action.

But the end is often long in coming; and these nobler principles are
meanwhile _not_ provided for us by the inductive philosophy.

Patriotism, for instance, of which we used to think something--a
readiness to devote our energies while we live, to devote our lives, if
nothing else will serve, to what we call our country--what are we to say
of that?

I once asked a distinguished philosopher what he thought of patriotism.
He said he thought it was a compound of vanity and superstition; a bad
kind of prejudice, which would die out with the growth of reason. My
friend believed in the progress of humanity--he could not narrow his
sympathies to so small a thing as his own country. I could but say to
myself, 'Thank God, then, we are not yet a nation of philosophers.'

A man who takes up with philosophy like that, may write fine books, and
review articles and such like, but at the bottom of him he is a poor
caitiff, and there is no more to be said about him.

So when the air is heavy with imposture, and men live only to make
money, and the service of God is become a thing of words and ceremonies,
and the kingdom of heaven is bought and sold, and all that is high and
pure in man is smothered by corruption--fire of the same kind bursts out
in higher natures with a fierceness which cannot be controlled; and,
confident in truth and right, they call fearlessly on the seven
thousand in Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal to rise and stand
by them.

They do not ask whether those whom they address have wide knowledge of
history, or science, or philosophy; they ask rather that they shall be
honest, that they shall be brave, that they shall be true to the common
light which God has given to all His children. They know well that
conscience is no exceptional privilege of the great or the cultivated,
that to be generous and unselfish is no prerogative of rank or
intellect.

Erasmus considered that, for the vulgar, a lie might be as good as
truth, and often better. A lie, ascertained to be a lie, to Luther was
deadly poison--poison to him, and poison to all who meddled with it. In
his own genuine greatness, he was too humble to draw insolent
distinctions in his own favour; or to believe that any one class on
earth is of more importance than another in the eyes of the Great Maker
of them all.

Well, then, you know what I mean by faith, and what I mean by intellect.
It was not that Luther was without intellect. He was