prolific in outrageous language. Luther spoke of himself in a manner to raise a blush among his friends. Proud of his knowledge, which was in reality slender, though great for the time in which he lived, and too great for his salvation and for the repose of the church, he placed himself above all men, not only those of his own, but of the most distinguished by-gone ages. It must be acknowledged that he possessed much strength of mind; nothing was wanting to him but that rule of conduct which can only be found in the church, and under the sway of legitimate authority. Had Luther remained under this sway, so indispensible for all minds to submit to, and especially for fiery and impetuous minds, such as he possessed; could he have retrenched from his speeches his transports of violence, his scurrility, his brutal insolence; the strength with which he handles the truth would not have been wielded for the purposes of seduction. Accordingly, we still find him invincible, when he comments upon the ancient dogmas which he had drawn from the church; pride, however, was an unfailing attendant upon his triumphs,"

Voltaire, the patriarch of incredulity, has been less lenient to Luther than the Jesuit Maimbourg

and the Bishop of Meaux, had proved themselves.

"We cannot," said he, "resist a smile of pity, when we read of the manner in which Luther treated all his adversaries, and the pope in particular: " Petty popekin, you are an ass, an ass's colt; go gently; the ground is slippery ; you might break your legs, and people would say: What the devil can this be? The little colt of a pope has broken its legs. An ass knows itself to be an ass; a stone that it is stone; but these little asses of popes are not aware that they are asses.'

These scoffings of Voltaire are just; but they tell for nothing.

OPINION OF LUTHER.

THE intellectual movement effected by Luther did not emanate from his genius: he had no genius. It must be remembered that the term genius, in the time of Bossuet, did not bear the signification which is now attached to it. Luther, I have already observed, was merely a man of considerable intelligence and considerable imagination. He yielded to the irascibility of his temper, without comprehending the revolution which he was accomplishing, and which he himself impeded by obstinately seeking to concentrate it in his own person. He would have failed, like all his predecessors, if the spoils of the clergy had not tempted the cupidity of

power.

Since the event, people have systematized the reformation: it is the character of our age to systematize every thing, folly, meanness, and crime. We give the mind credit for crimes and acts of baseness with which it has had no relation, and which are merely the offspring of vile

instinct or brutal irregularity: we may fancy we discover genius in the appetite of a tiger. Hence those high-sounding phrases, those maxims upon stilts, which pass for wise, and which, passing from history or romance into vulgar language, enter into the commerce of paltry villany, of assassins who commit murder for a silver cup or the tattered gown of a poor woman.

It has been affirmed that free investigation was the constitutive principle of the reformation. In the first place, it is necessary to understand what is meant by free investigation. Free investigation of what? Of religion, or of philosophic ideas? These subjects had long been discussed without restraint. Is it the free investigation of social questions; of civil liberty? Certainly not! And this I shall prove in the succeeding chapter.

It is even doubtful whether free investigation in matters of religion really accelerated the antichristian revolution, which is the fundamental idea of those with whom this free investigation is the favourite doctrine. Bayle, who cannot be suspected on this subject, makes the following just and profound observation: " It is certain that the number of those who were luke-warm, indifferent, or disgusted with christianity, was diminished much more than augmented by the