gs, however
regular, decorous, accredited by Koreishes or Conclaves, be intolerable
and detestable to him. Protestantism, too, is the work of a Prophet:
the prophet-work of that sixteenth century. The first stroke of honest
demolition to an ancient thing grown false and idolatrous; preparatory
afar off to a new thing, which shall be true, and authentically divine!

At first view it might seem as if Protestantism were entirely
destructive to this that we call Hero-worship, and represent as the
basis of all possible good, religious or social, for mankind. One
often hears it said that Protestantism introduced a new era, radically
different from any the world had ever seen before: the era of "private
judgment," as they call it. By this revolt against the Pope, every man
became his own Pope; and learnt, among other things, that he must never
trust any Pope, or spiritual Hero-captain, any more! Whereby, is not
spiritual union, all hierarchy and subordination among men, henceforth
an impossibility? So we hear it said.--Now I need not deny that
Protestantism was a revolt against spiritual sovereignties, Popes and
much else. Nay I will grant that English Puritanism, revolt against
earthly sovereignties, was the second act of it; that the enormous
French Revolution itself was the third act, whereby all sovereignties
earthly and spiritual were, as might seem, abolished or made sure
of abolition. Protestantism is the grand root from which our whole
subsequent European History branches out. For the spiritual will always
body itself forth in the temporal history of men; the spiritual is the
beginning of the temporal. And now, sure enough, the cry is everywhere
for Liberty and Equality, Independence and so forth; instead of _Kings_,
Ballot-boxes and Electoral suffrages: it seems made out that any
Hero-sovereign, or loyal obedience of men to a man, in things temporal
or things spiritual, has passed away forever from the world. I should
despair of the world altogether, if so. One of my deepest convictions
is, that it is not so. Without sovereigns, true sovereigns, temporal
and spiritual, I see nothing possible but an anarchy; the hatefulest of
things. But I find Protestantism, whatever anarchic democracy it have
produced, to be the beginning of new genuine sovereignty and order.
I find it to be a revolt against _false_ sovereigns; the painful but
indispensable first preparative for _true_ sovereigns getting place
among us! This is worth