These multiplied evils, which checked the spirit of improvement, called loudly for reform. Councils were assembled for the purpose; but councils supported, rather than diminished, the evils of which even princes complained. The reform was not destined to come from dignitaries in the church or state; not from bishops, nor philosophers, nor kings, but from an obscure teacher of divinity in a German university, whom the genius of a reviving and awakened age had summoned into the field of revolutionary warfare. It was reserved for Martin Luther to commence the first successful rebellion against the despotism of Rome, and to give the greatest impulse to freedom of thought, and a general spirit of reform, which ten centuries had seen. The most prominent event in modern times is unquestionably the Protestant Reformation, and it was by far the most momentous in its results. It gave rise, directly or indirectly, to the great wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well as to those rival sects which agitated the theological world. It is connected with the enterprises of great monarchs, with the struggle of the Huguenots and Puritans, with the diffusion of knowledge, and with the progress of civil and religious liberty in Europe. An event, therefore, of such interest and magnitude, may well be adopted as a starting point in modern history, and will, accordingly, be the first subject of especial notice. History is ever most impressive and philosophical when great changes and revolutions are traced to the agency of great spiritual ideas. Moreover, modern history is so complicated, that it is difficult to unravel it except by tracing the agency of great causes, rather than by detailing the fortunes of kings and nobles. CHAPTER II. MARTIN LUTHER AND HIS ASSOCIATES. [Sidenote: The Early Life of Luther.]