France is another country in which Luther's writings were widely circulated and had great influence in the Church. A Lutheran congrega tion was organized at Maux. Faber Stapulen sis, Briconmer, Jean and Pierre Leclerc were some of the most noted preachers. Lefevre translated the Bible into French. A sound Lutheran movement promised a bright future for Lutheranism, but the influence of Geneva, the stronghold of the Reformed Church, was very strong in France, and through this influ ence the Lutheran movement in France was directed into other channels.
In England Luther's books were read as early as 1519, especially at the universities, where they were of vast influence. .Great ef forts were made to suppress these books, and they were proscribed very early, but this only had the effect that they were now read more than ever. Thomas Cranmer embraced the Lutheran faith, and, though in many ways in consistent, he remained a Lutheran in doctrine until the year 1548, when he was won to Cal vinism. He became a martyr in 1556. A col
lection of Lutheran hymns was published being translations of German hymns, most of them Luther's. In 1536 the Augsburg Confession was printed in an exquisite translation by Taverner. In Sarcerius tCommonplaces,' a Lutheran handbook of dogmatic theology was given the English people. Cranmer, in the same year, at the close of which he abandoned Lutheranism, wrote an extensive explanation of Luther's Smaller Catechism, in which the first English translation of this catechism, also by Cranmer's hand, was embodied. The death of Henry VIII, whose political ambition had been to make himself the head of the Lutheran League of the continent, the personal acquaint ance of many English and Scotch refugees with Calvin at Geneva and the imposing work there being reared, and other reasons contrib uted to the ascendency of Calvinism in England and Scotland, and the Lutheran movement be came virtually extinct about the middle of the century.
For Lutheranism in America see LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA.