Luther is the
protagonist of the first of the four great dramas that follow. Its
theme is the consecration of man to sincerity in his relations to God.
There, even at the hazard of death, the tongue shall utter what the
heart thinks.

The second drama is named _Ignatius Loyola_; the theme is not less
absorbing--"Art thou then so sure of the truth and of thy sincerity, O
my brother?" Whatever his followers may have become, Don Inigo remains
one of the most baffling enigmas that historical psychology offers.
From his grave he rules the Council, and the Tridentine Decrees are the
acknowledgment of his unseen sovereignty.

What tragic shapes arise and crowd the stage of the third drama--Thurn,
Ferdinand, Tilly, Wallenstein, Richelieu, Gustavus, Conde, Oxenstiern!
And when the last actors of the fourth drama, the conflict between
moribund Jesuitism and Protestantism grown arrogant and prosperous, lay
aside their masks in the world's great tiring-room of death, a new Age
in world-history has begun.

As religious freedom is the _Wahn_ of the Reformation drama, so it is
in political freedom that the Eternal Illusion now incarnates itself.
Let man be free, let man throughout the earth attain the unfettered use
of all his faculties, and heaven's light will once more fill all the
dark places of the world! This is the new avatar, this the glad
tidings which announce the French Revolution and the Third Age. Of
this ideal, the faith in which the French Girondins die is the most
perfect expression. What is this faith for which Condorcet and his
party perish, some by poison, some by the sword, some by the
guillotine, some in battle, but all by violent deaths--Vergniaud,
Roland, Barbaroux, Brissot, Barnave, Gensonne, Petion, Buzot, Isnard?
"Oh Liberty, what crimes are done in thy name!" was not a reproach,
but, in the gladness of the martyr's death which consecrated all the
life, it was the wonder, the disquiet of a moment yet sure of its peace
in some deeper reconcilement. Behold how strong is their faith! Marie
Antoinette has her faith, the injunction of her priest, "When in doubt
or in affliction, think of Calvary." Yet the hair of the Queen
whitens, her spirit despairs. The Girondinist queen climbing the
scaffold, not less a lover of love and of life than Marie
Antoinette--what nerves her? It is the star of the future and the
memory of Vergniaud's phrase, "Posterity? What have we to do with
posterity? Perish our memo