oble Italy is actually _one_: Italy produced its
Dante; Italy can speak! The Czar of all the Russias, he is strong,
with so many bayonets, Cossacks and cannons; and does a great feat in
keeping such a tract of Earth politically together; but he cannot yet
speak. Something great in him, but it is a dumb greatness. He has had
no voice of genius, to be heard of all men and times. He must learn to
speak. He is a great dumb monster hitherto. His cannons and Cossacks
will all have rusted into nonentity, while that Dante's voice is still
audible. The Nation that has a Dante is bound together as no dumb
Russia can be.--We must here end what we had to say of the
_Hero-Poet_.

LECTURE IV

THE HERO AS PRIEST. LUTHER; REFORMATION: KNOX; PURITANISM.

[_Friday, 15th May 1840_]

Our present discourse is to be of the Great Man as Priest. We have
repeatedly endeavoured to explain that all sorts of Heroes are
intrinsically of the same material; that given a great soul, open to
the Divine Significance of Life, then there is given a man fit to
speak of this, to sing of this, to fight and work for this, in a
great, victorious, enduring manner; there is given a Hero,--the
outward shape of whom will depend on the time and the environment he
finds himself in. The priest too, as I understand it, is a kind of
Prophet; in him too there is required to be a light of inspiration, as
we must name it. He presides over the worship of the people; is the
Uniter of them with the Unseen Holy. He is the spiritual Captain of
the people; as the Prophet is their spiritual King with many captains:
he guides them heavenward, by wise guidance through this Earth and its
work. The ideal of him is, that he too be what we can call a voice
from the unseen Heaven; interpreting, even as the Prophet did, and in
a more familiar manner unfolding the same to men. The unseen
Heaven,--the 'open secret of the Universe,'--which so few have an eye
for! He is the Prophet shorn of his more awful splendour; burning with
mild equable radiance, as the enlightener of daily life. This, I say,
is the ideal of a Priest. So in old times; so in these, and in all
times. One knows very well that, in reducing ideals to practice, great
latitude of tolerance is needful; very great. But a Priest who is not
this at all, who does not any longer aim or try to be this, is a
character--of whom we had rather not speak in this place.

Luther and Knox were by express vocation Priests, and