ately, in their attempt
to secure religious liberty in the sixteenth century.

The sixteenth century! What a great era that was In comparison with the
preceding centuries since Christianity was declared! From a religious
and heroic point of view it was immeasurably a greater period than the
nineteenth century, which has been marked chiefly for the triumphs of
science, material progress, and social and political reforms. But in
earnestness, in moral grandeur, and in discussions which pertain to the
health and life of nations, the sixteenth century was greater than our
own. Then began all sorts of inquiries about Nature and about mind,
about revelation and Providence, about liberty of worship and freedom of
thought; all of which were discussed with an enthusiasm and patience
and boldness and originality to which our own times furnish no parallel.
And united with this fresh and original agitation of great ideas was a
heroism in action which no age of the world has equalled. Men risked
their fortunes and their lives in defence of those principles which have
made the enjoyment of them in our times the greatest blessing we
possess. It was a new spirit that had arisen in our world to break the
fetters which centuries of fraud and superstition and injustice had
forged,--a spirit scornful of old authorities, yet not sceptical, with
disgust of the past and hope for the future, penetrating even the
hamlets of the poor, and kindling the enthusiasm of princes and nobles,
producing learned men in every country of Europe, whose original
investigations should put to the blush the commentators and compilers of
this age of religious mediocrity and disguised infidelity. Such
intellectual giants in the field of religious inquiry had not appeared
since the Fathers of the Church combated the paganism of the Roman
world, and will not probably appear again until the cycle of changes is
completed in the domain of theological thought, and men are forced to
meet the enemies of divine revelation marshalled in such overwhelming
array that there will be a necessity for reformers, called out by a
special Providence to fight battles,--as I regard Luther and Calvin and
Knox. The great difference between the sixteenth and nineteenth
centuries, outside of material aspects, is that the former recognized
the majesty of God, and the latter the majesty of man. Both centuries
believed in progress; but the sixteenth century traced this progress to
first, and t