Was he contending about airy
nothings without local habitation or a name? If so, why are we so
foolish as to admire him?
Go back further to Martin Luther, putting himself in danger of his
life, standing against banded Europe, and saying, "Here I stand: God
help me, I can do no otherwise!" What is the use? What did he do it
for? If it made no difference whether a man worshipped God
intelligently or according to the things Luther thought all wrong, what
was the difference? What was he contending about, and why does the
world bow down to him with reverence and honor?
Why are we fools enough to honor the men who were burned at Oxford? Why
do we honor to-day the line of saints and martyrs? Why do we look upon
Savonarola with such admiration?
To go back still farther, why was it that the early Christians were
ready to suffer torture, to be racked, to be persecuted, to be thrown
into kettles of boiling oil, to be cast to the wild beasts in the
arena? Were they contending for nothing at all? If it makes no
difference, why were they casting themselves away in this Quixotic and
foolish fashion and, if there was nothing involved, how is it that
these names shine as stars in the religious firmament of the world's
worship?
Go to the time of Jesus himself. A young Nazarene, he leaves his home
in Nazareth, joins the fortunes of John the Baptist. After John the
Baptist had been fool enough to get his head cut off contending for his
theory, Jesus takes up his work, dares to speak against the temple,
dares to challenge the righteousness of the most righteous men of their
time, dares at last to stand so firmly that he is taken out one
afternoon and hung upon a tree on the hill beyond the walls of the
city, the one supreme piece of folly in the history of the world from
the "Does not make any difference" point of view.
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