With regard to Luther and the other reformers, as well as the significance of the whole movement, I have preferred to quote only Protestant authorities in order to avoid the almost inevitable bias of my own educational training and { 249} environment. Even thus I can only hope to give an approximately impartial discussion of these men whose work as I see it did more to hurt human development in every line of thought than anything else in modern history.
The story of Luther's early life, of the unhappiness of his home, of the sudden death of his friend which made him turn from a career at the bar to enter the monastery, all tend to show him by heredity and personal character as a man of strong impulses ruled by them. There is no doubt at all that during the early years of his career as a monk Luther was happy and that the stories of his unhappiness are founded on inconsiderate expressions of his own in later life, which are contradicted by documents written in his earlier years. The doctrine of indulgences, against which he inveighed so vigorously, is as eminently open to abuse as religion itself--and had undoubtedly been abused in his time, but the teaching of the Church on the subject remains exactly what it was in Luther's day and before it, yet has been accepted by the intelligent members of the Church ever since. Converts like Newman or Manning, not to mention many others of our time, find no difficulty at all in accepting it, once they understand it. The Protestant arguments founded on it are due entirely to misunderstanding of the true significance of the Church's position in the matter. Only those who _will_ not cannot understand it. Luther's declaration that he found the doctrine of indulgences too hard to comprehend is shown to be one of those interesting ideas as to his earlier career that developed in his mind in all sincerity in later life, but which are contradicted by his own writings, for there is from him an admirable sermon on the subject of indulgences which contains an excellent exposition of the Church's teaching.
Luther gradually developed into one of the men so common in the world's history who are quite sure that the world is wrong in nearly everything and that they are born to set it right. They believe thoroughly in themselves, they have a great fund of energy to draw on, they usually have strong powers of expression and there are a large number of people waiting to be led by them and not a few quite willing to take { 250} advantage for their own purposes of the movement that the restless create. It is well understood now that the great majority of men do not think for themselves, but stand ready to accept other people's thoughts, and often are more willing to carry out such thoughts to their logical conclusions, or at least to try to fit them to practical life, than are the original thinkers. The fate of a generation depends on whom it chooses as its leaders. Unfortunately, the choice is not often quite voluntary, but is forced on men by conditions, or they are imposed upon by the genius appeal of the leader, and sometimes even more by those who gather round him at the beginning of a movement and help to give it momentum.