But he held that the reformers, alike in England, in France, and in Germany, were fighting for truth, honesty, and private judgment against priestcraft and ecclesiastical tyranny.

The scepticism and cynicism of which he was often accused were on the surface.

They were provoked by what he felt to be hypocrisy and sham.

They were not his true self.

He believed firmly unflinchingly, and always in "the grand, simple landmarks of morality," which existed before all Churches, and would exist if all Churches disappeared.
Ou gar tanun ge kachthes, all' aei pote Ze tauta, koudeis oiden ex hotou phane ["For they are not of today or yesterday, but these things live for ever, but no one knows from whence they appear." Sophocles, Antigone, 456.] Before Abraham was they were, and it is impossible to imagine a time when they will have ceased to be.
-- * Lectures on the Council of Trent, p.