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Heroes and Hero Worship-Part20_Thomas Carlyle(1795-1881)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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has made has not only the right, but lies under the sacred duty, to do:



answered a Falsehood when it questioned him, Dost thou believe me?--No!--At

what cost soever, without counting of costs, this thing behooved to be



done. Union, organization spiritual and material, a far nobler than any

Popedom or Feudalism in their truest days, I never doubt, is coming for the



world; sure to come. But on Fact alone, not on Semblance and Simulacrum,

will it be able either to come, or to stand when come. With union grounded



on falsehood, and ordering us to speak and act lies, we will not have

anything to do. Peace? A brutal lethargy is peaceable, the noisome grave



is peaceable. We hope for a living peace, not a dead one!

And yet, in prizing justly the indispensableblessings of the New, let us



not be unjust to the Old. The Old was true, if it no longer is. In

Dante's days it needed no sophistry, self-blinding or other dishonesty, to



get itself reckoned true. It was good then; nay there is in the soul of it

a deathless good. The cry of "No Popery" is foolish enough in these days.



The speculation that Popery is on the increase, building new chapels and so

forth, may pass for one of the idlest ever started. Very curious: to



count up a few Popish chapels, listen to a few Protestant

logic-choppings,--to much dull-droning drowsy inanity that still calls



itself Protestant, and say: See, Protestantism is _dead_; Popeism is more

alive than it, will be alive after it!--Drowsy inanities, not a few, that



call themselves Protestant are dead; but _Protestantism_ has not died yet,

that I hear of! Protestantism, if we will look, has in these days produced



its Goethe, its Napoleon; German Literature and the French Revolution;

rather considerable signs of life! Nay, at bottom, what else is alive



_but_ Protestantism? The life of most else that one meets is a galvanic

one merely,--not a pleasant, not a lasting sort of life!



Popery can build new chapels; welcome to do so, to all lengths. Popery

cannot come back, any more than Paganism can,--_which_ also still lingers



in some countries. But, indeed, it is with these things, as with the

ebbing of the sea: you look at the waves oscillating hither, thither on



the beach; for _minutes_ you cannot tell how it is going; look in half an

hour where it is,--look in half a century where your Popehood is! Alas,



would there were no greater danger to our Europe than the poor old Pope's

revival! Thor may as soon try to revive.--And withal this oscillation has



a meaning. The poor old Popehood will not die away entirely, as Thor has

done, for some time yet; nor ought it. We may say, the Old never dies till



this happen, Till all the soul of good that was in it have got itself

transfused into the practical New. While a good work remains capable of



being done by the Romish form; or, what is inclusive of all, while a pious

_life_ remains capable of being led by it, just so long, if we consider,



will this or the other human soul adopt it, go about as a living witness of

it. So long it will obtrude itself on the eye of us who reject it, till we



in our practice too have appropriated whatever">whatsoever of truth was in it. Then,

but also not till then, it will have no charm more for any man. It lasts



here for a purpose. Let it last as long as it can.--

Of Luther I will add now, in reference to all these wars and bloodshed, the



noticeable fact that none of them began so long as he continued living.

The controversy did not get to fighting so long as he was there. To me it



is proof of his greatness in all senses, this fact. How seldom do we find

a man that has stirred up some vast commotion, who does not himself perish,



swept away in it! Such is the usual course of revolutionists. Luther

continued, in a good degree, sovereign of this greatest revolution; all



Protestants, of what rank or function soever, looking much to him for

guidance: and he held it peaceable, continued firm at the centre of it. A



man to do this must have a kinglyfaculty: he must have the gift to

discern at all turns where the true heart of the matter lies, and to plant



himself courageously on that, as a strong true man, that other true men may

rally round him there. He will not continue leader of men otherwise.



Luther's clear deep force of judgment, his force of all sorts, of

_silence_, of tolerance and moderation, among others, are very notable in



these circumstances.

Tolerance, I say; a very genuine kind of tolerance: he distinguishes what



is essential, and what is not; the unessential may go very much as it will.




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