n. Humanity was only half
ripe for this truth, and again the austere impulse reasserted itself in
Calvinism, in Puritanism, in the Jesuits. But knowledge, joy,
naturalness, went on growing; they have changed the conception of
religion itself, turning it to the sense of a present as well as a
future fruition.

The sense of human suffering comes in our day to full realization. The
best impulse of the time throws itself against that, as formerly
against sin. Just as the evil of sin was overstated and became an
exaggeration and terror, so the sense of human suffering is often
overstretched and becomes pessimism. But, essentially, a fresh and
powerful enthusiasm assails the evils of mankind. It aims to educate
and elevate the whole being,--to save men. It has in science a new
instrument.

The old hope of some speedy millennium is gone. We see that the
general advance must be slow. But we also see that the imperfect
condition is not so terrible as it was once supposed: it does not incur
hell; it does not imply total depravity; it may even serve as
stepping-stone to higher things.

All the higher phases of man's nature point together. The highest
thought says, "All is well;" the deepest feeling, "God is love;" the
human affection realizes its immortality; the seeing eye finds
universal beauty; the profoundest yearning enfolds the promise, "I
shall be satisfied."

We may follow the story by another thread.

A human society inspired and bound together by the highest traits,
consciously ensphered in a divine power and inspired by it,--this is
the ideal which has been reached toward and grown toward through all
the ages.

Its primitive germ was Israel's hope of a splendid national future.

In Jesus this expanded into the Kingdom of God among men,--that is, the
perfect reign of goodness, love, and the human-divine relation of son
and father. He looked for its realization by miracle, and when that
failed said, "Thy will be done," and died, trusting all to the Father.

His followers, at first under the dream of his second coming, settled
into a society bound together by common rules and ideals. The Catholic
church was born and grew. Mixed with all human elements of
imperfection, it advanced a long way toward the goal, then divided its
sway with new energies.

In the political and social life of Europe, and especially of England,
there slowly grew up a population fit for self-government in place of
governme