In his economic history of the Schwarzwald, published in 1891, Eberhard Gothein called attention to the connection between Calvinism and modern capitalism.

Thirteen years later, in a series of brilliant essays, Max Weber insisted that Calvinism and capitalism were intimately related and alluded to such Calvinistic virtues as secular asceticism, thrift, and predestination as significant elements in the situation.2

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries have witnessed a renaissance of Oriental studies and interest, only to be compared with the classical Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. For the Church historian, the two movements must be regarded as counterparts, for while the Renaissance drove men back to the Greek Testament, the oriental renaissance has penetrated to the region behind it. It has, moreover, opened up the whole of the region, which was but dimly reflected and ill-understood by Graeco-Roman writers, between the limits of the oikoumenē of Alexander the Great and those of the Roman Empire.

The permanence of Protestantism was by no means assured as the year 1530 drew to a close. The Peace of Cambrai had ended the war between the Emperor, Charles V, and the French king, Francis I. Charles likewise had made his peace with the pope. He had gone to Italy and there had received from Clement VII the coveted iron crown of Lombardy. The international situation that had made the Protestants of Germany useful allies of Emperor, king, or pope no longer existed.

Among the Catholic clergy of the North before the Civil War, we may look to John Hughes, Irish archbishop of New York, for the frankest exposition of slavery views. Intellectually honest and fearlessly impulsive in the expression of opinion, he was known for his forceful personality and for the leadership he had won by his militant championship of unpopular causes.