all of these conceptions would make it. Many influences contributed to
its accomplishment, but its inmost principle was unique. The real
nerve of the Reformation was religious. Its life was something
different from mere earthly interests, utilities, aims, or passions.
_Its seat was in the conscience._ Its true spring was the soul,
confronted by eternal judgment, trembling for its estate before divine
Almightiness, and, on pain of banishment from every immortal good,
forced to condition and dispose itself according to the clear
revelations of God. It was not mere negation to an oppressive
hierarchy, except as it was first positive and evangelic touching the
direct and indefeasible relations and obligations of the soul to its
Maker. Only when the hierarchy claimed to qualify these direct
relations and obligations, thrust itself between the soul and its
Redeemer, and by eternal penalties sought to hold the conscience bound
to human authorities and traditions, did the Reformation protest and
take issue. Had the inalienable right and duty to obey God rather than
man been conceded, the hierarchy, as such, might have remained, the
same as monarchical government. But this the hierarchy negatived,
condemned, and would by no means tolerate. Hence the mighty contest.
And the heart, sum, and essence of the whole struggle was the
maintenance and the working out into living fact of this direct
obligation of the soul to God and the supreme authority of His clear
and unadulterated word.


SPIRITUAL TRAINING.

How Luther came to these principles, and the fiery trials by which
they were burnt into him as part of his inmost self, is one of the
most vital chapters in the history.