It was Melancthon's greatest affliction, that all these evils were attributed to him, as indeed he ascribed them himself. "One single thing has injured us," said he; "our not having approved, as was required of us, the edict against the Zwinglians." Luther did not take this gloomy view of affairs; but he was far from comprehending the force of the protest. "The diet," said he, "has come to an end almost without results, except that those who scourge Jesus Christ have not been able to satisfy their fury."[184] [184] Christo mastiges et Psycho-tyranni suum furorem non potuerunt explere.--(L. Epp. Linco, 6th May 1529.) Posterity has not ratified this decision, and, on the contrary, dating from this epoch the definitive formation of Protestantism, it has hailed in the Protest of Spire one of the greatest movements recorded in history. Let us see to whom the chief glory of this act belongs. The part taken by the princes, and especially by the Elector of Saxony, in the German Reformation, must strike every impartial observer. These are the true Reformers--the true Martyrs. The Holy Ghost, that bloweth where it listeth, had inspired them with the courage of the ancient confessors of the Church; and the God of Election was glorified in them. A little later perhaps this great part played by the princes might have produced deplorable consequences: there is no grace of God that man may not pervert. But nothing should prevent us from rendering honour to whom honour is due, and from adoring the work of the eternal Spirit in these eminent men who, under God, were in the sixteenth century the saviours of Christendom. The Reformation had taken a bodily form. It was Luther alone who had said No at the Diet of Worms: but Churches and ministers, princes and people, said No at the Diet of Spire. In no country had superstition, scholasticism, hierarchy, and popery, been so powerful as among the Germanic nations. These simple and candid people had humbly bent their neck to the yoke that came from the banks of the Tiber. But, there was in them a depth, a life, a need of interior liberty, which, sanctified by the Word of God, might render them the most energetic organs of christian truth. It was from them that was destined to emanate the reaction against that material, external, and legal system, which had taken the place of Christianity; it was they who were called to shatter in pieces the skeleton which had been substituted for the spirit and the life, and restore to the heart of Christendom, ossified by the hierarchy, the generous beatings of which it had been deprived for so many ages. The Universal Church will never forget the debt it owes to the Princes of Spire and to Luther. [Sidenote: GERMANY AND REFORM.]