We need not _spurn_ it, as we step on it!--Let the Hero rest.
It was not to _men's_ judgment that he appealed; nor have men judged him
very well.
Precisely a century and a year after this of Puritanism had got itself
hushed up into decent composure, and its results made smooth, in 1688,
there broke out a far deeper explosion, much more difficult to hush up,
known to all mortals, and like to be long known, by the name of French
Revolution. It is properly the third and final act of Protestantism; the
explosive confused return of mankind to Reality and Fact, now that they
were perishing of Semblance and Sham. We call our English Puritanism the
second act: "Well then, the Bible is true; let us go by the Bible!" "In
Church," said Luther; "In Church and State," said Cromwell, "let us go by
what actually _is_ God's Truth." Men have to return to reality; they
cannot live on semblance. The French Revolution, or third act, we may well
call the final one; for lower than that savage _Sansculottism_ men cannot
go.
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