tyrannous repression incident to usurped and unrighteous
domination by the Roman church, civilization was retarded and for
centuries was practically halted in its course. The period of
retrogression is known in history as the Dark Ages. The fifteenth
century witnessed the movement known as the Renaissance or Revival of
Learning; there was a general and significantly rapid awakening among
men, and a determined effort to shake off the stupor of indolence and
ignorance was manifest throughout the civilized world. By historians and
philosophers the revival has been regarded as an unconscious and
spontaneous prompting of the "spirit of the times"; it was a development
predetermined in the Mind of God to illumine the benighted minds of men
in preparation for the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which
was appointed to be accomplished some centuries later.[1515]

With the renewal of intellectual activity and effort in material
betterment, there came, as a natural and inevitable accompaniment,
protest and revolt against the ecclesiastical tyranny of the age. The
Albigenses in France had risen in insurrection against churchly
despotism during the thirteenth century; and in the fourteenth, John
Wickliffe of Oxford University had boldly denounced the corruption of
the Roman church and clergy, and particularly the restrictions imposed
by the papal hierarchy on the popular study of the scriptures. Wickliffe
gave to the world a version of the Holy Bible in English. These
manifestations of independent belief and action the papal church sought
to repress and punish by force. The Albigenses had been subjected to
inhuman cruelties and unrestrained slaughter. Wickliffe was the subject
of severe and persistent persecution; and though he died in his bed the
vindictiveness of the Roman church was unsated until she had caused his
body to be exhumed and burned and the ashes scattered abroad. John Huss
and Jerome of Prague were prominent on the continent of Europe in
agitation against papal despotism, and both fell martyrs to the cause.
Though the church had become apostate to the core, there were not
lacking men brave of heart and righteous of soul, ready to give their
lives to the furtherance of spiritual emancipation.

A notable revolt against the papacy occurred in the sixteenth century,
and is known as the Reformation. This movement was begun in 1517 by
Martin Luther, a German monk; and it spread so rapidly as soon to
involve th