and a welcome home in the new university! Enough has been said to make it easy to comprehend the odium theologicum and the fierce and protracted controversies of the two parties represented by the universities of Wittenberg and Jena. From this time onward neither Melanchthon, on the one hand, nor Flacius, on the other, had any peace till they found it in their graves.

The Augsburg Interim, drawn up by Julius von Pflug, and, by the emperor's order, presented for approval at the diet of Augsburg in 1548, was a source of much trouble to the Protestants. As the Council of Trent, now removed to Bologna, refused to do anything for the reformation of the church, Charles V. determined to take the work into his own hands, and to force a plan of union upon the Protestants. He was taken by surprise when Maurice, instead of adopting the Interim, said he must consult his theologians on the subject. They, of course, could not yield so much of the Protestant ground already gained, as that instrument required. After several consultations between Maurice's advisers and his theologians, the elector carried through in Saxony a modification of the Interim more favorable to the Protestants, which modification was called the Leipsic Interim. Melanchthon's position in respect to this Interim was doubly embarrassing. Though consulted, for the sake of his influence, more perhaps than any other man, and yet so consulted that he might receive advice from the elector and his wary minister, Carlowitz, rather than give it, he approved of the Leipsic Interim only in part, just enough to excite the violent opposition of his theological opponents in Saxony, but not enough to satisfy Maurice and his court. He undoubtedly yielded too much to the Catholics; and an unfortunate letter written privately to Carlowitz in a moment of timidity and weakness, was made public, to his great injury. In respect to that part of the Interim which he did not approve, he said the elector could do as he pleased, but must take the responsibility upon himself. The Protestant theologians of both parties, that of Flacius and that of Melanchthon, regarded the subject as of the greatest importance, the former maintaining that the Interim only prepared the way for a return to the Catholic church through some scheme of the Council of Trent, the latter affirming that it was the only means of appeasing the anger of the victorious emperor, and of preserving Saxony from complete destruction by Spanish soldiers. But after all the infinite trouble that was thus caused to the Saxon church, bringing upon it a blight from which it did not recover during the sixteenth century, it turned out that Maurice was only amusing the emperor, and keeping up appearances till his own plans should be completed for changing sides again, and putting himself at the head of an army to defend the oppressed Protestants. This is apparent from the fact that after his relations to the Emperor were changed, he took no pains to enforce the Interim, which had answered its purpose. It would seem to be a pity that both parties of theologians, who were rendered hostile to each other by their opposite relations to this Interim, could not have known that Maurice, who seemed so tyrannical in forcing it through and publishing it as a law, was not in earnest about it.

This, however, was a secret, which could not be entrusted to any one. Besides, a knowledge of the elector's plans could not have helped the matter at all; for the theologians could not openly approve of an iniquitous document, with a private understanding that no use was to be made of it; and the elector could not mislead the emperor by anything short of the Interim itself, actually published and forced upon the Protestants.

The theological dispute between Melanchthon and his opponents in regard to the Interim, related to "indifferent things" in religion, or the adiaphora, as they were called. Melanchthon maintained that, so long as pure doctrines were taught, ceremonies which did not contradict these were indifferent. His opponents maintained that a return of the Protestant church to a state in which she should be governed by bishops, and especially by the bishop of Rome, could not be indifferent to those who had followed Luther in the rejection of all such authority; that it would be a practical surrender of the principle of Protestantism; and that the wearing of sacerdotal robes was not indifferent, if it was imposed upon the clergy by the civil authority; that it was the duty of the church to assert and maintain its liberty. Maurice, when the proper time arrived, developed his plans rapidly. Having made a capitulation in November of 1551, with Magdeburg, which the emperor had authorized and instructed him to subdue on account of its resistance to the Augsburg Interim, he retained his army; and, in the beginning of the next year, formed an alliance with Hesse to deliver the landgrave, his father-in-law, from his unjust imprisonment. He attacked Augsburg on the 1st of April, 1552, and Inspruck on the 20th of May following; and being completely victorious over the imperial troops, he met the commissioners of the humbled emperor in Passau on the 1st of June, where a treaty was made, by which Charles V. gave up the cherished objects of a lifelong pursuit, freeing the elector and landgrave, and guaranteeing peace and security to the Protestants. This treaty was confirmed in an imperial diet held at Augsburg in 1555; and though it was violated in the Thirty Years' War, it was permanently re-established, at the close of that bloody religious war, by the Peace of Westphalia.

Melanchthon was taken altogether by surprise when Maurice entered' upon this brilliant part of his career, and was so fearful of an unhappy result that he attempted to dissuade him from the undertaking. But the Treaty of Passau put an end to all the troubles growing out of the attempts of the Catholics to force the Interim upon the Protestant churches. While, .however, the external condition of things was favorable to peace, Melanchthon had other sources of grief. Controversies, in which he was sooner or later involved, multiplied on every hand, as that originated by Osiander on justification; that on the freedom of the will, occasioned by Melanchthon's new edition of the Loci; that on the necessity of good works; and that endless one in regard to the nature of the eucharist. It would require much space to give any satisfactory account of these controversies. Besides, the story has been so often told by those who have written the history of the doctrines of the Lutheran church, that it is hardly necessary to repeat it

here. In respect to the bodily presence of Christ in the supper, it may be incidentally remarked that Melanchthon, in his later years, occupied a position between that of Zuingli and Calvin, though nearer the latter than the former. The theories would be shaded off in a true picture, from the highest to the lowest point, somewhat in the following order: the Catholic or scholastic theory of transubstantiation; Luther's theory of consubstantiation, or more exactly, of the ubiquity of Christ's body; Calvin's theory of a real spiritual presence by faith, which ascends to heaven in the eucharist; Melanchthon's theory of a spiritual presence without any explanation of the manner of it; and, finally, Zuingli's theory of a symbolical presence, the bread and the wine merely representing the body and blood of Christ. Though Melanchthon, whose experience qualified him to judge of the utility of colloquies as a means of settling doctrinal difficulties, came to entertain a dread of the very name, he was obliged to attend one more, that held at Worms in 1557, which turned out much as he expected. Its only effect was to separate the Wittenbergers from the Flacians, the Protestants from the Catholics, and the Lutheran church from the reformed church more widely than ever. The remaining three years of Melanchthon's life were passed in similar disquiet. He abstained from controversy as far as possible; and longed for a world where the weary might be at rest.

G. AHLHORN'S LIFE AND SELECT WRITINGS OF URBAN RHEGIUS.1

THIS work comes very fresh from the press, having been published but a few months. The matter itself here presented will, to the great majority of readers, be as new as the pages on which it is recorded. While the great features of the Reformation will always remain essentially the same, the details connected with the lives of subordinate actors in this grand scene, give new views on points where they are most needed, making us intimately acquainted with the private lives of public men, and thus throwing a clearer light on the whole subject. The more we become acquainted with the social relations of the leading men of that age, their early companions and friends, the better can we judge of all those public acts which are insensibly influenced by personal feelings of attachment or aversion. How many of the friends of the Reformation, and of the Reformers themselves, were for a time influenced by the circumstance that they were the literary friends and correspondents of Erasmus! Bound, by attachment, to him as the promoter of ancient learning, they entertained kind feelings for those Catholic prelates and scholars who were in sympathy with him.

All this is beautifully illustrated in the life of Rhegius. Born (in 1489) on the northern shore of Lake Constance, educated for the university in the neighboring school of Lindau, he entered the university of Freiburg in 1508. Here he lived in the house and became the personal friend of his country

1 Urbanus Rhegius. Leben und ausgewählte Schriften, von Dr. Gerhard Ahlhorn, Consistorialrath in Hannover. pp. 370. Elberfeld: 1861.

man Xasius, the great jurist of that day. This distinguished professor warmly espoused the cause of learning, and in many respects favored the Reformation; but, like so many others, he found it too radical, and therefore stood aloof from it, and finally opposed it, after the manner of Erasmus. Here in Freiburg, Rhegius belonged to a powerful literary circle composed of Catholics of a moderate reformatory character, in which there was as yet no separation of the Protestant and Catholic elements. Here lived in friendship and harmony men who were afterwards leaders of opposite parties. As now, in the two great hostile armies of our country, military commanders who were once classmates and friends, are fighting against each other unto the death, so, a few years after the period of which we are now speaking, the friends and acquaintances of Rhegius were found in conspicuous positions on opposite sides. Here were Capito and Zell, afterwards reformers in Strasburg; Aesticampianus, the distinguished classical scholar, afterwards professor in Wittenberg; John Eck, now the particular friend of Rhegius, as he was later the chief opponent of Luther. His removal to Ingoldstadt in 1512, where he was made professor of rhetoric and poetry, and afterwards crowned as poeta et orator laureatus by the emperor Maximillian, served only to multiply his connections with this class of men. Here Eck, who had also removed to Ingoldstadt, was one of his colleagues in the faculty of instruction, and Hubmair, subsequently known as an Anabaptist leader, was another. Here he became intimately acquainted with Faber, then vicar of the bishop of Constance, afterwards as minister and confessor of the emperor, Ferdinand I., a most dangerous and powerful enemy of the Protestants. He was well acquainted with Erasmus, who, in one of his letters calls him urbanissimum Urbanum. It is a curious fact that at the very time, 1519, when Faber and Rhegius were upholding their friend Eck in his controversy with Luther, they were holding a most friendly correspondence with Zuingli. And yet, strange to say, in a manner unknown to us, within a year, in the midst of these friends, Rhegius came to see the whole truth, and sent to Luther, through a friend who was writing to him, the following salutation: "Urbanus Rhegius greets you, learned Martin, and has so much the more claim to a friendly recognition, as he has come to love you, not from any sudden impulse, but from calm conviction."

Rhegius, meanwhile, laid in large stores of learning. Though distinguished as a classical scholar, he was, while at Freiburg, a student of law; and during the whole period of his residence in Ingoldstadt, from 1512 to 1520, he was a diligent student of theology. In view of all these things, it is not strange that when Oecolampadius, in his despondency, came to the unwise conclusion to resign his place as preacher at Augsburg, and enter a monastery, Rhegius should be appointed his successor. Luther had appeared before Cajetan at Augsburg in 1518, and made a favorable impression on the minds of such distinguished men as Peutinger, Langenmantel, and Frosch. In less than a year Oecolampadius was invited to preach there, and on his retirement, it was a friend of Luther, Adelmann by name, that secured the election of Rhegius. As Oecolampadius was not sufficiently

settled in his views, at that time, to be very decided in his preaching, and as Eck succeeded in having the bull against Luther published in Augsburg, the character of Rhegius was put to a severe test. His development as a Protestant leader was rapid. He published anonymously several satirical works, keenly attacking the papacy, and setting forth the merits of Luther. The latter had just uttered his heroic words at the Diet of Worms (1521), and Rhegius seems to have imbibed his spirit and maintained it, notwithstanding Luther's concealment at Wartburg. His language was: "Luther can be extinguished, but the truth cannot." "Christ has taken such deep root in the souls of men at Augsburg, that he will live there, though the body be killed."

Before the close of the year 1521, he was obliged to leave Augsburg, to which he was so much attached, then one of the most prosperous and splendid cities of Germany. One day, as he came from the pulpit, a priest accused him of being a Lutheran heretic, and struck him brutally in the face, with a key, which he happened to have in his hand. The violence of the opposition to him was so great, that he thought it best peacefully to withdraw. He retired to his native place on Lake Constance, and devoted himself to study. Like all the men of that age who were devoted to classical literature, he had more eloquence, suavity, and wit, than of that firm adherence to principle which makes one superior to the consideration of worldly advantages, and unmoved in persecution. Erasmus and Luther are types of these two kinds of character. The troubles which Rhegius was called to experience, improved his character. In the school of affliction, under the discipline of crosses, he acquired just that strength and force of character which he most needed. While in the vicinity of Lindau, he renewed his correspondence with Zuingli, which had been dropped for two years. Zurich was not far distant; and it was just at this time that Zuingli was carrying through his reforms there, and that the bishop of Constance was calling him to an account. The latter sent a delegation, with Faber, the old friend of Zuingli and Rhegius, at the head of it, to the city council of Zurich, requiring it to put a stop to these innovations. Rhegius now wrote to Zuingli: "I learn with joy that, in the spirit of Paul, you have attacked the false apostle and his Ananias, that whited wall (Faber), and have trampled human traditions under your feet."

Having spent about half the year 1522 in his native place, he was invited to succeed Strauss, an evangelical preacher at Hall on the Inn, near Inspruck, who had incurred the displeasure of the bishop of Brixen. Strauss was afterwards a Lutheran preacher at Kemberg near Wittenberg, and at Eisenach: Here Rhegius, without interfering with the outward order and ceremonies of the church, contented himself with preaching the simple fundamental principles of the gospel. He was therefore uninterrupted till the spring of 1523, when the bishop required him to preach the dogmas of the church as well as the gospel, which he declined to do. He offered to hold a public disputation, and to bind himself to preach all that could be proved to have been preached by the apostles. The bishop called in the aid of