ty, and I
know not what:--the notes being all false, and no gold to be had for
_them_, people take to crying in their despair that there is no gold,
that there never was any!--'Gold,' Hero-worship, _is_ nevertheless, as
it was always and everywhere, and cannot cease till man himself
ceases.

I am well aware that in these days Hero-worship, the thing I call
Hero-worship, professes to have gone out, and finally ceased. This,
for reasons which it will be worth while some time to inquire into, is
an age that as it were denies the existence of great men; denies the
desirableness of great men. Show our critics a great man, a Luther for
example, they begin to what they call 'account' for him; not to
worship him, but take the dimensions of him,--and bring him out to be
a little kind of man! He was the 'creature of the Time,' they say; the
Time called him forth, the Time did everything, he nothing--but what
we the little critic could have done too! This seems to me but
melancholy work. The Time call forth? Alas, we have known Times _call_
loudly enough for their great man; but not find him when they called!
He was not there; Providence had not sent him; the Time, _calling_ its
loudest, had to go down to confusion and wreck because he would not
come when called.

For if we will think of it, no Time need have gone to ruin, could it
have _found_ a man great enough, a man wise and good enough: wisdom to
discern truly what the Time wanted, valour to lead it on the right
road thither; these are the salvation of any Time. But I liken common
languid Times, with their unbelief, distress, perplexity, with their
languid doubting characters and embarrassed circumstances, impotently
crumbling-down into ever worse distress towards final ruin;--all this
I liken to dry dead fuel, waiting for the lightning out of Heaven that
shall kindle it. The great man, with his free force direct out of
God's own hand, is the lightning. His word is the wise healing word
which all can believe in. All blazes round him now, when he has once
struck on it, into fire like his own. The dry mouldering sticks are
thought to have called him forth. They did want him greatly; but as to
calling him forth--!--Those are critics of small vision, I think, who
cry: "See, is it not the sticks that made the fire?" No sadder proof
can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great
men. There is no sadder symptom of a generation than such general
blindness to t