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Rh established; the universities attained a height of distinction never dreamt of in former times. And art developed more rapidly than learning. But there were many dangerous symptoms in religious, social and political life. In all departments perplexity and confusion were visible. A mass of inflammable material was ready everywhere, and it needed but a spark to set the whole mass ablaze. This spark came from Wittenberg.

Luther was undoubtedly a man endowed with the highest natural gifts. Still he was not what Protestant tradition has made him. "On the part of the Protestants," writes one of Germany's historians, the Protestant K. A. Menzel, "it is an accepted maxim to represent to oneself the Reformers as lords and half saints. This prejudice is indeed broken in circles that are conversant with history, but among the large mass of the evangelical population it is still maintained, not, however, to the preservation of truth. It passes current as 'cultured', and is paraded as a mark of 'scientific investigation' to undermine with criticism and negation even the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. But woe to him who with the torch of science invades the vestibule of the temple in which prejudice