ULRIC VON HÜTTEN.

Ulric von Hütten, soldier and knight, equally distinguished in letters
and in arms, and called the Demosthenes of Germany, was a zealous
friend of reform. He had been in Rome, and sharpened his darts from
what he there saw to hurl them with effect. All the powers of satire
and ridicule he brought to bear upon the pillars of the Papacy. He
helped to shake the edifice, and his plans and spirit might have
served to pull it down had he been able to bring Europe to his mind;
but it would only have been to bury society in its ruins.


ULRICH ZWINGLI.

Ulrich Zwingli is ranked among Reformers, and he was energetic in
behalf of reform. But he fell a victim to his own mistakes, and with
him would have perished the Reformation also had it depended upon him.
Even had he lived, his radical and rationalistic spirit, his narrow
and fiery patriotism, his shallow religious experience, and his
eagerness to rest the cause of Reformation on civil authority and the
sword, would have wrecked it with nine-tenths of the European peoples.


MELANCHTHON.

Philip Melanchthon was a better and a greater man, and did the
Reformation a far superior service. Luther would have been much
disabled without him, and Germany has awarded him the title of its
"Preceptor." But no Reformation could have come if the fighting or