Page:Thirty-five years of Luther research.djvu/24

6 selves do not possess the opportunity for closer investigation."5

"The militant spirits among the younger generation," of whom mention is made here, diligently copied their master, although generally their writings were marked by a greater flagrancy and carelessness, so that between 1880 and 1884 Germany was fairly deluged by more or less skillful libelous writings against Luther and the Reformation, until finally, in 1890, P. Majunke, priest and one-time editor of the Koelner Volkszeitung and of the Berlin Germania, reached the acme in absurdity and malice by pronouncing Luther a suicide.6 What wonder, then, that men began to study the history of the Reformation, and of the life and works of Luther as never before; that the old, as well as newly-established, results of learned research, were made accessible to the cultured as well as the common people in a far greater measure than ever before? Bossert, whom we quoted above, continues: "The time demands that the history of the Reformation be given anew to the Protestant people of Germany, with the continual proof of the fallacies contained in Janssen's work." Already, in 1882, the "Verein fuer Reformationsgeschichte" was founded, which announced as its aim: "To make more accessible to the greater public the positive results of research concerning the origin of our Protestant Church, the personalities and facts of the Reformation, and the influence they asserted on all the phases of the life of the people, so that through a direct introduction into the history of our Church the Protestant consciousness may be confirmed and strengthened" (Par. I of the Statutes of the Society). Up to the present day, we have a series of more than one hundred and twenty numbers bearing the