ible to the mind of man. It
was the principle that the mind of man can alone directly deal with the
mind of God. It may shortly be called the anti-sacramental principle;
but it really applies, and he really applied it, to many things besides
the sacraments of the Church. It equally applies, and he equally applied
it, to art, to letters, to the love of locality, to music, and even to
good manners. The phrase about no priest coming between a man and his
Creator is but an impoverished fragment of the full philosophic
doctrine; the true Puritan was equally clear that no singer or
story-teller or fiddler must translate the voice of God to him into the
tongues of terrestrial beauty. It is notable that the one Puritan man of
genius in modern times, Tolstoy, did accept this full conclusion;
denounced all music as a mere drug, and forbade his own admirers to read
his own admirable novels. Now, the English Puritans were not only
Puritans but Englishmen, and therefore did not always shine in clearness
of head; as we shall see, true Puritanism was rather a Scotch than an
English thing. But this was the driving power and the direction; and the
doctrine is quite tenable if a trifle insane. Intellectual truth was the
only tribute fit for the highest truth of the universe; and the next
step in such a study is to observe what the Puritan thought was the
truth about that truth. His individual reason, cut loose from instinct
as well as tradition, taught him a concept of the omnipotence of God
which meant simply the impotence of man. In Luther, the earlier and
milder form of the Protestant process only went so far as to say that
nothing a man did could help him except his confession of Christ; with
Calvin it took the last logical step and said that even this could not
help him, since Omnipotence must have disposed of all his destiny
beforehand; that men must be created to be lost and saved. In the purer
types of whom I speak this logic was white-hot, and we must read the
formula into all their parliamentary and legal formulae. When we read,
"The Puritan party demanded reforms in the church," we must understand,
"The Puritan party demanded fuller and clearer affirmation that men are
created to be lost and saved." When we read, "The Army selected persons
for their godliness," we must understand, "The Army selected those
persons who seemed most convinced that men are created to be lost and
saved." It should be added that this terrible trend was