15 MARCH 1930, Page 36

Professor Mackinnon has now completed in a fourth volume (Longman.

16s.) his weighty and learned study of Luther and the Reformation. This voluine, covering the stormy period from 1530 to Luther's death in 1546, is entitled Vindi- cation of the Movement. Such a title provokes dissent in that, when Luther died, the Emperor was preparing for the campaign in which he crushed the Protestant princes in 1547, and undid much of Luther's work. But the author justly maintains that Charles's success was but temporary, and that by 1555 the Lutheran victory was confirined—at any rate' hi part of Germany. His view of Luther as a man, as a theologian and as a statesman is more kindly than that of most British historians, because Professor Mackinnon makes fuller allow- ance for his difficulties.

* * * *