ording
as he loves, and venerates, articulately or with deep speechless
thought, the awful realities of things, so will the hollow shows of
things, however regular, decorous, accredited by Koreishes or
Conclaves, be intolerable and detestable to him. Protestantism too is
the work of a Prophet: the prophet-work of that sixteenth century. The
first stroke of honest demolition to an ancient thing grown false and
idolatrous; preparatory afar off to a new thing, which shall be true,
and authentically divine!--

At first view it might seem as if Protestantism were entirely
destructive to this that we call Hero-worship, and represent as the
basis of all possible good, religious or social, for mankind. One
often hears it said that Protestantism introduced a new era, radically
different from any the world had ever seen before: the era of 'private
judgment,' as they call it. By this revolt against the Pope, every man
became his own Pope; and learnt, among other things, that he must
never trust any Pope, or spiritual Hero-captain, any more! Whereby, is
not spiritual union, all hierarchy and subordination among men,
henceforth an impossibility? So we hear it said.--Now I need not deny
that Protestantism was a revolt against spiritual sovereignties, Popes
and much else. Nay I will grant that English Puritanism, revolt
against earthly sovereignties, was the second act of it; that the
enormous French Revolution itself was the third act, whereby all
sovereignties earthly and spiritual were, as might seem, abolished or
made sure of abolition. Protestantism is the grand root from which our
whole subsequent European History branches out. For the spiritual will
always body itself forth in the temporal history of men; the spiritual
is the beginning of the temporal. And now, sure enough, the cry is
everywhere for Liberty and Equality, Independence and so forth:
instead of _Kings_, Ballot-boxes and Electoral suffrages; it seems
made out that any Hero-sovereign, or loyal obedience of men to a man,
in things temporal or things spiritual, has passed away forever from
the world. I should despair of the world altogether, if so. One of my
deepest convictions is, that it is not so. Without sovereigns, true
sovereigns, temporal and spiritual, I see nothing possible but an
anarchy: the hatefulest of things. But I find Protestantism, whatever
anarchic democracy it have produced, to be the beginning of new
genuine sovereignty and order. I find it to be