Fundamentally the cause of the cleavage between Luther and the peasants lay in his conception of the nature of salvation. It was neither that of the medieval church nor that of St. Paul. To St. Paul religion saves one from "the body of sin" and death which surrounds us; it is the cosmic power working through all things for the redemption of the world. Such also is the view of Catholicism, though the process of redemption extends beyond this life. To such a conception. the improvement of living conditions here on earth, such as the peasants advocated, was compatible. But to Luther salvation was exclusively the removal of God's vengeance, an escape from eternal penalty, not involving necessarily a moral transformation of the world or of character. Therefore religion to him had no social or economic implication. His "reformation" was by no means moral; rather it was a remedy for religious fear and superstition.

But this was not all. War between the peasants and landlords was inevitable. When it came in 1524, Luther sided with the landlords and in words that blaze like a dark scar across the page of his memory, urged the princes to "smite, strangle, stab, secretly or publicly, for there is nothing more poisonous, pernicious, and devilish than a rebellious man

a prince may more easily win heaven by the shedding of blood than others by prayers." The effects of the peasant war were far greater than slaying half a million laborers. It made Luther distrust the people, and, in perfecting his Protestant church organization, he turned to the princes, giving them the right to appoint the superintendents or bishops. The princes, in turn, were attracted to the new religion, because it increased their power and gave them a chance to confiscate church property. Ever since, Lutheranism in Germany has been identified with the state and the dominant political system. It became, like most Protestant denominations, "a religion of capital." On the other hand, the peasants of south Germany, the scene of the revolt, returned to the fold of the mother church, which has ever been the better spiritual refuge for those poor in this world's goods.

Another implication of Christian freedom is intellectual freedom. For ages the church had placed limitations on

human inquiry, and had exalted faith above reason. Against this policy the intellectual world was in revolt. Might not Luther's doctrine of Christian freedom emancipate the intellect as well as the soul? The answer hinged on the old question of the freedom of the will. Granted that man can shape his own destiny, his reason is given a value and dignity; deny it, and reason is degraded. Now in things religious Luther would not grant any merit to man. Salvation is a gift of God; moreover, the faith that enables one to accept salvation is likewise a gift of God, put into him according to God's inscrutable will. In other words, Luther was a predestinarian, as much so as Calvin. In a notable letter to Erasmus, he said: "The human will is like a beast of burden. If God mounts it, it wishes and goes as God wills; if Satan mounts it, it wishes and goes as Satan wishes it. Nor can it choose the rider it would prefer, nor betake itself to him, but it is the riders who contend for its possession.

"This is the acme of faith, to believe that God who saves so few and condemns so many is merciful; that he is just who at his own pleasure has made us doomed to damnation and to be more deserving of hatred than love. If by any effort of reason I could conceive how God could be merciful and just, there would be no need of faith.

"God foreknows nothing subject to contingencies, but he foresees, foreordains, and accomplishes all things by an unchanging, eternal, and efficacious will. By this thunderbolt free will sinks shattered to the dust."

This letter is vastly important. On account of it Erasmus rejected Luther, and many other scholars of Europe did likewise. Indeed there was no place for reason in the religion of Luther. The intellectual outlook of the major Protestant denominations from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century was not so broad as that of Catholicism. Not until the eighteenth century did reason and common sense begin to secure the place they deserved among orthodox religious leaders; then not because of the superiority of Protestantism, but because Protestantism was a house divided against itself, and reason, the outsider, could more easily break in.

Yet while Luther added nothing to political or social prog

ress, or even to theology, his influence was tremendous. He set the example for revolt against the most dangerous monopoly that ever threatened the human spirit, the church. His burning the Papal bull was a sublime example of conscience versus civilization. He had in a remarkable degree the fundamental idea of all religion, the consciousness of God. And he left a message which neither he himself nor we today have thoroughly realized or applied; namely, that all believers are priests, that there is no distinction between the sacred and the secular, that political institutions are ordained of God, and that the Christian man is the freest of all, and at the same time the servant of all.

A Study of Sidney Lanier's "The Symphony"

HENRY E. HARMAN, Litt. D.

Author of "Idle Dreams of an Idle Day," etc.

To have handled one subject with such consummate skill, to have chosen that subject from the material things that touch and sway the great throbbing heart of humanity, to have called into action, in conveying his message, the delicate notes of various musical instruments and to have put into each note such words of wonderful poetic beauty, was a task which only a Sidney Lanier could accomplish. And yet that was the artistic procedure which the master pursued in composing "The Symphony," the poem which many critics consider his finest work.

Lanier's love and worship of nature made him the great singer that he was. She was the mistress who brought him inspiration, she it was who awakened in his soul the love of beauty; her grandeur made him an artist and her varying sounds of rhythmic symphony made possible this wonderful poem. I have pointed out in another sketch how he went into the April woodlands and learned to play on his flute the matchless song of the swamp robin. Before writing "The Symphony" he went into the swamps along the Ocmulgee river near Macon, Ga., and for days studied the wild life of that section, especially the activities of bees, bugs and other insects, which haunt the habitat of swamp flowers.

"The Symphony" is an arraignment of modern commercialism, of greed for wealth, of our artificial methods of living, of injustice to the poor-and burns with a plea for less of the material and for more of the things which concern the heart. One would think that a poem dealing with subjects of such a material nature could never rise to the heights of divine inspiration, and yet through all the lines of this wonderful production blazes a flame of intense poetic interest.

"O Trade! O Trade! would thou wert dead
The time needs heart, 'tis tired of head."

While the theme is old among poets, Lanier treats the sub

ject with an originality and boldness which makes it stand out with individual characteristics as compared with other efforts along the same line. Of all his work this poem has more of modern life in it than any other. Not only is there a pleading against too much commercialism, but the question of labor and employer enters into it; also the rights of woman in the world's affairs, and even the ghastly shadow of the crimson life winds sorrowfully through its wonderful lines. The one surprising aspect of the poem is how Lanier could rise to the sublime height in treating these prosaic questions with so much poetic skill. Given cold trade, woman's rights and the crimson road -prosaic each and yet the master handles these modern themes with a delicacy of touch which makes the heart thrill at the very art of his workmanship.

But Sidney Lanier's reputation must live because of the artist that was in him at all times. To him every landscape was a picture, every breeze had its melody, the summer midday was a revelation of heaven and the mighty main was a god. A violet, to him, contained more gospel than a thousand sermons. What was life to him, therefore, without art, music, poetry-these three-so, with a soul attuned to sing, the cold subject of trade, at the touch of his pen, took on the fiery glow of inspired lines. Even the commonplace became poetic, as in "The Marshes of Glynn" he wrought out of the most material of subjects one of the world's masterpieces in verse. To him there was art in everything. The wild wood, the lonely swamp, the sunlit field of corn, each had its artistic beauty which the eye of the master could always see, for

"-Art, sweet lark, translates the sky
Into a heavenly melody."

The very manner of treating this delicate subject shows the fine craftsmanship of Lanier. He bids the violin strings, the flute-note, clarionet and other musical instruments plead his case in behalf of reform. "We are all for love" the violins said, and then through a maze of poetic reasoning the folly of trade is shown and a black picture drawn of the poor who toil -the poor who give of the best of their strength to others— while their very hearts bleed with longing for "the outside