ple began its career, gradually supplanting
the first. What does our historian give as the facts of civilization
since the century preceding the Reformation, from which time the
tendency to individuality has been predominant?

The great kingdoms and empires of the earlier days melted away under its
influence. The divine right of kings, and the theory that power sprang
from the ruler, gradually yielded to the democratic principle of
political equality and the origination of power in the people. Civil
liberty became the touchstone of good government, instead of
centralization of power and consolidation. General eligibility to
office grew into vogue in the place of the ancient mode, which
practically limited the selection of statesmen and officials to a
privileged class, comprising the largest and most cultured minds of the
nation. Freedom, and consequent diversity, in thought, in speech, and in
action, became paramount considerations to coercion and resulting
uniformity in these respects. The functions of rule were step by step
curtailed until they dwindled theoretically, and, to a large extent, in
the most advanced countries, practically, into two only--the protection
of person and of property. That government is best which governs least,
came to be an axiom of political progress; and the paramount purpose of
civil organization is beginning to be regarded, not, as under the
monarchical sway, the preservation of order, but the liberty of the
people.

In ecclesiastical affairs, we see the integrality of the church
destroyed under the influence of the Protestant principle of private
judgment, one of the first fruits of individuality. We perceive sects
gradually subdividing into sects, until, instead of a unity of religious
sentiment and a sympathy of religious action under the impulse of a
common creed, an innumerable variety of religious denominations came
into existence, each embodying different beliefs in diverse articles of
faith, and refusing Christian fellowship with the others. In this
transition the gain has been great, and the loss has been great. The
human soul has been liberated to the light of intellectual truth, and
emancipated from the bands of ancient superstition. The blessings of
education, culture, mental development, and social expansion, have been
accorded to the people. Gloomy asceticism has yielded to more hopeful
views of life. Dark and depressing theological dogmas have received more
cheerful inter