the intrusion of discordant subjects.

They exist, as I understand, to draw men together, not to divide
them--to enable us to share together in those topics of universal
interest and instruction which all can take pleasure in, and which give
offence to none.

If you ask me, then, why I am myself departing from a practice which I
admit to be so excellent, I fear that I shall give you rather a lame
answer. I might say that I know more about the history of the sixteenth
century than I know about anything else. I have spent the best years of
my life in reading and writing about it; and if I have anything to tell
you worth your hearing, it is probably on that subject.

Or, again, I might say--which is indeed most true--that to the
Reformation we can trace, indirectly, the best of those very influences
which I have been describing. The Reformation broke the theological
shackles in which men's minds were fettered. It set them thinking, and
so gave birth to science. The Reformers also, without knowing what they
were about, taught the lesson of religious toleration. They attempted to
supersede one set of dogmas by another. They succeeded with half the
world--they failed with the other half. In a little while it became
apparent that good men--without ceasing to be good--could think
differently about theology, and that goodness, therefore, depended on
something else than the holding orthodox opinions.

It is not, however, for either of these reasons that I am going to talk
to you about Martin Luther; nor is toleration of differences of opinion,
however excellent it be, the point on which I shall dwell in these
Lectures.

Were the Reformation a question merely of opinion, I for one should not
have meddled with it, either here or anywhere. I hold that, on the
obscure mysteries of faith, every one should be allowed to believe
according to his conscience, and that arguments on such matters are
either impertinent or useless.

But the Reformation, gentlemen, beyond the region of opinions, was a
historical fact--an objective something which may be studied like any of
the facts of nature. The Reformers were men of note and distinction, who
played a great part for good or evil on the stage of the world. If we
except the Apostles, no body of human beings ever printed so deep a mark
into the organisation of society; and if there be any value or meaning
in history at all, the lives, the actions, the characters of such men as
these can