revolution, its central figure the burly, heroic, great-hearted Luther;
by turns a rebel and a conservative; leading the successful revolt of
Teutonic Europe against Rome, but leaving reconstruction to other hands.

Then we have Calvin, the builder of the creed of Protestantism; in its
substance little but a symmetrical statement of mediaeval ideas, but
resting its appeal not on authority, but logic; or, more exactly, on the
authority of a book, which, having no longer an infallible interpreter,
must be judged by human reason as to its contents and at last as to its
nature and origin. Thus, unconsciously, Calvin initiated a religious
democracy and ultimately a religion of reason; while for the time he
established a creed more austere and grim than the Catholic. Opposite
him stands Loyola, the reviver of Catholicism, infusing it with a new
heroism and self-sacrifice; reaffirming and intensifying its authority;
scornful of speculation, powerful in organization; zealot, missionary,
educator; giving to ecclesiastical obedience an added emphasis, to
organization a new force.

For a typical group in the next century, let us take Francis Bacon,
leading the human intellect away from abstractions and from other worlds
to the close, intelligent study of the material world in which men live.
Beside him stands Shakspere, reading the world of humanity with eyes
neither biased by creed nor sublimed by faith; portraying with marvelous
range the joys, sorrows, humors of mankind; showing on his impartial
canvas a true humanity, far different from the fictitious saint and
fictitious sinner of the theologian; showing, as with the truth of
nature, "virtue in her shape how lovely;" but with no consolation beside
the grave, no satisfying ideal for man's pursuit nor rule for man's
guidance. Near him we see "the Shakspere of divines," Jeremy Taylor; he,
too, is close to the realities of life, but he is planted firm on the
belief in a supernatural revelation of God, Christ, and a hereafter, and
for those who so believe offers a simple, noble way of "Holy Living and
Dying."

In Cromwell is embodied the attempt of extreme Protestantism to mould
society and the state by the authority of a supernatural religion. The
Puritan creed for which he stands is a mixture of Hebraic and Calvinistic
elements; the Puritan temper is at its best heroic and austere, made
despotic by its confidence of divine authority, and by its
supernaturalism made indi