History of the Reformation in Germany (1905) Book

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ATTEMPT TO REFORM THE CONSTITUTION OF THE.EMPIRE 1486?1517 Similar disorders, arising from kindred sources and an analogous train of events, existed in all the other nations of Europe. It may be said, that the offspring and products of the middle ages were engaged in a universal conflict which seemed likely to end in their common destruction. The ideas upon which human society is based are but partially and imperfectly imbued with the divine and eternal Essence from which they emanate ; for a time they are beneficent and vivifying, and new creations spring up under their breath. But on earth nothing attains to a pure and perfect existence, and therefore nothing is immortal. When the times arc accomplished, higher aspirations and more enlightened schemes spring up out of the tottering remains of former institutions, which they utterly overthrow and efface ; for so has God ordered the world. If the disorders in question were universal, the efforts to put an end to them were not less so. Powers called into life by the necessity of a change, or growing up spontaneously, arose out of the general confusion, and with vigorous and unbidden hand imposed order on the chaos. This is the great event of the fifteenth century. The names of the energetic princes of that time, whose task it was first to awaken the nations of Europe to a consciousness of their own existence and importance, are known to all. In France we find Charles VII. and Louis XI. The land was at length delivered from the enemy who had so long held divided sway in it, and was united under the standard of the Lilies ; the monarchy was founded on a military and financial basis; crafty, calculating policy came in aid of the practical straightforward sense which attained its ends, because it aimed only at what was n...Read More