"
The capitals are his own. In writing, he probably felt the
want of some such reverberation of the pulpit under strong
hands as he was wont to emphasise his spoken utterances
withal; there would seem to him a want of passion in the
orderly lines of type; and I suppose we may take the capitals
as a mere substitute for the great voice with which he would
have given it forth, had we heard it from his own lips.
Indeed, as it is, in this little strain of rhetoric about the
trumpet, this current allusion to the fall of Jericho, that
alone distinguishes his bitter and hasty production, he was
probably right, according to all artistic canon, thus to
support and accentuate in conclusion the sustained metaphor
of a hostile proclamation. It is curious, by the way, to
note how favourite an image the trumpet was with the
Reformer. He returns to it again and again; it is the Alpha
and Omega of his rhetoric; it is to him what a ship is to the
stage sailor; and one would almost fancy he had begun the
world as a trumpeter's apprentice. The partiality is surely
characteristic. All his life long he was blowing summonses
before various Jerichos, some of which fell duly, but not
all. Wherever he appears in history his speech is loud,
angry, and hostile; there is no peace in his life, and little
tenderness; he is always sounding hopefully to the front for
some rough enterprise.
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