The Reformation, according to the scholars from beyond the Alps, was the result of a damnable and most reprehensible conspiracy on the part of a number of despicable princes who wanted to get unmarried and who besides hoped to acquire the possessions which had formerly belonged to their Holy Mother the Church. As usual, both sides were right and both sides were wrong. The Reformation was the work of all sorts of people with all sorts of motives. And it is only within very recent times that we have begun to realize how religious discontent played only a minor rôle in this great upheaval and that it was really an unavoidable social and economic revolution with a slightly theological background. Of course it is much easier to teach our children that good Prince Philip was a very enlightened ruler who took a profound personal interest in the reformed doctrines, than to explain to them the complicated machinations of an unscrupulous politician who willingly accepted the help of the infidel Turks in his warfare upon other Christians. In consequence whereof we Protestants have for hundreds of years made a magnanimous hero out of an ambitious young landgrave who hoped to see the house of Hesse play the rôle thus far played by the rival house of Hapsburg. On the other hand it is so much simpler to turn Pope Clement into a loving shepherd who wasted the last remnants of his declining strength trying to prevent his flocks from following false leaders, than to depict him as a typical prince of the house of Medici who regarded the Reformation as an unseemly brawl of drunken German monks and used the power of the Church to further the interests of his own Italian fatherland, that we need feel no surprise if such a fabulous figure smiles at us from the pages of most Catholic text-books. But while that sort of history may be necessary in Europe, we fortunate settlers in a new world are under no obligation to persist in the errors of our continental ancestors and are at liberty to draw a few conclusions of our own. Just because Philip of Hesse, the great friend and supporter of Luther, was a man dominated by an enormous political ambition, it does not necessarily follow that he was insincere in his religious convictions. By no means. When he put his name to the famous “Protest” of the year 1529, he knew as well as his fellow signers that they were about to “expose themselves to the violence of a terrible storm,” and might end their lives on the scaffold. If he had not been a man of extraordinary courage, he would never have undertaken to play the rôle he actually played. But the point I am trying to make is this: that it is exceedingly difficult, yes, almost impossible, to judge an historical character (or for that matter, any of our immediate neighbors) without a profound knowledge of all the many motives which have inspired him to do what he has done or forced him to omit doing what he has omitted to do.