edited by L. Pastor, have appeared in not less than twenty editions, not to speak of the different translations of the work.4 The simple style, the seeming thoroughness and objectiveness, with which Janssen brings a wealth of proof from the sources for every, often even the most absurd statement, its apparently unbiased tendencies, its conclusions, startling for the Lutheran, but welcome to the Catholics, its introduction into a hitherto almost shamefully neglected but important and new field of research, all of this together with the malignant zeal, with which all Catholic circles spread broadcast this production, explain its great success. G. Bossert (in "Wuerttemberg und Janssen," Halle, 1884) wrote concerning it: "Spread broadcast within a few years in many thousand copies, this work has not only found zealous readers among the militant spirits in the younger generation of the Catholic clergy; but even Catholic laymen, temperamentally far cooler, studied it with a devotion, as if they had found in it the long-lost Gospel. Yes, strange to say, this work has found favor, even with Protestants. Many a Protestant, in the belief that Janssen is right, thinks that he must recast his judgment, and that not for the better, of the Reformation and the reformers. In the press and in public gatherings one continually meets with opinions of Protestants concerning the faith of their ancestors, its origin and its influence upon the life of the people, upon morals, art, and economic conditions, opinions all of which are echoes from Janssen.
It can be readily understood, what an ascendency this handy reference book, with its smooth diction, its dazzling knowledge of literature and its proud claim of agreeing with the old sources, must have gained in the minds of the cultured classes of today, as long as they them-
