ice, that all
was now over with the Christian faith.

Old institutions can not be rooted up in an instant. Quiet argument
may do more than wholesale condemnation. Avoid all appearance of
sedition. Keep cool. Do not get angry. Do not hate anybody. Do not get
excited over the noise which you have made. May Christ give you His
spirit, for His own glory and the world's good.[41]

[Footnote 41: This paragraph is from a letter to Luther.]

The world is waking out of a long deep sleep. The old ignorance is
still defended with tooth and claw, but we have kings and nobles now
on our side.

For yourself, the intelligence of your country will preserve the
memories of your virtues, and scholars will tell how a king once
reigned there who in his own person revived the virtues of the ancient
heroes.[42]

[Footnote 42: From a letter to Henry VIII of England.]

The justest war can hardly approve itself to any reasonable person.
The people build cities, the princes destroy them, and even victory
brings more ill than good.

My work has been to restore a buried literature, and recall divines
from their hair-splittings to a knowledge of the New Testament.

Do not mistake me. Theology itself I reverence and always have
reverenced. I am speaking merely of the theologasters of our own time,
whose brains are the rottenest, intellects the dullest, doctrines the
thorniest, manners the brutalest, life the foulest, speech the
spitefulest, hearts the blackest, that I have ever encountered in the
world.

You say that I can not die better than among my brethren. I am not so
sure of that. Your religion is in your dress; your religious orders,
as you call them, have done the Church small service.

What a thing it is to cultivate literature! Better far to grow
cabbages. Bishops have thanked me for my work, the Pope has thanked
me; but these tyrants, the mendicant friars, never leave me alone with
their railing.[43]

[Footnote 43: From a letter to Cardinal Wolsey.]

I wish there could be an end of scholastic subtleties, and Christ be
taught plainly and simply. The reading of the Bible and the early
Fathers will have this effect.

Wrangling about the nature of the Second Person of the Trinity, as if
Christ were a malignant demon, ready to destroy you if you made a
mistake about His nature! Reduce the articles of faith to the fewest
and simplest. Let our divines show their faith by their works, and
convert Turks by the beauty of their liv