Professor James Mackinnon has done a real service to
English readers by undertaking a new and detailed study of Luther in the light of recent German research. The second volume of his Luther and the Reformation (Longmans, 16s.), which follows the first after a two years' interval, is concerned with the breach with Rome (1517-21) which began a new era in the history of Europe and of the world. The memorable scene at the Diet of Worms, on April 17th, 1521, when Luther appeared before the Emperor Charles V., is well described. " I am held fast by the Scriptures adduced by me, and my conscience is taken captive by God's word, and I neither can nor will revoke anything, seeing that it is not safe or right to act against conscience. God help me. Amen." That utterance of Luther's " was to prove the most fateful in modem religious history." •
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