New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-09-26
aEeNNNGs oF THE MODEM ERA.

TIE ElEfNAkGNAaANNeNs AaAAs ~
REVOLUTION AND THE CAIAoLiS
REFORMATION IN CONd1Nk5NL<A ~
EURoIE ey Edward Masiin Hume ,sl.
Idaho. Svo, PIP. $50. The Century Company
It is a scholarly, useful and timely
pieco Of work that Professor Hulme
gives US in these pages. JudiciOusly
condensed, presenting the essence OF
all that recent study has proved and
disproved, placed in new lights or re-
duced to its proper proportions in the
, history of what still remains the most
significant and fruitful episode in the
progress Of humanity toward self-re-
alization, the book has the further
merit Of being readable. 1t is timely
because, DO it hoped, it will serve to
dispel in large degree the impression,
sent abroad by earlier historians and
still generally he'd, that the Reaais-
sance and the Reformation were but
slightly interrelated; thst, indeed, in
its broad outline, the pagan" new life
in the South was the antithesis Of the
awakening Of the North. The author
laws emphasis throughout upon tho
multiple aspects Of the Reformation,
social, economic, political, which are
in the general mind still obscured If
not hidden by its religious phase; and
he is uncommonly felicitous in his
cummings up Of the results of infu-
ences and movements. and of the sig
ri6cenee and the personality of lead
crs. AS his title plainly states, he
does not concern himself with the Ref
ormstion in England, or with Calvin
ism in Scotland, giving 20 each but 4
single paragraph or 50.
In q work so modern in its concep-
ton and treatment there can be no
question of absolute beginnings. The
traditional dating of the birth Of the
Renaissance from the capture Of Con-
stantinople is wisely thrown overheard
BY the author, who takes, instead, the
last quarter of the thirteenth century
as his point Of departure in the con
tinuity of history on which his study is
based. Likewise, in the case of the
Reformation, nc dates its beginnings
long before the historic day when Lu-
Their nailed his theses to the church
door at Wittenberg. And, perhaps best
of all. he deals with admirable clarity
with that third contemporary move
ment least familiar to the average
student of history, the Catholic coun-
terLreformation.
Within the brief space of a review
Il is impossible to do more than touch
here and there upon passages that
strike one, this method being more
over Just, because such passages truly
represent the quality Of the whole.
There is that neat, judicious summing
up of Erasmus, for instance, which
acauits him Of the charge of cow
ardice. so often brought against him.
and strikes the keynote of his career
and intellectual quality:
A third result of the Revolution
to faith and worship was the
growth Of free thought-the asser-
tor Of the right to think freely
and logically upon the great ques-
tions of life and the practice OF
that right Erasmus refused to
Join the Protestants, not because
he lacked the courage, but because
he was no more Lutheran than he
was Catholic. To Erasmus the
two parties we're merely a Scylla
and Charybdis. He remained APP
parently in the Mother Church be-
cause, in his time, there had not
heen made place for freethinkers.
One must as yet belong to one of
the churches, or at least to one
Of the sects. Yet among the lib
orators who labored for the en-
reimbursement Of the HUMAN mind
Erasmus must be accorded high
rank.
The study Of Luther is notably in
accord with modern historical read
iustment: that of Calvin is accom-
panied by a sensible speculation upon
the paradoxical fact that the doctrine
Of predeStination did not lead to moral
paralysis; Loyola and his famous
order receive the prominence they de-
serve; the Popes, the rulers, and the
minor figures of the three movements,
Italian ard Spanish German, French,
English and Dutch, together with their
predecessors, the preparers Of the sou
men like Huss and WycliHe-re-
csive their due need of attention, and
are drawn in true perspective and
proportion. One is constantly tempted
TO quotation, as where the author
speaks Of, the unquestioning readiness
with which the reformcrs carried with
Them into the rev day the superstl-
tions Of the old belief in witchcraft
in demoniacal possession, in astrology
and the prophetic meaning Of comets
in the powers Of darkness. ''lndeed
the ecclesiastical revolution eventually
Geepened the superstition. Members
OF the new and the old churches ri.
vailed each other in their ferocious and
hideous delirium Of fear"
Consciously or unconsciously, it were
hard to say, the author constantly sug-
gests in his treatment of the social and
economic phases Of the period a par
. allel with the unrests and new as
pirations Of our own day. This gives
his narrative living quality without
impairing its historical correctness. In
his chapter on the cultural results OF
the Renaissance and humanism, Of the
Reformation and the Catholic counter
movement, he incidentally suggests q
study which. one believes, bias never