th so many
bayonets, Cossacks and cannons; and does a great feat in keeping such a
tract of Earth politically together; but he cannot yet speak. Something
great in him, but it is a dumb greatness. He has had no voice of genius,
to be heard of all men and times. He must learn to speak. He is a great
dumb monster hitherto. His cannons and Cossacks will all have rusted
into nonentity, while that Dante's voice is still audible. The Nation
that has a Dante is bound together as no dumb Russia can be.--We must
here end what we had to say of the _Hero-Poet_.

LECTURE IV. THE HERO AS PRIEST. LUTHER; REFORMATION: KNOX; PURITANISM.

[May 15, 1840.]

Our present discourse is to be of the Great Man as Priest. We
have repeatedly endeavored to explain that all sorts of Heroes are
intrinsically of the same material; that given a great soul, open to the
Divine Significance of Life, then there is given a man fit to speak
of this, to sing of this, to fight and work for this, in a great,
victorious, enduring manner; there is given a Hero,--the outward shape
of whom will depend on the time and the environment he finds himself
in. The Priest too, as I understand it, is a kind of Prophet; in him too
there is required to be a light of inspiration, as we must name it. He
presides over the worship of the people; is the Uniter of them with the
Unseen Holy. He is the spiritual Captain of the people; as the Prophet
is their spiritual King with many captains: he guides them heavenward,
by wise guidance through this Earth and its work. The ideal of him
is, that he too be what we can call a voice from the unseen Heaven;
interpreting, even as the Prophet did, and in a more familiar manner
unfolding the same to men. The unseen Heaven,--the "open secret of the
Universe,"--which so few have an eye for! He is the Prophet shorn of
his more awful splendor; burning with mild equable radiance, as the
enlightener of daily life. This, I say, is the ideal of a Priest. So in
old times; so in these, and in all times. One knows very well that, in
reducing ideals to practice, great latitude of tolerance is needful;
very great. But a Priest who is not this at all, who does not any longer
aim or try to be this, is a character--of whom we had rather not speak
in this place.

Luther and Knox were by express vocation Priests, and did faithfully
perform that function in its common sense. Yet it will suit us better
here to consider them chiefly in their historical