hold their Christianity have been in large measure adjusted to the
results of these great movements of thought. They have, as these men
themselves believe, been immensely strengthened and made sure by those
very influences which were once considered dangerous.

In connection with this indication of the nature of our materials, we
have sought to say something of the time of emergence of the salient
elements. It may be in point also to give some intimation of the place
of their origins, that is to say, of the participation of the various
nationalities in this common task of the modern Christian world. That
international quality of scholarship which seems to us natural, is a
thing of very recent date. That a discovery should within a reasonable
interval become the property of all educated men, that scholars of one
nation should profit by that which the learned of another land have
done, appears to us a thing to be assumed. It has not always been so,
especially not in matters of religious faith. The Roman Church and the
Latin language gave to medieval Christian thought a certain
international character. Again the Renaissance and Reformation had a
certain world wide quality. The relations of the English Church in the
reigns of the last Tudors to Germany, Switzerland, and France are not to
be forgotten. But the life of the Protestant national churches in the
eighteenth century shows little of this trait. The barriers of language
counted for something. The provincialism of national churches and
denominational predilections counted for more.

In the philosophical movement we must begin with the Germans. The
movement of English thought known as deism was a distinct forerunner of
the rationalist movement, within the particular area of the discussion
of religion. However, it ran into the sand. The rationalist movement,
considered in its other aspects, never attained in England in the