Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/245

 growth of Huguenotism in France, the rising up of men like Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and Knox in such rapid succession, and with such marked differences, and such diverse contributions to such a complex result? There was unquestionably, in conjunction with the yearnings for spiritual change, a deep and, strong impulse for breaking with the past; breaking with national traditions and with religious traditions; a tendency which would, if it had been unchecked, unobstructed, or not diverted into other channels, almost of necessity have amounted to revolution.

Strong government had not come too soon; but for that, with all its oppressions, its repressions, and its persecutions, there would have been a period of anarchy in the breaking up of the deeps of old society. Well, however it was to be met, reformation came; the absorption of a great part of the lands of the churches followed or accompanied reformation; either, as in England, by the seizure and surrender of monastic estates, or in Germany by the adoption of transparent fictions which enabled Protestant princes to lay on ecclesiastical positions a hold which was never to be relaxed; or, as in Scotland, by sweeping away the old fabric altogether. The ancient right of territorial ownership was weakened, and the process of secularisation, which was in Germany completed at the peace of Westphalia, set the seal of legality on the status quo.

Protestantism had done its utmost to shift the balance of power. Yet, as I said before, it had really done little more than produce a cross division in the conflicting parties. Where Protestantism was an idea only, as in Spain and Italy, it was crushed out by the Inquisition; where, in conjunction with political power and sustained by ecclesiastical confiscation, it became a physical force, there it was lasting. It is^ not a pleasant view to take of the doctrinal change to see that, where the movement towards it was pure and unworldly, it failed; where it was seconded by territorial greed and political animosity, it succeeded. But so it has been with many of the changes by which in the long run both Church and world have been benefited. In the case of the English reformation, it is