ered death for his opinions.

Vanini(328) similarly led a wandering life, but is a character of less
seriousness: occasionally he manifested the inconsistency of indifference
to his own opinions. Reverencing the memory of Pomponatius, he expressed
the same disbelief of the spiritual and of immortality. He was possibly an
atheist. Certainly his views were tinged with deep bitterness against
religion; and after leading a restless life, he suffered a cruel martyrdom
for his belief.

Bruno and Vanini were the apostles of a doctrine which the world would no
longer hear. The dawn of physical knowledge was turning men to a truer
study of the universe, and caused their labours to be in vain. The age of
indifference was gone. The alarm caused by the Reformation had kindled a
strong ecclesiastical reaction, especially in Italy, and the religious
earnestness and intellectual activity of Germany had awoke an intelligent
reaction on the part of the Catholic church.(329) Hence these two writers
incurred a danger unknown to their predecessors. Martyrs are men who are
before their age or behind it. Their sad fate throws an interest around
their lives. Unbelief must always have its confessors. It is to be hoped
that the inhumanity of Christendom will never again cause it to have its
martyrs.

The survey is now complete of the crisis which occurred in the transition
from the middle ages to modern history, forming the third of those
enumerated in a former lecture, we have witnessed amidst its complexity
the manifestation of the same principles as in former epochs; the
restlessness of the human mind struggling to be free, intellectually,
politically, religiously; and we have endeavoured to trace the operation
of the influence of classical literature and metaphysical philosophy in
inducing the decay of Christian feeling and belief.

The means adopted for counteracting the movement were similar to those
used in former periods, viz. an intellectual argument and a spiritual
awakening. In some instances, indeed, in accordance with the spirit of the
time, or more truly with the spirit of human nature, material force and
cruelty were employed, and the unbeliever was silenced by martyrdom. But
neither material power nor the autocratic unity of the Roman church was
able to repress the growth of the human mind. Conviction must be directed,
not crushed. The revival of books of evidences, as soon as printing became
common, about the close of the fi