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 a 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 peaceably, continued firm at the center of it. A man to do this must have a kingly faculty; 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. A complaint comes to him that such and such a reformed preacher “will not preach without a cassock.” “Well,” answers Luther, “what harm will a cassock do the man? Let him have a cassock to preach in; let him have three cassocks, if he find benefit in them!” His conduct in the matter of Carlstadt’s wild image-breaking; of the Anabaptists; of the Peasants’ war, shows a noble strength, very different from spasmodic violence. With sure, prompt insight, he discriminates what is what; a strong, just man, he speaks forth what is the wise course, and all men follow him in that. Luther’s written works give similar testimony of him. The dialect of these speculations is now grown obsolete for us, but one still reads them with a singular attraction. And, indeed, the mere grammatical diction is still legible enough. Luther’s merit in literary history is of the greatest; his dialect became the language of all writing. They are not well written, these four-and-twenty quartos of his; written hastily, with quite other than literary objects. But in no books have I found a more robust, genuine, I will say noble, faculty of a man than in these. A rugged honesty, homeliness, simplicity; a rugged, sterling sense and strength. He flashes out illumination from him; his smiting idiomatic phrases seem to cleave into the very secret of the matter. Good humor too, nay, tender affection, nobleness, and depth. This man could have been a poet too! He had to _work_ an epic poem, and not write one. I call him a great thinker; as, indeed, his greatness of heart already betokens that.