Protestantism in its vital elements was thus a perfectly new, a perfectly spontaneous religion. The illusion that it was a return to primitive Christianity was useful for controversial purposes and helped to justify the iconoclastic passions of the time; but this illusion did not touch the true essence of Protestantism, nor the secret of its legitimacy and power as a religion. This was its new embodiment of human ideals in imaginative forms, whereby those ideals became explicit and found a remarkable expression in action. These ideals were quite Teutonic and looked to inner spontaneity and outward prosperity; they were more allied to those of the Hebrews than to those of the early Christians, whose religion was all miracles, asceticism, and withdrawal from the world. Indeed we may say that the typical Protestant was himself his own church and made the selection and interpretation of tradition according to the demands of his personal spirit. What the Fathers did for the Church in the fourth century, the Reformers did for themselves in the sixteenth, and have continued to do on the occasion of their various appearances. If we judge this interpretation by poetic standards, we cannot resist the conclusion that the old version was infinitely superior. The Protestant, with his personal resources, was reduced to making grotesquely and partially that translation of moral life which the Fathers had made comprehensively and beautifully, inspired as they were by all the experience of antiquity and all the hopes of youthful Christendom. Nevertheless, Protestantism has the unmistakable character of a genuine religion, a character which tradition passively accepted and dogma, regarded as so much external truth, may easily lose; it is in correspondence with the actual ideals and instincts of the believer; it is the self-assertion of a living soul. Its meagreness and eccentricity are simply evidences of its personal basis. It is in full harmony with the practical impulses it comes to sanction, and accordingly it gains in efficiency all that it loses in dignity and truth.