The Interim was promulgated at the Diet held at Augsbourg, and it was followed by a long succession of conferences, which were carried on at Leipzig and in other places, under the Protestant auspices of Maurice of Saxony. Here was an excellent field for the talents and character of Melancthon. All the public documents of the Protestants were composed by him. All the acuteness of his reason, all the graces of his style, all the resources of his learning were brought into light and action; and much that he wrote in censure of the Interim was written with force and truth. But here, as on former occasions, the effects of his genius were marred by the very moderation of his principles, and the practical result of his labours was not beneficial to the cause which he intended to serve. For in this instance he not only did not conciliate the enemies to whom he made too large concessions, but he excited distrust and offence among his friends; and these feelings were presently exasperated into absolute schism. On the death of Luther, two years before these conferences, the foremost place among the reformers had unquestionably devolved upon Melancthon. He had deserved that eminence by his various endowments, and his uninterrupted exertions: yet was he not the character most fitted to occupy it at that crisis. His incurable thirst for universal esteem and regard; his perpetual anxiety to soothe his enemies and soften the bigotry of the hierarchy, frequently seduced him into unworthy compromises, which lowered his own cause, without obtaining either advantage or respect from his adversaries. It is not thus that the ferocity of intolerance can be disarmed. The lust of religious domination cannot be satisfied by soothing words, or appeased by any exercise of religious charity. It is too blind to imagine any motive for the moderation of an enemy, except the consciousness of weakness. It is too greedy to accept any partial concession, except as a pledge of still farther humiliation, to end in absolute submission. It can be successfully opposed only by the same unbending resolution which itself displays, tempered by a calmer judgment and animated by a more righteous purpose.