r beyond stretches the
august dynasty, until it fades into the twilight of fable!
She saw the commencement of all the governments on the
globe, and of all the ecclesiastical establishments now
existing; and there is no assurance that she is not destined
to see the end of them all!"

The world has an accepted chronology of six thousand years. Its
history and experience in government reach back forty centuries.
It would be an interesting inquiry with what results governments
have existed so long, especially in the later periods and among
the most enlightened of the nations. Charles the Fifth boasted
that his empire saw no setting sun. It included Spain and all her
vast American provinces, over large part of which to-day wave our
own Stars and Stripes. The national escutcheon bore two globes;
and the coin, the two Pillars of Hercules, the then acknowledged
boundary of the Eastern world, with the motto "More beyond."
Spain, under Philip Second, dictated law, learning, religion,
especially religion, to unknown millions, not alone in Europe,
but in North and South America, Africa and all the Indies. And
now in the remote south-western corner of Europe is all that
remains of this mighty power of the sixteenth century.

France in the eighth century under Charlemagne, was another
mistress of the globe. And Charlemagne was crowned by the Pope,
"Sovereign of the New Empire of the West." And yet, in less than
fifty years all that mountain of magnificence exploded; and many
rival nations sprang from its lava streams of blood and ashes! A
remnant, too, of France was preserved; and its history for almost
eight hundred years, "may be traced, like the tracks of a wounded
man through a crowd, by the blood;" until it culminated in the
French Revolution ("suicide of the eighteenth century," as
Carlyle calls that terrible phenomenon) and Napoleon Bonaparte!
And he also summoned to his coronation the Roman Pontiff, like
his great predecessor of a thousand years before. And beneath the
solemn arches and arcades of Notre Dame, was crowned by Pope Pius
the Seventh--"_The high and mighty Napoleon, the first Emperor of
the French!_" Plunging remorselessly into the most desolating
wars, he soon astonished the civilized world with his successes.