Frequent and just were his complaints about their incapacity,
their lawlessness, and their vices. He also liked to treat the
nobility with irony; the coarseness of most of them was highly
distasteful to him. He felt a democratic displeasure toward the hard
and selfish jurists who managed the affairs of the princes, worked for
favor, and harassed the poor; for the best of them he admitted only a
very doubtful prospect of the mercy of God. His whole heart, on the
other hand, was with the oppressed. He sometimes blamed the peasants
for their stolidity, and their extortions in selling their grain, but
he often praised their class, looked with cordial sympathy upon their
hardships, and never forgot that by birth he belonged among them.
But all this belonged to the temporal order; he served the spiritual.
The popular conception was also firmly fixed in his mind that two
controlling powers ought to rule the German nation in common--the
Church and the princes; and he was entirely right in proudly
contrasting the sphere where lay his rights and duties with that of
the temporal powers. In his spiritual field there were solidarity, a
spirit of sacrifice, and a wealth of ideals, while in secular affairs
narrow selfishness, robbery, fraud, and weakness were to be found
everywhere. He fought vigorously lest the authorities should assume to
control matters which concerned the pastor and the independence of the
congregations. He judged all policies according to what would benefit
his faith, and according to the dictates of his Bible.
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