throughout the German Empire at that time there was a general movement pressing for a readjustment of the relations of the various classes to each other and to the Imperial power. Ideas of a total reconstruction of society and the State had penetrated the mass of the people, to an extent never known before. Thus the way was paved, and incentives already supplied for a powerful popular movement, apart altogether from the question of Church Reform. And indeed this question Luther was anxious, as we have seen, to restrict to the domain of spiritual, as distinguished from secular, that is to say, political and civil action. It was impossible, however, but that the accusations of lying, tyranny, and hostility to evangelical truth, now freely levelled against the dominant priesthood and the secular lords who were persecuting the gospel, should serve to intensify to the utmost the prevailing bitterness against external oppression. With the same firmness and decision with which Luther condemned all disorderly and violent proceedings in support of the gospel, he had also long been warning its persecutors of the inevitable storm which they would bring upon themselves. Other evangelical preachers, however, as for instance, Eberlin and Strauss, mingled with their popular preaching all sorts of suggestions of social reform. At last men went about among the people, with open or disguised activity, whose principles were directly opposed to those of Luther, but who proclaimed themselves, nevertheless, enthusiasts for the gospel which he had brought again to light, or which, as they pretended, they had been the first to reveal, together with true evangelical liberty. They appealed to God's Word in support of the claims and grievances of the oppressed classes; they grasped their weapons by virtue of the Divine law. Hence the peculiar ardour and energy that marked the insurrection, although the enthusiasm, thus kindled, was united with the utmost barbarity and licentiousness. Never has Germany been threatened with a revolution so vast and violent, or so immeasurable in its possible results. On no single man's word did so much depend as on that of Luther, the genuine man of the people.