New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1894-10-28

man or by small group Of men, Mr.. BaX de-
votes many pages to the romantic career OF
Franz Won Sickngen, the last inpersonaton OF
the old chivalry in Germany The strange thing
about this famous knight was that he' ike the
peasants fought to restore the past. ana yet
brought the future onward at accelerated speed
with every battle. He thought he was hghting
for his order but If ever man stood on his own
fact without leaning on anybody in an order or
out Of II. that man was Sickngen. To the new
mon Of the Renaissance and the Reformation, he
seemed perfectly natural in his place. To the
mon of an earlier time he would have appeared
as A supernatural portent to be destroyed by
fire if there were no other way of getting rid OF
him The reason that in him strenuous
individually was neutralized by mistaken
social theory If it could possibly have entered
his head that he fighting for manhood not
for knighthood. he might well have been the nero
OF Germany
Such considerations as these form background
for the Reformation, which changes It's aspect
materially. What the people were thihKihs
about when Luther appeared was their own prac-
teal discomfort, and they We're cropping ABOUT
for something to put all the blame upon. Covert
" or openly they had hated Rome since the time
Of julius Caesar They hated all inferno mares
between themselves and the Pope or the EN-
neror because they had a traditional reminis-
cence Of the time when such Intermediates
existed They hated new things. new doctrines
new usages and all the rest. ana When theN were
told by the Humanists. Erasmus ana Reuchiil'
and after them. with the more startling emphasis
of their own mother tongue. by Luther tha' 'he
new things in religion were those very things
which they had tolerated as old. ana that the
things which they looked upon as new were as
antique as the Scriptures themselves-there is
no need to dwell upon the revulsion OF feeling
that followed The only trouble was that the
Church got the blame for everything ana re-
ligion became the universal grievance. whereas
more than half the trouble was due 10 the price
of food TO the lack Of wages In the prevalence
of robbery on the part of needy nobHty anu
70 the burden of taxes. legal and illegal The
world was then like what ii is now. II 1t had not
been hungry much of the time, Il would not nave
heen half so earnest il was IN controversy
And hunger has a tendency to promote indlNH-
ualism a man does not suffer on TINS account
for his guild or his village. Thus everything
contributed in Germany and elsewhere as well
10 make man conscious that he was Norn for
himself The literature of the Reformation. As
reviewed by Mr.. Bax. shows that man ala not
need to be told this fact twice. but that whoever
told il we'll had excellent chance OF gong lh''
a second third and perhaps THIRTEEN. edltloh'
and his chapter on the folklore OF the Rtiofha-
ton shows that the antique preference lor sell
sacrifice sef-abneCation and penance had ohiE
been done away with in part. ana that people
were still as anxious as ever to discover the
philosophers stone. to test the elixir or NE, 10
turn copper into gold. and to keep the planets
in subsection. The book is interesting; nut II the
reader is what the author contemptuously calls
bourgeois" it will stir his prejudice