But the opposition to the new calendar, to which reference has
been made, was not based on any such considerations as these. It
was due, largely at any rate, to the fact that Germany at this
time was under sway of the Lutheran revolt against the papacy. So
effective was the opposition that the Gregorian calendar did not
come into vogue in Germany until the year 1699. It may be added
that England, under stress of the same manner of prejudice, held
out against the new reckoning until the year 1751, while Russia
does not accept it even now.

As the Protestant leaders thus opposed the papal attitude in a
matter of so practical a character as the calendar, it might
perhaps have been expected that the Lutherans would have had a
leaning towards the Copernican theory of the universe, since this
theory was opposed by the papacy. Such, however, was not the
case. Luther himself pointed out with great strenuousness, as a
final and demonstrative argument, the fact that Joshua commanded
the sun and not the earth to stand still; and his followers were
quite as intolerant towards the new teaching as were their
ultramontane opponents. Kepler himself was, at various times, to
feel the restraint of ecclesiastical opposition, though he was
never subjected to direct persecution, as was his friend and
contemporary, Galileo. At the very outset of Kepler's career
there was, indeed, question as to the publication of a work he
had written, because that work took for granted the truth of the
Copernican doctrine. This work appeared, however, in the year
1596. It bore the title Mysterium Cosmographium, and it attempted
to explain the positions of the various planetary bodies.
Copernicus had devoted much time to observation of the planets