed in that course of study wherein she hath begun by the guidance of Grindal." In 1548 she had the misfortune to lose her tutor, who died of the plague. At this time, it is observed by Camden, that she was versed in the Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian tongues, had some knowledge of the Greek, was well skilled in music, and both sung and played with art and sweetness.

After the death of her father, her brother, King Edward, who tenderly loved her, encouraged her in her studies and literary pursuits, while, without imposition or restraint, he left her to choose her own principles and preceptors. To supply the loss of her tutor she addressed herself to the celebrated Roger Ascham, who, at her solicitation, left Cambridge and consented to become her instructor. Under him she read the orations of AEschines, and Demosthenes' "On the Crown," in Greek, and understood at first sight not only the force and propriety of the language and the meaning of the orator, but the whole scheme of the laws, customs, and manners of the Athenians. By Doctor Grindal, professor of theology, she was initiated into the subtleties of polemic divinity, to which she gave assiduous application. Such, during the short reign of her brother, was the laudable and tranquil time of her life, and by these occupations and pursuits she was prepared for the great part she was to act on the theatre of Europe.

In July, 1553, Mary, after the death of Edward, succeeded to the throne; and having received from her sister many favors and testimonies of esteem, she treated her at first with a form of regard; but Elizabeth was afterward imprisoned and harshly treated, even to the hazard of her life. Her sufferings were, however, mitigated by the interposition of Philip, the husband of Mary, for which she was ever grateful.

The reign, the bigotry, and the butchery of Mary, who, to do God service, amused herself by burning and torturing her people, lasted five years and four months. She died, fortunately for the nation, November 17, 1558. A parliament had been assembled a few days previous to her death, to which the chancellor notified the event. "God save Queen Elizabeth," resounded in joyful acclamations through both houses, while by the people a transport still more general and fervent was expressed.

The commencement of her reign was not less auspicious than its duration was prosperous to the country and glorious to herself. It is observed by Bayle that to say only that no woman reigned with more glory would be saying little. "It must be added that there have been but few great kings whose reigns are comparable to hers, it being the most beautiful period of English history."

Elizabeth when informed of the death of her sister, was at Hatfield, whence, after a few days, she proceeded to London, through crowds of people, who contended with each other in testimonies of joy and attachment. On entering the Tower she was affected with the comparison of her past and present situation; once a captive, exposed to the bigotry and malignity of her enemies, now a sovereign, triumphant over her adversaries, and the hope and joy of the nation. Falling on her knees she expressed her gratitude to heaven for the deliverance she had experienced from her persecutors, a deliverance, she declared, not less miraculous than that of Daniel from the den of lions. With a magnanimity that did her honor, and a prudence that evinced her judgment, she threw a veil over every offence that had been committed against her, and received graciously and with affability the most virulent of her enemies.