absolved himself from all previous obligations, disowned the senate of
cardinals he had helped to erect, began his career with violence and
robbery, plundered the cities and states of Italy, religiously
violated all compacts but those which favored his absolute supremacy,
brought to none effect the reform Council of Basle, deceived Germany
with his specious and hollow concessions, averted the improvements he
had sworn to make, and by his perfidy and cunning managed to retain in
subordination to the old régime nearly the whole of that Christendom
which he had outraged!

In spite of the efforts of centuries, this super-imperial power held
by the throat a struggling world.

To break that gnarled and bony hand, which locked up everything in its
grasp; to bring down the towering altitude of that olden tyranny,
whose head was lifted to the clouds; to strike from the soul its
clanking chains and set the suffering nations free; to champion the
inborn rights of afflicted humanity, and conquer the ignorance and
imposture which had governed for a thousand years,--constituted the
work and office of the man the four hundredth anniversary of whose
birth half the civilized world is celebrating to-day.


TIME OF THE REFORMATION.

It has been said that when this tonsured Augustinian came upon the
stage almost any brave man might have brought about the impending
changes. The Reformers before the Reformation, though vanquished, had
indeed not lived in vain. The European peoples were outgrowing feudal
vassalage, and moving toward nationalization and separation between