e thirteenth
century was one of the greatest in the annals of the race. In it the
foremost European universities were founded, the sublimest Gothic
cathedrals were built, some of the world's finest works of handicraft
were made; in it Cimabue and Giotto painted, Dante wrote, St. Thomas
Aquinas philosophized, and St. Francis of Assisi lived. The motives,
however, which originated and sustained this magnificent outburst of
creative energy were otherworldly--they were not concerned with
anticipations of a happier lot for humankind upon this earth. The
medieval age did not believe that man's estate upon the earth ever would
be fundamentally improved, and in consequence took the only reasonable
attitude, resignation. When famines came, God sent them; they were
punishment for sin; his will be done! When wars came, they were the
flails of God to thresh his people; his will be done! Men were resigned
to slavery on the ground that God had made men to be masters and slaves.
They were resigned to feudalism and absolute monarchy on the ground that
God had made men to be rulers and ruled. Whatever was had been ordained
by the Divine or had been allowed by him in punishment for man's
iniquity. To rebel was sin; to doubt was heresy; to submit was piety.
The Hebrew prophets had not been resigned, nor Jesus Christ, nor Paul.
The whole New Testament blazes with the hope of the kingdom of
righteousness coming upon earth. But the medieval age was resigned. Its
real expectations were post-mortem hopes. So far as this earth was
concerned, men must submit.

To be sure, in those inner experiences where we must endure what we
cannot help, resignation will always characterize a deeply religious
life. All life is not under our control, to be freely mastered by our
thought and toil. There are areas where scientific knowledge gives us
power to do amazing things, but all around them are other areas which our
hands cannot regulate. Orion and the Pleiades were not made for our
fingers to swing, and our engineering does not change sunrise or sunset
nor make the planets one whit less or more. So, in the experiences of
our inward life, around the realm which we can control is that other
realm where move the mysterious providences of God, beyond our power to
understand and as uncontrollable by us as the tides are by the fish that
live in them. Captain Scott found the South Pole, only to discover that
another man had been there first. When