It is sometimes said that what matters in history is not so much the fact as what people think is the fact. This is perhaps especially true of those commanding personalities whose names are household words. Popular ideas of them are usually only roughly correct. The names become symbols to denote qualities dear to a succeeding age but often foreign to the persons they designate. To every generation Christ has become something different, this or that side of his character being emphasized to fill the ever changing need of living men. How many philosophies and passions have been read into Shakespeare's plays! So to every generation Luther has meant something different; in each succeeding century he has been both loved and hated, but for different reasons. No country save his own has given him such attention as England. It is the aim of the present paper to give a very broad idea of the general trend of British opinion throughout four hundred years.