and eyes, is due not to his recovered liberty, but to the narrowness and darkness of the dungeon in which he has been immured. In Germany, at the same epoch, there was not merely a local rising, but a wide-spread and most terrible peasants' war. The German peasantry had been ground down beyond even an hereditary bondsman's power of endurance by their lords generally, and by the Prince Bishop and other spiritual lords in particular. The Reformation having come with a gospel of truth, love, spiritual brotherhood, the peasants thought it might also have brought some hope of social justice. The doctors of divinity had to inform them that this was a mistake. But they took the matter into their own hands and rose far and wide, the fury of social and industrial war blending with the wildest fanaticism, the most delirious ecstacy, the darkest imposture. Once more there are stormings and burnings of feudal castles, massacring of their lords. Lords are roasted alive, hunted like wild beasts in savage revenge for the cruelty of the game laws. Munzer, a sort of peasant Mahomet, is at the head of the movement. Under him it becomes Anabaptist, Antinomian, Communist. At first he and his followers sweep the country with a whirlwind of terror and destruction: but again the lords rally, bring up regular troops. The peasants are brought to bay on their last hill side, behind a rampart formed of their waggons. Their prophet assures them that the cannon-balls will fall harmless into his cloak. The cannon-balls take their usual course: a butchery, then a train of torturings and executions follows, the Prince Bishop, among others, adding considerably to the whiteness of the Church's robe. Luther is accused of having incited the ferocity of the lords against those, who, it is alleged, had only carried his own principles to an extreme. But in the first place Luther never taught Anabaptism or anything that could logically lead to it; and in the second place, before he denounced the peasants, he tried to mediate and rebuke the tyranny of the lords. No man deserves more sympathy than a great reformer, who is obliged to turn against the excesses of his own party. He becomes the object of fierce hatred on one side, of exulting derision on the other; yet he is no traitor, but alone loyal to his conscience and his cause. The French Revolution was a political movement among the middle class in the cities, but among the peasantry in the country it was an agrarian and labour movement, and the dismantling of chateaux, and chasing away of their lords which then took place were a renewal of the struggle which had given birth to the Jacquerie, the insurrection of Wat Tyler, and the Peasants' War. This time the victory remained with the peasant, and the lord returned no more.