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 showed forth among those who professed it when it began. All the utterances of that period are filled with this universal concern for salvation. Behold in this a proof of the characteristic quality of the German people. By enthusiasm it can easily be raised to enthusiasm and clearness of any kind whatsoever, and its enthusiasm endures for life and transforms life.

74. In earlier times and in other places reformers had inspired masses of the people, and gathered and formed them into communities. Yet these communities found no firm abiding-place on the foundation of the existing constitution, because the princes and rulers of the people did not come over to their side. At first no more favourable destiny seemed to await Luther’s Reformation. The wise Elector, under whose eyes it began, seemed to be wise rather in the foreign than in the German sense. He did not appear to have any special grasp of the real question at issue, nor to attach much importance to what seemed to him a quarrel between two orders of monks; at the most he was concerned merely about the good reputation of his newly-founded University. But he had successors who, though far less wise than he, were seized by the same earnest care for their salvation as lived in their peoples, and by this likeness were fused with them into one body for life or death, defeat or victory.

Behold in this an illustration of the above-mentioned characteristic of the Germans as a single body, and of their constitution as established by nature. The great events of national or world importance have hitherto been brought before the people by speakers who came forward voluntarily, and the people have taken up the cause. Though their princes, from love of foreign ways and the craving for brilliance and distinction, might at