Page:The fireside sphinx.djvu/78



HE aggressiveness of our fore-fathers puzzles and repels us. It is the quality which, of all others, is least comprehensible to the unconcern which we call tolerance, and to the sensitiveness which we call humanity. How, we ask ourselves, could men have felt cock-sure of things about which they knew nothing; and why should they have deemed it essential to beat their convictions into other men's brains? The speed and sincerity with which principles were translated into action five hundred years ago kept all Christendom in commotion. People did not then shrug