...In Germany the battle against Catholicism was nothing else than a war begun by spiritualism when it perceived that it only reigned nominally and de jure; whereas sensualism, through conventional subterfuges, exercised the real sovereignty and ruled de facto. When this was perceived, the hawkers of indulgences were chased off, the pretty concubines of the priests were exchanged for plain but honest wedded wives, the charming Madonna pictures were demolished, and there reigned in certain localities a puritanism inimical to every gratification of the senses. In France, on the contrary, during the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, the war was begun by sensualism against Catholicism, when it saw that while it, sensualism, reigned de facto, yet every exercise of its sovereignty was restrained in the most aggravating manner by spiritualism, and stigmatised as illegitimate. While in Germany the battle was fought with chaste earnestness, in France it was waged with licentious witticisms, and while there theological disputations were in vogue, here many satires were the fashion.
...Truly, Jansenism had much more cause than Jesuitism to feel aggrieved at the delineation of Tartuffe, and Molière would be as obnoxious to the Methodists of to-day as to the Catholic devotees of his own time. It is just because of this that Molière is so great, for, like Aristophanes and Cervantes, he levelled his persiflage not only at temporary follies, but also against that which is ever ridiculous—the inherent frailties of mankind. Voltaire, who always attacked only the temporary and the unessential, is in this respect inferior to Molière.
...Then why my aversion to spiritualism? Is it something so evil? By no means. Attar of roses is a precious article, and a small vial of it is refreshing, when one is doomed to pass one's days in the closely-locked apartments of the harem. But yet we would not have all the roses of life crushed and bruised in order to gain a few drops of the attar of roses, be they ever so consoling. We are like the nightingales, that delight in the rose itself, and derive as delicious a pleasure from the sight of the blushing, blooming flower as from its invisible fragrance.
...But there was one man at the Diet of Worms who, I am convinced, thought not of himself, but only of the sacred interests which he was there to champion. That man was Martin Luther, the poor monk whom Providence had selected to shatter the world-controlling power of the Roman Catholic Church, against which the mightiest emperors and most intrepid scholars had striven in vain. But Providence knows well on whose shoulders to impose its tasks; here not only intellectual but also physical strength was required. It needed a body steeled from youth through chastity and monkish discipline to bear the labour and vexations of such an office.
...Luther was not only the greatest, but also the most thoroughly German hero of our history. In his character are combined, on the grandest scale, all the virtues and all the faults of the Germans, so that, in his own person, he was the representative of that wonderful Germany. For he possessed qualities which we seldom find united, and which we usually even consider to be irreconcilably antagonistic. He was simultaneously a dreamy mystic and a practical man of action. His thoughts possessed not only wings, but also hands; he could speak and could act. He was not only the tongue, but also the sword of his time. He was both a cold, scholastic word-caviller, and an enthusiastic, God-inspired prophet. When, during the day, he had wearily toiled over his dogmatic distinctions and definitions, then in the evening he took his lute, looked up to the stars, and melted into melody and devotion. The same man who could scold like a fish-wife could be as gentle as a tender maiden. At times he was as fierce as the storm that uproots oaks; and then again he was mild as the zephyr caressing the violets. He was filled with a reverential awe of God. He was full of the spirit of self-sacrifice for the honour of the Holy Ghost; he could sink his whole personality in the most abstract spirituality, and yet he could well appreciate the good things of this earth, and from his mouth blossomed forth the famous saying—
"Who loves not wine, women, and song,
Will be a fool all his life long."
He was a complete man—I would say an absolute man, in whom spirit and matter were not antagonistic. To call him a spiritualist would, therefore, be as erroneous as to call him a sensualist. How shall I describe him? He had in him something aboriginal, incomprehensible, miraculous.
...All praise to Luther! Eternal honour to the blessed man to whom we owe the salvation of our most precious possessions, and whose benefactions we still enjoy. It ill becomes us to complain of the narrowness of his views. The dwarf, standing on the shoulders of the giant, particularly if he puts on spectacles, can, it is true, see farther than the giant himself; but for noble thoughts and exalted sentiments a giant heart is necessary. It were still more unseemly of us to pass a harsh judgment on his faults, for those very faults have benefited us more than the virtues of thousands of other men. The refinement of Erasmus, the mildness of Melanchthon, could never have brought us so far as the godlike brutality of Brother Martin.
...From the day on which Luther denied the authority of the Pope, and publicly declared in the Diet "that his teachings must be controverted through the words of the Bible itself, or with sensible reasons," there begins a new era in Germany. The fetters with which Saint Boniface had chained the German Church to Rome are broken. This Church, which has hitherto formed an integral part of the great hierarchy, now splits into religious democracies. The character of the religion itself is essentially changed: the Hindoo-Gnostic element disappears from it, and the Judaic-theistic element again becomes prominent. We behold the rise of evangelical Christianity. By recognising and legitimising the most importunate claims of the senses, religion becomes once more a reality. The priest becomes man, takes to himself a wife, and begets children, as God desires.
...If in Germany we lost through Protestantism, along with the ancient miracles, much other poetry, we gained manifold compensations. Men became nobler and more virtuous. Protestantism was very successful in effecting that purity of morals and that strictness in the fulfilment of duty which is generally called morality. In certain communities, indeed, Protestantism assumed a tendency which in the end became quite identical with morality, and the gospels remained as a beautiful parable only. Particularly in the lives of the ecclesiastics is a pleasing change now noticeable. With celibacy disappeared also monkish obscenities and vices. Among the Protestant clergy are frequently to be found the noblest and most virtuous of men, such as would have won respect from even the ancient Stoics. One must have wandered on foot, as a poor student, through Northern Germany, in order to learn how much virtue—and in order to give virtue a complimentary adjective, how much evangelical virtue—is to be found in an unpretentious-looking parsonage. How often of a winter's evening have I found there a hospitable welcome,—I, a stranger, who brought with me no other recommendation save that I was hungry and tired! When I had partaken of a hearty meal, and, after a good night's rest, was ready in the morning to continue my journey, then came the old pastor, in his dressing-gown, and gave me a blessing on the way,—and it never brought me misfortune; and his good-hearted, gossipy wife placed several slices of bread-and-butter in my pocket, which I found not less refreshing; and silent in the distance stood the pastor's pretty daughters, with blushing cheeks and violet eyes, whose modest fire in the mere recollection warmed my heart for many a whole winter's day.