--not a pleasant, not a lasting sort of life!

Popery can build new chapels; welcome to do so, to all lengths. Popery
cannot come back, any more than Paganism can,--_which_ also still
lingers in some countries. But, indeed, it is with these things, as
with the ebbing of the sea: you look at the waves oscillating hither,
thither on the beach; for _minutes_ you cannot tell how it is going;
look in half an hour where it is,--look in half a century where your
Popehood is! Alas, would there were no greater danger to our Europe
than the poor old Pope's revival! Thor may as soon try to revive.--And
withal this oscillation has a meaning. The poor old Popehood will not
die away entirely, as Thor has done, for some time yet; nor ought it.
We may say, the Old never dies till this happen, Till all the soul of
good that was in it have got itself transfused into the practical New.
While a good work remains capable of being done by the Romish form;
or, what is inclusive of all, while a _pious life_ remains capable of
being led by it, just so long, if we consider, will this or the other
human soul adopt it, go about as a living witness of it. So long it
will obtrude itself on the eye of us who reject it, till we in our
practice too have appropriated whatsoever of truth was in it. Then,
but also not till then, it will have no charm more for any man. It
lasts here for a purpose. Let it last as long as it can.--

* * * * *

Of Luther I will add now, in reference to all these wars and
bloodshed, the noticeable fact that none of them began so long as he
continued living. The controversy did not get to fighting so long as
he was there. To me it is proof of his greatness in all senses, this
fact. How seldom do we find a man that has stirred-up some vast
commotion, who does not himself perish, swept-away in it! Such is the
usual course of revolutionists. Luther continued, in a good degree,
sovereign of this greatest revolution; all Protestants, of what rank
or function soever, looking much to him for guidance: and he held it
peaceable, continued firm at the centre of it. A man to do this must
have a kingly faculty: he must have the gift to discern at all turns
where the true heart of the matter lies, and to plant himself
courageously on that, as a strong true man, that other true men may
rally round him there. He will not continue leader of men otherwise.
Luther's clear deep force of judgment, his force of all