This, the third and last volume of the Song for Else carries the story through the aging of Luther's reform into middle age, its institutionalization, and its contention with the newer and more radical revolutions that are its spawn. The heroism that marked the Reformation's earlier period has been gentled. Luther's once radical doctrine has been subordinated to the politics and passions of princes. Its old fervor, taken up by the new sects, is easily agitated into fanaticism. Through this world Lorenz and his Else move in their own private quest for a joy that is almost in their grasp but ever elusive.