CYRUS HALL McCORMI.CK 



convictions, logical and consistent. What he 

 knew, he knew. There were no hazy imagin- 

 ings in his mind. The main secret of his 

 power lay in his ability to focus all his energies 

 upon a few subjects. Once, in 1848, he men- 

 tioned the French Revolution in one of his 

 letters. "It is a mighty affair," he wrote, 

 "and will be likely to stand." But usually he 

 paid little attention to the world-dramas that 

 were being enacted. He was too busy too 

 devoted to affairs which, if he did not attend 

 to them, would not be attended to at all. 



McCormick was a product of the Protestant 

 Reformation, and of the capitalistic develop- 

 ment that came with it. The whole structure 

 of his character was based upon the two great 

 dogmas of the Reformation the sovereignty 

 of God and the direct responsibility of the in- 

 dividual. Whoever would know the springs 

 at which his life was fed must read the story of 

 Luther, Calvin, and Knox. They must call 

 to mind the attitude of Luther at the Diet of 

 Worms, when he faced the men who had the 

 power to take his life and said, "Here I stand. 



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