What then must have happened, had not true Christianity re-appeared in the world, and had not faith filled the hearts of men anew with its power and its holiness? The Reformation saved religion, and with it society, and, therefore, if the Church of Rome had had the glory of God and the good of the people at heart, it would have welcomed the Reformation with delight. But what were such things as these to Leo X? However, a torch could not be lighted in Italy without sending its beams beyond the Alps. The affairs of the Church established a constant intercourse between the Italian Peninsula and the other parts of Christendom, and the _barbarians_ being thus soon made to feel the superiority and pride of the Italians, began to blush for the imperfection of their language and their style. Some young noblemen, a Dalberg, a Langen, a Spiegelberg, inflamed with an eager desire of knowledge, passed over into Italy, and on their return to Germany, brought back learning, grammar, and the classics, now so eagerly sought after, and communicated them to their friends.[89] Shortly after, Rodolph Agricola, a man of distinguished genius, appeared, and was held in as high veneration for his learning and genius, as if he had lived in the age of Augustus or Pericles. The ardour of his mind, and the fatigues of the school, wore him out in a few years; but not till noble disciples had been trained, through intimate intercourse with him, to carry their master's fire all over Germany. Often, when assembled around him, they had together deplored the darkness of the Church, and asked why Paul so often repeats that men are justified by faith and not by works.[90] [89] Hamelmann, Relatio Hist. This first impulse has been erroneously attributed to Thomas à Kempis. (Delprat over G. Groote, p. 280.) [90] "Fide justos esse." (Melancth. Decl., i, 602.) Around the feet of these new teachers soon gathered rustic youths, who lived by alms and studied without books, and who, divided into sections of priests of Bacchus, arquebusiers, and many more besides, moved in disorderly bands from town to town, and school to school. No matter; these strange bands were the commencement of a literary public. The masterpieces of antiquity began gradually to issue from the presses of Germany, supplanting the schoolmen; and the art of printing, discovered at Mayence in 1440, multiplied the energetic voices which remonstrated against the corruption of the Church, and those voices, not less energetic, which invited the human mind into new paths.