THE records of History prior to the coming of Christ, are simply the chronicles of despotism; and the best method of estimating the influence of Christianity on civil freedom will be by a comparison of the present with the past.

In all those four thousand years, the doctrine was growing up and entrenching itself in all the thoughts and ways of the world, that government was a divine gift to a ruling few, for their own behoof; and as to all these teeming millions of mere human creatures, these were simply so much raw material wherewith the kingly few might work out for themselves a name and a glory in the

One after another the great empires of the ancient time realized this theory.They had no People. The princely and the servile were the only classes. The Egyptian, the Assyrian, the Persian and the Macedonian-which of these ever estimated the common sort of man as anything nobler than

Look back, then, over the condition of the ancient world. Consider what manner of policy prevailed in the governments of the earth. What was the aim of Civil Govern-earth. ment? What did it accomplish through all those ages of the world's minority?—what did it even aim to accomplish for the People -for the millions whom it held under its sway? In all that tract of ages you search in vain for a single instance, in which that, which is now seen to be the true end of gov-a toiling, fighting, tribute-paying animal ?— ernment among men, was recognized and It was only apparently better in Greece, or pursued! The good of the governed, the in the so-styled republican age of Rome; comfort, the elevation, the just rights of for when you penetrate beneath their fair those myriads who stood on the lower levels forms and sounding names, you find almost of humanity—where and when, before the as little of genuine liberty, in the sense of Christian era, were these ever sincerely pro-practical popular freedom, as in the veriest posed as its great end by any ruling power? despotisms. The Free People of Athens One instance may be named; but it is one was a certain, very limited aristocracy, not, marked with peculiarities that set it broadly by any means, the mass of the citizens. Ceraside from the inquiry. I refer to the He-tain select and refined classes had rights and brew Theocracy in which God became him- franchises, but humanity had not yet risen self the Ruler of men. But this exception to stand on its own intrinsic dignity. And stands alone. Governments had wholly an- in Rome it was not so well as in more refinother purpose in view than that of the prac-ed and cultivated Greece. tical benefit of the people. It was not even discovered as yet, that there was a People in the question, having any place or existence as a party in the matter of government.

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Thus you search the ancient world in vain. Genuine liberty, as a popular attainment was not yet known. That was a Christian discovery. The People, as a party to

tianity, Imperial Rome held the world under the sternest absolutism ever yet seen, and the hope of a better day for human liberty seemed never before so faint. But the su

Government, had not come, as yet, to have any recognized existence. The People is a Christian production. Before the Christian era, popular rights and liberal principles had frightened no despot even in his dreams-premacy of that power was drawing to a The world was not yet ripe for these ideas, nor were the ideas themselves yet produced And thus the world lay under the pressure of a chronic Despotism of forty centuries growth. Thus it lay when the crisis of human history arrived, and the Shiloh came, to whom, in more than one sense, "the gathering of the people should be."

close. The consolidated and world-embracing despotism of Rome precluded the possibility of progress so long as it should hold. And the downfall of this despotism was the first great political event affecting the world after the coming of Christ. The Empire still lingered for a space, and its universal sway over the nations served yet one great purpose, in facilitating the spread of Christianity along its grand highways into every part of the earth. This done, the mission of Imperial Rome was ended, her empire dis

Europe were constituted from the wreck.

Another event of the profoundest significance to the world, was that wonderful process which then began for renovating and

In estimating the changes through which the world has passed since that great event, let us fix in the mind one important distinction. The claim is not set up that the Christian age differs from the ages preceding,sim-solved, and the sovereignties of the Modern ply in the fact that it has witnessed many revolutionary changes. All ages have had their civil revulsions. Even in this respect it might be found that the world has been more changeful since the introduction of Christian-reconstructing the civil world. The old Roity. But the distinction claimed is this:that all through these civil changes of later times, a new drift and purport have been visible; that whereas, before the coming in of the Christian system, the political drift of the world set steadily in the direction of despotism and popular degradation, and changes only resulted in the deeper depression and enthrallment of mankind. Since that period another drift has appeared, civil change has gravitated toward a new centre, and human enlargement has been clearly the tendency and the result. New principles have been working. Revolutions have sprung from new causes, and yielded new results.

man world was to be swept away, and a new world created in its stead-a new world in which the fresh and vigorous races of the North, pushing rudely down on the decaying South, should take up the Roman culture, and blend the extremes of civilization and barbarism. Refinement should be wedded to strength-Roman polish to Gothic solidity, and thus a new and better material be at length presented for the working of Christianity. This was the work of the Fifth Century, to empty the north of Europe on the south, and before the close of that centu

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the Ostro-Goths were masters of Italy, the Visi-Goths and Burgundians held Gaul, and the whole western empire had passed into the hands of the barbarians.

We have now to contemplate the thousand years denominated the Dark Ages, extending from this point to the Lutheran Refor

It will be very clear, too, at many points that He who raiseth up and casteth down nations at His pleasure, has paved the way for the operation of Christianity by changes among the nations, which cannot be ascrib-mation. Christianity entered this period died to the Christian influence. The world vided against itself. It had these two oppohas not only been changed by the working site workings. of the new system, but providentially shaped for its workings.

First, As an influence flowing from its doctrines and spirit, and appealing to the in

At the period of the introduction of Chris-elect and the heart, Christianity went stea

the ideas of the world, and paving the way for that great emancipation of mind, which ultimately ensued. Amid all the obstructions of that age of strife and ferment and darkness, Christianity, even though shorn of its brightness, and deformed in its institutions, was, nevertheless, the omnipresent influence that guided the thoughts and formed the sentiments of men. It was, by no means, lost or powerless in all that long period of the world's night; and when the morning came the world stood at a large advance, and prepared for higher demands and sterner struggles for emancipation.

dily forward with its secret work, molding we have spoken. It not only measures for us the previous influence of Christianity on the world, but reveals more distinctly the new law now working in national changes, and compelling them to serve the ends of popular elevation, and the enfranchisement of mankind. Those ends were still distant, and long to be delayed before their full ascomplishment; but from that period they have stood clearly forth as the great ends toward which political changes have been tending. As Christianity has, since then, sueceeded better in penetrating and leavening the masses with its truths and influences, it has more and more raised up the People as But it was not only as an influence that a governmental element, and shaken all desChristianity wrought. It was also an Or- potic powers with popular wants and a popganization-a Church. As such, its opera- ular will. The new tendency is still in option during the Middle Ages was unquesti-eration, and with greater energy than ever. onably adverse to human liberty. The spir-Old Despotism finds itself drifted down init of Despotism that had dwelt in Imperial to new and troubled seas, like icebergs waf Rome, when it was dashed out of her, seems ted down from the poles into warmer to have entered into the Romish church, and latitudes, melting and still melting as they allied itself to the perverted institutions of go. Christianity is more and more accom the Papal Hierarchy. The history of those plishing its secondary work of civil renovatimes has it recorded on every page, that tion and political reform among the nations. the working of Christianity as an external It has never been sufficiently regarded in organization went to neutralize its purer in-views of the Reformation, how far the very fluence in favor of the principles of freedom, structure and composite elements of Euroand to perpetuate the reign of absolute pow-pean Society had been changed during the er. Christianity, thus in its organized form, as a Force, counter-wrought the free spirit and liberal principles which, as an Influence -as an ethical and spiritual system, it was ustilling into the minds of men.

In this way the free tendencies of the system were checked; and between these two antagonist workings a struggle was going forward through the whole period of the Dark Ages. The Reformation broke on the world, declaring the victory on the side of essential Christianity. Its spirit and teachings among men had been stronger than its own perverted institutions, and the rising sentiment of Freedom now flowed over in that great insurrection of the human mind against absolute power.

The Reformation brought out more clearly to view that new drift of civil events of which

preceding thousand years. And yet such change deserves great consideration in ou estimate of that movement. During that millenium of darkness and unnoted change, there had been going on a re-composition of Society, so radical and wide-working, that now at last, the world presented a new and better material on which Reformed Christaanity might exert its power In this Sixteenth century it was almost another world from that, which in the Fifth century, had been lulled to its long sleep. The Northmen had come down with their valor and strength and spint of rude independence, and as the world kad been given into their hands, they had penetrated and filled the nations with new types of character and life. A through the Middle Ages these fresh and vig orous elements had been coalesceing with the

old Roman refinement and cultivation, and | gy than ever. It stood forth among men' the result was now manifest throughout mid- first and foremost, indeed, as a Gospel of dle and southern Europe, in a more availa- Justification by Faith, but it was a Gospel of ble style of humanity, more active and free, Freedom also, and it was hailed as such with more hopeful and progressive. Much, in- welcome by the People. A whole tribe of deed, had been lost that had its beauty and civil revolutions, that have since been workworth. Much that was gentle and fair in ing themselves out slowly, and with many inthe garniture of life had passed away in the terruptions in modern European history, date rough process of combination. We may la- back, in reality, to the time of the Reformament that so much of art and elegance had tion. Everywhere the Lutheran movement been trodden down under barbarian feet. was the dread of potentates and the hope of But after all this, it remains one of the most the People. The Bible was read in all wonderful and beneficent events in the his- tongues. The human mind was aroused. tory of the world-this broad act of re-crea- A consciousness of their rights, and a yearntion, by which the civilized earth was emp- ing for their attainment took possession of tied of an old and degenerate stock, and fill- the people, and the world became restless ed anew from the heartier races of the North beyond precedent. It was a movement that may justly be regarded as more significant when taken in the whole range of its results, than almost any other in the records of our age.

Yet

Blindly and vainly the nations then struggled for a freedom which they were not yet able to receive. And from that period to the present, the nations of Christendom When Cæsar went up with his legions to have been at work on the difficult problem the banks of the Rhine, to fight easy battles of civil and religious Liberty. And they and write easy commentaries, his pictures have been approaching its solution, though of those savage tribes that pressed down a- by a troubled and tortuous course, through gainst him out of their forests, grim, fero- darkness and peril and doubt, through error cious, vainly brave, must have furnished a and crime, through many a relapse and many topic of great curiosity in Roman circles.— a misguided and frustrate revolution. But Rome was destined to form a closer ac- the influences of Christianity have been quaintance with these wild men. Pushing steadfastly operating for man's enlargement, her relentless career of conquest up into their and not in vain. Far beyond what men domain, she startled a whole nest of nations, have dreamed. Christianity, by the pervaand fired them with resentment, curiosity ding presence and power of its ideas in the and ambition; that for centuries after, pour-common mind, has been the moving force in ed down devouring swarm after swarm, un- the political changes of the last three centil every Roman thing was engulfed in a sea turies. History makes no account of this of barbarism. Then commenced the recon- element, and can therefore make little more structive process, and a new world was build- of the world's proceedings than a chaos of ed together. And at the period of the Re- fluctuation and change, without form and formation this new world had so far master-void, without aim, or tendency, or result. It ed the rudimental ideas of freedom, that it was ripe and waiting for some great movement in advance. The stage was thus prepared, and Luther, or Luther's work, could not have been long delayed.

will not stoop to know that God's wisdom and power for man's deliverance have taken orm in Christianity, and gone forth among the people, enlightening and elevating them, and whispering everywhere in their hearts And when the Reformation came, it not ts words of hope and liberty-and that only revived Christianity as a spiritual sys- therefore oppression cannot be at tem, but revealed it as an element of politi- and prosper as of old time, and therefore cal influence with more directness and ener-hese strifes for freedom are everywhere be

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