producing learned men in every country of Europe, whose original
investigations should put to the blush the commentators and compilers of
this age of religious mediocrity and disguised infidelity. Such
intellectual giants in the field of religious inquiry had not appeared
since the Fathers of the Church combated the paganism of the Roman
world, and will not probably appear again until the cycle of changes is
completed in the domain of theological thought, and men are forced to
meet the enemies of divine revelation marshalled in such overwhelming
array that there will be a necessity for reformers, called out by a
special Providence to fight battles,--as I regard Luther and Calvin and
Knox. The great difference between the sixteenth and nineteenth
centuries, outside of material aspects, is that the former recognized
the majesty of God, and the latter the majesty of man. Both centuries
believed in progress; but the sixteenth century traced this progress to
first, and the nineteenth to second, causes. The sixteenth believed that
human improvement was owing directly to special divine grace, and the
nineteenth believes in the necessary development of mankind. The school
of the sixteenth century was spiritual, that of the nineteenth is
material; the former looked to heaven, the latter looks to earth. The
sixteenth regarded this world as a mere preparation for the next, and
the nineteenth looks upon this world as the future scene of indefinite
and completed bliss. The sixteenth century attacked the ancient, the
nineteenth attacks the eternal. The sixteenth destroyed, but
reconstructed; the nineteenth also destroys, but would substitute
nothing instead. The sixteenth reminds us of audacious youth, still
clinging to parental authority; the nineteenth reminds us of cynical and
irreverent old age, believing in nothing but the triumphs of science and
art, and shaking off the doctrines of the ages as exploded
superstitions.