appeared in its original form shortly after the First World War, was considerably modified by the experience of the Hitler régime and the Second World War. It remains true that Luther reflected to a very high degree the German character and left his own imprint on it, but the fact has become less important. What emerges from our present-day view of him is above all an impression of enormous power of faith and in his dealings with men an astonishing fearlessness, all springing from his true reverence for God.

This impression has for some time no longer been confined merely to Lutheran circles. To-day it is to a far greater extent shared by Roman Catholic theologians; never in the past four hundred years of Catholic church history has the question of the Lutheran Reformation been considered with such absence of hatred and prejudice as to-day. This is true not only of Germany. The oecumenical movement of churches and religious communities, which has shown such a powerful upsurge since 1945, has paved the way in the Anglo-American world to an understanding of Luther. In the U.S.A. Lutheran studies are already intensive and widespread. An English edition of his collected works is being prepared (St. Louis), whilst the periodical Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, which is under my supervision and which since 1951 has been directed by a mixed body of editors, appears in several languages and has served to link in the closest possible way the study of Luther in both lands. My friend and fellow-editor Roland H. Bainton ( New Haven) has published a widely read, new biography of Luther which in many respects accords with my own. In England, too, James MacKinnon's older and comprehensive work on Luther ( 192530; four volumes) has now been joined and supplemented by the work, conducted with great zeal, of younger church historians, such as Gordon Rupp and Philip Watson. It seems, therefore, that an advance company of deeply experienced people, which has originated in the oecumenical movement and

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