Where these good tidings of great joy are heard. [83]

If the principles that are fought out in this drama, in tragic conflict,
were to be described by catchwords, we might say: Reason stands against
Dogma; Nature against Tradition; Self-Reliance against Submission.
The great elementary forces are here at issue, which the Reformation
had unchained, and with which we all have to reckon.

Shakspere's loving, noble heart beautifully does justice to the defeated
Hamlet by making him be borne to his grave 'like a soldier,' with all
the honouring 'rites of war.' The poet who knew the human heart so
well, no doubt had seen many brave and gifted men who, after having
been to Wittenberg's Halls of Intellectual Freedom, and become disciples
of Humanism, once more were turned into slaves of dogmas which, under
a new guise, not less restricted the free use of reason than the tenets
of the old faith had done:--

Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
The capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused.

The life of the most gifted remains fruitless if, through fear of what
may befall us in a future world, we cravenly shrink back from following
the dictates of our reason and our conscience. From them we must take
the mandate and commission for the task of our life; not from any
mysterious messenger, nor from any ghost out of Purgatory. On the way
to action, no 'goblin damned' must be allowed to cross our path with
his assumed terrors. That which we feel to be right we must do, even if