Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/96

112 plucked the Holy Scriptures from out of the heap of human inventions, under which they had been buried; to have made them available to every man, and so doing, to have anew opened to Christianity the fountain from which the first congregation derived its life and its inspiration. Christianity beheld now here again, the living, historical Saviour. She could now inquire, hear, learn, from Him Himself, and His Apostles. Human intervention, Popes, Priests, Councils, no longer thrust themselves between Him and them, all human beings could become immediately, his disciples, all could receive immediately from Him, the word of Eternal Life! Thus, rejoiced the young, protesting congregation, over the Romish Church, and with reason. This benefit was unspeakable! To have placed the Holy Scriptures in the hands of the people to have learned from them, that not on outward works, but by the faith of the heart alone, depended the highest weal or woe of man;—that it seems to me, is the greatest work of Luther and the Reformation. This was also its pure principle, and the source of an infinite development. But just at the commencement of this development, when the newly-born church should have formed itself into being, difficulties and contradictions arose, which split it up within itself. They knew very well, that God's word in the Holy Scriptures, must alone be the basis and canon of the church. And now, the new disciples start forward, each with the Holy Scriptures in his hand, but none understood and explained them as the others. The architects of the church could not agree about the building. Each one would build it in his own