respects of really childish temperament; not therefore, perhaps, as I
before suggested to you, less venerable. But the age of which we are
examining the progress, was by no means represented or governed by
men of similar disposition. It was eminently productive of--it was
altogether governed, guided, and instructed by--men of the widest and
most brilliant faculties, whether constructive or speculative, that
the world till then had seen; men whose acts became the romance, whose
thoughts the wisdom, and whose arts the treasure, of a thousand years
of futurity.

I warned you at the close of last lecture against the too agreeable
vanity of supposing that the Evangelization of the world began at St.
Martin's, Canterbury. Again and again you will indeed find the stream
of the Gospel contracting itself into narrow channels, and appearing,
after long-concealed filtration, through veins of unmeasured rock,
with the bright resilience of a mountain spring. But you will find it
the only candid, and therefore the only wise, way of research, to look
in each era of Christendom for the minds of culminating power in all
its brotherhood of nations; and, careless of local impulse, momentary
zeal, picturesque incident, or vaunted miracle, to fasten your
attention upon the force of character in the men, whom, over each
newly-converted race, Heaven visibly sets for its shepherds and kings,
to bring forth judgment unto victory. Of these I will name to you, as
messengers of God and masters of men, five monks and five kings; in
whose arms during the range of swiftly gainful centuries which we are
following, the life of the world lay as a nursling babe. Remember,
in their successive order,--of monks, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St.
Martin, St. Benedict, and St. Gregory; of kings,--and your national
vanity may be surely enough appeased in recognizing two of them for
Saxon,--Theodoric, Charlemagne, Alfred, Canute, and the Confessor. I