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PROVIDENTIAL EPOCHS. 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANK M. BRISTOL, D. D. 
 
 CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & CURTS. 
 
 NEW YORK: HUNT & EATON. 
 
 1894. 
 
 i>- 
 
COPYRIGHT 
 BY CRANSTON & CURTS, 
 
 .3 Bfc 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 T^HE contents of this book first took form in 
 a series of lectures on Providential Epochs, 
 intended for Christian young people, who were 
 presumably taking up certain courses of reading 
 along historical lines. The author's aim was 
 simply to furnish an incentive to the more thor- 
 ough study of those events which had ever 
 seemed to him demonstrative of the history- 
 shaping activity of Divine Providence. The 
 limitations of a lecture precluded the possibility 
 of exhaustive treatment. The author claims 
 originality in nothing. He hopes for nothing 
 more important to come of his book than a 
 desire on the reader's part to know more of 
 these great epochs by the study of the recog- 
 nized authorities. It will be most gratifying 
 
4 Preface. 
 
 to hope that such study may promote a belief 
 
 in the Providence of history, a confidence in 
 
 the world's perpetual advancement and a growth 
 
 of pure and lofty patriotism in the hearts of our 
 
 American youth. 
 
 F. M. B. 
 
 EVANSTON, 1894. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. 
 
 Page. 
 
 The Renaissance, 7 
 
 ir. 
 The Reformation 113 
 
 III. 
 The Discovery of America, 155 
 
 IV. 
 
 The SETTI.EMENT OF OUR COUNTRY, 219 
 
 5 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS, 
 
 •Florence, Frontispiece. 
 
 "Giotto's Portrait of Dante, Facing page 17 
 
 Lorenzo de' Medici, " " 24 
 
 /Savonaroi^a, " " 39 
 
 Execution of Savonaroi.a, " " 85 
 
 '-Michael Ang. Buonarroti, " " 98 
 
 ''Raphael " " 96 
 
 ^' Moses" by Michael Angelo, " " 99 
 
 /St. Peter's Cathedral, " " 104 
 
 Martin Luther, " "113 
 
 4>HILIP Melanchthon " " 136 
 
 -John Calvin, " " 140 
 
 Christopher Columbus, " "155 
 
 "Amerigo Vespucci, " "197 
 
 George Washington, " "219 
 
 ~7oHN Wesley, " " 254 
 
 John Hancock " " 263 
 
I. 
 
 The Renaissance. 
 
 7 
 
THE RENAISSANCE. 
 
 ART and letters have vied with romance and 
 arms in giving fascination to 
 
 " The lovely land of Italy." 
 
 This sunny peninsula, by nature beautified and 
 by genius made classical, has furnished the stage 
 on which have been cast many of the most brill- 
 iant and important scenes in the drama of 
 History. 
 
 A study of these scenes will leave the impres- 
 sion upon our minds that neither the vigor and 
 the simplicity of the old Roman Republic, nor 
 the power and greatness of the Empire of the 
 Caesars, have added a more charming and inter- 
 esting chapter to the history of progress than the 
 intellectual activity and art triumphs of the Re- 
 naissance. The Renaissance was a short and 
 brilliant era of less than a single century; it 
 was but an epoch — an intellectual awakening — 
 prophesying ages of enlightenment, and a final 
 civilization of universal humanism. 
 
 The philosophical student looks upon an in- 
 tellectual revival or a religious reformation as the 
 
 2 9 
 
lo Providential Epochs, 
 
 result of a growth, the germ and genesis of 
 which may often be too remote and obscure to be 
 defined. The events which mark an epoch in 
 the world's development are seldom, if ever, the 
 result of a single and discernible cause. While 
 some writers have given what they suppose to 
 be the precise dates of the beginning and close 
 of the Renaissance, the more philosophical stu- 
 dent must assume that the initial date of a 
 grand moral or intellectual movement is as re- 
 mote and obscure as its causes. 
 
 It is sufficient to say that the Renaissance, in 
 its full-orbed brightness and clearly-defined his- 
 toric character, belongs to the fifteenth century. 
 It may be confined within seventy-five years of 
 that century — the span of a single lifetime. 
 
 A rapid survey of the events which lead up 
 to this epoch will help us to understand its his- 
 toric place and relations. Five hundred years 
 from the Golden Age of Augustus, the Goths had 
 stripped the last Roman emperor of his power. 
 But long before this the storied greatness of 
 Rome had passed away ; her forum no longer 
 echoed with Ciceronian eloquence ; her acade- 
 mies were closed ; and no poet could string anew 
 the charmed lyre of Virgil, or fill again the mu- 
 sical reed of Horace. 
 
The Renaissance. ii 
 
 The sword with which the mighty Julius had 
 conquered the world was in the dust, and not a 
 hand in Rome was strong enough to raise it in 
 victorious self-defense. The art, learning, states- 
 manship, and military power of the Latins had 
 been a story of the past for two hundred years 
 when x\ttila the Hun swept down with fury into 
 Italy, and made the cruel boast that the grass no 
 longer grew where his horse had set his foot. 
 Paganism had spent its force. The fabric of so- 
 ciety, which rested on military power, or on 
 mere worldly culture, though often beautiful and 
 imposing, had, by the very logic of its character, 
 crumbled to its ruin. A race enervated by cen- 
 turies of indulgences born of wealth or power 
 became the easy prey of the still vigorous con- 
 querors from the barbaric North. 
 
 Everything intellectual and aesthetic perished 
 when the sword and torch of the barbarian swept 
 across those old classic realms, and the con- 
 queror made sad havoc of whatever remained of 
 the monuments of ancient taste and culture. 
 
 Turn to the East. Three hundred years after 
 the age of Pericles the glory of Greece had van- 
 ished like a dream, and her career as the most 
 highly-developed civilization of history had 
 passed into a very tale of enchantment, almost 
 
12 Providential Epochs. 
 
 too splendid and fascinating to be true. For five 
 hundred years succeeding the Roman conquest 
 this civilization suffered decline in art, learning, 
 statesmanship, manhood, and all that once made 
 it the highest realization of culture in organized 
 society. Then, like Rome its conqueror, weak- 
 ened by its sensualisms, it fell before the relent- 
 less invaders. 
 
 Alas for the creations of a Phidias arid a 
 Praxiteles, where the ruthless barbarian has had 
 his sway! Alas for the beautiful sculpture and 
 architecture which had been the pride and tri- 
 umph of a Periclesian civilization! What had 
 those whirlwinds of passion and conquest in 
 common with the placid beauty of Phidian art, 
 the sublime strains of Attic eloquence and song, 
 the serious, patient philosophies of the acade- 
 mies of Greece ! 
 
 The names of Homer and Sophocles, Solon 
 and Lycurgus, Plato and Aristotle, Phidias and 
 Apelles, had lost their charm and inspiration. 
 The achievements of the great, like their names, 
 were forgotten, and their masterpieces lay in ob- 
 livion, like their noble ashes in neglected graves. 
 The beautiful light of Grecian culture, like the 
 splendor of Roman arms, had fallen into night 
 and chaos. 
 
The Renaissance. 13 
 
 As yet the North was not well out of a vigor- 
 ous savagery ; the light of art and letters had not 
 penetrated the gloom of barbarism. The Saxons 
 and Normans, Britons and Franks, with all their 
 native prowess, were strangers to polite learning. 
 By the ninth century they had come, in the de- 
 velopment of institutionalism, to the feudalism 
 in which they remained for the four succeeding 
 centuries. 
 
 Turning again to the South and East, we 
 look upon the Mohammedan conquests of the 
 eighth century. Fanaticism followed barbarism, 
 to bury in still deeper oblivion every trace of the 
 culture and refinement that lingered about the 
 ruins of classical antiquity. 
 
 But, saddest calamity of all, history must re- 
 cord the corruption of the Christian Church. Its 
 ecclesiasticism became political, tyrannical, and 
 oppressive, while its doctrines and forms of wor- 
 ship fell into superstition and paganism. Dante 
 sang in sorrow, if not in bitterness: 
 
 "The Church of Rome, 
 Mixing two governments that ill assort, 
 Hath missed her footing, fall'n into the mire, 
 And there herself and burden much defiled." 
 
 Thus Europe passed under the cloud of what 
 may justly be called the Dark Ages. Little or 
 
14 Providential Epochs. 
 
 no progress was made in literature, art, science, 
 freedom, or religion. The dust and debris of 
 Rome's decline and fall, with the subsequent 
 havoc wrought by Mohammedanism, and the 
 conflicts of civil and ecclesiastical authorities, 
 were sufficient in themselves to effect a social, 
 intellectual, and moral chaos of a thousand years. 
 Since the advent of Christianity and the fall 
 of pagan nationalism, there had as yet arisen no 
 new civilization worthy to be compared in brill- 
 iancy and grandeur with Rome or Greece, Egypt 
 or Israel of old. History furnishes no other age 
 that may be more philosophically denominated a 
 transitional age. There was a complete and uni- 
 versal shifting of European society from old to 
 new foundations. The pagan ideas of society, 
 the sociologies of culture or of force, had been 
 at work for thousands of years, and in their most 
 brilliant and conspicuous triumphs had but dem- 
 onstrated their fallacy and insufficiency in the 
 problem of a universal civilization. It was dur- 
 ing the disorder and confusion of the fall of the 
 pagan social fabric that the Christian idea of 
 civilization began to operate in laying the foun- 
 dations of a new order of things. This new and 
 divine idea had to contend with many hostile 
 forces ; to work in the darkness and debris ; to 
 
The Renaissance. 15 
 
 meet and overcome paganism, barbarism, fanati- 
 cism, and even a corrupt ecclesiasticism and de- 
 grading superstition, which were clothed, bnt 
 only clothed, with the beautiful livery of heaven. 
 Standing on the other side of this stupendous 
 transition, the true philosopher of history might 
 have been justified in predicting that the fall of 
 the Roman Empire would be followed by many 
 thousands of years of chaos. And it is not sur- 
 prising to one who stands on this side of the 
 Dark Ages that it took a thousand years for in- 
 tellectual Europe to find her way to a new light 
 and to the promised day. 
 
 Finally the sky began to clear. Dante ap- 
 peared, the first great epic poet since Virgil. 
 He became the father of Italian song, and made 
 Italian literature classical. He did more. He 
 antagonized the papacy, and protested against 
 the ecclesiastical abuses and corruptions of 
 Rome. He pleaded for righteousness and liberty. 
 He attributed the broken and dismembered con- 
 dition of Italy to the political ambitions and in- 
 trigues of bishops, cardinals, and popes. He 
 laid the crimes of oppression, simony, tyranu)-, 
 sensuality, and political murder at the very doors 
 of the Church. He was banished from Florence 
 through the influence of the papal power. But 
 
1 6 Providential Epochs. 
 
 he used his pen as warrior never used his sword 
 against his persecutors. Perhaps one of the 
 most reasonable interpretations of the " Divine 
 Comedy" which has appeared is that which rep- 
 resents this great epic as a religio-political at- 
 tack on Rome. This was the position of Dante 
 Gabriel Rossetti, commentator on Dante, and Pro- 
 fessor of Italian in King's College, London. If 
 this interpretation be the true one, then Dante 
 was the first distinguished Protestant, antedat- 
 ing Wyclif, "the morning star of the Reforma- 
 tion," by a lifetime, and preceding Luther by 
 more than two hundred years. 
 
 Dante embodied both the intellectual and 
 moral spirit of the dawning Renaissance, for we 
 shall find that the epoch was characterized by 
 mental and spiritual reaction from the policy of 
 Rome. 
 
 Dante was followed by Petrarch and Boccac- 
 cio, who imbibed the literary taste and the an- 
 tipapal politics of the exiled Tuscan. They 
 added elegance to the Italian language, and used 
 their classical wit in a subtle exposure of the cor- 
 ruptions of the priesthood, and the oppressive 
 political ambitions and intrigues of the papacy. 
 
 Contemporaneous with these bright literary 
 geniuses, shone forth the first rays of light in 
 
GIOTTO'S PORTRAIT OF DANTE. 
 
The Renaissance. 17 
 
 the firmament of art. Cimabue, the painter, 
 Arnolfo, the sculptor and architect, and Giotto, 
 who painted Dante's portrait, and was under 
 the poet's theological if not political influence, 
 came to be recognized as the heralds of the new 
 art era. This was the opening of the fourteenth 
 century. Dante died in 1321. Giotto passed 
 away in 1336. There followed a hundred years 
 of intellectual twilight, of 
 
 " Darkness changing into gra3\" 
 
 Then the morning dawned full and glorious 
 upon Florence, 
 
 " And what a light broke forth 
 When it emerged from darkness!" 
 
 Before the first quarter of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury had passed, Italy was awake to a new in- 
 tellectual life. This new life turned inquiringly 
 toward antiquity. A reaction had come. It was 
 no longer pious to be ignorant, nor impious to 
 be learned. Independent intellects were begin- 
 ning to rise above the bigotry and superstition 
 which priestcraft had encouraged. There were 
 appearing among the leading thinkers an ap- 
 preciation of the culture of the Greeks and Ro- 
 mans, and a desire to unlock the long-hidden 
 treasures of classic lore. Search was instituted 
 
i8 Providential Epochs. 
 
 for every relic of ancient learning. A perfect 
 mania arose to secure old manuscripts, and of 
 these great collections were formed. These 
 manuscripts of priceless value were assiduously 
 studied and translated for publication. On the 
 fall of the Eastern Empire men of Greek learn- 
 ing poured into Italy, and Florence became the 
 rendezvous of scholars from all parts of the 
 world. The Greek and Latin languages were 
 taught. The works of the old poets and philos- 
 ophers were studied and discussed. The very 
 ruins were read. The stones of Rome began to 
 speak. Buried statues rose out of the earth. 
 Men came forward, with money consecrated to 
 the revival of culture, who were eager to pur- 
 chase precious manuscripts, support lectures, 
 found academies, build libraries, encourage au- 
 thorship and art, and to promote the dawning 
 civilization. Florence and Venice, Milan and 
 Rome, seized the printing-press, and became 
 the centers of publishing establishments whose 
 works have not been excelled in typographical 
 perfection and beauty by all the improvements 
 of modern printing. The presses of Demetrius 
 in Florence ; Pannarts in Rome ; Valdarfer, Jen- 
 son, and Aldus Minutius in Venice, — enriched 
 the land with noble editions of the classics. 
 
The Renaissance. 19 
 
 Italy became a country of books and libra- 
 ries. The academies and studios were thronged 
 with a new race of geniuses, while above priests 
 and bishops rose wits, poets, artists, and philos- 
 ophers. A new day had brightly dawned. The 
 Dark Ages were of the past. 
 
 We have tried to indicate some of the re- 
 mote and immediate causes of the Renaissance. 
 These causes are recapitulated, (i) Dante, Pe- 
 trarch, and Boccaccio created an Italian litera- 
 ture, and revived the world's' literary taste. It 
 is even claimed that they belonged to a secret 
 society pledged to antipapal politics, and that 
 secretly they instilled into the more progressive 
 minds the spirit of intellectual freedom. (2) 
 Cimabue, Giotto, and Arnolfo raised art out of 
 oblivion, and gave it its modern impulse, though 
 they were but the heralds of a race of superior 
 geniuses. (3) Constantinople fell before the 
 Turks in 1453, and the remote and secluded 
 scholars of the Greek Church came over into 
 Italy with their remnants of classical learning, 
 embers still aglow snatched from the altars of 
 antiquity, to kindle anew in modern times a 
 taste and culture hardly less refined and noble 
 than that which 
 
 " Made the olil time splendid." 
 
20 Providential Epochs. 
 
 Before this, however, the influence of Eastern 
 scholarship had been felt in Italy. In 1439 a 
 Council of Greek and Latin Churches met in 
 Florence to discuss the subject of ecclesiastical 
 union. The Greek Church was represented by 
 men whose classical erudition was in marked 
 contrast to the poor scholarship of the Latin 
 Church. The scholars from Constantinople 
 could speak and teach the language of the Greek 
 poets and philosophers. Their presence and 
 comparatively good learning awakened a new 
 intellectual life in Florence. (4) There was a 
 spontaneous, almost instantaneous advent into 
 the Italian world of a race of geniuses — men 
 who proved themselves great in learning, art, 
 and literature. (5) That mighty civilizing en- 
 gine, the printing-press, was busily at work. 
 
 These are a few of the many causes of the 
 Renaissance. It may be more philosophical to call 
 these the conditions rather than the causes of 
 this great movement, if we are agreed to look 
 upon this as a providential epoch. 
 
 To those who recognize God's providential 
 dealings with men and nations, the meeting of 
 the Ecclesiastical Council of 1439 can not be 
 looked upon as a mere accident or coincident. 
 The meeting of the Council was changed from 
 
The Renaissance. 21 
 
 Ferrara to Florence. During the deliberations 
 of this body Cosmo de' Medici was Gonfaloniere 
 of Florence. He had brought tranquillity to the 
 Republic, amassed a great fortune, and displayed 
 the most public-spirited liberality in the aggran- 
 dizement of the city. This large-minded and 
 progressive man was profoundly impressed with 
 the learning of the Greek Churchmen. He at- 
 tended the lectures given during the Council, 
 and thereby was actuated to encourage the re- 
 vival of Greek culture. He founded a Platonic 
 Academy, invited to Florence the best Greek 
 scholars and teachers then living, and even sup- 
 ported the students in their pursuit of ancient 
 learning. This Council met just when the po- 
 litical tranquillity and financial prosperity of 
 Florence favored study and the refined pursuits 
 of literature and art. Had this Council met at 
 any other city than Florence, or at any other 
 time than during the ascendency of the Medici, 
 it is impossible for us to see how it could have 
 resulted in the remarkable intellectual awaken- 
 ing which it produced in Florence in 1439. 
 
 It can not seem a mere chance that the print- 
 ing-press came just when the taste for the clas- 
 sics revived, and when there was a universal de- 
 mand for the reproduction of the literary works of 
 
22 Providential Epochs. 
 
 the ancients; and jnst when libraries were being 
 founded, manuscripts were being discovered and 
 translated, and academies were being endowed 
 for the promotion of learning. 
 
 Faust, Gutenberg, and Aldus were as provi- 
 dential men as Dante, Wyclif, and Luther. The 
 question may also be asked, How came it that 
 all at once, out of the darkness of the fourteenth 
 century, three great poets and three great artists 
 shone like prophetic stars? There had been no 
 apparent preparation for such men. They can 
 hardly be looked upon as the natural product of 
 the age. They seem to be born before their 
 time. Their enlightenment belongs to later days. 
 But it may just as reasonably be asked, How came 
 it, later on in England, that within the narrow 
 limits of sixty years such geniuses as Sidney, 
 Spenser, Greene, Jonson, Marlowe, Bacon, 
 Raleigh, Shakespeare, and Milton, shone out in 
 their undying brilliancy? What is the philos- 
 ophy of the sudden appearance of that galaxy of 
 geniuses which shed light and glory upon Italy 
 during the fifteenth century, and to whose intel- 
 lectual greatness is due the enlightenment of the 
 Renaissance ? The only true philosophy of it 
 all seems to be this, that there is a power of 
 Providence at work in history, bringing the race, 
 
The Renaissance. 23 
 
 epoch by epoch and sun by sun, up to a perfect 
 humanism and up to the ideal civilization. 
 
 We may look upon' this epoch as it reaches 
 its midday brightness through the character and 
 work of its three most powerful and distinguished 
 men, Lorenzo de' Medici, Jerome Savonarola, and 
 Michael Angelo Buonarotti. Lorenzo, popularly 
 named Magnificent, was the most conspicuous and 
 potent political genius of the age, Savonarola 
 was the greatest moral and religious force, and 
 Michael Angelo was the most original and au- 
 thoritative art genius. We may study almost any 
 phase of the Renaissance through these men. 
 They did much to give the epoch its character 
 and historical importance. 
 
 The intellectual condition of a people is largely 
 determined by their political institutions and by 
 the character of the ruling authorities. The 
 Medici were despots, and yet they were bene- 
 factors. They were accused of robbing the peo- 
 ple of their liberties, but those liberties did not 
 consist of that noble and humane system of 
 checks and privileges which is the groundwork 
 of either a democratic or republican self-gov- 
 ernment. No word had sunken into worse 
 abuse than " liberty." It was the shibboleth of 
 every political faction that sought the highest 
 
24 Providential Epochs. 
 
 place of power. It meant mobocracy and an- 
 archy, freedom from restraint, and individual in- 
 dependence of law and government. " Liberty" 
 had kept Florence in a perpetual turmoil, with 
 faction fighting faction, family plotting against 
 family, numerous guilds and trades unions con- 
 tending for the political supremacy, and civil 
 authorities antagonizing ambitious ecclesiastical 
 powers. If ever there was a demand for the 
 *' strong man," it was then. If despotic govern- 
 ment ever had a mission in the world it was 
 there, and if any despotism was ever justifiable 
 and beneficial, it was the despotism of the 
 Medici, which brought order out of confusion, 
 and peace out of political and social turmoil. 
 
 One of the most interesting and influential 
 families of history was the Medici. The most 
 gifted and historically conspicuous members of 
 this family were Cosmo, the founder of its 
 financial prosperity and political influence, the 
 richest man in Italy; Lorenzo the Magnificent, 
 the patron of culture ; Leo X and Clement VII, 
 popes of Rome; and Catherine, "wife of one 
 French king, and mother of three." 
 
 Modern culture, if not modern freedom, owes 
 more to Lorenzo the Magnificent than to any 
 other member of this illustrous family. He was 
 
LORENZO DO' MEDICI. 
 
The Renaissance. » 25 
 
 the son of Piero, and grandson of Cosmo. On 
 the death of his father Piero, he was invited to 
 the political leadership of Florence in 147 1, at 
 the early age of twenty-three. The influence 
 and greatness of the Medici came to a climax in 
 his career. Symonds may seriously and justly 
 write : " What the intellectual world would have 
 been if the Italian nation had not devoted its 
 energies to the restoration of liberal learning 
 can not even be imagined." As justly may it 
 be added, and how that restoration could have 
 been effected without Lorenzo de' Medici can no 
 more easily be imagined. 
 
 Of the undaunted political ambition of this 
 elegant despot, there can be no doubt. The ne- 
 cessities of the times may have been its justifi- 
 cation. That very despotism was doubtless the 
 only form of government that could have se- 
 cured peace. 
 
 In calling Lorenzo a despot, we are not thereby 
 justified in attributing every act of his adminis- 
 tration of affairs to selfish and ambitious mo- 
 tives. It can not be truthfully claimed that this 
 man promoted culture and established peace in 
 Florence and Italy simply from the sinister mo- 
 tives of self-aggrandizement and tyranny. He 
 was richly endowed with a pure taste, a profound 
 
 3 
 
26 * Providential Epochs. 
 
 love of art and literature, a genius for financier- 
 ing and political leadership; and these were su- 
 perior, in their inner control of him, to any 
 despotic influences or mere ambitions for glory 
 and power. IMoreover, there was doubtless a true 
 spirit of liberalism in his nature which rose up 
 in antagonism to the bigotry of Romanism — 
 Romanism in its religio-political character. While 
 he did not possess the devout and religious feel- 
 ing of Dante, he was a true disciple of the polit- 
 ical Dante. He could see, with the grand old 
 Tuscan bard, that Rome aimed at the intellectual 
 and political enslavement of Italy. He was fa- 
 miliar with the intrigues and corruptions of Ro- 
 man ecclesiasticism, and he despised the Church's 
 pretense to holiness as he ridiculed the sancti- 
 monious debauchery, profligacy, and worldly am- 
 bitions of bishops, cardinals, and popes. He 
 opposed the political encroachment of the papal 
 power in its tyrannical design to subdue all the 
 Italian States to Roman control. By a scheming, 
 liberty-hating ecclesiasticism he was looked upon 
 as an enemy of the Church when he was putting 
 forth every effort to establish the political tran- 
 quillity of Italy, secure to every State its rights, 
 restore decayed learning to its ancient glor)-, and 
 lead the age up oiit of its superstitions and ig- 
 
The Renaissance. 27 
 
 norance to intellectual freedom. Lorenzo may 
 not have seen the Reformation which was logic- 
 ally to follow the Renaissance, nor could he have 
 dreamed of the Protestantism which was to be 
 the fruit of the revival of learning. He worked 
 far better than he knew to bring a higher civili- 
 zation into history than had ever charmed his 
 imagination. He was the man for that great 
 hour, and less a slave of personal ambition than 
 unconsciously the servant of Providence. How- 
 ever completely his qualities may have concealed 
 grave faults, and to however great an extent his 
 wealth, liberality, and love of intellectual prog- 
 ress may have indirectly aided him in establish- 
 ing his prosperity and securing his own political 
 supremacy, it were wholly ungenerous and un- 
 philosophical to brand his virtues of character 
 and his great, beneficent achievements with the 
 suspicion of ignoble impulses and selfish designs. 
 There can be no doubt that we have too credu- 
 lously looked upon Machiavel's exposition of the 
 character of a prince as the very photograph of 
 Lorenzo de' Medici. If the character and achieve- 
 ments of Lorenzo inspired Machiavel's political 
 ethics, which seem detestable to the enlightened 
 thought of the nineteenth century, nevertheless, 
 the same defense which Macaulay makes for 
 
28 Providential Epochs. 
 
 Machiavel may be offered for Lorenzo. He was 
 the fruit of a cruel and corrupt age. He be- 
 longed to an era that was just coming up out of 
 moral, political, and intellectual chaos. The best 
 morals of the time were pagan. Plato, Aristotle, 
 and Cicero were better ethical teachers than the 
 Church. The pure and simple teachings of 
 Christ and the apostles had been covered up 
 with the corruptions, false doctrines, and tradi- 
 tions of the Middle Ages, and only one sonorous 
 voice was lifted, toward the close of Lorenzo's 
 life, in proclaiming righteousness, liberty, and 
 charity; that was the voice of Savonarola, the 
 man whom Lorenzo hated and dreaded most, 
 but the only priest to whom he was willing to 
 confess as he lay dying in Careggi. We can not 
 expect the men of that time to bear the moral 
 scrutiny of this. We marvel that an age which 
 tolerates a Sixtus IV, an Innocent VIII, an Al- 
 exander VI, and a Lucretia Borgia can produce 
 a Savonarola, a Mirandola, a Michael Angelo, and 
 a Vittoria Colonna. We do not wonder that even 
 Machiavel and Lorenzo de' Medici are looked 
 upon by just historians as good men for the age 
 in which they were called to act their parts. 
 This may be said of Lorenzo: that, among the 
 despots then ruling Italy, he stood, in point of 
 
The Renaissance. 29 
 
 talents, power, and virtue, the foremost of his 
 time. And if we look abroad toward the rulers 
 of France, Spain, and England, or if we turn our 
 attention to the Roman pontiffs, hardly a charac- 
 ter appears which does not suffer in a compari- 
 son with Lorenzo de' Medici. No sovereign sat 
 upon a European throne, no pope assumed the 
 triple crown, no despot established his power 
 over an Italian State during his supremacy in 
 Florence, who, either in genius or learning, in 
 wealth or liberality, in friendliness to and sup- 
 port of the intellectual revival, was worthy to 
 stoop and unloose the sandals of Lorenzo the 
 Magnificent. 
 
 But in offering this tribute to his work and 
 worth, we do not wish to conceal the glaring 
 faults of this prince. We have no mantle, save 
 that of charity, with which to cover his multi- 
 tude of sins. If the faults of great men like 
 Lorenzo, Napoleon, Caesar, Diderot, Voltaire, 
 Goethe, Bacon, Byron, and Shakespeare miist be 
 covered, let it not be with the flowers of rhetoric ; 
 let it not be by misrepresentation and falsehood ; 
 but rather by the pure, white mantle of charity; 
 or let them not be hidden at all. The ambition 
 which made Lorenzo a despot, his love of glory 
 and display which prompted a most prodigal ex- 
 
30 Providential Epochs. 
 
 travagaiice, the worldliness and sensuality which 
 inspired many an excess, must remain in the 
 world's memory as grievous blemishes of an oth- 
 erwise great character and vastly influential life. 
 But when we have scrutinized Solomon in the 
 midst of all his glory; Belshazzar, exulting in 
 his Babylonian splendor ; Alexander, in the full 
 flush of his greatness and dominion ; Pericles, in 
 his Athenian pride and prosperity ; the Ccesars, 
 in their imperial supremacy ; the Stuarts, the 
 Tudors, and the Plantagenets, in all the pomp and 
 magnificence of their reigns ; and the Napoleons, 
 the Bourbons, the Orleanses, and the Valois, in 
 their most splendid power, — we are disposed to 
 look upon the Medici of Florence with a kind- 
 lier eye, and with less asperity to criticise the 
 acknowledged faults and sins of Lorenzo. 
 
 There was not a man in Italy, or in all Eu- 
 rope, at that period, who, as a politician, a finan- 
 cier, a scholar, and a friend to intellectual prog- 
 ress combined, was worthy to be compared to the 
 Magnificent. Through the genius, philanthropy, 
 and political sagacity of this despot there came 
 iipon Italy a peace and prosperity which that 
 country had not known for a thousand years. 
 This happy state of external tranquillity, as we 
 have stated, favored the most intense intellectual 
 
The Renaissance. 31 
 
 activity that the world had experienced since the 
 days of Augustus. In the midst of this political 
 rest and financial ease the revival of art and 
 learning made rapid progress, reminding the 
 world of the days when the Greeks were charmed 
 with the art of Phidias and Apelles, and of the 
 age of Augustus, when the Romans took pride 
 in the sublime song of Virgil and the learned 
 periods of Livy. Florence was the center of this 
 reviving culture, as it was of the financial and 
 political life of Italy, while the patronage of Lo- 
 renzo made the palace of the Medici the center 
 of Florence ; hence, the center of the intellect- 
 ual world. 
 
 Lorenzo was perhaps the most elegantly edu- 
 cated ruler of his day — the most highly accom- 
 plished in all that pertained to polite learning 
 and aesthetic culture. His own poetic genius 
 was of an order to warrant Sismondi in saying : 
 " The first man to whom may be attributed the 
 restoration of Italian poetry was one of the 
 greatest of his own and of succeeding ages — 
 Lorenzo de' Medici, Chief of the Florentine Re- 
 public, and political arbiter of the whole State 
 of Italy." 
 
 But even more may be said to Lorenzo's 
 credit as a man of literarv taste and genius than 
 
32 Providential Epochs. 
 
 that he was the restorer of Italian poetry, and 
 one of the finest political geniuses of his age ; 
 for in his encouragement of every branch of 
 learning, in his liberal patronage of all who gave 
 promise of scholarship or literary taste and pro- 
 ductiveness, in his hearty welcome to and friend- 
 liness for genius and ability in whomsoever it 
 might appear, in his personal relations of munifi- 
 cence to schools and academies, he displayed that 
 spirit which entitled him to wear without re- 
 proach the name of " Magnificent." 
 
 To his high credit be it said, Lorenzo invited 
 the companionship of the most intellectual men 
 of the age. It was not the rough soldier, the 
 scheming politician, the sordid money-maker, 
 nor the fawning courtier that won the society, 
 the admiration, and the favor of this prince. He 
 enjoyed the company of geniuses, the converse 
 of the learned, the society and personal intimacy 
 of poets, philosophers, wits, artists, statesmen, 
 and teachers. With his name, therefore, must 
 be associated the names of the high-minded of 
 that age. Conspicuous among these were : Fi- 
 cino, the foremost Platonic scholar ; Politian, 
 master of Greek and Latin lore, accomplished 
 wit, philosopher, and poet; Landino, the inter- 
 preter of Dante and the regenerator of Dantean 
 
The Renaissance. 33 
 
 Italian ; the youthful Machiavel, the most subtle- 
 minded publicist ; Pico, the Prince of Mirandola, 
 elegant in culture, refined in manners, public- 
 spirited and liberal toward the intellectual move- 
 ment of his time ; Pulci, the charming orator ; 
 and Alberti, the universal scholar and many- 
 sided genius. Happy the age enlightened by 
 such intellects! Great — essentially great — the 
 man whose tastes attract the companionship, and 
 whose liberality encourages the development, of 
 geniuses like these! 
 
 Lorenzo had as pure a taste for art, and as 
 noble an ambition to aid its progress and devel- 
 opment, as he had for literature and the advance- 
 ment of learning. Not only had he established 
 and vastly enriched the most valuable library in 
 Europe, where precious manuscripts of ancient 
 literature were deposited, but Lorenzo's house 
 was a depository of paintings, sculptures, coins, 
 engraved stones, rare gems and antiquities, which 
 were the envy of native princes and of foreign 
 kings. It was admitted that the finest treasures 
 in all the world were collected in the house of 
 the Magnificent. 
 
 The traveler who to-day stands entranced 
 among the art treasures of the Ufiizi Gallery in 
 Florence, and carries from that enchanted spot, 
 
34 Providential Epochs. 
 
 through many lands and many years, an indeli- 
 ble and delightful memory thereof, must feel in- 
 debted to the Medici, and in particular to Lo- 
 renzo, by whose taste, liberality, and noble 
 ambition many of those glorious creations of 
 genius and those immortal expressions of beauty 
 were accumulated. 
 
 Lorenzo's ambition was not satisfied, how- 
 ever, with merely collecting art treasures for his 
 eyes to feast upon to the satiety of his inborn 
 love of beauty, but he also endeavored to give 
 every encouragement and incentive to the awak- 
 ening and development of an aesthetic taste and 
 a genius for art, and to the production of great 
 works in architecture, painting, and sculpture. 
 At a vast expense he turned the Gardens of St. 
 Mark into a school of the highest plastic art, 
 where the ancient models were studied, and a 
 taste for the antique was created and fostered 
 into genius. True, since the first dawn of the 
 Renaissance many noble and gifted artists had 
 passed away, but a new generation of geniuses 
 had appeared; and we find Lorenzo surrounded 
 by a class of artists far superior to those who 
 had come up under the patronage of his grand- 
 father Cosmo. Florence was rich in master- 
 pieces of sculpture and architecture before Lo- 
 
The Renaissance. 35 
 
 renzo's time. Giotto, Brunelleschi, Aiigelico, 
 Ghiberti, and Donatello had already embellished 
 the beautiful city with those miracles of art 
 which, even to this day, are the glory of Flor- 
 ence and the pride of Italy. The Campanile of 
 Giotto, Brunelleschi's dome, Ghiberti's wonderful 
 gates of bronze, and some of Donatello's works of 
 sculpture, remain in many respects unique and 
 peerless in beauty, though it can not be ques- 
 tioned that these great men were followed by a 
 still higher order of geniuses under the inspira- 
 tion of a more profound and universal art en- 
 thusiasm, and of a more liberal patronage and 
 vigorous rivalry. The progress in painting was 
 even more marked than in sculpture and archi- 
 tecture, and greater improvement was made 
 on Cimabue, Giotto, and Masaccio, than per- 
 haps could have been made on Brunelleschi, 
 Ghiberti, and Donatello. Lorenzo's age was 
 adorned with the names and achievements of 
 such artists as Lippi, Ghirlandaio, INIantegna, 
 Perugino, Bramante, Leonardo da Vinci, and 
 Michael Angelo. All these artists, with the ex- 
 ceptions of Bramante and da Vinci, felt the in- 
 fluence and enjoyed, to some degree at least, 
 the patronage of Lorenzo. The four greatest 
 artists of the Renaissance were born before 
 
36 Providential Epochs. 
 
 Lorenzo passed away. When the Magnificent 
 died, in 1492, Titian and Raphael were but boys ; 
 Leonardo da Vinci was in his prime of manhood 
 and power ; and Michael Angelo was a youth of 
 eighteen years, at work in the school of sculp- 
 ture, and enjoying the affection and favor of the 
 prince, who had taken him from his father to 
 educate him in art. Lorenzo has been desig- 
 nated not only as the patron of Platonic philos- 
 ophy, the promoter of learning and literature, the 
 regenerator of Italian poetry, and the political 
 arbiter of Italy for his time, but also, and as if 
 it were a still more glorious distinction, he must 
 be known as the man who *' kindled and fanned 
 the flame of genius in the breast of Michael 
 Angelo." 
 
 Florence and the Medicean patronage were 
 the center and original impulse of the glorious 
 enthusiasm for high art which swept over all 
 Italy. The Tuscan splendor was emulated. The 
 Florentine love of beauty was imbibed by sister 
 States. Leonardo da Vinci, though out of all 
 sympathy with the Medici, was nevertheless a 
 Florentine. He kindled a glorious flame of art 
 enthusiasm in Lombardy. 
 
 Angelo wrought in Florence and in Rome.. 
 Venice, "a glorious city in the sea," became 
 
The Renaissance. 37 
 
 brilliant with the achievements of those princely 
 colorists, Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto. 
 Parma came to exult in the wonderful works of 
 Correggio, who could look upon the master- 
 pieces of Raphael, and still exclaim : "And I, 
 too, am a painter." Thus all Italy was finally 
 ablaze from the light kindled in Florence largely 
 by the liberality and culture of the Medici, and 
 more particularly by the uncommon genius of 
 Lorenzo the Magnificent. 
 
 Few characters in history present more 
 marked contradictions, a more heterogeneous 
 mingling of great qualities and great faults, than 
 this Florentine despot. He was a sensualist 
 and a philosopher, a despot and a benefactor, a 
 politician and a poet, a debauchee and patron of 
 art and learning, cruel and benevolent, worldly 
 and scholarly, mean and magnificent. His gos- 
 pel was simply a gospel of culture; his religion 
 intellectuality. Lorenzo inspired no moral 
 greatness in his people or age. We find here, 
 as we may find in the study of Jerusalem and 
 Solomon, of Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar, of 
 Athens and Pericles, of Rome and Augustus, of 
 France and Louis XIV, of England and Elizabeth, 
 that a nation and a people may be highly cultured 
 in art and scholarship, in poetry, philosophy, sci- 
 
38 Providential Epochs. 
 
 ence, and even theology, without being pure, he- 
 roic, and humane. Brilliant genius, profound 
 erudition, and elegant manners may be wedded 
 to a sensual, even cruel moral nature. One may 
 cultivate the arts and sciences, drink deeply at 
 the well of philosophy, adorn his mind with a 
 knowledge of the wisdom, wit, and song of the 
 classic ages, become intellectual, aesthetic, rich, 
 and powerful, without attaining to that moral no- 
 bility and disinterestedness of motive, that love 
 of right and man and God, which are essential to 
 the highest style of character, and to the most en- 
 during greatness. We find Lorenzo de' Medici 
 deformed by the same immoralities which blem- 
 ished the characters of Solomon, Alexander the 
 Great, Pisistratus, Julius Caesar, Louis XI\', and 
 Napoleon, while, though superior in genius and 
 learning, he was lacking in those high virtues 
 and noble qualities of soul which belonged to 
 Cromwell, Washington, Gustavus Adolphus, and 
 William of Orange ; and to those noble sons and 
 benefactors of Italy, Victor Emmanuel, Cavour, 
 and Garibaldi. Lorenzo de' Medici was not the 
 moral reformer of the Renaissance. 
 
 The first problem to be solved in the founda- 
 tion-work of the new civilization was an intel- 
 lectual problem — the emancipation of reason, the 
 
SAVONAROLA. 
 
The Renaissance. 39 
 
 liberty of thought, the settlement of the prerog- 
 atives of culture, and the mission of literature, 
 art, and science in modern history. Lorenzo de' 
 Medici may not have seen the end toward which 
 his powers toiled and achieved. Nevertheless, 
 he put himself, his splendid genius and activi- 
 ties, into this work of intellectualism, on which 
 the higher social fabric must necessarily rest. 
 Lorenzo, even with his autocratic, despotic spirit, 
 could not solve the problem of his age single- 
 handed and alone. Others wrought heroically 
 to establish this foundation — this first secure 
 resting-point for the imposing superstructure of 
 freedom. 
 
 In 1452, as the dawn of the new learning was 
 spreading over Italy, there was born in Ferrara 
 one who was destined to attract as much atten- 
 tion and create as profound a sensation as any 
 man in his time. This man, Jerome Savonarola, 
 was a monk at the age of twenty-three. Though 
 up to this period nothing of great moment had 
 occurred in this young life, nevertheless one 
 skilled in the interpretation of the human face 
 might have suggested that something important 
 was likely to happen at any instant in the soul 
 which kindled those eyes into flames and knot- 
 ted that brow into meditations. That is a face 
 
40 Providential Epochs. 
 
 to attract attention. Every feature indicates 
 strength. The prominent, hooked nose ; the 
 large and rugged brow ; the burning, heavily- 
 lashed eyes ; the large, strong mouth ; the deli- 
 cate, finely-wrought nervous system ; a face 
 "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," are 
 significant of character which, sooner or later, 
 may be expected to make itself felt in power 
 and authority among men. But those who knew 
 him well had come to have their thoughts about 
 this boy Jerome before he had startled the world 
 by his power. Savonarola was a natural mys- 
 tic, possessed of an essentially devout, unworldly 
 nature. He communed with his own heart and 
 thought much while yet a boy. He easily grew 
 sick of the vain pomp and glory of the world. 
 His great blue eyes had often wepft over the 
 world's misery and sin, when the eyes of priests 
 and bishops, and of cardinals and popes, were 
 dry as stones. Alone, in meditative and prayer- 
 ful mood, he often strolled through olive-groves 
 and the blooming fields, and by the streams 
 whose solemn monotone made harmony with the 
 beating of his serious, sorrowing heart. While 
 yet a lad his mind displayed great vigor and 
 subtlety. He grasped truth in all its forms with 
 eagerness, so that he became the wonder and 
 
The Renaissance. 41 
 
 admiration of his instructors. He mastered the 
 subtleties of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, 
 and exhausted the whole range of the scholasti- 
 cism of his time. The Bible, however, was to 
 him the supreme Book. This he hid in his 
 heart, like one of old. He was given also to 
 poetical fancies, and with no mean success 
 courted the sacred muse. His parents came to 
 regard him as their most promising son, and, 
 with worthy pride and ambition, destined him to 
 the profession of medicine, the foremost profes- 
 sion of the day. He was destined, however, by 
 a higher Power, to become a physician, not to 
 the bodies of men, but to the corrupt morals and 
 manners, to the sick nation and age that sur- 
 rounded him. 
 
 At the age of twenty there came a new light 
 into those great eyes, which ever burned under 
 the knotted brow like watch-fires under the tow- 
 ering mountain. That new light was the light 
 of love, kindled there by the grace and beauty 
 of an exiled Florentine, who boasted the noble 
 blood and name of Strozzi. But that light was 
 soon quenched, and quenched forever, by the 
 haughty refusal of the Strozzi to recognize the 
 equal nobility of Savonarola. The last cord 
 which bound this strong soul to the world had 
 
 4 
 
42 Providential Epochs. 
 
 thus been broken. All this may have contrib- 
 uted to his after strength and greatness.. There 
 are men in history whom Providence seems to 
 have foreordained to a high and holy celibacy 
 necessitated by their mission in the world ; and 
 there seems to be no violation of the law of the 
 fitness of things when such men as Elijah, John 
 the Baptist, Paul, Michael Angelo, Leonardo da- 
 Vinci, and Savonarola live alone, and, single- 
 handed, single-hearted, do their mighty work for 
 God and man. There was a destiny before Sa- 
 vonarola quite irreconcilable with his tender af- 
 fection for the lovely Florentine. And yet his 
 cheek flushed with proud passion, his eyes fired 
 with the lightning of anger, and his eloquent 
 lips said stinging, hurting words in retaliation 
 for the scorn of the proud girl-^and the charm 
 was broken. He became more thoughtful than 
 ever, more secluded, more penitent and prayer- 
 ful. The world lost for him its every enchant- 
 ment, and the life of the recluse assumed an 
 irresistible fascination. The convent seemed to 
 the devout mind of Savonarola a refuge from 
 the storm and a haven from the tempest. The 
 cowl and garb of the monk became vestments 
 more beautiful and honorable than the crown 
 and robe of royalty, while the inmates of con- 
 
The Renaissance. 43 
 
 vents and the dignitaries of the Church were 
 more like angels than men to his over-sanguine 
 imagination. Alas that all these things should 
 prove disappointing delusions to his devout and 
 most sincere heart! He found the convent a 
 moral pest-house; monks and nuns were lepers 
 of sensuality ; priests, bishops, cardinals, and 
 popes were princes of profligacy ; the cowl and 
 miter, red cap and tiara, were the adornments of 
 ignorance, superstition, hypocrisy, and arch vil- 
 lainy. He who had sought the companionship 
 of monks and priests for sympathy and spiritual 
 affinity found them whited sepulchers. He who 
 had turned to the convent to study the Bible 
 found that pagan Aristotle and his half-under- 
 stood philosophy had superseded Jesus and his 
 heavenly Word. He who had turned to the 
 Church for light, peace, and rest, found darkness, 
 discord, envy, rivalry, greed, and profligacy. 
 Where Savonarola expected to find spirituality, 
 he found bestiality/;'' where he sought for peace, 
 he discovered contention ; where he turned for 
 purity and chastity, he beheld corruption ; where 
 he looked for the reign of love, he gazed through 
 his tears upon the reign of lust and cruelty. 
 He asked for a fish, but they gave him a ser- 
 pent ; he asked for bread, but they gave him a 
 
44 Providential Epochs. 
 
 stone^yes, a scorpion. So would it have been, 
 so was it, to every devout soul that turned for 
 light and truth and spiritual good to the Church 
 of Rome in the fifteenth century. 
 
 Savonarola, therefore, forever sincere, devout, 
 and conscientious, found rising within him, not 
 only disappointment and grief, but holy indigna- 
 tion and a strong, unquenchable spirit of pro- 
 testation, which were but the first mutterings of 
 that fiery volcano of rebuke and warning, threat- 
 ening and exhortation, which was to burst upon 
 the Church and nation, and entitle him forever 
 to be known as the preacher, reformer, and mar- 
 tyr of the Italian Renaissance. 
 
 The appointment of Savonarola to the chair 
 of Belles-Lettres and Metaphysics in the con- 
 vent of Bologna was a recognition of his superior 
 intellectuality and scholarship ; yet it in no de- 
 gree harmonized with his tastes and feelings to 
 be assigned the duty of instilling into the minds 
 of young priests the philosophy of Aristotle. It 
 was there, however, that a career opened before 
 him of which he had never dreamed, and which, 
 had he anticipated it, might have dissuaded him 
 from entering the monastery. Perhaps no thought 
 was more foreign to his mind the morning he 
 turned his back iipon his home in Ferrara than 
 
The Renaissance. 45 
 
 that he should become a preacher, much less a 
 reformer; and, least of all, a martyr/. He turned 
 to the convent for rest, seclusion, study, medita- 
 tion, separation from the turmoil of the world. 
 Yet the entrance of Savonarola to a monastic 
 life meant, in the divine order of things, that he 
 should become a preacher. For such a magnifi- 
 cent combination of intellect, mysticism, learn- 
 ing, conviction, courage, devotion, zeal, and elo- 
 quence to turn preacher, meant to become 
 reformer; and to become reformer in Italy, in 
 the fifteenth century, meant martyrdom. 
 
 ■' Savonarola discovered the logic of his destiny 
 as soon as the first premise was laid down in the 
 order of Divine Providence, and as soon as he 
 had fully assumed the vows of a monk. He 
 knew what he must be, and what he must do 
 and suffer, if he became a preacher. He could 
 tell the end from the beginning, because he knew 
 himself, and he knew the age in which he must 
 act. There was nothing supernatural in his pre- 
 dicting his own martyrdom after he had once 
 consented to unseal his lips, and let the concen- 
 trated wrath that was in him leap forth in con- 
 suming flames. When we hear him praying for 
 martyrdom, and soliciting it, we have no suspi- 
 cion of bravado, hypocrisy, or charlatanism on 
 
46 Providential Epochs. 
 
 his part, but we feel that this is his way of spur- 
 ring himself up to that sublime self-surrender, 
 that loyalty to conscience and truth, which, in 
 so sinful an age, must reap the fiery harvest of 
 martyrdom if they prove the soul genuine and 
 heroic enough to please God and merit eter- 
 nal life. 
 
 Savonarola continued to teach and lecture in 
 the convent at Bologna for seven years. During 
 this period he proved to his own satisfaction the 
 sophistry of Aristotle and the vitiating tenden- 
 cies of all pagan philosophy and culture. Here 
 also, and at the same time, he laid the founda- 
 tion for his future extraordinary power as a 
 preacher by a deep study and learned mastery 
 of the Bible. 
 
 At the age of thirty he stepped into a broader 
 arena of activity and influence than that of rhet- 
 oric and metaphysics. He appeared in Florence, 
 which was destined to be the scene of the re- 
 markable events in his remarkable career. 
 
 Florence had come to occupy the foremost 
 rank among the splendid cities of Italy and of 
 the world. In financial prosperity and commer- 
 cial importance no city could compete with the 
 fair city of Tuscany. She had become the po- 
 litical ruler of all Italy, so that even Venice, 
 
The Renaissance. 47 
 
 Pisa, Milan, and Rome, though jealous of her 
 power, acknowledged her supremacy in the po- 
 litical affairs of Italy. But in a more conspicu- 
 ous and unapproachable degree Florence was the 
 center of the glorious revival of art and learn- 
 ing, which not only lighted up Italy, but spread 
 its brightness over Europe, and was destined to 
 fill the whole earth with its glory. 
 
 When Savonarola, at the age of thirty, first 
 came to Florence, the Medici were in the me- 
 ridian splendor of their greatness. Lorenzo the 
 Magnificent was supreme, and the beautiful city 
 was then, as it is still, exulting in the glory 
 which had been born of the magnificence of this 
 elegant despot. 
 
 From every land — from Spain and England, 
 Germany and France — inquiring minds came to 
 drink at the fountain of learning which sprang 
 up in the very palace of the Medici, and to lave 
 in the crystal streams of poetry, philosophy, and 
 classical learning which flowed therefrom in un- 
 restrained freedom. Florence, in the fifteenth 
 century, was the Mecca of culture — a great, 
 beautiful, and fascinating city, rivaled in the 
 wonders of its history by no capital of earth 
 save Rome. Hither comes the conviction-driven 
 Sav6narola to preach to a people who need it 
 
48 Providential Epochs. 
 
 greatly the old gospel of holiness and charity. 
 With all its wealth, art, and learning, Florence 
 has more sins to repent of, more wicked ways to 
 mend, more sonls that need conversion, than any 
 city in Italy or ont of it. This wealth, art, and 
 learning prove to be no surer an antidote for 
 moral corruption in Florence than they did in 
 imperial Rome, aesthetic Athens, voluptuous Cor- 
 inth, and splendid Babylon of old. 
 
 As our hooded Dominican friar, with his great 
 brow, his great mouth, his great eyes, and his 
 great soul, full of great convictions, comes for 
 the first time into the midst of the glories of this 
 beautiful but wicked Florence, wonder, awe, and 
 hesitation, not immingled with admiration, hope, 
 and prayer, take possession of his mind. Before 
 him rise, in all their solid grandeur, the palaces 
 of the Pitti and of the Medici, displaying not 
 only great wealth in their construction, but also 
 the finest architecture of modern Italy. The 
 Palazzo Vecchio, simple, stern, and fortress-like, 
 with its tower and famous bell, stands there 
 guarding the square that is yet to be lighted up 
 with a strange and tragic flame of martyrdom. 
 There, too, is the Loggia to attract the eye, but, 
 as yet, quite unadorned by Cellini's masterpiece 
 and those fine forms of Greek and Roman art 
 
The Renaissance. 49 
 
 which, in our day, make Florence and her beau- 
 tiful Loggia the shrine of many a pilgrimage of 
 culture. Now the j^oiing monk stands in amaze- 
 ment and delight before the bronze gates of 
 Ghiberti, which decorate the marble baptistery. 
 As his eye reads thereon, wrought into such 
 beauty as bronze had never assumed before, the 
 sacred events of Bible history, doubtless he 
 thinks what Angelo afterward exclaimed : "They 
 are worthy to be the gates of Paradise." He 
 turns, and lo ! rising in airy grace, the Campa- 
 nile of Giotto throws such a spell of beauty o'er 
 his vision that he doubts if human genius ever 
 created that marble miracle, and wonders whether 
 angelic architects did not build the glorious 
 tower, and whether fairies in their beauty do not 
 dwell therein. But now, most wondrous triumph 
 of the early Tuscan genius, eternal pride of 
 Florence, and boast of classic Italy, the dome of 
 Brunelleschi bursts upon the young monk's bewil- 
 dered view, and he stands entranced before that 
 architectural magnificence, which he little thinks 
 is yet to echo and thunder with his own mighty 
 declamation. Finally Savonarola turns hissteps, 
 we may imagine, toward the solemn cloisters of 
 St. Mark. As the hooded stranger enters this, 
 his new home, a spell of sacred enchantment 
 
50 Providential Epochs. 
 
 seems to bind him. I Here it is that holy Atito- 
 nino, like an angel, passed his life of virtue and 
 benevolence, and the sweet fragrance of his 
 memory lingers in the convent still. These 
 walls and cloisters seem consecrated, and the 
 feelings of this stranger monk are wrought into 
 a fine feeling of devotion as he hears the story 
 told again of how the "good Bishop of Florence" 
 lived and worked for the glory of Christ and the 
 happiness of man. Again, as he looks on those 
 walls and ceilings of St. Mark, in cell and clois- 
 ter, inspired visions of beauty seem to rise be- 
 fore him ; for, with tearful eyes and swelling 
 heart, and lips unsealed with holy wonder, he 
 gazes, and grows not weary as he gazes, on the 
 exquisite creations of the pencil of Angelico ; 
 for here the artist-monk, the "angelic painter," 
 wrought those forms of sacred beauty which are 
 still, in their fading glory, the admiration of the 
 world ; here the devout artist had often knelt in 
 prayer, to ask that He who had decked the flow- 
 ers in their unrivaled beauty and garnished the 
 heavens with their eternal splendors might in- 
 spire his humble pencil to paint for the glory 
 of Christ ; and those angelic faces, those forms 
 of the Madonna and the Savior, were painted 
 there upon the convent walls while tears rolled 
 
The Renaissance. 51 
 
 down the cheeks of the devout, almost inspired 
 painter. With the spirits of the good Antonino 
 and the devout Angelico, Savonarola seemed to 
 commune that day when first he entered the 
 cloister of St. Mark; and, as he threw himself 
 upon his humble cot that night, he doubtless 
 thought : 
 
 "Of all the fairest cities of the earth, 
 None is so fair as Florence." 
 
 But alas ! Florence was fair only in external- 
 ities ; her beauty was in marble, not in morals. 
 With the revival of commerce, the increase of 
 riches, the dawning of a new intellectual life, 
 there had come a reign of extravagance, of aes- 
 thetic worldliness, and of pagan sensuality. The 
 Bible was neglected by the intellectual class for 
 Plato, Homer, Cicero, and Virgil, while the peo- 
 ple in common turned with a sensual avidity to 
 the love-songs of Petrarch and the amorous tales 
 of Boccaccio. The churches were empty, the 
 academies and places of festivity were crowded, 
 the Sabbath was a day of gayety instead of wor- 
 ship, and the life of the people was poisoned 
 with the pagan ideas of the revived classics, 
 while society was intoxicated with the love of 
 pleasure. 
 
 Tormented with the thoughts of the people's 
 
52 Providential Epochs. 
 
 wickedness, the monk would throw all his en- 
 ergies into the work of reforming society. It 
 was a task worthy of a great intellect and a 
 mighty soul, not to be accomplished by an ig- 
 noramus or a fanatic. Florence was given np 
 to culture. The streets, the banks, the studios, 
 the academies, and the Senate were full of the 
 finest geniuses in the world, the best philoso- 
 phers, poets, wits, scholars, financiers, and states- 
 men. A preacher, too, the city had, of great 
 abilities, a master of rhetoric and melodious 
 speech, a favorite of Lorenzo, the idol of the 
 schoolmen. The learned and noble gathered 
 about him, and never wearied of the charm of 
 his rolling periods and the rich cadences of his 
 musical voice, for Gennazzanno was the prince of 
 the Florentine pulpit. 
 
 The first efforts of the reformer in this brill- 
 iant capital were a failure. There was neither 
 grace nor beauty in him. His manner, like his 
 presence, was plain, homely, and angular. He 
 spoke with hesitation, and was afflicted with 
 some infirmity of utterance. His diction was 
 innocent of art and elegance, while quotations 
 from classic poets and pagan philosophers found 
 no place in his sermons. He preached to empty 
 benches; for the multitude were elsewhere hang- 
 
The Renaissance. 53 
 
 ing on the lips of Gennazzanno, However dis- 
 tasteful the unvarnished truth may become to a 
 wicked but polite age, )-et the superficial gloss 
 and glitter of rhetoric, the sounding brass and 
 and clanging cymbal of mere eloquence, seldom 
 lose their witchery, and rarely fail to charm the 
 thoughtless crowd. 
 
 Savonarola left Florence in disappointment, 
 acknowledging with deep chagrin his utter fail- 
 ure as' a reformer, although his sorrow grew 
 not out of his own personal unpopularity so 
 much as out of the unpopularity of the great 
 triiths he came to preach. He grieved in dis- 
 appointment, not because few came to hear Sa- 
 vonarola, and many went to hear Gennazzanno, 
 but because few came to hear the teaching of 
 David and Isaiah, of John apd of Christ, while 
 many went to have their ears tickled with the 
 poetical and philosophical felicities of Homer, 
 Virgil, Tully, and Plato. Undoubtedly the Re- 
 naissance was becoming more pagan than Chris- 
 tian in spirit. The very Church was as thor- 
 oughly paganized as culture. 
 
 The new preacher returned to Bologna with 
 the conviction half formed that preaching was 
 not his mission. With his uncouth presence, 
 harsh voice, angular, ungraceful manners, and 
 
54 Providential Epochs. 
 
 impediment of speech, he might easily have per- 
 suaded himself that he had not the qualifica- 
 tions of a preacher, and that in undertaking such 
 a work his zeal had gotten the better of his 
 judgment. But no ; with as many natural defi- 
 ciencies as originally embarrassed Demosthenes, 
 so with as great a determination as the Grecian 
 orator displayed, he conquered his infirmities.// 
 Richard Brinsley Sheridan broke down and failed 
 in his first speech before the British Parliament, 
 but with commendable self-appreciation and am- 
 bition he exclaimed :'" It is in me, and it shall 
 come out." It was in Savonarola ; he knew it, 
 and he was resolved it should come out. By a 
 year's time the stammering monk was preach- 
 ing with a fluency, charm, and force that were 
 prophetic of the coming eloquence which was to 
 shake Italy,/ and rival in its influence upon the 
 multitude the most charming and impetuous 
 oratory that ever leaped from the lips of Tully 
 or Demosthenes. The awkard, homely, unpol- 
 ished, harsh-voiced Savonarola was to be the 
 preacher of the Renaissance, while the popu- 
 larity of the graceful, scholastic, honey-tongued 
 Gennazzanno was to be destroyed forever by the 
 thunders, lightnings, and storm of the young 
 Dominican's pulpit power. 
 
The Renaissance. 55 
 
 From the chief cities of Lombardy, where he 
 preached after retiring from San Lorenzo in 
 Florence, the fame of Savonarola began to spread 
 throughout Italy. By the year 1487, at the age 
 of thirty-five, every obstruction had been swept 
 away, the floodgates lifted, and the rolling tor- 
 rents of the reformer's impetuous and resistless 
 eloquence had broken forth. Already the lec- 
 turer had become a preacher, and the preacher 
 a reformer. This new and mighty preacher of 
 righteousness had not, during his absence from 
 Florence, been adding superficial elegance to his 
 manners and methods, nor had he become popu- 
 lar by imitating the studied graces and pedantic 
 ornaments of the polished Gennazzanno. He 
 had never departed from his motto: "Elegance 
 in language must give way before simplicity in 
 preaching and sound doctrine." He did not 
 preach merely to delight the ears of rhetoricians, 
 kindle the admiration of philosophers, poets, 
 and scholars, nor to win the friendship and pat- 
 ronage of the rich and powerful./^/' He spoke 
 "right on" in the most vigorous, unrelenting, 
 sin-pounding eloquence against the corruptions 
 of the Church, the disorders of society, the 
 worldliness and sensuality of the people, and the 
 general ungodliness of the times. The people 
 
56 Providential Epochs. 
 
 flocked to hear this new and startling sort of 
 preaching, and they soon came to regard Sa- 
 vonarola as an inspired prophet. As they list- 
 ened they became troubled. Conscience awoke. 
 The long-smoldering embers of devout convic- 
 tions leaped into flames of new religious zeal, if 
 not fanaticism. A new Elijah, a modern Jere- 
 miah, an Italian Isaiah, a fifteenth-century John 
 the Baptist, had come to condemn sin and exhort 
 to repentance, and to preach faith, forgiveness, 
 chastity, love, and brotherhood. 
 
 The people were pricked in their hearts ; 
 they sighed and wept ; they cried aloud in the 
 alarm of deep conviction ; they confessed, hu- 
 miliated themselves, turned to prayer and wor- 
 ship; and, in the enthusiasm of a new conversion, 
 they extolled the power, and even asserted the 
 inspiration, of the wonderful preacher/ Learned 
 men sat spellbound under the Prate's fiery elo- 
 quence, as at a later time Franklin, Hume, Gar- 
 rick, and Bolingbroke became enthusiastic ad- 
 mirers of the oratorical genius of Whitefield. 
 Pi >, the learned and elegant prince of Miran- 
 dola, became a zealous convert; and, as the fame 
 of Savonarola was spreading over Italy, he per- 
 suaded Lorenzo de' Medici to call the preacher 
 back to Florence. In 1489, just seven years 
 
The Renaissance. 57 
 
 after he had left that city in humiliation and 
 disappointment, Savonarola once more stood up 
 in Florence to preach. St. Mark was thronged 
 with eager, expectant listeners, who trembled 
 and sobbed, and swayed to and fro like a tem- 
 pest-beaten forest. On that memorable day, we 
 are told, the prophet's eloquence was terrific. 
 All Florence was in excitement. Gennazzanno 
 was deserted and forgotten. The academies 
 turned from Homer, Plato, and Tully to discuss 
 the merits of Savonarola. The learned doctors 
 delivered their lectures to empty benches. Pol- 
 iticians wore a look of anxiety. Monks, nuns, 
 and priests scowled in alarm and rage. The 
 people took to much wise nodding, busy talking, 
 and discussion among themselves in shop and 
 home and public square. There was but one 
 theme — " Savonarola." 
 
 The popular career of the reformer in Flor- 
 ence had begun. He had gained a hearing. 
 The problem of an audience had been solved. 
 Empty benches no longer greeted him, but a 
 perfect sea of anxious, upturned faces met .jiis 
 gaze wherever he stood up to preach. His au- 
 diences grew too large for St. Mark, too large 
 for the Church of the Annunciata, and too large 
 for the great cathedral ; for all Florence poured 
 
 5 
 
58 Providential Epochs. 
 
 out to hear him, while the thiinder of his elo- 
 quence not only made the dome of Brunelleschi 
 reverberate, but made Florence and all her pal- 
 aces quake, and was yet to startle all Italy, if 
 not all Europe. Lorenzo the Magnificent grew 
 restive ; politicians became alarmed ; priests and 
 bishops looked anxious ; monks and nuns trem- 
 bled; and the pope raved in anger as the re- 
 former dealt his terrific blows at the ecclesiastical 
 abuses of his time, as this friend and champion 
 of the people assailed the Medicean despotism, 
 and with clarion voice advocated liberty for the 
 people and republicanism for the State. Against 
 the unbelief, extravagance, darkness, and sensu- 
 ality which followed upon the heels of Floren- 
 tine prosperity; against the superstitious and 
 tyrannical practices of the very dignitaries of 
 the Church, but one voice in all Italy was raised. 
 One voice, strong and resonant, sounded the 
 alarm, and uttered the hot word of condemna- 
 tion and warning. It was heard from the con- 
 fessional to the Vatican, from the factory to the 
 palace, crying: "Woe! woe! woe! Repent, my 
 people! repent!" This fearless preacher could 
 be tolerated in Florence but three years. He 
 became troublesome to the ruling powers, both 
 in Church and in State, It was soon evident 
 
The Renaissance. 59 
 
 that there was not room enough in Florence for 
 a Savonarola and a Medici. Though Lorenzo 
 was instrumental in bringing the monk to Flor- 
 ence, and in securing for him the priorship of 
 St. Mark, yet the wily despot could not make a 
 political tool out of this independent reformer. 
 Savonarola was the friend and champion of the 
 people; an uncompromising enemy of tyranny 
 and despotism ; a zealous, clarion-voiced advo- 
 cate of liberty and republicanism. He had no 
 sympathy whatever with the Medici, who, as he 
 thought, had robbed the Florentines of their an- 
 cient liberties, and riveted upon them the golden 
 shackles of a splendid but most absolute despot- 
 ism. The reformer, therefore, asked no favors 
 of Lorenzo, who was very anxious to heap favors 
 upon him. The proud despot paid respectful 
 attention to the humble friar's teaching ; was 
 frequently at mass; contributed most liberally 
 to the support of the convent, and even put 
 himself in the friar's way to be solicited for ad- 
 vice and benefits. Nevertheless, the preacher 
 preserved a haughty and aggravating independ- 
 ence. He believed that much of the very cor- 
 ruptions of society, many of the vices that then 
 poisoned the life-blood of Florentine manners, 
 had been introduced by Lorenzo. iVs the Frate 
 
6o Providential Epochs. 
 
 continued to hurl his thunderbolts of denuncia- 
 tion against the social, political, and ecclesias- 
 tical evils of the times, Lorenzo began to think 
 of curbing the preacher's fury and quenching 
 that dangerous enthusiasm which was beginning 
 to make despotic politicians and corrupt ecclesi- 
 astics most uncomfortably restive. It had galled 
 the Magnificent that Savonarola did not call 
 upon him and pay him homage on his entrance 
 to the priorship of St. Mark, as his predecessors 
 had done; and the Medici had not forgotten the 
 answer which Savonarola gave to one who sug- 
 gested that such homage was his duty. " Do I 
 owe this appointment to God, or to Lorenzo de' 
 Medici?" asked the indignant prior. "To God, 
 undoubtedly," was the reply. " Suffer me, then," 
 he rejoined, "to pay homage to God, and not to 
 man." But when Lorenzo sent five of the lead- 
 ing citizens of Florence to remonstrate with the 
 friar, and to admonish him to cease his denun- 
 ciations of the Roman Court and of the ruling 
 powers in Church and State, the indignant and 
 fearless prophet answered them: "Tell him to 
 repent of his sins; for the Lord spares no one, 
 and has no fear of the princes of the earth." 
 And, when threatened with exile, he made the 
 significant reply: " I have no fear of your ban- 
 
The Renaissance: 6i 
 
 ishment, for this city is no more than a grain 
 of lentils on the earth; but although I am a 
 stranger, and Lorenzo is not only a citizen, but 
 the first among them, it is I who will remain, 
 and he who shall leave the city." The preacher 
 was right. In less than a year Lorenzo the 
 Magnificent lay dying at Careggi. In that su- 
 preme moment, when the wisdom, wit, and phi- 
 losophy of such lifelong companions as Ficino, 
 Politian, Mirandola, and Pulci failed to divert his 
 mind or give him peace of soul, with an honesty 
 which will ever reflect credit upon his character, 
 the dying despot cried : " Send to St. Mark 
 and call Savonarola ; I know no honest friar but 
 him." 
 
 Savonarola hastened to the bedside of his 
 dying enemy, to offer the consolations of religion 
 and to shrive the despot for eternity. Lorenzo 
 was leaving Florence ; Savonarola was still to 
 remain. Call it a shrewd guess ; call it a coin- 
 cidence, if you will ; that age called it the ful- 
 fillment of Savonarola's prophecy. Lorenzo, in 
 much distress of mind, was about to make his 
 last confession, when the stern friar of St. Mark 
 demanded of him three things, viz.: that he have 
 faith in Christ; that he make restitution of all 
 moneys and properties which he had obtained 
 
62 Providential Epochs. 
 
 from others unjustly, and that he restore liberty 
 to the Florentines. The first two requirements 
 Lorenzo assented to ; but when the last request 
 fell from the lips of the unyielding priest, the 
 expiring despot, rallying his failing energies, 
 suddenly turned his face to the wall with silent 
 grief and speechless indignation. Without leav- 
 ing his priestly benediction, Savonarola turned 
 and strode from the room, and, drawing his cowl 
 over his burning eyes, sought his humble cell in 
 the solemn cloisters of St. Mark. Undoubtedly 
 the most reliable authorities accept this (the 
 Mirandola) version of the dramatic death-scene. 
 These two great men could not understand each 
 other. Neither could appreciate the other's 
 power, worth, and mission. 
 
 We do not pretend to give any explanation 
 of the predictions or prophecies of Savonarola. 
 That he predicted the early death of Lorenzo and 
 of Pope Innocent VIII, and of the King of Naples, 
 is true, and that his prediction was verified is 
 also true. That he warned the people of ap- 
 proaching evils — such as famine, pestilence, war, 
 and subjugation by a foreign foe — is admitted; 
 and that these evils were visited upon Italy, and 
 especially upon Florence, can not be denied. 
 That these evils came to scourge the people for 
 
The Renaissance. 63 
 
 their sins is a theory which presents impossi- 
 bilities and absurdities only to rationalistic un- 
 belief. But that Savonarola was divinely in- 
 spired to prophesy these events is a proposition 
 full of difficulties for any and every school of 
 faith except the very one that condemned Sa- 
 vonarola, and hung him in the flames. In the 
 sermons of the so-called prophet, startling pre- 
 dictions of coming calamities followed one upon 
 another. And as they were getting themselves 
 verified in passing events, the power of the new 
 prophet increased. He preached against gam- 
 bling and usury, against extravagant fashions 
 and all forms of excess, against business dis- 
 honesty and political intrigue, so that gamblers 
 ceased to ply their trade, usurers conscience- 
 smitten began to make restitution of ill-gotten 
 wealth, the women laid aside their jewelry and 
 gaudy dress and assumed modest attire, and shops 
 were closed on Sunday and during preaching. 
 The people delighted in listening to the once 
 uncouth and stammering Savonarola as he now 
 stood up in the pulpit of Florence, and poured 
 forth such majestic eloquence as has found no 
 parallel in modern oratory. Not the enthusiasm 
 of a St. Bernard, not the vigor and dauntless 
 fury of a Knox, not the magnetic eloquence of 
 
64 Providential Epochs. 
 
 the learned and impetuous Chalmers, not Mas- 
 sillon's pomp and grace, not the rolling periods 
 of the princely Bossuet, not Whitefield's thrill- 
 ing pathos, nor the startling thunders of Ed- 
 wards's declamation, ever rose to that majestic 
 power and almost superhuman grandeur which 
 characterized the impetuous eloquence of Sa- 
 vonarola. His great eyes flashed as with the fire 
 of the lightnings; his homely features became 
 radiant as an angel's ; his gestures, full of anima- 
 tion, gave weighty emphasis to the words which 
 he uttered, and startling vividness to the pic- 
 ture of his glowing imagination ; his voice shook 
 the temple with its sonorous power, and thrilled 
 the listening multitude with the alarm of terri- 
 ble convictions. Enthusiastic listeners beheld 
 angels hovering over him while he preached. 
 People sobbed, and wailed, and cried aloud with 
 consternation and heart-breaking repentance, as 
 he imcovered their sins, uttered his predictions, 
 explained the Word of God, and exhorted them, 
 with tears rolling down his cheeks, to repent and 
 believe, to turn from their evil ways to ways of 
 virtue, love, and peace. 
 
 The notion must not be entertained that Sa- 
 vonarola was a mere ignorant and unthinking 
 enthusiast. Perhaps his superior in intellectual 
 
The Renaissance. 65 
 
 force could not have been found among his ec- 
 clesiastical contemporaries. Not in the Platonic 
 Academy, not in learned Florence, not in all re- 
 viving Italy, could there have been found a more 
 original, acute, and philosophical mind. No 
 scholar could boast of more learning. The sub- 
 tilties and beauties of Aristotle and Plato were 
 not more familiar to Ficino and Politian than to 
 Savonarola. He was a natural-born orator as 
 truly as was Demosthenes, notwithstanding his 
 original infirmities. It may be doubted, more- 
 over, whether Italy or the whole world then pos- 
 sessed a profounder theologian, a more zealous 
 student, or a more masterly expounder of the 
 Word of God. Every verse of Holy Writ was 
 on his tongue, and it is said that he committed 
 the Bible to memory. An essentially great and 
 mighty man was this Savonarola. In many re- 
 spects we must rank him above Loyola, Huss, 
 or Knox. He possessed the spirit of an Elijah 
 or a Jeremiah. 
 
 The power of the Medici began to decline 
 with the death of the Magnificent, and that illus- 
 trious family of despots came to recognize Sa- 
 vonarola as the most potent and irresistible agent 
 in the subversion of their influence and author- 
 ity. It was a sad and humiliating transition, to 
 
66 Providential Epochs. 
 
 the minds of the proud Florentines, from the 
 Magnificent Lorenzo to his son, the pusillani- 
 mous Piero. And the people deplored the rise of 
 this profligate prince the more because they 
 were compelled to see their prophet and the 
 fearless champion of their liberties leave Florence 
 at the command of this ignominious despot. 
 
 Innocent VIII died the same year with Lo- 
 renzo, and he was succeeded by the most de- 
 testable, profligate, inhuman wretch that ever 
 wore the oft-polluted triple-crown — Alexander 
 VI, a name which it is almost obscenity to men- 
 tion; as black a name as stains the annals of 
 history. This is the third pope with whom Sa- 
 vonarola has had to deal. And three more 
 bestial, villainous, abhorrent creatures could not 
 be found aside from Nero, Caligula, and Tiberius, 
 of Imperial Rome. What Roscoe said of Alex- 
 ander VI might justly be observed of every pope 
 in Savonarola's time : he was " the scourge of 
 Christendom and the opprobrium of the human 
 race." 
 
 '• With great power and fearlessness Savon- 
 arola preached against spiritual wickedness in 
 high places, against the worship of the Vir- 
 gin Mary, the efficacy of charms and relics,,' and 
 the substitution of Aristotle, Plato, and Tully, 
 
The Renaissance. 67 
 
 for the pure and simple gospel of the Son of God. 
 The preacher, however, was not always pouring 
 forth words of wrath and condemnation. Often 
 his stern soul relaxed into pathos, and again 
 soared aloft on the eagle wings of ecstasy. The 
 voice of thunder would become as soft as a lute- 
 note or the mellow tone of a golden bell, while 
 the severe face would at times grow radiant with 
 the majesty and glory of his exalted imagina- 
 tion ; then would he hold multitudes entranced 
 with strains of almost celestial eloquence. 
 
 No sermon of Savonarola created more ex- 
 citement and consternation among all classes 
 than that which he preached in the cathedral of 
 Florence, January 13, 1494, on "The Reform of 
 the Church." In it he said: "When Pope In- 
 nocent VIII died, I was laughed at for saying 
 that the Church must be reformed. At that 
 time I beheld a vision — a black cross suspended 
 over Babylonian Rome. On that cross was in- 
 scribed, 'The wrath of the Lord.' Swords, dag- 
 gers, lances, arms of all sorts, gleamed around 
 it, mingled with hail, with devouring lightning, 
 and thunderbolts, all enveloped in the lurid ob- 
 scurity of a dark and horrible tempest. I saw 
 also another cross ; it was of gold, and reached 
 from earth to heaven. It hovered about Jerusa- 
 
68 Providential Epochs. 
 
 lem, and on it was inscribed, ' The mercy of 
 God.' A serene, limpid, and pure atmosphere 
 surrounded it. Hence I gather that a reform of 
 the Church is at hand. O Florence, this super- 
 natural light has not been vouchsafed me for 
 any merit of my own, but for your sake ; so that, 
 when the scourge descends, it may not be in 
 your power to plead ignorance ! O Italy ! O 
 Prince of Italy! and you, prelates of the Church, 
 the wrath of God impends over you, and repent- 
 ance is the sole remedy ! Repent, then, while 
 the sword still remains undrawn ; repent before 
 it leaps from its scabbard and becomes dyed in 
 blood." The impression of this sermon had not 
 been effaced before the news came that the 
 French were pouring over the Alps, and that 
 Charles VIII was sweeping down upon Florence 
 and Italy for the purpose of conquest. The 
 sword had leaped from its scabbard ; the daggers 
 were falling ; alarm and consternation had seized 
 the people. All Florence surged toward the ca- 
 thedral. With paled lips they spoke but the one 
 name — "Savonarola." Standing up in his pul- 
 pit before the agitated mass, the prophet cried : 
 "And behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters 
 upon the earth !" His voice reverberated through 
 the temple, and smote the ears of Florence with 
 
The Renaissance. 6g 
 
 terror. The reporters could not take down the 
 mighty words of the preacher, so overcome were 
 they by his tempestuous declamation. -^People 
 affirmed — and among them were such scholars 
 and philosophers as Pico and Politian — that cold 
 chills struck them ; the very hairs of their head 
 stood on end ; they wept and trembled as, like a 
 mountain torrent bursting every barrier, the elo- 
 quence of the preacher swept everything before 
 him. In the estimation of the people, Savon- 
 arola never before seemed so great. He had 
 predicted the evils that came upon them ; he 
 knew their cause ; he could name the remedy. 
 He was their father, their prophet, their deliv- 
 erer. The weak and cowardly Piero having for- 
 saken the people in their hour of danger, all 
 eyes were now fixed upon Savonarola. The wise 
 men of the Senate saw that he was the leader 
 for the emergency. Suddenly the Frate found 
 himself the chosen head of the Republic. The 
 destiny of Florence was in his keeping. Charles 
 Vni treated with the Florentines and passed on, 
 overawed by the prophet, who gave the con- 
 queror advice which he was wise or superstitious 
 enough to heed// The reformer was looked to 
 for the formation of a new government. Here 
 was the beginning of his greatest troubles, and 
 
70 Providential Epochs. 
 
 certainly of his greatest mistakes. Here, if any- 
 where, he was carried by his enthusiasm, and by 
 a strange combination of circumstances, to over- 
 step the boundaries of his highest and noblest 
 mission; and here began the series of acts by 
 which his final execution has by some been jus- 
 tified. That Savonarola possessed the genius of 
 a great statesmanship, may not be questioned ; 
 and that he suggested many useful and success- 
 ful laws and institutions, is true. That his po- 
 litical eminence belongs to his just fame ; that 
 he took a conspicuous part in settling political 
 measures that are worthy to be ranked among 
 the greatest reforms ever achieved by a states- 
 man ; and that, in the language of Villari, " he 
 is justly entitled to be reckoned among the great 
 founders of the Republic," no one that has stud- 
 ied his political career will dispute. But at the 
 same time there can be no doubt that, as a 
 whole, his scheme of government was Utopian — 
 better fitted for the millennium than for the 
 fifteenth century. Savonarola's government was 
 neither a pure democracy nor a republic. It was 
 a theocracy, or rather a Christocracy ; for from 
 the pulpit the Frate cried: "Florence, Jesus 
 Christ, who is King of the universe, hath willed 
 to become thy King in particular. Wilt thou 
 
The Renaissance. 71 
 
 have liiin for thy King?" And the people, in a 
 frenzy of excitement, answered with a mighty 
 shout of assent. This has the appearance of out- 
 and-out fanaticism. We have no disposition to 
 give it a milder name. After this it is easily 
 seen how the preacher was the political ruler of 
 Florence. He was the prophet of God to a peo- 
 ple easily carried away by any fanatical notions 
 of liberty or religion. He was in an anomalous 
 position. His office was no more than a vice- 
 gerency. But in this position and self-assumed 
 office Savonarola held the reins of power, at 
 least for a short time, with a firm grip. His 
 preaching had transformed the social manners 
 and religious life of Florence. The churches 
 were filled with large and devout congregations ; 
 the people turned to their long-neglected Bibles ; 
 alms-giving became universal. It was no un- 
 common occurrence, in those strange, abnormal 
 days, for men to restore ill-gotten gains ; for 
 women to throw their jewels into the contribu- 
 tion for the poor ; and for some of the noblest, 
 most promising young men to turn their backs 
 upon the world and enter the monastic life, 
 which Savonarola had invested with a peculiar 
 charm and fascination. Modern history can not 
 duplicate, in phenomenal character, the short 
 
72 Providential Epochs. 
 
 epoch of Savonarola's political supremacy in 
 Florence. Short-sighted men, carried away with 
 enthusiasm, taking a superficial and narrow view 
 of affairs, vainly imagined that the ideal govern- 
 ment had been established, and that the millen- 
 nium was near at hand. But those capricious 
 and combustible Florentines were not the ele- 
 ments out of which the millennial society or the 
 ideal government could be constituted. Divis- 
 ions soon occurred. The city was divided into 
 numerous factions. Savonarola finally found his 
 measures questioned, his wisdom challenged, his 
 authority denied, and himself denounced. There 
 were not wanting men who regarded him as a 
 hypocrite and a demagogue. He was accused of 
 using his ecclesiastical position and his religious 
 influence to grasp political power and to satisfy 
 a daring and unbridled ambition. 
 
 That liberty and equality had been secured to 
 the Florentines, and that the Government was 
 never more scientifically democratic is true, but 
 there were noble and aristocratic families in that 
 old Florence who did not believe in liberty for 
 the other man. They did not relish democracy 
 nor Christianity. They organized themselves 
 into a political party to overthrow Savonarola. 
 There was also an opposite party formed, not 
 
The Renaissance. 73 
 
 unlike the Communists of to-day ; its adherents 
 looked upon Savonarola's democracy as too con- 
 servative and temperate. Thus the preacher- 
 politician found himself between two fires. But 
 turning toward Rome he discovered a third 
 enemy directing his revenge against him. The 
 prophet was soon completely surrounded by un- 
 compromising foes. L<oud mutterings were heard 
 on every side. There came at last outspoken 
 objections to the Prate's interference in political 
 matters. He was called a disturber of the peace 
 of Florence. At this stage in the progress of 
 affairs, an enemy of Savonarola and a hater of 
 popular government was elected standard-bearer 
 or mayor of Florence. No time was lost in 
 making the impression that Savonarola was a cre- 
 ator of sedition, an enemy of law and order, an 
 unmitigated pretender and traitor, to be dealt with 
 in a summary manner. When the pope was 
 requested to put a stop to the Frate's preaching, 
 he was only too ready to comply. Complaints 
 had come from priests, bishops, and cardinals, 
 who had been scourged by the exposures and 
 bitter denunciation of Savonarola. Nor had the 
 court at Rome itself been spared ; even the pope 
 had been made to wince under the lash of the 
 fearless reformer. With a sinister purpose, but 
 
74 Providential Epochs. 
 
 with oily words and hypocritical blandishments, 
 ' the pope invited Savonarola to Rome. Fortu- 
 nately the preacher was not able to go. Then 
 came a brief, forbidding him to preach. But 
 this was no greater an affliction to Savonarola 
 than to thousands of his friends, who interceded 
 for him, and assured the pope of the edifying 
 character of his preaching. Then — ah, subtle 
 trick of cunning Rome ! — Savonarola was offered 
 a cardinal's hat if he would change his style of 
 preaching. He spurned the offer and longed 
 only for the hat that should be red with the 
 blood of holy martyrdom. The pope was furi- 
 ous, beside himself with rage, breathing out 
 threatenings and slaughter. Savonarola was 
 now on the defensive. Here was the purest, 
 most serious, and conscientious man that Italy 
 had seen since Dante, in open and notorious an- 
 tagonism with the most depraved monster that 
 had wielded the power in Rome since the bloody 
 reign of Nero. Savonarola in a death-grapple 
 with Alexander Borgia! ' 
 
 The people are obedient to the extremest de- 
 mands of the preacher. He is threatened with 
 the vengeance of both the ecclesiastical power 
 of Rome and the political parties of Florence. 
 As we have seen, his enemies attempted to bribe 
 
The Renaissance. 75 
 
 him into silence, but in vain. His power with 
 the people increased. He predicted war, and it 
 came; famine, and it appeared; plague, and it 
 stalked abroad. Yet he alone averted the sword 
 of the conqueror Charles VHI, and warned the 
 invader from the city. Now he goes about feed- 
 ing the hungry and visiting the sick in time of 
 famine and pestilence. He comes to be re- 
 garded as greater than priest or pope or king, 
 and the people look upon him as the head of the 
 Florentine Government. A theocracy is at- 
 temped, and Jesus Christ is chosen King of Flor- 
 ence, with Savonarola as diis prophet. Relig- 
 ious festivals are inaugurated. Bonfires blaze in 
 the public squares in honor of Christ. Wild 
 dancing and singing are indulged. Thousands 
 of children, bearing red crosses adorned with 
 flowers, march the streets, singing praises to God 
 and begging alms. All this wild religious feel- 
 ing finds a climax in the memorable event of the 
 " burning of the vanities." A pyramid sixty 
 feet high is built of all those things which, as 
 Savonarola had taught the people, are offensive 
 to God. Thousands upon thousands of articles 
 are brought by all classes, and thrown upon the 
 pile which is destined to the flame. The masks, 
 wigs, and dresses used in the pagan carnivals; 
 
76 Providential Epochs. 
 
 cards, dice, and all the paraphernalia of the gam- 
 bling vice; the paints, cosmetics, and false 
 adornments of worldly women ; indecent books, 
 such as Boccaccio and some of the ancient poets 
 which have become very popular in the nun- 
 neries; and indelicate paintings, which are bet- 
 ter fitted for the flames than for palace or con- 
 vent walls; and all such vanities compose the 
 pyramid. For this collection a shrewd Venetian 
 has the business enterprise to offer a good round 
 sum; but he is rewarded for his audacity by hav- 
 ing his own portrait placed on top of the pyra- 
 mid, which is now lighted by torches and con- 
 sumed to ashes amid the ringing of bells and 
 the wildest, most extravagant demonstrations of 
 shouting, singing, and dancing. Though we 
 have no disposition to call fanaticism by a 
 milder term, yet while many have accused Savon- 
 arola of wanton vandalism in the fanatical de- 
 struction of valuable works of literature and art, 
 and brand him as the enemy of the revival of 
 learning, we find strong arguments in his de- 
 fense. To assume that Savonarola was an 
 enemy of literature and art, and was inimical 
 to the Renaissance movement, is to place too 
 great a value upon the articles condemned to 
 the flames in that hour of enthusiasm. The 
 
The Renaissance. 77 
 
 burning of the "vanities" simply demonstrated 
 Savonarola's hatred of the shams, vanities, and 
 baubles that were deceiving and» corrupting the 
 people. That remarkable event but proved Sa- 
 vonarola's remarkable detestation of all sensual, 
 indecent, vitiating art and literature, and hence 
 his appreciation of all that was pure, good, and 
 refining. It is not too much to affirm of Savon- 
 arola's influence on the art of the later Renais- 
 sance — its better, grander period — that he gave to 
 it its pure moral character, and rescued it from 
 the degeneration and indecency of paganism. 
 Bartolomeo and Lorenzo de Credi cast many 
 a picture into those virtuous flames because 
 they became convinced that such works were 
 unworthy the consecrated pencil of Christian 
 artists and unworthy the scrutiny of Christian 
 eyes. Robbia the sculptor, Crenaca the famous 
 arc itect, and Botticelli the painter were the dis- 
 ciples of the reformer, and in their great works 
 these men showed the influence of his teaching. 
 But we may associate Savonarola with a greater 
 genius than any of these, and through that ge- 
 nius associate him with the Renaissance in all 
 its glory; for Michael Angelo was a devoted ad- 
 mirer of Savonarola, of his character, his preach- 
 ing, his writings, and his life. As in his blind 
 
78 Providential Epochs. 
 
 old age the famous sculptor would find his way 
 to the famous Torso of the Belvidere, and ten- 
 derly pass his fingers over the marvelous form 
 which he claimed as his lifelong teacher in the 
 plastic art, so, in his declining years, he sought 
 consolation and strength from the writings of 
 the good martyr monk who had been his spirit- 
 ual teacher fro.u his youth. The same principles 
 which made Angelo a good and great-souled 
 man prompted him to dedicate his extraordinary 
 genius to the glory of Christianity. Who had 
 a greater influence on art than Angelo? Who 
 had a greater influence on Angelo than Savon- 
 arola? Now it is our argument that the 
 preacher who inspired the pencils or chisels of 
 Credi, Bartolomeo, Robbia, Crenaca, Botticelli, 
 and Michael Angelo with a pious purpose and 
 with religious themes, gave character to the no- 
 blest art of the Renaissance. 
 
 It has been charged that Savonarola was an 
 enemy of the revival of learning, and a fanat- 
 ical, ruthless destroyer of valuable literary 
 treasures. It is ignorantly supposed that he 
 consigned to the flames precious manuscripts 
 and books of fabulous value which had been 
 rescued from oblivion and deposited in libraries, 
 and that this fanatical monk robbed succeeding 
 
The Renaissance. 79 
 
 generations of priceless literary treasures, and 
 therein exhibited his own hatred of learning, 
 culture, and progress. But this is not true. It 
 was through his influence alone that Saint 
 Mark secured, at a large price, the famous Medi- 
 cean Library, which contained the most precious 
 literary works, the rarest Greek and Latin manu- 
 scripts to be found in Europe. Had it not been 
 for Savonarola, that splendid collection which 
 was the pride of learned Florence would have 
 been scattered as leaves before a gale. If 
 Cosmo and Lorenzo de' Medici are to be ad- 
 mired for their taste and liberality in collecting 
 so magnificent a library, then Savonarola, with 
 all his hatred of Boccaccio and the unchaste 
 classics, must be praised by the true friends of 
 culture and learning for his wisdom in preserv- 
 ing the literary treasures which the Medici had 
 collected. In justice, ^it must also be admitted 
 that Savonarola's poems and sermons had an 
 influence upon the literary minds of the age; 
 they were no small part of the best literature of 
 the revival. 
 
 As the enthusiastic monk continued to ful- 
 minate his charges against the corrupt digni- 
 taries of Church and State, x\lexander VI finally 
 hurled at him the bull of excommunication. 
 
8o Providential Epochs. 
 
 This was followed by the excommunication of 
 Savonarola's followers. From that hour the 
 preacher's popularity began to decline, and 
 clouds big with wrath, and muttering with the 
 thunders of vengeance, began to gather about 
 his devoted head. All this Savonarola had pre- 
 dicted. 
 
 It can not reasonably be supposed that Sa- 
 vonarola was responsible for the fanatical folly 
 of the '* Ordeal by Fire." His enthusiastic dis- 
 ciple, Domenico, led the reformer into that la- 
 mentable blunder, although it may even more 
 reasonably be affirmed that the zealous fol- 
 lower had unwittingly led his master into a 
 trap which had cunningly been set for him by 
 his enemies. The prophet's refusal to enter 
 the flames severed the last tie of confidence that 
 bound the people to him. From that moment 
 he was the most bitterly-hated man in Florence, 
 and his doom was sealed. The trial which 
 ended in his conviction and sentence to death 
 will forever remain as a stain upon the es- 
 cutcheon of Florence. It was diabolically un- 
 just. Judges were appointed for this trial who 
 had been the open and avowed enemies of the 
 accused. Condemnation had already been de- 
 cided upon before the farcical trial began. Yet 
 
The Renaissance. 8i 
 
 the examination of the accused prophet was 
 unsatisfactory. His enemies could extort from 
 him no confession, could beguile him of no 
 utterance upon which to hang the shadow of a 
 conviction ; but the rope, whip, thumb-screw, 
 and fire were at the disposal of Florentine and 
 papal justice to extort unguarded expressions 
 and confessions from the lips of suspected and 
 accused persons. The delicate, nervous, and 
 wearied frame of Savonarola was put to torture. 
 His muscles were torn, his flesh lacerated, his 
 joints dislocated, his feet blistered with coals o' 
 fire, to extort from him a confession that might 
 justify his condemnation and execution. De- 
 lirious with the exquisite torture which Roman 
 Catholic cruelty a^nd Florentine diabolism had in- 
 vented and applied, the poor sufferer uttered many 
 wild, incoherent sentences which his tormentors, 
 in the name of justice, tortured into confessions 
 of guilt. But whenever the lacerated martyr 
 was relieved for a season and regained his 
 senses, he would throw himself on his knees 
 and ask pardon of God, if during his pain and 
 delirium he had proven false to the truth ; and 
 on his quivering knees he prayed that God 
 would also forgive his tormentors. 
 
 On one subject Savonarola was never fully 
 
82 Providential Epochs. 
 
 persuaded. At times lie seemed to affirm, and 
 at others to deny, that he was an inspired 
 prophet. He had uttered many remarkable pre- 
 dictions which had, even to the knowledge of 
 his enemies, been verified in their history. But 
 whether these predictions were merely the 
 shrewd forecastings of a wise and far-seeing 
 mind, or were the results of a supernatural il- 
 lumination, seemed to be to his mind, as it has 
 been to many minds, a question. Therefore, 
 when he came to the trial, which he knew 
 would end in his martyrdom, he displayed an 
 uncertainty of conviction which was proof to 
 his enemies of his guilt and of the hypocrisy 
 of all his pretensions. On all questions of 
 doctrine and of ecclesiastical polity he was im- 
 pregnable. On all questions of patriotism, loy- 
 alty to liberty and the people, he was superior 
 to every test. But when put to the torture 
 which subjected him to the most excruciating 
 agony, in wild, incoherent sentences, lie ap- 
 peared to deny, at least not to affirm, his divine 
 inspiration. Yet, with all their tricks, all their 
 threats, insults, and fiendish tortures, they 
 would at last throw the poor, bleeding, quiver- 
 ing, and senseless Savonarola into his cell, with 
 rage and disappointment that he had not said 
 
The Renaissance. 83 
 
 something in" all his raving pain that would jus- 
 tify even their blunted consciences in convicting 
 him. Again and again was Savonarola put to 
 the torture, and yet the brave soul never 
 thought of compromising the truth or proving 
 disloyal to the cause of liberty and righteous- 
 ness. Days and weeks went by, and new 
 schemes were hatching in the viper's nest of 
 Florentine justice. There were other methods 
 which the people that had been taught by 
 Sixtus IV, Innocent VIII, and Alexander VI, 
 knew well how to use ; and the dignified 
 Senate of that foremost city of the world 
 chuckled with demoniacal delight when a 
 Florentine notary, Ceccone, with a fiendish 
 smile, suggested that, where no cause for con- 
 viction existed, they must make one, and pro- 
 posed for four hundred ducats to invent a case 
 against Savonarola. He took it upon himself 
 to alter the answers which fell from the quiver- 
 ing lips of the prophet while questions were 
 put to him under torture ; and words were 
 changed, sentences altered and omitted, or in- 
 serted to suit the purpose. Thus a most dam- 
 aging case was made out against the accused. 
 Three trials and three series of torture were in- 
 flicted through a period of forty days. The 
 
84 Providential Epochs. 
 
 last trial was conducted and the last tortures 
 were applied by the pope's own commissioners, 
 sent from Rome for the purpose, with the con- 
 viction and sentence already prepared and in 
 their possession. As they entered Florence and 
 heard on all sides the cry, " Death, death to 
 the friar!" one answered, with a smile: "Die 
 he shall, at all events. We shall make a la- 
 mous blaze. I have the sentence already pre- 
 pared." This was one of Savonarola's judges, 
 who shortly after was made a cardinal. 
 
 Savonarola was, of course, convicted, and 
 condemned to death// and with him his two 
 most zealous followers, Fra Domenico and Fra 
 Salvestro, who had been granted as just and 
 righteous an examination as papal and Floren- 
 tine law had given their master. 
 
 Preparations were speedily made for the exe- 
 cution of the reformer and his two devoted 
 followers. It was the 23d of May, 1498. 
 Scaflfolds had been erected, and materials for 
 the fire gathered about them ; for the martyrs 
 were to be hanged and burned. Florence 
 turned out en masse to witness the execution. 
 The historic square which had been the scene 
 of many tragic events was crowded with a vast, 
 seething mob, which hooted and cursed and 
 
EXECUTION OF SAVONAROLA. 
 
The Renaissance. 85 
 
 stoned the condemned friars as they were led 
 forth to die ; but, with firm step and serene 
 face, with words of advice, forgiveness, and 
 farewell, each proceeded to the fatal spot of ex- 
 ecntion. They were first degraded from their 
 sacred office by being stripped of their priestly 
 gowns, which were to them more precious in- 
 signia than the gold and purple robes of kings. 
 The pope had appointed a friend and disciple of 
 the reformer to pronounce his degradation/ But 
 when, with faltering voice and trembling frame, 
 the good Bishop of Vasona forgot the usual 
 formula, and in his agitation said, "I separate 
 you from the Church militant and triumphant," 
 Savonarola, with the utmost composure, a strange 
 light suffusing his remarkable countenance, cor- 
 rected the bishop, and replied: "From the 
 Church militant, not from the Church tri- 
 umphant." 
 
 His disciples were first executed, and they 
 went to their death like the martyrs of old. 
 Savonarola then, with a fearless mien, but with 
 a gentle, forgiying look — an expression of love 
 and sorrow for his people — mounted the ladder 
 to the chain and rope. ' "In what state of mind 
 do you endure this martyrdom?" asked a 
 friendly priest at the last moment. " The 
 
86 Providential Epochs. 
 
 lyord has suffered as much for me," were the 
 great last words of Savonarola. The body swung 
 out, the flames leaped up; but a gust of wind 
 carried them away from the swaying body. 
 "A miracle, a miracle!" was the cry; but the 
 next moment the body was wrapped in flames. 
 A wild shout from the frenzied multitude made 
 Florence tremble, and Savonarola was numbered 
 with the world's great martyrs to a gospel of 
 righteousness, liberty, and love. 
 
 Though the body of the reformer was stoned 
 as it hung there, swinging in the flames, and 
 though his ashes were thrown into the yellow 
 Arno, yet, for years and centuries after, the morn- 
 ing of every 23d of May found beautiful flowers 
 in great profusion scattered on the consecrated 
 spot where Savonarola gave back his soul to 
 God. And now, Florence of United Italy, disen- 
 thralled from papal tyranny and despotic rule, 
 remembers with gratitude that champion of 
 liberty and union, that preacher of righteous- 
 ness and love, and erects with pride, in this 
 nineteenth century, a statue of Savonarola. 
 Wonderful city — city of flowers, city of tu- 
 mults ! — Florence the penitent, Florence the 
 beautiful ! — thy history from far-off Caesar's days 
 has been wrought of a mingled yarn, good and 
 
The Renaissance. 87 
 
 ill together, sad and joyful, dark and splendid, 
 mean and great. Thy hands are bright with 
 jewels, yet foully stained with blood. Thy 
 brow wears scars of woe and diadems of pride. 
 Thy wine with tears has oft been mingled ; 
 thy songs, with lamentations. Mighty thy sons 
 have been as any that have trod the highway of 
 these modern years. Amid thy sobs and thy 
 songs, amid thy tears and thy laughter, amid thy 
 fights and thy festivals, thou hast cradled great- 
 ness and nursed geniuses immortal; for are not 
 Dante, Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Ghiberti 
 all thy sons? Are not Masaccio, Buonarotti, 
 and Da Vinci thy offspring? Did not the noble 
 Cosmo and* " The Magnificent" spring from 
 thy loins? Do not the names of Boccaccio, 
 Ficino, Politian, Bembo, Amerigo Vespucci, 
 Galileo, and the good Savonarola shine with 
 the splendor of their undying fame in the crown 
 of thy queenly greatness? But why, O blind 
 and hard of heart, why didst thou let Masaccio 
 starve amid thy splendid palaces? Why didst 
 thou drive sweet Dante an exile from thy gates, 
 to find a home and grave with kinder strangers ? 
 Why turns the mighty Leonardo from thy cold 
 unfriendliness to seek appreciation from Milan's 
 despots, and die a stranger on the royal lap of 
 
88 Providential Epochs. 
 
 France, rather than an honored son in the 
 mother arms of Italy ? And why, fair Florence, 
 dost thou stone the prophets that are sent to 
 thee, and burn, amid the insults and execrations 
 of thy populace, the most righteous man that 
 ever graced thy history, the most Demosthenean 
 orator that ever shook thy temples with the 
 thunders of his sacred eloquence ? 
 
 Thy prophet, thy preacher, the champion of 
 thy peace and liberties, was no impostor, hypo- 
 crite, and charlatan, to merit thy maledictions 
 and the cruel tortures of thy prison, scaffold, 
 and flames. Since Dante fled in sorrow from 
 thy gates, a whiter soul, a stronger intellect, a 
 greater heart, a more eloquent tongue, a con- 
 science more sincere, had not adorned thy his- 
 tory. Whatever faults of education, supersti- 
 tions in belief, mistakes in judgment, and 
 extravagances of zeal he may be justly charged 
 withal, yet a truer, more genuine, sincere, and 
 godly man has never added a holy pride and 
 greatness to the name of Florence or Italy. 
 
 He whose boyish heart was full of religious 
 devotion, and turned to prayer when others 
 turned to vice ; he who strolled alone through 
 the groves and fields, and wept for Italy and 
 mourned o'er Zion's shame: he for whom the 
 
The Renaissaace. 89 
 
 world and all its pleasures, all its splendors, 
 had no charm ; he who knelt for hours at a time 
 upon the altar stair, and gave it a holier conse- 
 cration by the baptism of his tears; he who felt 
 himself driven out upon the troubled, dangerous 
 sea of his strange career by the very breath of 
 God, — never came to thee but to serve thee and 
 to save thee. He came to tliee with the gospel 
 of sweet charity and peace; he smote oppres- 
 sion, sin, and wickedness; he never feared the 
 face of man, nor courted the favor of the power- 
 ful; he stood as a shield of defense between the 
 people and the strong arm of the conquerors; 
 he fed the poor, visited the sick, comforted the 
 dying, and consoled the bereaved, while plague 
 and pestilence stalked abroad ; he fell upon his 
 knees, while his lacerated body still quivered 
 with the agony of the cruel torture, and prayed, 
 " Father, forgive them ; they know not what they 
 do;" he bade his friends lay down their arms, 
 and not to shed a drop of human blood in his 
 defense; he walked without a tremor to the 
 scaffold and to the flames; he could truthfully 
 hold up that sacred habit of his Order, of which 
 he had been stripped, and say, "To this day I 
 have kept thee spotless;" he gave his life to 
 seal his words and work, and perished saying, 
 
 7 
 
90 Providential Epochs. 
 
 "The Lord has suffered as much for me." That 
 man was no false prophet, no hypocrite, no am- 
 bitious impostor, but the most sincere, righteous, 
 sin-hating, truth-loving. God-fearing spirit of 
 his age ; a preacher, unparalleled in modern 
 eloquence; a reformer, dauntless as an Elijah, 
 a Luther, or a John Knox; a martyr, as sublime 
 in his devotion as a Stephen, a Huss, or a Cran- 
 mer. Florence has begged and sued for the 
 ashes of her exiled Dante; for he sleeps among 
 strangers, while his own penitent Florence longs 
 in vain to build for him a tomb full worthy of his 
 fame and greatness. And Florence would gather, 
 too, the ashes of her greatest preacher beneath 
 the monumental marble; but, alas! she hurled 
 them into the Arno in her fury; the Arno swept 
 them into the sea, and the sea around the world. 
 But while no massive monument of brass or 
 stone hides the holy dust of the great preacher 
 and reformer, yet to-day just Fame is cutting 
 into the white foundation-stone of Italian unity 
 and freedom the name "Savonarola." 
 
 As a reformer, Savonarola's work was almost 
 fruitless in any good, abiding, local results. 
 There was no radical or permanent reform of 
 the Church effected. We must ever keep in 
 mind that the would-be reformer was a Roman 
 
The Renaissance. 91 
 
 Catholic; that he held to the faith of that 
 Church with an unfaltering loyalty. The no- 
 tion of reforming the creed or the polity of the 
 Church had never possessed his mind. He re- 
 volted against the abuses that had insinuated 
 themselves into the ecclesiastical system, and 
 cried most earnestly for a reform in morals, and 
 a revival of piety in the souls of all true Cath- 
 olics, from the wicked pope to the wicked peo- 
 ple ; but a departure from the old faith, a se- 
 cession from the Catholic communion, a cutting 
 loose even from the traditions and many of the 
 vain superstitions of the Church, he never con- 
 templated. He would reform the Church from 
 within, and that, not by adopting a new and 
 advanced creed or polity, but by returning with 
 the old creed and the old polity to the ancient 
 simplicity, devotion, and virtue. In this he 
 failed. Nevertheless, Savonarola broke the spell 
 of Dark-Age moral indifference — he woke the 
 people's conscience. ' His work started a spirit- 
 ual reaction from the corruptions of Rome. He 
 prepared the way for another. Though the 
 purest and most heroic spirit since Dante, he, 
 like the melancholy singer, appealed to callous 
 ears. He pleaded, as Dante had done, for liberty 
 and right. But as Florence banished her great- 
 
92 Providential Epochs. 
 
 est poet, so did she barbarously burn her great- 
 est preacher. 
 
 It can not be denied that a vein of fanaticism 
 runs through Savonarola's life-work. He was 
 doubtless conscious of his fanatical tendencies, 
 and at times he seemed to contend against him- 
 self, and succeeded in holding those tendencies 
 in check. But in the lamentable affair of the 
 ordeal by fire, into which he permitted his en- 
 thusiastic disciple Fra Domenico to lead him, 
 Savonarola lost that mastering judgment essen- 
 tial to the successful reformer. It must be said, 
 however, that he maintained his purity, devo- 
 tion, and sincerity to the last. His death was 
 a martyrdom. Savonarola's name must stand 
 for everything chaste, devout, unworldly, and 
 truth-loving in character; everything noble, de- 
 termined, patriotic, and righteous in the highest 
 effort, if not in the most successful achievement. 
 
 There was a logic in the mission of Savon- 
 arola, a logic that became necessary to the argu- 
 ment underlying the Reformation. In that 
 heroic mission it had been proved that the 
 Church could not be reformed froui within. A 
 Protestantism was needed to save Christianity 
 to the world. Savonarola was not a Protestant; 
 he was not a seceder like Luther. He was the 
 
The Renaissance. 93 
 
 forerunner of Luther, and his very failure proved 
 that a Luther was needed as the champion of 
 a religious reformation and of Christian prog- 
 ress. In this work, all unconsciously perhaps, 
 Savonarola prepared the way for Protestantism. 
 It is well known that Savonarola's character, 
 work, and writings had an influence on the 
 mind and destiny of Luther, and that thus he 
 became one of the foremost pioneers of the 
 Reformation. Looking into the future, we are 
 able to see the on-working of forces set in mo- 
 tion by these two antagonistic spirits of the 
 Renaissance, Lorenzo and Savonarola. There 
 was to be another meeting and conflict between 
 the influences which these men had created. 
 The spirit of Lorenzo survived in his son — 
 Leo X — and the spirit of Savonarola survived 
 in Martin Luther, a profound admirer of the 
 martyr. Luther was to win the battle which 
 Savonarola began, and in which he fell. The 
 paganism of culture and the paganism of the 
 Church were united under the pontificate of 
 Leo de' Medici, and against both the paganism 
 of culture and the paganism of Christianity the 
 Reformation was a protest. A pure culture and 
 a pure Christianity, for which Savonarola con- 
 tended and to which he was a martyr, were se- 
 
94 Providential Epochs. 
 
 cured and restored in Protestantism. If not in 
 name, yet certainly in spirit, Savonarola, like 
 Dante, Wyclif, and Luther, was a Protestant. 
 
 Michael Angelo Buonarotti was born on a 
 mountain, significant of his rugged strength of 
 character and towering superiority of genius. 
 He was a Tuscan, and thus proud compatriot 
 of Raphael, Petrarch, and Dante. When he 
 came, in 1475, the Renaissance was nearing its 
 noonday splendor. Though this supreme man 
 was wont to boast that in his veins ran the 
 blood of the Counts of Canossa and of Charle- 
 magne, his parents were in humble circum- 
 stances at the time of his birth. This great 
 name must therefore be placed among the many 
 that have adorned the "annals of the poor." 
 And what a splendid list of names it is — names 
 of the sons of honest poverty! Homer, Virgil, 
 Chaucer, Luther, Columbus, Newton, Rem- 
 brandt, Molieie, and Shakespeare also sprang 
 from obscurity. 
 
 Like Savonarola and Lorenzo de' Medici, 
 St. Augustine, Napoleon, and Washington, 
 Michael Angelo doubtless inherited his strength 
 of character, if not his genius, from his mother. 
 His father was an obscure stonemason, who 
 
The Renaissance. 95 
 
 could not appreciate the artistic inclinations 
 and endeavorings of Michael, but thought him 
 a very visionary fellow when he displayed no 
 predilection for the honest trade of a stone- 
 mason, but aspired to be an artist. 
 
 Angelo entered a world of artistic beauty as 
 it was approaching its zenith glory — a glory 
 which was to culminate in the immortal great- 
 ness of his own achievements. At the age of 
 thirteen he was apprenticed to Ghirlandaio, the 
 foremost painter of Florence. ' There he at once 
 astonished his masters with his precocity. At 
 fourteen he was recommended as a pupil in the 
 school of sculpture founded by the Medici. He 
 soon became the favorite of Lorenzo the Mag- 
 nificent, and was admitted to the company of 
 poets and philosophers who composed the Pla- 
 tonic Academy, and graced the brilliant banquets 
 given in the palace of the Medici. 
 
 Angelo's early masters found in him a pupil 
 whose genius seemed superior to education. 
 They could teach him little or nothing. He 
 surprised them, and even aroused their jealousy, 
 by his first performances. He seemed to have 
 come into the world already instructed, as if 
 having been taught by masters in another world. 
 As his first nurse was a stonecutter's wife, he 
 
96 Providential Epochs. 
 
 claimed that he had been nursed on chisels and 
 mallets, which he came to use so naturally — so 
 supernaturally, those would say who delighted to 
 call him the " divine man." 
 
 Angelo found Florence, as Savonarola found 
 it, the intellectual and aesthetic center of civil- 
 ization. Here art vied with nature, and human 
 genius with creative power, in making the fair 
 capital of Tuscany as lovely as it was influ- 
 ential. Masters had been there, as we have 
 seen — architects, such as Giotto, Brunelleschi, 
 and Arnolfo ; sculptors, such as Ghiberti and 
 Donatello; and painters, of whom the chief were 
 Cimabue, Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Lippi, and 
 Perugino. Angelo was born twelve years be- 
 fore Raphael, and became famous before Raphael 
 was known. Da Vinci was in his prime when 
 Angelo came, a mere boy, into the arena of ri- 
 valry, to bear away the crown. Having, as a 
 child, left his instructors far behind, he now 
 came to match his power against the greatest 
 artists of the age, and soon, by common consent, 
 he stood supreme. 
 
 The revival of art was the most character- 
 istic feature of the Renaissance, and Michael 
 Angelo gave character to the revival. In say- 
 ing all this, we do not forget the works and 
 
RAPHAEL. 
 
The Renaissance. 97 
 
 influence of Raphael and Da Vinci, the only 
 two who have ever been considered great enough 
 to be his rivals. Sir Joshua Reynolds said: 
 " It is to Michael Angelo that we owe the exist- 
 ence of a Raphael. It is to him that Raphael 
 owes the grandeur of his style." Raphael himself 
 thanked God that he had been born in the age 
 of Buonarotti. It was decided also by a famous 
 contest in Florence, that Angelo was the supe- 
 rior of Da Vinci in design. This is not saying 
 that every lover of art has admired the "Last 
 Judgment," by Angelo, above the " Transfigura- 
 tion," by Raphael, or the "Last Supper," by 
 Leonardo. It is not saying that Leonardo and 
 Raphael were inferior to Angelo in coloring and 
 in the power to delineate beauty. But Angelo 
 was a many-sided genius, and was great on every 
 side. Raphael and Da Vinci rivaled him only in 
 painting. Angelo was more than a painter. He 
 was great as a painter, great as a sculptor, 
 great as an architect, great as an engineer, 
 great as a poet, and great as a man. Raph- 
 ael and Da Vinci were great only in painting. 
 Michael Angelo always prided himself on be- 
 ing a sculptor. When called upon to attempt 
 painting or architecture, he boasted that he was 
 a sculptor, but modestly denied that he was 
 
98 Providential Epochs. «. 
 
 either a painter or an arcliitect It has been 
 claimed, and justly, that Angelo's frescoes and 
 architectural designs are manifestly the work of 
 a sculptor who has, for the time, laid aside the 
 chisel to experiment with pencil and compass. 
 
 The first nineteen or twenty years of his ca- 
 reer were devoted almost entirely to the plastic 
 art. He undertook nothing of importance in 
 painting before the year 1508. He began his 
 artistic career by a careful study of the antique 
 as found in the classic models with which Flor- 
 ence and Rome had been enriched. The prod- 
 ucts of his chisel for the first ten years after his 
 admission to the garden of the Medici, manifest 
 the influence of classicism, the grace, finish, and 
 ideality of Greek art. The " Bacchus " and 
 "Adonis" of the National Museum in Florence, 
 the "Madonna Delia Pieta" of St. Peter's in 
 Rome, the " Madonna and Child " of Notre 
 Dame in Bruges, are all in the sculptor's first or 
 classical manner ; they are not particularly Mi- 
 chaelangelesque. 
 
 From this time on, say from the age of 
 twenty-five, we see the results of his study, not 
 of Greek statues, but of the human body — of 
 nature. As Shakespeare, in the creation of an 
 English drama, broke away from the limitations 
 
"MOSES," BY MICHAEL ANGELO. 
 
The Renaissance, 99 
 
 of the classical drama and seemed to ignore the 
 laws of Aristotle, for which Voltaire severely 
 criticised him, so Michael Angelo, as "myriad- 
 minded " in art as was the Bard of Avon in lit- 
 erature, with the audacity of a supreme genius, 
 of a self-sufihcient creator, struck out a new path; 
 a path, however, which he alone could safely 
 and triumphantly pursue ; a path in which he 
 became the creator and leader of Italian art. A 
 profound study of nature, or of anatomy, re- 
 sulted in greater individuality and less ideality 
 of plastic expression in the work of Angelo. 
 His departure from the Greek ideals to the less 
 graceful and placid, but more realistic and indi- 
 vidual, may be discovered in the statue of 
 " Christ" at Rome, and the superb heroic statue 
 of " David," at Florence, which was produced 
 in Angelo's twenty-ninth year. The statue of 
 " Moses," originally intended for the tomb of 
 Julius II, in Rome, which was never completed 
 according to Angelo's magnificent design, and 
 the tombs of Julian and Lorenzo de' Medici, in 
 San Lorenzo, Florence, are doubtless the noblest 
 creations of modern sculpture, the production of 
 a genius who was a law unto himself, if not a 
 law to the world for all time. 
 
 When, at the age of thirty-three, Angelo 
 
loo Providential Epochs. 
 
 was called upon by Pope Julius to fresco the Sis- 
 tine Chapel built by Sixtus IV, he protested that 
 he was not a painter, and generously recom- 
 mended Raphael. He little knew what powers 
 were hidden within him awaiting development. 
 He finally yielded to the demands of Julius, 
 shut himself up to the work, and, after four 
 years, threw open the Sistine Chapel to astonish 
 the world with his marvelous creations, which 
 inaugurated a new era in the history of art. 
 That glorious ceiling, one hundred and thirty- 
 one feet long by forty-four feet wide, is peo- 
 pled with no less than three hundred and forty- 
 three figures of sibyls, prophets, and patriarchs. 
 The central space is divided into nine pictures 
 of earlier sacred history, from the Creation to 
 the Flood. The figure of Adam, in the space 
 devoted to the "Creation of Adam," has been 
 pronounced " the grandest figure in modern 
 art," while in the entire work Christian art 
 reached its climax. 
 
 In the production of these wonderful frescoes 
 of the Sistine ceiling, Angelo became supreme 
 monarch in the realm of painting. What- 
 ever may have been the promise and fame of 
 Raphael up to this time, it is a significant fact 
 that he changed his manner when he saw the 
 
The Renaissance. ioi 
 
 magnificent figures created by the genius of Mi- 
 chael Angelo — a tribute in itself to the leader- 
 ship and superiority of Angelo. 
 
 It was not until twenty years later that Clem- 
 ent VII called upon Angelo to finish the deco- 
 ration of the Sistine Chapel with a picture of the 
 " Last Judgment." Paul III, still later, was 
 anxious to carry out Clement's design, and urged 
 the painter to the work, which was finished on 
 Christmas, 1541, after eight years of toil, and 
 when the artist was at the good age of sixty- 
 six. This, the largest picture in the world, 
 covers a space at one end of the chapel of fifty 
 four feet six inches by forty-three feet six inches. 
 It contains three hundred and fourteen figures 
 of superhuman mold, in which nearly every 
 possible attitude of the human form is deline- 
 ated with the power of truthfulness unparalleled 
 in the history of painting. 
 
 In these wonderful frescoes of the Sistine 
 Chapel, and in the creations of his chisel, An- 
 gelo seems to have considered the human form 
 as the highest object in nature for art-study and 
 delineation. He does not seem to have studied 
 the anatomy of the tree, of the beast, or of the 
 landscape, with any such devotion as that with 
 which he mastered the anatomy of the human 
 
I02 Providential Epochs. 
 
 form. He repudiated as unworthy of his pow- 
 ers easel-painting and all painting in oils. As 
 a consequence, we look in vain among his cre- 
 ations for such glorious portraits as were pro- 
 duced by Rembrandt, Velasquez, and Reynolds. 
 The sweetness and beauty of such colorists as 
 Raphael, Titian, Tintoretto, Correggio, Millet, 
 and Diaz are not to be found in his works ; 
 while the landscapes of Claude, Ruysdael, Hob- 
 bema, Corot, and Rousseau would have been as 
 foreign to his taste and style as the lyre of 
 Apollo would have been to the thunder-hurling 
 Jupiter. 
 
 Though the nude human form was the only 
 object in nature which Angelo considered worthy 
 of interpretation in art, we never find his genius 
 prostituting itself to the sensuality so charac- 
 teristic of the modern French school. The nude 
 of Angelo's art is never the sensual. To his 
 eye the human form was " fearfully and wonder- 
 fully made" — the masterpiece of creative power. 
 Its most nearly perfect delineation in stone or 
 bronze or colors must be the masterpiece of art 
 genius. Doubtless he saw that every thought 
 and feeling, every passion and mood of mind or 
 heart was accompanied by a corresponding phys- 
 ical expression, and the body was, in every su- 
 
The Renaissance. 103 
 
 preme moment, a perfect index of the soul. 
 Hence the nudity of figures in the "Last Judg- 
 ment." The intensity of the rapture, or of the 
 misery, is indicated by the physical attitude. 
 We do not mean that the artist would leave the 
 impression that the happiness or the suffering 
 of the last day will be physical. He seemed, 
 however, to have found the truth that mental 
 suffering or mental delight can be pictured only 
 by their physical effects or accompaniments. 
 Whether it be, therefore, to delineate in art the 
 noblest object in nature as a thing of beauty, or 
 to interpret mental states, passions, feelings, and 
 moods of the soul by corresponding physical 
 expression, Angelo chooses the human form as 
 the most perfect model for artistic study and 
 interpretation. 
 
 There is nothing more distantly removed 
 from French nudity, nothing more Puritanical 
 in art, if the anachronism may be pardoned, than 
 those solemn, serious portraitures in the Sistine 
 frescoes. The Chapel of Sixtus is full of the 
 spirit of Dante and Savonarola, of Moses and 
 St. John. Michael Angelo is more than a painter 
 here. He is a preacher, a revelator. 
 
 In 1546, Paul n called Angelo to be the ar- 
 chitect of St. Peter's in Rome. The artist was 
 
I04 Providential Epochs. 
 
 then seventy-one years of age. Again Angelo 
 modestly protested that he was a scnlptor, not 
 an architect. Even at that advanced age he 
 was not fully aware of the powers that were 
 still hidden within him and waiting for an op- 
 portunity to develop for a wonderful advance- 
 ment. He was finally persuaded to assume the 
 vast undertaking, which had proven so perplex- 
 ing to Bramanti, San Gallo, and Raphael. For 
 eighteen years he toiled upon this stupendous 
 edifice, without pay, all for the glory of God and 
 for that reward which he expected from his Di- 
 vine Master in the higher world. 
 
 In this last work Angelo produced his mas- 
 terpiece, the culminating triumph of which was 
 lifting the "Pantheon into the air," crowning 
 the great cathedral with that magnificent dome 
 which rivaled the dome of Brunelleschi in Flor- 
 ence, and became the despair of Sir Christopher 
 Wren when he built St. Paul's of London. 
 Angelo did not live to see the completion of 
 his designs, nor were they completed until 
 twenty-seven years after his death. Had he 
 lived to finish his work doubtless the noble 
 structure would have presented a more perfect 
 and imposing appearance than it came to as- 
 sume under the modifications introduced by his 
 
The Renaissance. 105 
 
 successors. St. Peter's stands to-day as the re- 
 sult and the monument of three hundred years 
 of artistic experiment, toil, and achievement, 
 representing an expenditure of fifty millions of 
 dollars. Michael Angelo's genius made its com- 
 pletion possible, and his art constitutes it the 
 most glorioiis triumph of modern architecture. 
 His last work was his greatest, and it formed 
 a fitting climax of the noblest career in the his- 
 tory of art. 
 
 Angelo lived to be eighty-nine years old. 
 He outlived all his rivals and all his most con- 
 spicuous patrons. Thirteen different popes oc- 
 cupied the pontifical chair during his life, from 
 Sixtus IV to Pius IV. He witnessed nearly all 
 the changes, all the achievements, which made 
 up the brilliant epoch of the Renaissance. 
 From the day he entered the garden of the 
 Medici as a lad of fourteen, to enjoy the patron- 
 age of Lorenzo, to the day on which he died at 
 Rome in his ninetieth year, he was a most in- 
 dustrious workman. What monuments stand 
 to-day in Florence and Rome to celebrate the 
 genius and industry of this wonderful man! 
 There are at least ten such monuments, any 
 one of which would immortalize the name of 
 him who produced it. The statue of "David" 
 
io6 Providential Epochs. 
 
 in Florence, what can compare with it except 
 the "Apollo Belvedere" at the Vatican? The 
 colossal statue of "Moses" in Rome, what can 
 rival it except the "Farnese Hercules" in Na- 
 ples? The statue of the crucified "Savior" in 
 the arms of Mary, to be seen in St. Peter's, what 
 composition in marble has equal merits except 
 the "Laocoon?" Three works of this wonder- 
 ful chisel are rivaled only by the three greatest 
 achievements of antiquity. But looking upon 
 the tombs of the Medici in Florence, the fres- 
 coes of the Sistine Chapel, and the Church of 
 St. Peter's in Rome, one must admit that they 
 have stood for three hundred years unrivaled, the 
 superb masterpieces in their departments of the 
 supreme genius in modern art. Had three dif- 
 ferent men left us the statues of "David" or 
 "Moses," the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, 
 and the dome of St. Peter's, they would be pro- 
 nounced the three greatest geniuses of modern 
 history — the greatest sculptor, the greatest 
 painter, and the greatest architect. Yet one 
 genius produced them all — the thrice-gifted 
 Florentine, the art-trinity Angelo. 
 
 It may easily be imagined how bright the 
 art-age became which was lighted up by the 
 genius of such a man. The age that witnessed 
 
The Renaissance. 107 
 
 the carving of such a statue as "David" or 
 "Moses," the painting of such a fresco as the 
 "Last Judgment," and the building of such a 
 temple as St. Peter's, must needs revive and be- 
 come great. No wonder the boys of Rome and 
 Florence grew up to be painters, sculptors, and 
 architects, when the praises of Angelo were on 
 the lips of the people and of princes and popes, 
 while the beautiful creations of his genius made 
 cities famous and all Italy glorious. These 
 works brought with them a new art ambition 
 and impulse to the world, and Angelo became 
 to the new art movement in Ital}^ and in Chris- 
 tendom what Shakespeare became to the new 
 literary. Bacon to the new philosophical, New- 
 ton to the new scientific, Wesley to the new 
 religious, and Washington to the new republi- 
 can, movements of the English-speaking world. 
 It has been noticed that Angelo was a dis- 
 ciple of Savonarola, a student of his sermons 
 and theology, and was from his youth of a re- 
 ligious turn of mind. Dante deeply impressed 
 him through his works, and though the artist 
 was originally cast into a large and noble mold, 
 yet these two somber religionists, the greatest 
 poet and greatest preacher of Italy, had a power- 
 ful influence upon him in fashioning his char- 
 
io8 Providential Epochs. 
 
 acter, and through his character making an im- 
 press — a theological, a Christian impress — upon 
 his art. 
 
 Angelo was a man of conscience, of high 
 moral purpose; serious, thoughtful, devout; full 
 of convictions, full of the Bible, full of God, full 
 of eternity. The strictest integrity marked all 
 his dealings with his fellow-men. He was 
 temperate in the midst of universal intemper- 
 ance, serious in the midst of prevailing worldli- 
 ness, economical in the midst of a fashionable 
 extravagance and profligacy, pure and righteous 
 in the midst of uncondemned but shameful sens- 
 uality. He would have been a Puritan in Crom- 
 well's land. He kept himself singularly aloof 
 from the corruption of his age, and maintained 
 in a very unrighteous country and time an ex- 
 alted character and spotless reputation worthy a 
 disciple of Jesus Christ. Angelo's integrity, 
 reverence, holy fear of God, belief in Jesus 
 Christ and knowledge of the Scripture found ex- 
 pression in his art. His works w^ere religious, 
 his art was Scriptural and Christian, as truly as 
 was the poetry of Dante and the preaching of 
 Savonarola. When it is considered that the 
 ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is decorated with 
 Scriptural scenes from the " creation of the 
 
The Renaissance. 109 
 
 world," that his greatest popular triumph if not 
 his most highly artistic achievement was "The 
 Last Judgment," that his chief works in marble 
 were Scriptural characters, such as David, Moses, 
 and Jesus, and that during eighteen years Angelo 
 devoted himself to his great work of building St. 
 Peter's, the noblest religious structure of Europe, 
 refusing all pay except such as he prayed God 
 would bestow upon him in the next world, we are 
 impressed with the religious character and mis- 
 sion of Angelo's art. 
 
 This spirit which was breathed into Angelo's 
 great works had its influence on the art of his age, 
 freed it from much of the old paganism that had 
 enslaved and degraded it in the past, and gave it 
 a more vigorous, more noble and Christian char- 
 acter. There is a sense in which Angelo was 
 the Luther of art, or, better still, the Constan- 
 tine of art. He led it out of the despotism and 
 slavery of paganism, and pledged it as an instru- 
 ment of power to Christianity. Angelo was the 
 autocrat of the art-life of the Renaissance and 
 from the age of eighteen or twenty to the age of 
 ninety, or for seventy years, he wielded the scep- 
 ter of authority over that empire, the achieve- 
 ments of which still fill Europe with beauty, and 
 the hearts of all art-lovers with admiration. 
 
no Providential Epochs. 
 
 Michael Angelo is the art authority for this 
 age, as he was for his own, and, as said of 
 Shakespeare, 
 
 " He was not of an age." 
 
 The English masters, Reynolds, Lawrence, and 
 Flaxman, looked beyond all other teachers to 
 Angelo. Sir Thomas Lawrence compared the 
 works of Raphael and Angelo as the elegant to 
 the sublime, and affirmed that Raphael never 
 produced aught equal to the "Adam " and 
 " Eve " of Angelo. Flaxman, who looked at 
 art from a classical standpoint, said: "The 
 ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the ' Last 
 Judgment,' taken together as two portions of 
 one whole, are unparalleled in the history of 
 art, ancient or modern, in the vastness of the 
 idea, the grandeur of the subject, the dignity of 
 the characters." 
 
 What Northcote admitted, doubtless every 
 great and true artist who has visited Rome 
 will admit: "For once I went to look at 
 Raphael I went twice to look at Michael 
 Angelo." 
 
 Doubtless Michael Angelo was the noblest 
 genius of the Renaissance, and his work the 
 most enduringly great. Savonarola's mission 
 was more local, less definite. His work was 
 
The Renaissance. hi 
 
 preparatory, abiding in spirit, but not in form, 
 appearing remotely as an influence in the 
 Reformation, and even later in Italian unity 
 and freedom. 
 
 The literature of the Renaissance does not 
 occupy a prominent and conspicuous place in 
 the history of letters. It was pedantic, but 
 not original and vigorous with genius. Poli- 
 tian's translations, verses, and epigrams, Lan- 
 dino's commentaries on Dante, Ficino's Pla- 
 tonic studies, Lorenzo's poems, and Machiavel's 
 political ethics lack the universality of genius 
 and interest which alone immortalizes literature. 
 The art of the Renaissance was its crowning 
 glory, its most perfect creation ; and when we 
 study the art of Michael Angelo we find our- 
 selves in the presence of a universal genius. 
 Here is the master. He will forever be so rec- 
 ognized. Art itself does not outgrow him. He 
 was the secret ; Angelo is art. With Lorenzo 
 and Savonarola, Angelo was a providential man 
 in a providential epoch. His work was as essen- 
 tial in the foundations of modern freedom as 
 any accomplished by the prince or the martyr. 
 The regeneration of art was as necessary as the 
 revival of letters and the awakening of con- 
 science. These geniuses, though so diverse in 
 
112 Providential Epochs. 
 
 character, tastes, and influence, were bound to- 
 gether in a higher harmony than they knew, 
 and were, though unconsciously, co-workers in 
 the emancipation of intellect and the reawak- 
 ening of an independent, conscientious, and 
 enlightened humanism. 
 
/■ 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
II. 
 
 The Reformation. 
 
II. 
 
 THE REFORMATION. 
 
 THE central idea of the Renaissance was cul- 
 ture ; of the Reformation, faith. In Italy 
 an effort was made to restore ancient learning ; 
 in Germany a demand arose for the faith 
 once delivered to the saints. The Renaissance 
 filled the South with classic splendor, both in 
 art and letters. The Reformation restored to 
 the North liberty of conscience and simplicity of 
 worship. These great movements were related. 
 The revival of learning was tributary to the 
 new religious advancement, and its influence 
 comes down to us helpfully in the vigorous 
 progress of modern religious life. If there had 
 been no Reformation, the results of the Renais- 
 sance could not have been found in the German 
 and Anglo-Saxon civilization of to-day. The 
 revival spirit which brought the Age of Culture 
 came from the Greek Church, and finally poured 
 itself into the Protestant Church, and has been 
 transmitted through German, English, and Amer- 
 ican life to this hour. Had it not been for the 
 remnant of classical scholarship possessed by 
 
 115 
 
ii6 Providential Epochs. 
 
 the Greek Churchmen who came into Italy from 
 Constantinople at the fall of the Byzantine Em- 
 pire there would have been no revival of letters ; 
 and if it had not been for the uprising of Prot- 
 estantism, the results of that revival of letters 
 would have perished, and the very spirit of 
 reason and learning would have disappeared. 
 
 We are indebted to the Christian Church for 
 the preservation of all the jewels that fell from 
 the broken and shattered crown of ancient cul- 
 ture. The languages which shone with the 
 poetic genius of a Dante, a Homer, and a Virgil, 
 and with the philosophic spirit and wisdom of a 
 Job, a Solomon, a Plato, and a Tully; the great 
 languages, and therewith the great literatures of 
 the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Latins, were 
 preserved by the Church, and by it handed 
 down to modern taste and learning. It was, 
 however, the Greek branch of the Christian 
 Church, and not the Latin, which, through the 
 Middle Ages, was the conservator of the invalu- 
 able treasures of the Greek tongue. At the be- 
 ginning of the revival of learning, the Latin or 
 Roman Catholic Church imbibed the old classic 
 spirit, but turned it to sensuality and worldliness 
 rather than to scientific, ethical, and religious en- 
 lightenment. Italy had run its course of intel- 
 
The Reformation. 117 
 
 lectual revival and progress in one hundred 
 years, and was on the brink of another age of 
 darkness. Art, literature, and wealth were de- 
 clining, and with them was involved the so- 
 called new civilization. When the Reformation 
 came, and with it the Protestant form of Chris- 
 tianity, it caught the spirit of intellectual prog- 
 ress which was forsaking the Roman Church, in- 
 stilled it into the life of the dominant nations of 
 Northern Europe, and thereby gave to all our 
 modern civilization its high intellectual, aesthet- 
 ical, and religious character. It was the religious 
 revival that preserved the intellectual revival 
 from being extinguished, and not the revival of 
 learning that saved the religious reformation 
 from failure. 
 
 Take a rapid survey of the first fourteen hun- 
 dred years of the Christian Era. The decline 
 of Rome began with the close of the reign 
 of Augustus, who was emperor when Christ was 
 born. The succeeding three hundred years 
 witnessed the universal spread of Christianity, 
 so that at the time of Constantine it was made 
 the State religion of the empire. In the deepest 
 moral and spiritual sense the Roman Empire had 
 not been Christianized. In fact, paganism was 
 quite extensively intermixed with Christianity, 
 
ii8 Providential Epochs. 
 
 and the pure, simple gospel of apostolic tirnes 
 was comprehended and experienced by the hearts 
 and lives of but few in the fourth and fifth cen- 
 turies. When the rugged and barbarous North- 
 men came down in fury and overwhelmed the 
 declining empire, it came in contact, not with an 
 apostolic Church, nor with a Church of Protestant 
 intelligence and purity, but with a Church more 
 or less tinctured with paganism. During the 
 Dark Ages following the fall of Roman civiliza- 
 tion, the Latin Church, instead of throwing off 
 the elements of paganism attached to it, only 
 became more deeply paganized. Abuses crept 
 into Christian ecclesiasticism, and errors poisoned 
 Christian doctrines. The worship of the Virgin 
 Mary, devotion to relics, the confessional, the 
 nunner}^, the celibacy of the priesthood, image- 
 worship, prayers to saints, the doctrine of tran- 
 substantiation, the ecclesiastical and political as- 
 cendency of the Bishop of Rome, his elevation 
 to pontifical supremacy, the establishment of the 
 papacy, and the promulgation of the right of the 
 temporal power of the pope, with many other 
 unscriptural, unreasonable, and corrupting abuses, 
 belong in their genesis to the Dark Ages. Under 
 the weight of these errors, the Church's spiritual 
 life was crushed out, the dominant ecclesiasti- 
 
The Reformation. 119 
 
 cism became little less than a religions, intel- 
 lectual, and political tyranny, subjecting the 
 nations under its control to the yoke of Rome, 
 and to a bondage of conscience, reason, and 
 speech that checked the progress of humanity 
 and the growth of civilization. With the revival 
 of art at the close of the fifteenth century the 
 Roman Church took on a worldly splendor, but 
 not a new spiritual life. The revival of ancient 
 learning became an occasion for a renewal of 
 pagan tastes and pagan licentiousness. Monks, 
 nuns, priests, bishops, cardinals, and popes be- 
 came as profligate as the people. The chief am- 
 bition of Leo X was to aggrandize Rome ; and 
 he, with his immediate predecessors and succes- 
 sors in the pontifical chair, did not scruple to 
 bankrupt Europe in order to sustain and aug- 
 ment the material splendor of the papal court. 
 Now and then, as we have found, a voice was 
 heard protesting against the worldliness of the 
 Church and the absence of spiritual life in the 
 so-called ministers of God. But there was a 
 short and easy method for silencing such voices. 
 So Huss, and Jerome of Bohemia, and Savon- 
 arola of Italy, learned in martyr-flames. The 
 people, however, were beginning to think. The 
 recently-invented printing-press was educating 
 
I20 Providential Epochs. 
 
 the masses, widening their views, kindling their 
 self-regard, enlightening their nnderstan dings, and 
 quickening their consciences. Those haughty, 
 independent Germans were beginning to wince 
 under the galling yoke of Roman dictation, and 
 the feeling was daily growing deeper and more 
 general that the yoke must be broken and the 
 thralldom ended. All that was needed was a 
 leader, a man of genius to marshal the people 
 for the issue. 
 
 Luther was historically the harvester of the 
 fruitful results of remote and much earlier sow- 
 ings. No doubt, from early Middle Age history 
 the Waldenses and Albigenses had preserved the 
 simplicity of Christian worship, having broken 
 away from the Roman authority on the intro- 
 duction of the abuses and idolatries above men- 
 tioned. They had kept the fires of a purer faith 
 burning on their altars. As the outer world oc- 
 casionally came in contact with these secluded 
 and often persecuted peoples, it caught their 
 spirit, and individuals, awakened to new spiritual 
 life, carried abroad the zeal for a simple Chris- 
 tianity, which proved a spark divine to kindle de- 
 votion anew in many a distant community. 
 But when, at the close of the twelfth century, 
 the French Waldenses were dispersed and, by 
 
The Reformation. 121 
 
 papal edict, were driven from their homes and 
 scattered abroad, many of them found shelter in 
 Bohemia. There, with their devoted leader, 
 Peter Waldo, they planted the seed of reforma- 
 tion which bore the significant harvest of the 
 Hussite movement. It will also be remembered 
 that the revival of learning had created in the 
 minds of leading thinkers of Italy a contempt 
 for the authority of an ignorant and superstitious 
 ecclesiasticism. Savonarola had, in addition, 
 unmasked the corruptions of the Church to the 
 people. Much earlier, Wyclif had begun his en- 
 lightening, liberalizing work in England. Eras- 
 mus, too, had just set the thoughtful world 
 smiling by his witty ridicule of the abuses he 
 found in Rome. Thus the Reformation sprang 
 from a confluence of many agencies, vigorous 
 protests arising in England, France, Bohemia, 
 Holland, Italy, and meeting in Germany in the 
 lifetime of a man who proved himself the man 
 for the hour. Deeply as modern progress was 
 indebted to Abelard, Wyclif, Waldo, Huss, Sa- 
 vonarola, and Erasmus, no one of them had all 
 the elements of a great leader. They contributed 
 impulse, zeal, and enlightenment to the move- 
 ment by their teachings and sacrifices. They 
 had an influence on Luther ; their work was pre- 
 
 9 
 
122 Providential Epochs. 
 
 paratory to his ; but no one of them had the 
 commanding genius to lead Europe to moral 
 battle. 
 
 It must be admitted, moreover, that in the 
 time of Huss, W^clif, or even Savonarola, the 
 people were not quite ready to be led. In 
 fact, no one ever became a great leader unless 
 he had great followers, nor do great leaders ap- 
 pear until the people are ready to follow their 
 leaders. No man could have led Europe to the 
 glorious victory of a Reformation a hundred 
 years, or even twenty years, before Luther, in 
 the providence of God, sprang into history, en- 
 dowed with just the genius to lead Europe to 
 religious liberty. Luther came when the hour 
 of need struck in this great revolution, just when 
 the people were ready for a leader. He did not 
 create the circumstances ; circumstances very 
 largely created him, and his historic greatness 
 is due to the fact that the German life — that in- 
 dependent Teutonic spirit — was rising indig- 
 nantly to hurl back an unintellectual, bigoted, 
 and cruel Romish supremacy. He had the very 
 qualities of mind and heart that fitted him to 
 lead that uprising German life and conviction to 
 religious independence. 
 
 In 1483, the same year that Raphael was born 
 
The Reformation. 123 
 
 to make Italy splendid with art, the same year 
 that Rabelais was born to make France laugh 
 with his grimaces, Martin Luther was born to 
 restore Christianity to the world. As we glance at 
 the state of human affairs, we are reminded that 
 at this period Savonarola was preaching for the 
 first time in Florence. Michael Angelo was just 
 beginning to draw charcoal sketches on the walls 
 of his father's house. Copernicus was learning 
 the multiplication table at his mother's knee, in 
 Thorn. Americus Vespucius was clerking down 
 in Florence. Only forty years before, printing 
 had been invented ; and nine years later, America 
 was discovered. 
 
 Martin Luther is born, and with him the Ref- 
 ormation, religious liberty, and Protestantism. 
 
 Look at some of the events in Luther's life. 
 They are the nerve-centers of the Reformation. 
 Electric-shocks — nay, life-shocks — leap from these 
 centers, thrilling Europe, quickening humanity, 
 giving course and character to history. Call it 
 chance, coincidence, or Providence; but often at 
 that cradle-side at Eisleben went up the prayer 
 from the heart of Hans Luther, the humble 
 peasant: " Grant, O God, that he may become 
 a real Luther in thy Church " (*' Luther " mean- 
 ing *' a refiner "). Doubtless that very prayer 
 
124 Providential Epochs. 
 
 indicated that not only the statesmen and upper 
 ranks of Germany, but even the humble peas- 
 ants, were thinking of the corruptions of the 
 Church, and were looking for a deliverer and 
 leader. Yonder, three thousand years before, 
 God's people were in bondage, yet growing in- 
 dependent and progressive in spirit, when a 
 brave leader appeared, whose very infancy and 
 childhood were overshadowed by Providence, 
 until, at the call of God, Moses stepped forth to 
 herald and to lead an Exodus. Fifteen hundred 
 years later, the Angel of the Lord announced to 
 the devout priest, Zacharias, the coming of one 
 with all the elements of a reformer and leader, 
 who should prepare the way for a new dispen- 
 sation and turn the people toward Christ, and 
 John the Baptist was given to be the herald of 
 the Messiah. Just fifteen hundred years later, 
 the Providence which watches over the world's 
 destinies and is shaping history for human sal- 
 vation and for the universal dominion off Jesus 
 Christ, gave to the German peasants, Hans and 
 Margaret Luther, a son, over whose very cradle 
 the prayer was offered that he might be a Re- 
 finer of the Church of God. There was as much 
 Providence in the birth of Martin Luther, just 
 when the world needed him, as there was in the 
 
The Reformation. 125 
 
 birth of Moses, or of John the Baptist. So, to- 
 day, leaders and reformers are as divinely sent 
 as ever they have been in the history of the 
 world. Sacred history is being made in these 
 Christian centuries. God is in it. Christ is in 
 it. The power of truth is in it. The spirit of 
 redemption and enlightenment is in it. Look 
 again : those humble wood-choppers become 
 restless at their very toil in thinking of the boy 
 who already gives indications of the genius and 
 power that are in him, and while there, swing- 
 ing the axe with sturdy stroke, Hans Luther 
 says: "Martin must be educated." Does it not 
 occur to us that ignorant men could not have 
 led on that great Reformation? Behold the lead- 
 ers God has chosen ! Moses, learned in all the 
 wisdom of the Egyptians ; Paul, the pupil of 
 Gamaliel and master of the learning of his 
 time ; Wesley, graduate and Greek lecturer of 
 Oxford University ; Luther, one of the ablest 
 scholars of his age ! Surely, that Hans and Mar- 
 garet Luther builded better than they knew 
 when they said, even in their poverty : " Martin 
 must be educated." That resolution made pos- 
 sible the logical subtilty, the power of expres- 
 sion, the polemical skill, the scholarship, the 
 high intellectual life, which met and confounded 
 
126 Providential Epochs. 
 
 the diplomats, the debaters, the royal and priestly 
 agents of a corrnpt papacy ; that resolution made 
 possible the immortal theses which were the 
 Reformation's declaration of independence ; that 
 resolution made possible the German translation 
 of the Bible, the public-school system of Ger- 
 many, and all those blessings to the German 
 people and to the world that grew out of Martin 
 Luther's scholarship and education. 
 
 Another simple,"pathetic incident in this life 
 attracts attention. Martin Luther, at the age of 
 fourteen, is walking the streets of Eisenach, 
 singing from door to door, for food to keep him 
 from starvation while he studies in the famous 
 school in that place. Clear, sweet, and pathetic, 
 that pure tenor voice rings out in a song for 
 bread. In these days is cultivated that love for 
 music which shall give songs to Germany. Little 
 could any one have thought that he who sang from 
 door to door for bread would give to his country 
 songs with which her mighty armies, four hun- 
 dred years later, should march to battles and to 
 victories. But as an historic fact to which Mr. 
 Fronde calls attention, in the Franco-Prussian 
 War the German regiments marched into battle, 
 singing Luther's paraphrase of the Psalm : 
 
 " Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott!" 
 
The Reformation. 127 
 
 Look upon another nerve-center of that great 
 time. Luther is twenty. He is seated one 
 morning in the library of the University of Er- 
 furt. He holds in his hand for the first time a 
 Holy Bible ; his heart beats with a strange exhil- 
 aration; his great, black, lion-like eyes burn 
 with a new fire, and he reads with the eagerness 
 with which the panting hart drinks from the 
 water-brook. It may have been then, or pos- 
 sibly later, that his eyes fell upon the inspired 
 words, "The just shall live by faith;" but certain 
 it is, that then and there was born the funda- 
 mental doctrine of the Reformation. The Bible 
 is sole authority in belief and conduct — not 
 priests, not popes, not Councils, not the Church, 
 but "the Bible" is sole authority in belief and 
 conduct. Here was the idea which met and 
 overwhelmed the power of the papacy; here was 
 the doctrine that broke the yoke of Rome from 
 the fair neck of Germany; here was the truth 
 which to this hour was to battle victoriously, not 
 only against the errors of Roman Catholicism//but 
 against the haughty bigotry of Rationalism and 
 infidelity: "the Bible," not superstition, reason, 
 science, nor philosophy; not the preacher, the 
 priest, the pope, the Church, nor the State, but 
 " the Bible is sole authority in belief and conduct." 
 
128 Providential Epochs. 
 
 All are familiar with that tragic scene which 
 had so much to do with directing the future 
 course of Luther — the sudden death of his chum, 
 Alexis. IvUther had graduated at twenty-two, 
 and was contemplating the study of law, when 
 one day his chum was assassinated, or, as one 
 tradition has it, was struck dead by lightning as 
 he walked beside Luther in the field. That 
 event turned the future steps of Luther to a de- 
 vout life, and he entered the monastery of St. 
 Augustine at Erfurt, while the great question 
 kept pounding away in his heart: "Am I saved? 
 am I saved?" 
 
 We can not pass over Luther's consecration 
 to the priesthood without emphasizing the sig- 
 nificant fact that he became a devoted disciple 
 of Augustine, and a constant, profound student 
 of his pure, spiritual teachings, which had been 
 sadly neglected in both the study and practice of 
 the Church. The young and eloquent monk be- 
 came a lecturer in the University of Wittenberg. 
 By the elevated tone of his moral instruction 
 and the deep, spiritual feeling that animated all 
 he said, together with his learning and eloquence, 
 he attracted ever-increasing numbers of students 
 to his lectures. 
 /^ At the age of twenty-seven, Luther was sent 
 
The Reformation. 129 
 
 to Rome on some business connected with his 
 Order. There Leo X was reigning in pontifical 
 splendor. Bramante was rebuilding St. Peter's, 
 Michael Angelo was frescoing the Sistine Chapel, 
 and on every hand rose monuments of reviving 
 art whose beauty struck awe to the heart of the 
 simple and devout German monk. He was 
 struck with astonishment, but also overwhelmed 
 with shame and grief, because he saw associated 
 with all the material magnificence of Rome a 
 worldliness and profligacy which he had never 
 dreamed could have crept into the Church of 
 Christ. The city was filled with images and pic- 
 tures which the people had come almost to wor- 
 ship, before which they bowed and muttered 
 prayers. All sorts of relics, also, were held up 
 before the eyes of the credulous and supersti- 
 tious as having mysterious power to heal both 
 the body and spirit. Forgiveness of sins and 
 the salvation of the soul were conditioned on 
 penance, on all sorts of physical humiliations 
 and inflictions, while spiritual life and true sim- 
 ple piety seemed to have forsaken the Church. 
 The most significant picture in Luther's short 
 stay in Rome, and one that presents to our 
 thought another of those nerve-centers of the 
 Reformation, is his ascent of Pilate's Stairs. 
 
130 Providential Epochs. 
 
 Here, tradition says, Luther was ascending the 
 stairs on his bare knees, hoping thereby to please 
 God and find that peace for which he had long 
 been praying. While in this exercise there came 
 to him, like a flash of light, those words which he 
 had read in the Bible up in Germany: "The just 
 shall live by faith. ^''i Not by penance, not by 
 physical sufferings, not by torture, not by su- 
 perstitious rites and ceremonies, not by the deeds 
 of the law, not by works, but "the just shall live 
 by faith." He sprang to his feet, hurried from the 
 place, and soon left Rome, saying: "If there be a 
 hell, Rome is built on top of it." He returned 
 to Germany with new notions of Rome, and with 
 a new idea of salvation. That idea which came 
 to him from the Spirit of God on Pilate's Stairs, 
 or elsewhere, "The just shall live by faith," be- 
 came the battle-cry of the Reformation. It was 
 the idea which smote the Goliah of papacy in 
 the forehead, the doctrine which gave birth to 
 Protestantism, the truth which makes the Church 
 mighty to-day, and the preaching of which is the 
 salvation of the people. It is the central truth 
 of every evangelical denomination at this hour. 
 That doctrine, united with the other that "the 
 Bible is the sole authority in belief and conduct," 
 has preserved to mankind the results of the Ref- 
 
The Reformation. 131 
 
 ormation, and has been the fountain of that light 
 which has streamed forth in civilizing beauty and 
 power upon the Protestant nations of the earth. 
 It was the fall of 15 19, October, that another 
 scene was enacted in this divine drama of the 
 Reformation and in the providential life of 
 Luther. Papacy was bankrupt. The extrava- 
 gance at Rome, the fabulous expenditures of 
 money in the material aggrandizement of the 
 Holy City, the rebuilding of St. Peter's Cathe- 
 dral and the pride and profligacy of the papal 
 court made it necessary for the pope to send 
 agents throughout Europe to collect money from 
 the people. It will be admitted that the people 
 and their sovereigns were growing weary of the 
 demands of Rome. There had long been devel- 
 oping a spirit of protest and rebellion against an 
 almost bankrupting support of Roman extrava- 
 gance. The people were being impoverished to 
 support a profligate papacy. Leo X had imbibed 
 the spirit of the Renaissance, and took pride in 
 the material aggrandizement of Rome. He was 
 devoted to art and letters, but was wholly desti- 
 tute of the spirit of religion. He was a Medici, 
 proud, worldly, extravagant, and profligate. He 
 did not scruple to devote money contributed for 
 religious purposes to the gratification of his own 
 
132 Providential Epochs. 
 
 pride, lust, and ambition. It may have been 
 providential that one so indifferent to the doc- 
 trinal controversies, and entirely lacking in zeal 
 for ecclesiastical and religious affairs, was in the 
 pontifical chair when Luther began his work. 
 No doubt Leo X contributed to the promotion of 
 the Reformation by his indifference to religious 
 conditions and his ambitious extravagances in 
 the material aggrandizement of his reign. To 
 replenish his depleted treasury Leo sent forth his 
 agents to offer indulgences to the people at a 
 price. It was a most bountiful source of revenue. 
 For so much money the pope's agents declared 
 the people's sins would be forgiven. Even their 
 future sins might be forgiven for a proper con- 
 sideration ; nay, even the souls of their departed 
 friends might be bought out of purgatory for a 
 price. One of these agents, Tetzel, entered 
 Wittenberg, where Luther was teaching the pure 
 doctrines of Augustine. Tetzel spread forth his 
 relics, opened his indulgence box, called upon the 
 people to purchase pardon for themselves and for 
 their departed friends for cash. The matter 
 came to the ears of Luther. With holy indignation 
 he denounced the whole fraud, wrote out ninety- 
 five propositions antagonizing the doctrines of 
 penance and indulgences, and teaching the true 
 
The Reformation. 133 
 
 way of salvation, by heart repentance and faith 
 in Christ. These theses he posted on the door 
 of the church of Wittenberg. The next morn- 
 ing the town was in an uproar. A revokition 
 was on. In a fortnight, says D'Aubigne, those 
 ninety-five propositions were known all over Ger- 
 many. In a month they were read in Rome and 
 in every part of Christendom. From that hour 
 Luther's pen was busy. The tradition goes, that 
 at one time, when tempted by the devil, he hurled 
 his inkstand at his head, and struck the wall, 
 where the stain of the ink may be seen to this 
 day. Certain it is, that Luther began to hurl 
 some mighty logical and eloquent ink at the 
 head of both the devil and the papacy, and 
 proved, as was never so grandly proved before, 
 that "the pen is mightier than the sword." Be 
 it remembered that Luther would not sanction 
 the drawing of the sword to promote the Refor- 
 mation. This was to be a conflict of ideas, not 
 of swords ; and the pen, more than the sword, 
 must have credit for the glorious victories 
 achieved for truth and humanity in that Refor- 
 mation. The pope commanded Luther's writ- 
 ings to be burnt; he excommunicated the heretic; 
 he demanded that he be sent to Rome, and all 
 the world knew that meant -to the stake. But 
 
134 Providential Epochs. 
 
 there was a Germany back of Luther, and a Ger- 
 man sense of fair play, a German mistrust of the 
 honor of the papal powers at Rome, a German 
 knowledge of what had become of Huss and 
 Savonarola. Luther was not sent to Rome. // 
 
 There was a combination of favorable or prov- 
 idential circumstances to help on the initiation 
 of the Reformation. Not only was it fortunate 
 that Leo X was not a religious bigot and enthu- 
 siast, but rather a worldling engrossed in art and 
 letters, but it is also fortunate that during the in- 
 terregnum after the death of Emperor Maximil- 
 ian, the Elector of Saxony was in sympathy with 
 Luther. Then there were many political ques- 
 tions of importance besides the Turkish problem 
 engaging the serious attention of the most big- 
 oted Catholic sovereigns, and demanding the con- 
 sideration of the Roman power. With this state 
 of affairs the reformative ideas had an oppor- 
 tunity to work on for some time without serious 
 opposition. When Luther was summoned to 
 Rome, the Elector of Saxony interposed in his 
 behalf, and secured the consent of the pope to 
 let the "heretic" be examined by proper agents 
 in Germany. The examinations and disputes 
 did not result in Luther's submission. In 1520 
 he was excommunicated. He tossed the bull 
 
The Reformation. 135 
 
 of excommunication into the bonfire, and thus 
 defied the boasted temporal and spiritual power 
 of Rome. That bonfire united its flames with 
 those that had kindled about Huss and Savon- 
 arola, to light up Europe with the prophecy of 
 the coming age of reason. 
 
 When Charles V, of Spanish education, as- 
 sumed the German crown, he threw his influence 
 against the Reformation, but not without regard 
 for that sturdy German sentiment which did not 
 propose to have Luther destroyed. He sum- 
 moned the reformer to appear before the German 
 Diet, the Elector, as we have noticed, having se- 
 cured for L/Uther a German hearing, instead of 
 an examination at Rome. Without a tremor of 
 fear, this man Luther, who had already hurled 
 the pope's edicts into the flames, prepared to 
 stand alone before the august body of temporal 
 and spiritual rulers at Worms. He was warned 
 not to go to Worms, because the city was filled 
 with his enemies, and his life would be in danger. 
 He vowed that, if there were as many devils in 
 Worms as tiles on the roofs, he would enter. And 
 there he did appear, after long prayer and spirit- 
 ual preparation. He was commanded to recant. 
 He boldly acknowledged his writings, and as 
 bravely refused to take back what he had writ- 
 
136 Providential Epochs. 
 
 ten. He delivered his defense in German, then 
 repeated it in Latin ; and, while that Imperial 
 Diet listened, breathless and spell-bonnd, he 
 closed with these memorable words: "Unless I 
 am convinced by the testimony of Scripture, I 
 can not and will not retract. Here I stand ; I 
 can do no more. God help me ! Amen!" That 
 has justly been called, by Froude and by Carlyle, 
 the grandest scene in human history. It was 
 virtually the climax of the Reformation. From 
 that moment, people, princes, warriors of his- 
 toric battle-fields, were ready to defend Luther 
 and the cause he championed. It was the cause 
 of German liberty and German greatness. From 
 that hour the Reformation swept on. It had al- 
 ready, and it now more positively, reached be- 
 yond Germany, so that France, Holland, Switz- 
 erland, England, and Scotland were moved and 
 inspired with the new progressive life, while 
 such men came forward to champion the Refor- 
 mation as Melanchthon, Zwingli, CEcolampadius, 
 Farel, Calvin, Tyndale, Cranmer, and Knox. 
 
 Philip Melanchthon was the right hand of 
 Martin Luther in his providential work. In 
 temperament he was quite the opposite of his 
 impetuous and vehement leader. His tastes were 
 more scholastic ; his inclination was to thought 
 
PHILIP MELANCHTHON. 
 
The Reformation. 137 
 
 rather than action. He attracted the attention 
 of the learned world by his lectures on Homer, 
 Virgil, and Terence, and became the professor of 
 Greek in the University of Wittenberg. Luther 
 depended largely on the superior classical schol- 
 arship of Melanchthon in his translation of the 
 Bible. Doubtless the more gentle and concilia- 
 tory spirit of the professor had much to do with 
 tempering the fires of Luther's enthusiasm, and 
 saving the Reformation from extravagances 
 which threatened to destroy its progressive in- 
 fluence. His learning, moreover, added intel- 
 lectual dignity to the movement, and infused into 
 the Reformation the spirit of the Renaissance. 
 Melanchthon was perhaps as indisputably the 
 author of the first Protestant Confession of Faith, 
 the Augsburg Confession, as Thomas Jefferson 
 was the author of the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence. His learning, his elegant literary style, 
 his controversial powers, and his deep piety fitted 
 him in a pre-eminent degree to complement the 
 genius and the work of Luther. 
 
 In Switzerland the Reformation was led on 
 by Ulrich Zwingli, a preacher of learning and 
 eloquence. As Luther condemned Tetzel and 
 the selling of indulgences in Germany, Zwingli, 
 with equal vigor, denounced Samson and the in- 
 
138 Providential Epochs. 
 
 diligences in Switzerland. In many respects the 
 Swiss reformer fonnd a kindred spirit in the 
 great German leader, and did what he could to 
 spread the writings of Luther among his own 
 countrymen. On the doctrine of the sacrament 
 of the Lord's Supper the German and Swiss re- 
 formers were drawn into a bitter and disrupting 
 controversy. Zwingli could not agree with 
 Luther's " consubstantiation " view, but took a 
 more rational' position, approaching that which 
 came to be held by the great Protestant body. 
 Luther's spirit in this sad controversy added 
 little to his reputation as a liberal-minded and 
 progressive reformer. Zwingli, like Luther, was 
 tried for heresy, but with little harm to himself 
 and less glory to Rome. This dauntless hero 
 was as patriotic as he was pious, and died on the 
 field of battle, nobly contending for the religious 
 independence of Zurich, which involved the 
 most precious principles of civil and religious 
 liberty. 
 
 John CEcolampadius was the coadjutor of 
 Zwingli in Switzerland, and held about the same 
 relation to the latter that Melanchthon sustained 
 to Luther. His tastes and disposition were not 
 unlike those of Melanchthon. He loved study, 
 £md becarne profound in the knowledge of the 
 
The Reformation. 139 
 
 Greek and Hebrew. The teachings of Luther 
 commanded his attention, and finally his hearty 
 support, although in the sacramental contro- 
 versy he took issue with Luther and Melanch- 
 thon, and agreed more nearly with Zwingli. He 
 assisted Erasmus in the preparation of his 
 commentary on the New Testament, filled with 
 distinction the chair of Biblical learning in the 
 University of Basle, and, by his lectures, ser- 
 mons, and controversial writings, became one of 
 the most influential reformers of the age. 
 
 William Farel was born in France, of a 
 noble family. He received a liberal education, 
 and entered the reform movement with abound- 
 ing zeal. He became the flaming evangelist of 
 the new awakening both in France and Switzer- 
 land. Though a man of physical meanness 
 amounting almost to ugliness, he possessed ora- 
 torical and argumentative powers of no common 
 order. His zeal, however, often overstepped the 
 bounds of discretion, while the vehement in- 
 tolerance of his manner frequently weakened the 
 force and influence of his argument. He went 
 from city to city as a torch-bearer, often as a 
 firebrand of the Reformation. The masses were 
 deeply moved by his vigorous and eloquent 
 harangues, and even the more thoughtful and 
 
140 Providential Epochs. 
 
 learned found it difficult to resist the spell with 
 which his impetuous spirit and glowing elo- 
 quence seemed to hold them captive. Though 
 often provoked to anger and resistance by the 
 reformer's scathing denunciations of the priest- 
 hood and the papacy, the people could not but 
 be aroused to intense thought and inquiry, 
 which resulted in the rapid spread of the new 
 ideas. 
 
 Hardly less potential in that age than the 
 great German, Luther himself, was the great 
 Frenchman, John Calvin. This remarkable man, 
 though lacking the courage and genius for lead- 
 ership, which constituted Luther's greatness, 
 was the acknowledged head and front of the 
 Reformation in France. Farel, more than any 
 other man, influenced Calvin to enlist in the 
 new movement. The bigotry of the Sorbonne 
 made Paris unsafe for Calvin, and, in spite of 
 the friendliness of the Queen of Navarre, he was 
 compelled to flee to Basle, where he met such 
 reformers as Farel, Bucer, and CEcolampadius. 
 At Basle, and finally at Geneva, Calvin advanced 
 to the front, and wielded an influence which 
 spread over Europe and "changed the face of 
 history." He was first to give Protestantism a 
 systematic theology ; his " Institutes " mark an 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 
 
The Reformatio!^. 141 
 
 epoch in the history of Christian dogmatics. His 
 powerful pen made Geneva the center of the 
 new school of theology, which has ever since borne 
 the name of Calvinism. 
 
 Without condoning his unprotestant and un- 
 christian treatment of Serve tus, or justifying his 
 imperious, inquisitorial spirit, or subscribing to 
 his now almost obsolete peculiarities of doctrine, 
 we must recognize Calvin as first in influence 
 among those who took up the work of the orig- 
 inal Reformers. 
 
 The dauntless and fiery John Knox cham- 
 pioned the Reformation in Scotland. Though 
 wanting in organizing genius, in literary taste, 
 and in theological originality, he nevertheless 
 wielded great power from the pulpit, and preached 
 sermons which made thrones tremble. Like 
 Farel in Switzerland, he accomplished more by 
 preaching than by writing. The work of his 
 pen, while potent at the time, was but ephem- 
 eral, having no such literary and theological per- 
 manency as the writings of Calvin or Luther. 
 Nevertheless, Carlyle's estimate will remain un- 
 challenged by all who study those heroic times: 
 " The Scotch national character originated in 
 many circumstances ; first of all, in the Saxon 
 stuff there was to work on ; but next, and beyond 
 
142 Providential Epochs. 
 
 all else except that, in the Presbyterian gospel 
 of John Knox." 
 
 With lyUther and Melanchthon in Germany, 
 Zwingli, CEcolampadius, Farel, and Calvin in 
 Switzerland, and Knox in Scotland, England 
 was moving grandly forward under the influence 
 of Cranmer, Tyndale, Coverdale, Ridley, and 
 Latimer, all of whom, excepting Coverdale, suf- 
 fered death for the cause. 
 
 There had gone one man before them — John 
 Wyclif, " the morning-star of the Reformation." 
 He died one hundred years before Luther was 
 born, and, like Savonarola in Italy and Huss in 
 Bohemia, did a preparatory work which made 
 possible the Reformation of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 While on many of the minor questions in- 
 volved in those Reformation controversies, the 
 various countries engaged in the general move- 
 ment and the great leaders could not always 
 agree, nevertheless one high and mighty purpose 
 actuated all alike — the purpose to break the ec- 
 clesiastical thralldom of Rome, and restore to the 
 people and the nations a simple. Scriptural, and 
 uncorrupted Christianity. If neither the Swiss 
 nor the English reformers could accept without 
 some serious modifications all the dogmatic de- 
 
The Reformation. 143 
 
 liverances of Luther, and if the German re- 
 former, in his doctrinal controversies, lost pa- 
 tience and temper in his treatment of his more 
 liberal and independent coadjutors, there was, 
 notwithstanding, more agreement than differ- 
 ence; and, in spite of differences, the one, central, 
 divine thought which nnited them conquered 
 gloriously, and Europe was free. 
 
 The Reformation had more than a religious 
 significance. The intellectual and political world, 
 down to this hour, are indebted to Luther and 
 his coadjutors for liberty of thought, revival of 
 literature and science, and the widespread sen- 
 timent and laws of freedom by which the fore- 
 most nations of Christendom are governed. The 
 fountain-head of the noble streams of modern 
 literature was Luther's translation of the Bible. 
 It created a literary German. The language 
 from that time ceased to be a medley of dialects, 
 and became one vigorous, universal tongue. That 
 unifying of the German language meant the na- 
 tional unity of the German peoples. Luther's 
 translation of the Bible, begun while the reformer 
 was providentially secreted a prisoner in the 
 Castle of Wartburg, became the source of mod- 
 ern German greatness in morals, literature, 
 and arms. 
 
f44 Providential Epochs. 
 
 If we go to England, and study the influence 
 of Tyndale's and Cranmer's translations of the 
 Scriptures, we may say almost as much of them 
 as has been said of Luther's Bible. Giving 
 Wyclif and Chaucer all the credit that is their 
 due, we can not fail to notice that English lit- 
 erature revived and came to its highest perfec- 
 tion under the influence of these new translations 
 of the Word of God. To these, as much as to 
 any other influence, is due the Elizabethan 
 strength and purity of the English language, 
 which made possible the beauty of Shakespeare's 
 song and the matchless grace and vigor of King 
 James's version of the Bible. 
 
 The influence which the Reformation exerted 
 on literature, manners, science, art, and govern- 
 ment may be traced in the progressive develop- 
 ment of the nations which have welcomed the 
 movement. Those nations lead the world in 
 civilization to-day, and they command the future. 
 
 Step by step, the power of Rome was broken, 
 and the nations advanced to a new freedom, to a 
 new religious and intellectual life. Out of the 
 Reformation rose Protestantism, which held as a 
 precious jewel the simple. Scriptural, and ra- 
 tional faith once delivered to the saints. It is 
 the Christian religion in its purity, stripped of 
 
The REFOkMATiON. 145 
 
 those errors and superstitions which attached 
 themselves to the Church during the Dark Ages. 
 The Reformation's appeal was to the Scrip- 
 tures, and, logically. Protestantism came to stand 
 for a Scriptural Christianity. Having shaken 
 off the yoke of papal authority and dictation, 
 she enjoys and teaches that freedom of thought 
 and right of individual judgment which acknowl- 
 edge no limitations or restraints except those 
 which truth itself prescribes. Her creed is un- 
 incumbered by those vain traditions and irra- 
 tional superstitions which fastened themselves 
 upon the Church of the Dark Ages and rendered 
 it one of the most stubborn obstacles to the 
 progress of the simple, rational, and Scriptural 
 religion of Jesus Christ. It is one of the mys- 
 teries of human credulity how the errors orig- 
 inating in the very darkness of the Dark Ages 
 have survived so many centuries, and are but 
 slowly disappearing, even in the light of this 
 liberal and thoughtful age. It seems incredible 
 that there are still to be found thousands who 
 are ignorant and superstitious enough to believe 
 in the existence and in the healing virtues of 
 such so-called sacred relics as portions of the 
 cross on which the Savior was crucified, thorns 
 from the crown which was plaited for his brow, 
 
146 Providential Epochs. 
 
 and even the seamless robe for which the sol- 
 diers gambled beneath the cross ! Jnst as in- 
 credible does it seem that any rational beings 
 can still accept the doctrines of transubstantia- 
 tion, of the immaculate conception, prayers to 
 saints, prayers for the dead, papal infallibility, 
 and purgatory, and to hold as Scriptural, or 
 even rational, such institutions as indulgences, 
 the confessional, the nunnery, the order of priest- 
 hood, and the ofhce and authority of vicegerent 
 of Jesus Christ, supreme pontiff, pope. Against 
 this entire catalogue of irrational, unscriptural, 
 and demoralizing errors, our rational and Scrip- 
 tural Protestantism takes its invincible stand. 
 In denying these absurdities, and in setting forth 
 the pure doctrine of Jesus Christ, unadulterated 
 with the idle traditions invented by ignorance 
 and superstition, Protestantism has made its 
 wonderful progress and achieved its splendid tri- 
 umphs. For the religious progress of the world 
 during the last four hundred years, nearly, the 
 credit is due to the Reformation and the Prot- 
 estantism which embodied the Reformation spirit. 
 In the very position which Protestantism as- 
 sumed at its origin there was the prophecy of its 
 attitude on every important religious question of 
 the future. As in the sixteenth century it re- 
 
The Reformation. 147 
 
 pudiated the authority of mere traditions, so in 
 this nineteenth century it is pledged by all its 
 glorious past to submit every doctrinal question 
 to a Scriptural test, and every question of Bib- 
 lical interpretation to a scientific and historical 
 method of investigation. It was a disregard for 
 and violation of these principles that plunged 
 the Church into the doctrinal and ecclesiastical 
 errors which made the Reformation necessary 
 and inevitable. Only by a strict regard for these 
 methods in the interpretation of the Bible, in 
 the formulation of creeds, and in the propagation 
 of doctrines, will Protestantism be able to hold 
 and advance in the evangelization of the world 
 with the simple and saving truths of the gospel. 
 Protestantism in its very genius stands for 
 another great principle ; viz., the political inde- 
 pendence of the Church and the ecclesiastical 
 independence of the State. This may not have 
 been in the minds of the original reformers, but 
 it was in the very genius of the Reformation. 
 They sowed for a wider, richer harvest than they 
 knew, those first brave planters of freedom's 
 heavenly seed. German Protestantism and Eng- 
 lish Protestantism insisted as stoutly upon the 
 union of the Church and State as did ever Ro- 
 nianism. But there was to come a great liberal- 
 
I' 48 Providential Epochs. 
 
 izing of sociology ; political government was to 
 grow into a nobler freedom ; the rights of man 
 were to find a more generous and righteous rec- 
 ognition ; the world was to demonstrate the prac- 
 ticability of democracy, and assert the divine 
 right of the people in self-government. The 
 Protestant form of Christianity alone was adapted 
 to humanity for the experience of such a devel- 
 opment in the enjoyment of freedom. Free or 
 self-government alone was adapted to the high- 
 est possible development of Protestant Chris- 
 tianity in the experience and life of man. The 
 most benign influence of Christianity must come 
 to the State through a free Church, and the most 
 benign influence of free government must come 
 to the people and to the Church through the non- 
 ecclesiastical administration of, and a non-eccle- 
 siastical interference with, the administration of 
 that government. For these reasons. Protestant- 
 ism seems singularly well fitted for our American 
 civilization, and our free political institutions 
 seem to favor the growth of this simple and sin- 
 cere form of Christianity. Protestantism has 
 been so intimately associated with the develop- 
 ment of freedom, science, and liberal education 
 that all these related and kindred elements of 
 our best modern civilization would seem to have 
 
The Reformation. 149 
 
 been born at the same time. There can be no 
 true philosophy of modern history which does 
 not find the common origin of freedom, science, 
 common-school education, and Protestantism in 
 the Reformation. The old religious system, 
 against which the advanced thought and con- 
 science of the sixteenth century were a protest, 
 has been the enemy of freedom, science, and 
 popular education. Romanism, as an ecclesias- 
 tical institution, is monarchical, and hence inim- 
 ical to political freedom. With the pope assum- 
 ing the old Roman imperial title of " Pontifex 
 Maximus," cardinals dubbed "princes," and 
 bishops " lords," the Roman Catholic hierarchy 
 becomes a political establishment of the strictest 
 monarchical, if not oligarchal, type ; and any po- 
 litical government which submits to its author- 
 ity, acknowledging its temporal power, can be no 
 more than an "imperium in imperio," whether 
 it claims to be a democracy, a republic, or a 
 monarchy. The very destiny of democracy de- 
 pended upon the issue of the Reformation. The 
 possibility of republican self-government lay in 
 the triumph of that mighty protest. Without 
 the Reformation and a Protestantism, there had 
 been no such free government as the United 
 States of America. 
 
I50 Providential Epochs. 
 
 Science is the eternal foe of superstition. In 
 its white light error and imposition must sooner 
 or later be exposed. How, then, can Dark-Age 
 errors long survive the universal spread of sci- 
 ence? How can they maintain their hold upon 
 the popular mind against the criticism and the 
 very laughter of scientifically enlightened rea- 
 son? It is noticeable that where science is 
 most fully developed and most universally dif- 
 fused among the people, there theological ab- 
 surdities are least successfully propagated. They 
 flourish only where the people are still deprived 
 of the light of science. Marble statues of the 
 Virgin do not weep in America, nor do splinters 
 of the true cross heal. It is repugnant to an 
 American's sense of manly freedom to kiss the 
 foot of Peter, while it is becoming more and more 
 a problem with Romanism as to how it shall 
 succeed in driving a high-minded, independent 
 American citizen into the confessional, to sur- 
 render his very conscience, judgment, reason, 
 and manhood to a priest. Protestantism stands 
 for an independent manhood, for free conscience 
 and the right of personal judgment, for the au- 
 thority of the Scriptures, the enlightenment of 
 science, the power of knowledge, and the su- 
 premacy of the people. 
 
The Reformation. 151 
 
 Education, in the highest sense, is a Protest- 
 ant idea. It insists upon the enlightenment 
 of the masses. It claims that mankind has a 
 right to all truth, and it argues that a religion 
 which will not survive the universal and liberal 
 education of the people is false. If the stars 
 are against our creeds, so much the worse for 
 our creeds. That is the truth-loving attitude 
 of Protestantism. It asks, not that a priest 
 shall stand at the door of the human mind to 
 exclude every truth of science, government, so- 
 ciology, history, or religion which may conflict 
 with a superstition or a vain tradition of the 
 Church, but it confidently holds that all truths 
 are in harmony, and as the truths of science 
 can not conflict with the truths of religion, 
 there can no danger come to a man's spiritual 
 life by a full and universal knowledge of all 
 truths. "Let there be light!" is the glorious 
 cry of enlightened Protestantism, which courts 
 rather than shuns the scrutiny of science and 
 reason. "Let there be light!" exclaims a Scrip- 
 tural Protestantism, which believes in the high- 
 est possible education of the masses. "Let 
 there be light!" commands a progressive ra- 
 tional Protestantism, which has planted the 
 common schools of Germany, England, and 
 
152 Providential Epochs. 
 
 America, and has established the most liberal, 
 thorough, and extensive colleges and universi- 
 ties, which diffuse knowledge and learning into 
 the civilization of this nineteenth century. 
 There is no question in honest, thoughtful 
 minds that Protestantism is the friend and 
 guardian of the public-school system, whether 
 in Germany, England, Canada, Australia, or the 
 United States. Nor is there any question that 
 Protestant universities offer the most liberal, 
 thorough, and scientific education of any uni- 
 versities in the world. Furthermore, the most 
 reliable statistics prove that Protestant Chris- 
 tian countries invariably have a lower percent- 
 age of illiteracy than any other countries, what- 
 ever faith may predominate. Protestantism has 
 changed the educational methods of the civil- 
 ized world, and substituted science, history, and 
 political ethics for the rhetoric, theology, and 
 metaphysics of the old scholasticism. Thus 
 Protestant Christianity is pledged in its genius 
 and in its history to the defense and advance- 
 ment of universal freedom, universal knowledge, 
 and universal righteousness. 
 
 The richest, most benign results of the Ref- 
 ormation are developing in this age. As the 
 future belongs to universal knowledge and to 
 
The Reformation. 153 
 
 law-protected liberty, so does it belong to a 
 science-loving, liberty-loving. Scriptural Chris- 
 tianity. The Reformation solved the destinies 
 of nations, and shaped the course of all future 
 histories. The ages, as they come and pass, will 
 to the end of time be grateful debtors to the 
 sixteenth century, to the great events and 
 mighty men of that providential epoch of the 
 Reformation. 
 
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 
 
III. 
 
 The Discovery of America. 
 
 155 
 
III. 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 THE fifteenth century was the gateway 
 through which Europe exultingly passed 
 from the gloomy age of superstition to the 
 golden age of reason. It was splendid with 
 important events and with history-making men. 
 New life and impulse came to every department 
 of human thought and enterprise. A study of 
 the Renaissance is generally confined to a con- 
 sideration of the revival of letters or of art; 
 but in a more general survey it will appear 
 that the epoch was characterized by a uni- 
 versal quickening of humanity, by a revival of 
 intellect, and of every element in civilization 
 that finds its life and progressive impulse in 
 enlightened thought and genius. Hence art, 
 science, literature, invention, religion, commerce, 
 navigation, exploration, and discovery made glo- 
 rious an age, in comparison with which the age 
 of Augustus, Pericles, or of Solomon is histor- 
 ically insignificant. 
 
 The century stretching from 1425 to 1525 
 was adorned by many of the greatest men of 
 
 157 
 
158 Providential Epochs. 
 
 modern times. It may be doubted whether any 
 other one century of the Christian era, except 
 the first, has crowded upon its stage of impor- 
 tant historic action a greater number of first- 
 order geniuses, or a greater number of men 
 whose individual and combined power will be 
 felt by humanity forever. 
 
 Christopher Columbus was born, we know 
 not exactly when, but doubtless between 1435 
 and 1445. Authorities differ on the subject, 
 and even dated documents are confusing to the 
 patient investigators. Enough to know, Co- 
 lumbus was a child of the Renaissance, and he 
 embodied in his adventurous character its pro- 
 gressive spirit. 
 
 He stood high-browed among the tallest 
 men of modern years, that haughty-eyed, fair- 
 haired Genoese. He lived in that bright morn- 
 ing-time which saw a race of geniuses spring 
 forth to rescue science, art, and letters from 
 their long Dark- Age imprisonment, and to proph- 
 esy anew the larger liberties of men. Columbus 
 might have gazed with Copernicus into the 
 heavenly mysteries and splendors, or listened to 
 the epic-song of Ariosto; he might have heard 
 the stormy eloquence of Savonarola, watched 
 the chisel-strokes of Angelo, or seen the magic 
 
The Discovery of America. 159 
 
 pencil of the divine Raphael paint the sweet 
 immortality of his Madonnas; he might have 
 learned from Gutenberg's own lips how his 
 great brain achieved the printing-press, or have 
 seen Caxton give England its first printed 
 book; he might have smiled at the subtle wit 
 and cutting satire of Erasmus, or have bowed 
 in reverence to hear the celestial language 
 of aKempis; he might have looked into the 
 eyes of a Luther or Sir Thomas More, and held 
 converse with Vasco da Gama and Cabot, with 
 Cortez, Pizarro, and Ponce de Leon. There were 
 giants in those days. And in their midst 
 stood Columbus, if not so universal a genius as 
 Angelo, nor so profound and philosophical a 
 scholar as Erasmus, nor so zealous a religionist 
 as Luther, yet above them all he towered as the 
 greatest history-making personality of the age — 
 the man whose high and glorious destiny it was 
 to open a new world to human enterprise and a 
 new era to civilization. 
 
 A glance at the leading European nations at 
 the time when the intellectual revival reaches 
 them, will discover that in each nation it repre- 
 sents a distinct and characteristic phase. 
 
 In Italy thought turns to art, in Germany to 
 religion, in England to literature, in Spain to 
 
i6o Providential Epochs, 
 
 exploration and discovery. In Italy the ques- 
 tion is: "What new painting?" In Germany: 
 "What new theology?" In England: "What 
 new poem?" In Spain: "What new land?" As 
 a result, the very youth of a country became im- 
 bued with an ambition to excel in that which 
 was most enthusiastically applauded in their na- 
 tive land. More than this, each city had its own 
 phase of intellectual awakening, and the boys 
 caught the spirit, not only of their age, but of 
 their city. The youth of Florence and Rome 
 had the art ambition; but the youth of Venice, 
 Genoa, Palos, and Barcelona were eager to roam 
 the seas, or travel through new lands, and emu- 
 late the adventurous Marco Polo. 
 
 Columbus was born in Genoa, or in its vicin- 
 ity. The reduced circumstances of his father, 
 an obscure wool-comber, necessitated his leav- 
 ing school at an early age, though tradition 
 places him for a short time in the University of 
 Pavia. From childhood he manifested a re- 
 markable genius for mathematics, became an 
 expert penman and draughtsman, and devoted 
 himself to making maps. He came endowed 
 with as extraordinary a genius for everything per- 
 taining to navigation and exploration as Shake- 
 speare had for poetry, Mozart for music, or 
 
The Discovery of America. i6i 
 
 Angelo for art. On leaving school he took to 
 sea, and for ten years or more endured the hard- 
 ships and discipline of a common sailor. At 
 about the age of thirty he appeared in Portugal, 
 and later in Spain, ambitious to sail the seas on 
 a higher mission than that of war or piracy, in 
 which, it is claimed, he had been engaged. 
 Though Columbus was born in Italy and in the 
 maritime city of Genoa, he found that in Genoa, 
 and even in Venice, the spirit of adventure and 
 discovery was tame in comparison with the en- 
 thusiasm that filled Spain and Portugal. While 
 Italy was attracting from all nations those who 
 would be artists, Spain and Portugal had a 
 magnetic attraction for those of other lands who 
 would be adventurers, navigators, and explorers. 
 It is not a little remarkable that while the 
 greatest explorers and discoverers of that age 
 were Italians, they gave their services to other 
 countries. Vespucius gave his services to Port- 
 ugal, Cabot discovered North America for Eng- 
 land, Verrazzano was in the service of Francis I 
 of France, Columbus offered his service to John 
 of Portugal, and then to Ferdinand and Isabella 
 of Spain. 
 
 It would seem from a letter quoted by his own 
 son Ferdinand that he took to the sea at four- 
 
1 62 Providential Epochs. 
 
 teen years of age, which, if true, would preclude 
 the possibility of the Pavia University training. 
 In the year 1501 he wrote to their Catholic 
 majesties: "It is now forty years that I have 
 been sailing to all those parts at present fre- 
 quented." From this statement k may be de- 
 duced that he was born about 1446-7. Never- 
 theless there are other documentary evidences 
 which argue an earlier birth by some years. 
 The essential thing is that from earliest youth 
 this Columbus was training himself, or was 
 being trained, as it would seem providentially, 
 for the grand enterprise which brought glory 
 to his name and unmeasured blessing to man- 
 kind. 
 
 The fifteenth century finds the progressive 
 portion of civilized humanity crowding its way 
 to the western limits of Europe, to the shores 
 of the dark, mysterious, unknown Atlantic. 
 Berkeley had his eye on history and on the 
 movements of races and the readjustments 0/ 
 geographical limits from remote times when he 
 wrote : 
 
 " Westward the course of Empire takes its way." 
 
 Civilized humanity a thousand years before 
 Christ populated the banks of the Euphrates; in 
 
The Discovery of America. 163 
 
 the time of Christ it was gathered along the 
 eastern and northern shores of the Mediter- 
 ranean ; at the end of the Dark Ages it was 
 found crowding toward the Atlantic. There, in 
 the time of Columbus, we find the progressive 
 spirit standing tiptoe on the shores of Spain, 
 Portugal, England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, 
 and Scandinavia, peering with an almost pro- 
 phetic vision towards those burning sunsets which 
 seemed like the glorified portals of some new 
 and wonderful world. For three thousand his- 
 toric years Providence had been pushing hu- 
 manity toward that "continent of the future" 
 which was long the dream of the prophet and 
 inspiration of the poet, but was destined to be- 
 come the boast and pride of history's noblest 
 patriot. 
 
 A new world was a necessity. The ambi- 
 tion of man required it ; the expansion of the 
 race needed it; the growth of commerce called 
 for it ; the awakening of new thought and 
 genius demanded it ; the progress of freedom 
 and the development of science insisted upon it; 
 the advancing sweep and sway of Christian 
 ideas necessitated a new world. Never before 
 in the history of the race had there been so im- 
 perative a demand. We do not speak of the 
 
164 Providential Epochs. 
 
 ambition of an Alexander or of a Caesar, which 
 sighed for new worlds to conquer, but of the 
 legitimate needs of a growing, advancing hu- 
 manity. Never before in the history of science, 
 industry, liberty, and religion had there been 
 such an imperative moral and intellectual de- 
 mand for a great, new, virgin world. The sal- 
 vation of the race seemed to depend upon its 
 discovery. There had been a self-destruction of 
 race and nationalities ; there had been universal 
 bankruptcy ; there had been a stagnation of 
 civilization ; there had been a repetition of the 
 Dark Ages, without the discovery of a new 
 world. The old world was indeed old ; in many 
 cases its very soils were worn out, its resources 
 exhausted, and its peoples beggared. There 
 proved also to be in the hearts of men a will- 
 ingness and eagerness to seek the wider field 
 and greater opportunity. Moreover, conscience, 
 reason, and conviction, the manhood of the race, 
 were becoming restless under the yoke of polit- 
 ical and theological despotism. Democracy was 
 in the air, whether men called it by that name or 
 not. Liberty, political and religious liberty, was 
 instilling itself into the hearts of the people and 
 insisting upon an exodus out of the Egypt of the 
 old into the Caanan of a new order of things, 
 
The Discovery of America. 165 
 
 which new order of things called for a new 
 world. 
 
 There were hints coming to the scientific and 
 adventurous to the effect that other worlds ex- 
 isted. They had come down from the ancients. 
 Scholars thought they found more than fiction in 
 Plato's Atlantis ; and Solon seemed to entertain 
 notions of other worlds, which he had learned 
 from the Egyptians. 
 
 In the "Timseus" of Plato we have the fol- 
 lowing narrative from Critias, told to Socrates : 
 
 "Many great and wonderful deeds are re- 
 corded of your State in our histories. But one of 
 them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valor; 
 for these histories tell of a mighty power 
 which, unprovoked, made an expedition against 
 the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your 
 city put an end. This power came forth out of 
 the Atlantic Ocean ; for in those days the Atlan- 
 tic was navigable, and there was an island situ- 
 ated in front of the straits which are by you 
 called the Pillars of Hercules ; the island was 
 larger than Libya and Asia put together, and 
 was the way to other islands, and from those 
 you might pass to the whole of the opposite 
 continent, which surrounded the true ocean ; for 
 this sea, which is within the straits of Hercules, 
 
1 66 Providential Epochs. 
 
 is only a harbor, having a narrow entrance ; but 
 that other is a real sea, and the surrounding 
 land may be most truly called a boundless conti- 
 nent. Now, in this island of Atlantis there 
 was a great and wonderful empire, which had 
 rule over the whole island and several others, 
 and over parts of the continent ; and, further- 
 more, the men of Atlantis had subjected the 
 parts of Libya within the columns of Hercules 
 as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhe- 
 nia. This vast power, gathered into one, en- 
 deavored to subdue at a blow our country and 
 yours, and the whole of the region within the 
 straits ; and then your country shone forth in 
 the excellence of her virtue and strength among 
 all mankind. She was pre-eminent in courage 
 and military skill, and was the leader of the 
 Hellenes. And when the rest fell off from her, 
 being compelled to stand alone, after having 
 undergone the very extremity of danger, she de- 
 feated and triumphed over the invaders, and 
 preserved from slavery those who were not yet 
 subjugated, and generously liberated all the rest 
 of us who dwell within the Pillars. But afterward 
 there occurred violent earthquakes and floods, 
 and in a single day and night of misfortune all 
 your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, 
 
The Discovery of America. 167 
 
 and the Island of Alantis in like manner disap- 
 peared in the depths of the sea. For which 
 reason the sea in those parts is impassable and 
 impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in 
 the way; and this was caused by the subsidence 
 of the island. I have told you briefly, Socrates, 
 what the aged Critias heard from Solon and re- 
 lated to us." 
 
 Professor Jowett, from whose translation this 
 story is extracted, admits that this "may have 
 contributed indirectly to the discovery of Amer- 
 ica." 
 
 According to Strabo, the geographer of the 
 Augustan Age, Eratosthenes argued that if the 
 earth was spheroidal, it was inhabited in all 
 parts. There could be very little, if any doubt 
 as to the meaning of Seneca, who wrote fifteen 
 centuries before the time of Columbus: 
 
 " In after years shall ages come 
 When the ocean shall unloose the bands 
 Of things, and show vast, ample lands ; 
 New worlds by seamen shall be found, 
 Nor Thule be the utmost bound." 
 
 Lord Bacon called this a prophecy of the dis- 
 covery of America. The songs of the early Ital- 
 ian poets contain thought visions of new worlds. 
 Petrarch, writing there one hundred and fifty 
 
i68 Providential Epochs. 
 
 years before Columbus sailed into the West, 
 sang of 
 
 " The daylight hastening with winged steps 
 Perchance to gladden the expectant eyes 
 Of far-ofT nations in a world remote." 
 
 Pulci, a favorite with Lorenzo de' Medici, and 
 one of the most brilliant minds that adorned the 
 Renaissance, wrote, even before the wondrous 
 dream had charmed the imagination of Columbus, 
 in strains like these: 
 
 " Men shall descry another hemisphere, 
 Since to one common center all things tend ; 
 So earth, by curious mystery divine 
 Well balanced, hangs amid the starry spheres. 
 At our Antipodes are cities, States, 
 And thronged empires, ne'er divined of yore. 
 But, see, the sun speeds on his western path 
 To glad the nations with expected light." 
 
 It would seem from the statements of Ferdi- 
 nand Columbus, that his father had carefully 
 studied the theories of Ptolemy, Marcius, Strabo, 
 Pliny, Seneca, and Aristotle, while undoubtedly, 
 in an age of Platonic revival, he must have been 
 as familiar with the story of Atlantis, as with 
 the verses of Pulci and of Petrarch. But doubt- 
 less the cosmographer and explorer had greater 
 influence in stimulating the spirit of discovery, 
 than the poet and philosopher. Two great 
 
The Discovery of America. 169 
 
 thoughts had taken possession of the most ad- 
 vanced minds ; namely, " India," and " the possi- 
 bility of reaching it by sailing west." Marco 
 Polo, two centuries before, had traveled through 
 India and China, and had brought back such 
 material evidences and such glowing descrip- 
 tions of Eastern wealth and splendor, that 
 Europe was amazed and filled with ambition to 
 open up commercial communication with lands 
 opiilent in spices, pearls, and gold. The won- 
 derful stories of Marco Polo were discussed by 
 the learned, and told with added embellishments 
 at the humblest firesides. 
 
 The great traveler had described Lochac, 
 Karazen, Thebeth, Ripangu, and Java, where 
 " gold is abundant to a degree scarcely credible;" 
 where "in the river is found gold-dust in very 
 large quantities;" where "gold is found in the 
 rivers in small particles and in lumps, and there are 
 veins of it in the mountains;" where " they have 
 gold in greatest abundance, its source being in- 
 exhaustible;" where "it is impossible to estimate 
 the value of the gold and other articles found;" 
 and where " the quantity of gold collected ex- 
 ceeds all calculations and belief." With the 
 same extravagance Marco Polo had told of coun- 
 tries where "are found abundance of pearls; so 
 
170 Providential Epochs. 
 
 great indeed is the quantity, that if his majesty 
 permitted every individual to search for them, 
 their vahie would become trifling;" where "are 
 pearls in large quantities of a pink color, round 
 in shape, and of great size;" where "in the 
 mountains diamonds are found. During the 
 rainy season the water descends in violent tor- 
 rents amongst the rocks and caverns, and when 
 these have subsided, the people go to search for 
 diamonds in the beds of the rivers, where the)' 
 find many." The famous traveler further de- 
 scribed countries where "more beautiful and 
 valuable rubies are found than in any other part 
 of the world, and likewise sapphires, topazes, 
 amethysts, garnets, and man\- other precious and 
 costly stones. The king is reported to possess 
 the grandest ruby that e\er was seen, being a 
 span in length, and the thickness of a man's 
 arm, brilliant beyond description, and without a 
 single flaw. It has the appearance of a glowing 
 fire, and upon the whole is .so valuable that no 
 estimation can be made of its worth in money ;" 
 where " the sovereign's palace is of extraordinary 
 richness. The entire roof is covered with a 
 plating of gold, in the same manner as we cover 
 our houses, or more properly churches, with lead. 
 The ceilings of the halls are of the same precious 
 
The Discovery of America. 171 
 
 metal ; many of the apartments have small tables 
 of pure gold considerably thick, and the windows 
 have golden ornaments. So vast, indeed, are the 
 riches of the palace, that it is impossible to con- 
 vey an idea of them." 
 
 The youth of that age fed on these mar\'elous 
 descriptions of Oriental glory until their imagi- 
 nations were inflamed. Columbus was inspired 
 bv the oft-recited adventures of INIarco Polo, as 
 was Vasco da Gama later on. And now, as Polo 
 had found this rich and golden country, and the 
 Portuguese were contemplating seeking it anew 
 by way of Good Hope, Columbus, in his splendid 
 ambition, would find India by sailing west. With 
 him the two great thoughts were, *' India " and 
 "the sphericity of the earth." The "golden 
 land " was never absent from his waking thoughts, 
 nor from his pleasant dreams. That the earth 
 was round, to his mind, was scientifically settled, 
 and that the circumnavigation of the globe was 
 possible, he did not question. Hence India could 
 be reached by sailing west, and more quickly, he 
 imagined, than overland, or by way of Good 
 Hope. 
 
 Columbus is not to be credited with original- 
 ity in his glowing notions of India, nor in his be- 
 lief in the sphericity of the earth, nor in his con- 
 
172 Providential Epochs. 
 
 viction that India could be reached by sailing 
 west. The glories of India had come from the 
 imagination of Marco Polo. The doctrine that 
 the earth was round had come from the philoso- 
 phy of many. It may be traced back to Pliny 
 and Strabo ; back to Crates, Hipparchus, and 
 Eratosthenes ; back to Aristotle and Plato ; yes 
 back to the beginning of science and philosophy. 
 
 PHny, born 23 A. D., says of the earth: 
 " Every one agrees that it has the most perfect 
 figure. We always speak of the ball of the 
 earth, and we admit it to be a globe bounded by 
 the poles. It has not, indeed, the form of an abso- 
 lute sphere from the number of lofty moimtains 
 and flat plains ; but, if the termination of the lines 
 be bounded by a curve, this would compose a per- 
 fect sphere." 
 
 Strabo, born about 62 B. C, writes : " We 
 have now been tracing upon a spherical surface 
 the region which we state to be occupied by the 
 habitable earth, and whoever would represent 
 the real earth as near as possible by artificial 
 means, should make a globe like that of Crates, 
 and upon this describe the quadrilateral within 
 which his chart of geography is to be placed." 
 Eratosthenes lived about 275 B. C, and was the 
 first to give a scientific estimate of the earth's 
 
The Discovery of America. 173 
 
 dimensions. Strabo says : " Eratosthenes goes 
 into a description of the figure of the earth 
 He proceeds to tell us that the earth is spher- 
 ical," etc. 
 
 Plato, born 427 B. C, puts these words into 
 a discussion in his " Phaedo :" " My conviction is, 
 that the earth is a round body in the center of 
 the heavens." In " Timceus " he says : " And he 
 [the Creator] gave to the world the figure which 
 was suitable and also natural. . . . Where- 
 fore he made the world in the form of a globe, 
 round as from a lathe, having its extremes in 
 every direction equidistant from the center." 
 
 But we shall have to seek a more remote origin 
 for the theory of the earth's sphericity. The 
 Pythagoreans, a century before Plato's time, if not 
 the Phenician geographers and Egyptian astrono- 
 mers antedating Moses, had mathematical reasons 
 for believing the earth was spherical in figure. 
 Whatever may have been the vulgar notion of 
 the ignorant people and bigoted priests, the 
 scholarship of the world had not lost faith in that 
 doctrine from the days of the first mathemati- 
 cians to the days of Columbus. 
 
 Even the circumnavigation of the globe had 
 been attempted long before. Strabo writes : 
 " Those who have returned from an attempt to 
 
174 Providential Epochs. 
 
 circumnavigate the earth, do not say they 
 have been prevented from continuing their voy- 
 age by any opposing continent — for the sea re- 
 mained perfectly open — but through want of res- 
 olution and the scarcity of provision." Again 
 Strabo says : " If the extent of the Atlantic 
 Ocean were not an obstacle, we might easily 
 pass from Iberia to India." As to whether there 
 were other habitable portions of the earth, the 
 same author says: " It is quite possible that in 
 the temperate zone there may be two, or even 
 more, habitable earths, especially near the circle 
 of latitude which is drawn through Athens and 
 the Atlantic Ocean." But even more clearly 
 does the ancient geographer express himself 
 when he writes : "It belongs to another science 
 to give an exact description of the whole earth, 
 and of the vertebra of either zone, and as to 
 whether the vertebra in the opposite quarter of 
 the earth is inhabitable. That such is the case 
 is most probable, yet not that it is inhabited by 
 the same race of men that dwell with us. And 
 it must therefore be regarded as another habit- 
 able earth." 
 
 The revival of letters brought from their long 
 obscuritv these theories of the ancient geog- 
 
The Discovery of America. 175 
 
 raphers, with which Columbus became famiHar 
 and by which he was inspired. 
 
 At this time no science was developing more 
 rapidly than cosmography, the science of the 
 description of the world. Toscanelli, of Flor- 
 ence, was at the head of this important branch 
 of science, and, knowing nothing of a continent 
 intervening between Western Europe and East- 
 ern Asia, he prepared a map, representing a 
 spherical earth with China, India, and the Isl- 
 ands, and other countries described by Marco 
 Polo, lying west of Europe at a distance of about 
 three thousand miles. Little did he dream that 
 at just about that distance existed a new world, 
 and that India was three times as far away. 
 While the sphericity of the earth was believed 
 in, its size was greatU' underestimated, hence 
 Toscanelli's supposition that India was but three 
 thousand miles west. Influenced very largeh' 
 by the map and by personal conference with 
 Toscanelli, Columbus determined to seek India 
 by a western route. It is also claimed that while 
 visiting Scandinavia and Iceland, Columbus ob- 
 tained some knowledge of Icelandic sagas which 
 contained vague intimations that a country far 
 off to the southwest of Iceland, called Winland 
 
176 Providential Epochs. 
 
 or Vinland, had been discovered by the North- 
 men, centuries before. There seems to be au- 
 thentic evidence that Columbus visited Iceland 
 about the year 1477. In Ferdinand's biography 
 of his father this memorandum is quoted : "In 
 February, 1477, I sailed one hundred leagues 
 beyond Thule, Iceland." 
 
 He was then full of his project, and doubtless 
 made inquiries of the people who were in com- 
 munication with the Greenlanders still farther 
 west as to the history of any earlier westward 
 explorations. It can not be supposed that the 
 old tradition of Lief Ericson's discovery of Vin- 
 land was still fresh in the common Icelandic 
 mind ; it was doubtless buried in the old and 
 musty manuscripts, and forgotten by the people, 
 if it had ever been one of the popular traditions. 
 Recent investigations have brought this old tra- 
 dition into considerable prominence and given it 
 the semblance of historic credibility. 
 
 It is very evident that Columbus sought and 
 made use of all the information obtainable, and 
 that he ran down ever}- report, tradition, theory, 
 even myth, that promised to give him light and 
 encouragement. 
 
 • Herrera, the Spanish historian, tells us "many 
 things concurred to encourage Columbus to that 
 
The Discovery of America. i-j-j 
 
 mighty enterprise, among which was tTiat of dis- 
 coursing with those who used to sail westward." 
 Martin Vicente assured him that, being once four 
 hundred and fifty leagues to the westward of 
 Cape St. Vincent, he took up a piece of wood, 
 artificially wrought, and as supposed, not with' 
 iron ; whence the wand having been many days 
 at west, he inferred that the piece of wood must 
 come from some island. Peter Correa, who had 
 married Columbus's wife's sister, assured him 
 that in the island of Puerto Santo, he had seen 
 another piece of wood, brought by the same 
 winds, and wrought after that manner ; as also 
 canes of such a thickness, that every joint would 
 contain above a gallon of liquor. Columbus 
 himself said he had heard the King of Portugal 
 affirm the same in discourse upon such affairs, 
 and that he had those canes, which he ordered 
 to be shown him, and he concluded to have 
 been driven by the wind ; wherein he was con- 
 firmed by Ptolemy, who, in his first book and 
 seventeenth chapter of his Cosmography, says: 
 "There are such canes in India." 
 
 The historian again affirms that some inhab- 
 itants of the Islands Azores further assured him 
 (Columbus) that when the wind blew hard at 
 west and northwest, the sea threw up pine-trees 
 
178 Providential Epochs. 
 
 on the east coast of the islands of Graciosa and 
 Fayal, whereas those islands prodiice none of 
 that sort. The sea also cast np two dead bodies 
 on the island Flores, whose faces seemed to be 
 very broad, and their features different from the 
 'Christians. Much more information of like char- 
 acter was obtained by Columbus, all of which 
 confirmed him in his belief and purpose. 
 
 Certain writers have sought to disparage the 
 achievements of Columbus by endeavoring to 
 show that the Northmen had found America five 
 hundred years before the illustrious Genoese, and 
 that he obtained the knowledge which inspired 
 his voyage of discovery from the semi-theological 
 literature of the Scandinavians. Be this as it 
 may — for the discussions of these points have not 
 reached, nor are they likely to reach, an end for 
 some time to come — certain it is that the more 
 profoundly Columbus studied the matter, and the 
 wider his observations and investigations ex- 
 tended, the warmer became his enthusiasm — an 
 enthusiasm little short of monomania, if not akin 
 to inspiration. 
 
 Attempts to belittle the achievements of Co- 
 lumbus on the ground that he worked on the in- 
 formation which he had secured from others, are 
 puerile, if not contemptible. Did ever general 
 
The Discovery of America. 179 
 
 win a great victory, statesman write a great law, 
 artist paint a great picture, astronomer make a 
 great discovery without the aid of information 
 obtained from the work of predecessors ? Were 
 even Julius Csesar, iVlfred the Great, Raphael, 
 Galileo, Shakespeare, Washington, so great and 
 original as not to have been indebted to those 
 who had preceded them, and to those who aided 
 the development of their power ? One element 
 of greatness which asserted itself in Columbus was 
 the remarkable ability or genius which he pos- 
 sessed for gathering up the facts, theories, and 
 reports which were afloat, and making such use 
 of them as no other man of his age had the wit 
 to do. He was a profound student of the subject 
 which had become the controlling force of his 
 life. He scientifically collected all obtainable 
 data, reasoning from those data with the mas- 
 tery of a logician. He knew all that was then 
 knowable on the subjects of navigation, explora- 
 tion, and cosmography. And he put his faith, 
 courage, and purpose sublime to the noble task 
 of working out of his theories, information, and 
 almost prophetic instincts, a grand practical result. 
 Herein we see the workings of a master mind. 
 The very arguments used by the enemies of his 
 renown to disparage his greatness and belittle his 
 
i8o Providential Epochs. 
 
 achievements, must only confirm the unprejudiced 
 student in his admiration for the power, ability, 
 and genius of Columbus. 
 
 Against all these unreasonable charges, and 
 the spirit which manifestly inspires them, set the 
 frank acknowledgment of Columbus himself in 
 which he claims to have gathered his information 
 from many sources. He writes : "I have dealt 
 and conversed with wise people, as well clergy 
 as laity — Latins, Greeks, Indians, and Moors, 
 and many other of other sects ; and our Lord has 
 been favorable to this my inclination, and I have 
 received of him the spirit of understanding. He 
 has made me very skillful in navigation, know- 
 ing enough in astrology, and so in geometry and 
 arithmetic. God has given me a genius and 
 hands apt to draw this globe, and on it the cities, 
 rivers, islands, and ports, all in their proper 
 places. During this time [forty years of study] I 
 have seen, and endeavored to see, all books of 
 cosmography, history, and philosophy, and of 
 other sciences ; so that our Lord has sensibly 
 opened my understanding to the end I may sail 
 from hence to the Indies, and made me most 
 willing to put this in execution." In all this 
 acknowledgment of a providential guidance 
 there is neither boasting nor fanaticism. He 
 
The Discovery of America. i8i 
 
 does not claim any miracnlous endowment, but 
 simply that God has bestowed upon him the 
 genius of an explorer, and has opened the way 
 for him to acquire the education, experience, and 
 information necessary to the accomplishment of 
 this great undertaking. He does not claim to 
 have evolved all he knows about navigation and 
 the existence of western worlds from his internal 
 consciousness, nor from any special supernatural 
 enlightenment, except as a providential leading 
 may be so regarded. Again, we say his original- 
 ity — the originality of which we and all ages to 
 come will be the beneficiaries — was in his use of 
 the information which he had patience and the 
 genius to accumulate in his own brain, the cour- 
 ageous, skillful application of the theories of ages 
 and of the cosmographical science of his own 
 time. 
 
 In those days every great enterprise depended 
 on the favor of princes and the patronage of 
 kings. In Florence the revival of art is con- 
 ditioned on the patronage of Lorenzo the Mag- 
 nificent ; in Germany the Reformation depends 
 upon the favor of the princes of the Empire; 
 later on, in England, the progress of letters will 
 be sustained and encoiiraged by the sympathy of 
 Elizabeth and James. In Spain, Columbus will 
 
1 82 Providential Epochs. 
 
 be found soliciting the patronage of Ferdinand 
 and Isabella. He had sought in vain to kindle a 
 sincere enthusiasm in the mind of John of Por- 
 tugal, and he went with little encouragement to 
 the court of Spain. It was the old, old story, 
 and the new, new story — the struggle of genius 
 and reason against prejudice and superstition, 
 the opposition of an ignorant conservatism to the 
 enterprise of science and progress. Columbus 
 stood up to be laughed at as one of the vision- 
 aries who come to disturb the repose of the 
 world's serene stupidity. Navigators laughed, 
 financiers laughed, princes laughed, and kings 
 laughed. O these men that have been laughed 
 at, how great they are to-day, how great they will 
 ever be ! Galileo laughed at ! Palissy laughed 
 at ! Watt, Stephenson, and Fulton laughed at ! 
 Harvey laughed at ! Jenner laughed at ! Frank- 
 lin, Morse, Field laughed at ' Columbus laughed 
 at ! To have been universally laughed at were 
 almost enough glory for any reformer or for any 
 genius. In that laughter is often the prophecy 
 of the immortal applause. 
 
 But after the learned theologians, learned 
 travelers, learned purse-holders, and other learned 
 fools of Spain had w^orn out the patience of the 
 proud and thoughtful Columbus, and he was 
 
The Discovery of America. 183 
 
 about to shake the dust of Spain from his feet, 
 and seek the more progressive and generous- 
 minded England, where reigned a Henry VII, 
 one arose to call him back, to befriend his cause, 
 and to support his ambitious purpose with power. 
 That one was Isabella, who said, in her high en- 
 thusiasm: "I will pledge my jewels to raise the 
 money needed." Whether the impulsive Isabella 
 had already pledged those same jewels to sup- 
 port the war against the Turks or not, whether 
 she ever made just that verbal promise or not, 
 certain it is, and no quibble over "oft-pawned 
 jewels" can set the fact aside or tarnish the true 
 glory of it, Isabella's patronage brought financial 
 support to the enterprise of Columbus, and by 
 the progressive spirit, by the intelligence, far- 
 sightedness, and generosity of a woman, was the 
 discovery of America made possible. The Pin- 
 sons were doubtless led to support the enterprise 
 with their wealth and services by the friendliness 
 of Isabella ; yet little could that distinguished 
 woman have known that she was contributing to 
 the increase of woman's power, influence, and 
 honor for all coming time by patronizing the 
 great New-World discoverer. Little could she 
 have imagined that through her favor a land 
 would be discovered where, in time, there would 
 
1 84 Providential Epochs. 
 
 appear the freest, most progressive, influential, 
 and intelligent womanhood that had ever adorned 
 the history of the race. There is much of justice 
 and philosophy in Lamartine's well-known words : 
 "There is a woman at the beginning of all great 
 things." There was a woman at the beginning 
 of the discovery of America. If we accept the 
 story of the Scandinavian discovery, we must ac- 
 cept with it the pleasant tradition that the first 
 victory won on this continent by European arms 
 was achieved through the bravery of a woman, 
 who rebuked the cowardice of her countrymen 
 as they fled before the Screelings, or Indians, 
 and, grasping the spear of her fallen husband, 
 turned upon the savages, rekindled the courage 
 of the Norsemen, and led them to a final victory. 
 It is also a tradition, which we are prone to ac- 
 cept as history, that a woman first set foot upon 
 Plymouth Rock. And, further, if Pocahontas 
 saved the life of Captain John Smith, she saved 
 the entire English colony from annihilation, and 
 thus saved to Virginia a rich and eloquent blood. 
 All these traditions have an added interest as 
 they cluster around the historic fact that Isabella 
 pledged the crown of Castile to the support of 
 the Columbian expedition. And this great white 
 fact somewhat relieves the name of Isabella of 
 
The Discovery of America. 185 
 
 the dark, forbidding colors in which the just his- 
 torian has been compelled to paint it. Hated 
 though that name may be by Protestant Chris- 
 tianity and by the Jewish race, let detestation 
 ever give way to admiration when the mind re- 
 calls the fact that Isabella took a noble part in 
 the finding of this New World. 
 
 Columbus was constituted high admiral in all 
 the seas, islands, and continents which should be 
 discovered ; and to Columbus and his heirs was 
 granted a tenth of the profits of the productions 
 and commerce of the countries which he should 
 discover. 
 
 On the evening of August 2, 1492, ever}^ 
 preparation was completed. Three caravels — 
 the Nina., the Pinta.^ and the Santa Maria — rode 
 at anchor in the harbor of Palos. There were 
 assembled about a hundred followers of Colum- 
 bus eager for the voyage. Columbus had thought, 
 studied, toiled, and prayed for twenty years to 
 organize his expedition of discovery. He had 
 grown prematurely gray and old with anxieties 
 and sufferings. He had been rebuffed, insulted, 
 ridiculed, beggared, but never conquered. Those 
 years of preparation showed the metal of the 
 man, and doubtless gave him just the stern dis- 
 cipline which was necessary in the final effort 
 
 13 
 
1 86 Providential Epochs. 
 
 and issue of the bold and great-minded enter- 
 prise. Difficulties which would have conquered 
 and crushed a weaker man, only developed and 
 gave discipline to the characteristic energies of 
 this master-mind. 
 
 Here is the history of the triumph of a great 
 idea, and it reveals the character of a great 
 thinker. Is it not so with all who shape our 
 destiny for the brighter age? He had a great 
 idea, that Paul, who gloried in nothing but the 
 cross of Christ, and thereby revolutionized re- 
 ligion, and grave the throne of the Csesars to the 
 Nazarene. He had a great idea, that Gutenberg, 
 who gave the world the printing-press, and revo- 
 lutionized learning and literature. He had a 
 great idea, that Galileo, who invented the tele- 
 scope, and revolutionized the science of astron- 
 omy. He had a great idea, that Franklin, Watt, 
 Edison, who harnessed the steam and the light- 
 ning, and revolutionized commerce, industry, 
 and manufacturing. He had a great idea, that 
 Columbus — with it he conquered all opposing 
 difficulties; with it he conquered priests, schol- 
 ars, financiers, and kings; with it he conquered 
 hunger, ridicule, ignorance, jealousy; with it he 
 conquered winds and waves and stars, and revo- 
 lutionized civilization. It was a magnificent 
 
The Discovery of America. 187 
 
 struggle. There proudly stood "one faith 
 against a whole earth's unbelief;" one great 
 idea against the whole earth's ignorance; one 
 purpose bold against a whole earth's cowardice. 
 How grand the victor and the victory! 
 
 That last evening in Spain was spent by the 
 rough and adventurous sailors in religious devo- 
 tion ; for that entire band, headed by the tall, light- 
 haired, gray-eyed, dignified, and serious Colum- 
 bus, marched to the sanctuary of worship, took 
 the holy sacrament, and supplicated the Divine 
 blessing upon the expedition. 
 
 Of the religious sincerity of Columbus there 
 can be no reasonable question. But certain de- 
 tractors from the great discoverer's well-earned 
 fame have seen in his religious professions and 
 fervor only the basest hypocrisy. His claims to 
 Divine guidance, to providential protection, to 
 spiritual and Scriptural enlightenment, in this 
 great undertaking, have met with the jeers and 
 ridicule of men who are not able to excuse the 
 harmless superstitions of that age, much less to 
 appreciate the lofty spirit, noble purpose, and ex- 
 traordinary genius of such a man as Columbus. 
 Every libel started by his envious rivals has been 
 perpetuated, and almost magnified into history. 
 Every fable hatched in the brain of jealousy has 
 
1 88 Providential Epochs. 
 
 been kept alive, to diminish, if possible, the glory 
 of his discovery. His every act of naval or mili- 
 tary discipline has been distorted into a cruelty 
 or a crime. But an age like this, which is called 
 on to witness an attack upon Shakespeare's 
 splendid fame, a disparagement of his genius, 
 and a brazen denial of his literary identity, will 
 not be surprised nor misled by those curiosities 
 of literature, or rather those monstrosities of lit- 
 erature, which assume the form of illogical, un- 
 historical, and sensational attacks upon the char- 
 acter and achievements of Columbus. It is no 
 more just and reasonable to demand a nine- 
 teenth-century conscience and enlightenment of 
 Columbus than it is to demand them of Marco 
 Polo, Dante, Raphael, Bacon, Shakespeare, or 
 any other great genius of the distant past. Some 
 critics insist upon measuring a Stanley in Dark- 
 est Africa, a Napoleon or a Grant on the field of 
 war, and a Columbus in his rough, dangerous 
 voyages of discovery, by the nice standard that 
 controls the deportment of a female seminary 
 president, or the polite floor-walker of a millinery 
 establishment. 
 
 Columbus was not entirely free from the su- 
 perstitions of his age. He was not wholly su- 
 perior to all the roughening influences of adven- 
 
The Discovery of America. 189 
 
 ture and of a seafaring life. He may have been 
 endowed with an austere temper, with the un- 
 yielding spirit of leadership, with an iinconquer- 
 able will, with a glowing imagination, with a 
 courage that never yielded to a threat nor faltered 
 in the presence of danger; but could he have 
 been a world-discovering Columbus without these 
 masculine qualities? Yet, with all his haughti- 
 ness of spirit, and with all his dauntless courage 
 and perseverance, Columbus trusted in a ruling 
 and overruling Providence, as all the greatest 
 history-makers have done. It takes the minor 
 poets and the minimum philosophers to deny a 
 Providence ; but the epic-singers of the ages, the 
 continent-explorers, the world-discoverers, the 
 planet-finders, the nation-builders, and the nation- 
 defenders recognize the existence of a Supreme 
 Providence. Columbus believed, in the inner 
 heart of himself, that he was an instrument in 
 God's hands for the accomplishment of some 
 vast human benefit. 
 
 That solemn service of sacrament and prayer, 
 in the humble monastery of Palos, was as devout 
 and sincere as were ever sacrament and prayer. 
 
 Here is a providential man, leading the world 
 to a new providential epoch. Was he a saint, as 
 Roselly de Lorgues would have us believe? Nc 
 
I90 Providential Epochs. 
 
 certainly not. Nor was he a villain, as other ex- 
 tremists would have us think. When we con- 
 sider the moral lapses of even Noah, Abraham, 
 Jacob, Moses, David, and Solomon of sacred his- 
 tory, it is not necessary for us to believe a man 
 must be a faultless saint to be a providential 
 man, used by Divine Wisdom for providential 
 history. 
 
 When it is remembered that the very proph- 
 ecies of the Bible inspired Columbus to seek 
 new worlds, that he had a desire to spread the 
 gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth, that 
 this expedition of discovery was begun in prayer, 
 that he was so strict in his observance of the 
 Sabbath that he would never sail from port on 
 that holy day, that he insisted upon the worship 
 of God as one of the duties of the ship's com- 
 pany; and when it is remembered that, after a 
 voyage of seventy days on an unknown sea, the 
 sight of the New World was greeted by the ex- 
 ultant sailors with the "Te Deum," started on 
 one ship, caught up by the second and the third, 
 iintil, across the waves and beating against the 
 new-found shores, rolled that magnificent thanks- 
 giving to God; and when it is remembered that, 
 in the midst of the astounded multitude of sav- 
 age spectators, Columbus with his followers 
 
The Discovery of America. 191 
 
 sprang upon the New World, planted the cross, 
 and knelt in prayer; and when the history of 
 America is remembered, from that great hour to 
 this, — the Christian thinker sees in it all the 
 hand of God, leading a devout genius to the ex- 
 ecution of a divine plan, and furnishing the 
 faith and reason of the race with another proof 
 that — whether it be said of men or nations, of 
 events or civilization — 
 
 " There 's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Roui^h-hew them how we will." 
 
 We do not stop to describe again the romance 
 and poetry of that voyage of discovery. How 
 the waves through all that long voyage made 
 music on the keels of those venturesome ships; 
 how favoring winds petted the sails, and the 
 cloudless skies smiled their hope and courage ; 
 how the hearts of the sailors rose and fell, and 
 rose again, alternately controlled by hope and 
 fear, courage and cowardice, triumph and de- 
 spair ; how the determined Columbus, with art 
 and artifice, promise and threat, austere silence 
 and magnetic eloquence, preserved discipline, 
 and kept the prows of the noble ships westward, 
 until they anchored in sight of the verdant splen- 
 dors of San Salvador, — must all be left to the 
 
192 Providential Epochs. 
 
 orator and poet. Enough for us to consider that 
 on the Friday morning of October 12th, the cry 
 " land," the boom of cannon, and the singing of 
 the "Te Deum" celebrated the discovery of a 
 New World, the beginning of a new history. 
 This, as Charles Sumner declared it to be, was 
 " the greatest event of secular history." No 
 event of modern times has proved to be of greater 
 significance to the race than the opening of the 
 long-locked gates of this magnificent Western 
 Continent. One need not underestimate the im- 
 portance of the moment when Alexander the 
 Great hurled his javelin against the eastern bank 
 of the Hellespont, and sprang full-armored to 
 the shore to make the conquest of Asia ; nor of 
 the historic moment when Caesar's standard- 
 bearer leaped from the ship, and rushed through 
 the waters to plant the Roman eagles on the 
 shores of Britain; nor of that dramatic instant 
 when William the Conqueror stumbled out upon 
 the shores of England, grasped the sand from 
 the beach, and cried: "I have taken seizure of 
 this land!" One need underestimate the historic 
 meaning of none of these great events, when he 
 believes the supreme moment of secular history 
 was when the dauntless sailor of Genoa sprang 
 
The Discovery of America. 193 
 
 from his storm-beaten ship, and kissed the virgin 
 soil of this great New World. 
 
 Columbus, with all his dreams, with all his 
 golden visions of imagination, never understood 
 the real significance of his discovery. He had 
 found India, as he supposed, and to the end of 
 his life it never dawned upon his noble spirit 
 that he had found a greater than India, a land 
 compared with which the pearl-shored, gold- 
 strewn Orient was infinitesimally insignificant, a 
 land whose resources and glorious destiny the 
 rich and opulent imagination of a Marco Polo 
 would not seriously attempt to picture. 
 
 It would have been far better for his peace of 
 mind had Columbus found India, and succeeded 
 in bringing its riches of gold, spices, and pre- 
 cious stones into Spain. The discoverer labored 
 under the false impression that he had found In- 
 dia. Assuming that the lands described by 
 Marco Polo had been reached by sailing west, he 
 made those promises to his followers, and to his 
 sovereigns which brought him his misfortunes. 
 To fulfill his promise he was pushed to a zealous 
 search and inquiry for gold. Modern critics of a 
 certain school have based on that fact the accusa- 
 tion that Columbus was a man of inordinate 
 
194 Providential Epochs. 
 
 greed, whose god was gold, and whose ambition 
 was low and sordid, rather than snch as animates 
 a lofty mind and a trne benefactor of mankind. 
 But the genuine critical spirit sees in Columbus, 
 at this stage of his career, the victim of the sor- 
 didness of his age. It was the greed of Spain, not 
 of Columbus, that forced from the discoverer and 
 his followers the ceaseless cry, "Gold, gold, gold!" 
 It was Spain's greed that later on in her too will- 
 ing servants, Cortez and Pizarro, despoiled the 
 Montezumas of Mexico and the Incas of Peru of 
 their barbaric wealth, and ruined ancient civili- 
 zation to enrich the treasuries of Leon and 
 Castile. 
 
 This constant demand for gold which Colum- 
 bus promised to meet, and was cursed for not 
 meeting, broke his heart. The high-minded 
 man, who had toiled from youth to advancing 
 age in the solution of a great problem, who had 
 mastered the science of his time, and had put it 
 to the grandest practical experiment that had as 
 yet been undertaken in the history of this world, 
 is forced at last to become a mere gold-hunter, 
 the slave and victim of a greed that controlled his 
 sovereigns, his country, and his age. It was the 
 demand for the pecuniary profit of his voyages 
 and discoveries that led to the introduction of 
 
The Discovery of America. 195 
 
 slavery, and to the exportation of Indians for that 
 inhuman object. 
 
 It is not agreeable for us to think of the great 
 discoverer as the first to introduce slavery upon 
 the New World ; nevertheless, even the most 
 prejudiced anti-Columbian, if he have any infor- 
 mation on the subject of the history of slavery, 
 will not presume to deny that it was already a 
 European institution, sanctioned by the Church 
 and the State at the time. Columbus was 
 not the author of the inhuman and unchris- 
 tian institution, and why should it be expected 
 of him, a man of adventure and exploits, that 
 he should be more enlightened on this subject 
 than the statesmen, priests, and people of Spain, 
 and even England, were ? Why should he in the 
 fifteenth century be more enlightened on the sub- 
 ject of slavery than Jefferson was when he signed 
 the Declaration of Independence, or than George 
 Washington was when he became President of 
 the United States, three hundred years after the 
 discovery of America? Columbus introduced 
 European civilization to the New World. Slav- 
 ery, alas ! was an institution in that civilization. 
 The only argument that we make, if any need 
 be made in extenuation of the slavery-introduc- 
 ing record of Columbus, is simply this, that the 
 
196 Providential Epochs. 
 
 sins of an age, the crimes of nations, the faults 
 of a civilization, should not be heaped upon the 
 shoulders of a single individual who may not 
 have been able to rise above all the common in- 
 humanities of his day ; otherwise, upon a Wash- 
 ington must rest the slaveholding crime of Amer- 
 ica from 1776 to 1865, for "the great Virginian 
 held slaves." It certainly would have been mar- 
 velous had Christopher Columbus of the fifteenth 
 century possessed all the light that filled the 
 soul of Abraham Lincoln, the emancipator of the 
 nineteenth century. It may be doubted whether 
 any of the modern critics of the moral delin- 
 quencies of Cohimbus would have been any more 
 highly enlightened on the subject of slavery than 
 was he, had they lived in his time. 
 
 Though Columbus made four voyages to 
 America, he really discovered only the Bahama 
 Islands, with Cuba, Hayti, Jamaica, Trinidad, 
 Honduras, and the extreme northeastern shore 
 of South America. Columbus did not discover 
 the continent of South America until his third 
 voyage in 1498, and he did not set his foot upon 
 the continent of North America, nor even know 
 of its existence. Before Columbus discovered 
 the South American continent, Sebastian Cabot, 
 under the patronage of Henry VII of England, 
 
The Discovery of America. 197 
 
 discovered the continent of North America. 
 South America was not discovered until 1498, 
 nor North America until 1497. 
 
 The discovery of the outlying islands, how- 
 ever, was virtually the discovery of the New 
 World. It is only by a quibble that either 
 Cabot or Vespucius can be made the discoverer 
 of America. Amerigo Vespucius and the Cabots 
 were inspired to make their voyage by the suc- 
 cess of Columbus. While great honor is due 
 the Cabots for the discovery of North America, 
 Vespucius really discovered little. He simply 
 sailed to and coasted along the shores of South 
 America, and the islands already discovered by 
 Columbus. He did not even command the ex- 
 pedition with which he sailed. He was a retired 
 merchant, educated in naval astronomy, and was 
 induced by the success of Columbus to sail with 
 Admiral Ojeda to the newly-discovered land in 
 the West. On his return, his eloquent and 
 scientific description of the New World excited 
 the wonder and admiration of scholars, and gave 
 Europe a better knowledge of the Western 
 World than had before been produced. It was 
 by his writings, by his descriptions, by his science 
 and eloquence, not by his discovery, that the 
 New World took his name, and was called 
 
198 Providential Epochs. 
 
 "America." The name undoubtedly came from 
 Germany, where the scientific scholars had been 
 so edified by the publications of Amerigo Ves- 
 pucius, that they called the land he described 
 "America." Whatever honors may be due to 
 other explorers and discoverers, Columbus's fa- 
 mous reply to a would-be detractor from his 
 merit and fame will ever be looked upon as un- 
 answerable by the best thought of mankind. It 
 is said that on the discoverer's return from his 
 first voyage, the Grand Cardinal of Spain invited 
 Columbus to a magnificent banquet. One of the 
 invited guests, jealous of Columbus's Italian 
 nationality, asked him, sneeringly, whether he 
 imagined that, " in case he had discovered the 
 Indies, there were no other men in Spain who 
 would have been capable of the enterprise?" 
 Columbus took the famous ^'g^-, invited the com- 
 pany to make it stand on end. Every one tried, 
 but every one failed. Columbus struck it upon 
 the table, and there it stood, illustrating how 
 easv it would be for anvbodv to stand an esfgr on 
 end, or discover a new world after he had done 
 it, and showed them how. 
 
 Columbus made four voyages to the New 
 World. On the first voyage, he discovered the 
 Bahamas, Cuba and Hayti ; on the second, Ja- 
 
The Discovery of America. igg 
 
 maica and Porto Rico; on the third, Trinidad 
 and the continent of South America ; and on the 
 fourth, Porto Bello and Honduras, with adjacent 
 islands. Every voyage resulted in important 
 discoveries. The jealousies, however, which be- 
 gan even before the adventurous caravels spread 
 their sails for the first voyage, culminated in 
 political intrigues which made it necessary for 
 Columbus to return from his second voyage to 
 make an explanation at the court of Spain. 
 From his third voyage he was sent back to Spain 
 as a prisoner in chains, but on his arrival was 
 acquitted, liberated, and honored. 
 
 It must be admitted that the temper which 
 fitted Columbus to be an explorer and a discov- 
 erer did not so well fit him for the work of colo- 
 nization. He failed in politics and statesman- 
 ship. As it often happens that a great soldier in 
 attempting statesmanship fails, so it is not to be 
 a matter for astonishment, much less for dispar- 
 aging sneer, that a great navigator should fail in 
 his ambitious attempt to organize ci\-il society 
 and establish political institutions. 
 
 In the prosecution of a war with the Indians, 
 who had massacred the Spaniards and had prac- 
 ticed cannibalism, Columbus met the savages, 
 not onlv with horses, crossbows, and fire-arms, 
 
200 Providential Epochs. 
 
 but also with bloodhounds. Whether blood- 
 hounds are more cruel than shotguns, or whether 
 the Spaniards were more ferocious and inhuman 
 in dealing with the cannibals than were the can- 
 nibals themselves in their treatment of the Span- 
 iards, it may not be possible to determine, but 
 some writers are disposed to brand Columbus as 
 a most heartless wretch because he employed 
 bloodhounds in warfare. It would seem that 
 such writers are not familiar with the fact that 
 the use of dogs in war was not first introduced 
 by Columbus, but was as old as Greek and 
 Roman warfare. We are told by John Gibson 
 that Corinth was once saved by fifty war-dogs, 
 which attacked the enemy. The Romans used 
 bloodhounds against the Gauls. The English 
 and Scotch used them in warfare against each 
 other. And, in the time of Elizabeth, the Earl 
 of Essex employed eight himdred bloodhounds 
 in putting down the Irish rebellion. These facts 
 are deduced only to show that dogs were vised in 
 war, not only against cannibals, but against civil- 
 ized peoples, and were used in civilized Greece, 
 Rome, Ireland, Scotland, England, and Spain. 
 There can be to this age no justification of the 
 use of bloodhounds in war. Must we not go 
 farther and say, there can be no justification oi 
 
The Discovery of America. 201 
 
 the battle-ax, of the shotgun, of the torpedo, of 
 war itself against mankind ? 
 
 It is to be regretted that Columbus found it 
 necessary to wage war by any method against 
 the Indians, as it is to be regretted that the Colo- 
 nists of North America were compelled to kill 
 Indians, and as it is to be regretted that civiliza- 
 tion in any form or in any of her enlightened 
 children has been forced into war with savagery 
 in any form or with any of her unhappy and 
 benighted children. Critics must at least be fair 
 to the history of warfare, if not to Columbus, on 
 this bloodhound charge. 
 
 The fourth voyage of Columbus was calam- 
 itous, and from it the admiral returned an old 
 man, shattered in body, if not in mind, and re- 
 tired from public view to Valladolid, where, 
 friendless, penniless, neglected, and forgotten, he 
 died in 1506, having lived as splendid, as useful, 
 and as melancholy a life as any that adds pathos, 
 charm, and wonder to the annals of modern 
 history. 
 
 The future character of this great continent 
 was prophesied in its conquests and discoveries. 
 This country, which was destined to become 
 politically an asylum for the oppressed of all 
 nations, was discovered, conquered, explored, and 
 
 14 
 
202 Providential Epochs. 
 
 originally colonized by all nations. Nearly every 
 nation claims the honor of having discovered 
 America. The Spaniards, Italians, Welsh, Irish, 
 English, Dutch, Scandinavians, Arabs, French, 
 and Chinese are each credited with this important 
 discovery. It is significant that the blood of all 
 these nationalities was destined to flow in the 
 veins of the American citizen and that all these 
 races were to be gathered under this great re- 
 publican form of government where the rights of 
 citizenship are not conditioned on race, color, or 
 previous condition. 
 
 This question of discovery is a difficult one, not 
 to be settled without an understanding of what we 
 mean by discovery. Whether the Spaniards, the 
 Northmen, the Welsh, the English, or the Chinese 
 discovered America depends on what we mean by 
 discovery. If the Spaniards were here before the 
 English, and the Northmen before the Spaniards, 
 and the Welsh before the Northmen, and the 
 Chinese before the Welsh, then we still find the 
 Indians, the Aztecs and Toltecs before the 
 Chinese. When Columbus landed at San Salva- 
 dor he was immediately surrounded by the 
 inhabitants, whose ancestors had discovered 
 America long before. When the Northmen 
 landed in Massachusetts in the eleventh century. 
 
The Discovery of America. 203 
 
 if they did, they found a people whose ancestors 
 had evidently discovered America before Ericson, 
 the Norse. If the Chinese in the fifth century 
 came into Mexico or Central America or South 
 America, they found races already in an advanced 
 state of civilization whose ancestors must have 
 discovered America long before the fifth century. 
 Had Columbus pushed on into Central America 
 or into Mexico and Peru, he would have been 
 astonished to find what Cortez and Pizarro soon 
 after found, a barbaric wealth and splendor 
 which could have been rivaled only by the glory 
 which Marco Polo found in golden India. The 
 ruins of sculpture, of tombs, temples, and pal- 
 aces, found in Central America and Mexico can 
 not be explained except on the ground that a 
 civilization once existed there which in its 
 origin, growth, supremacy, decay, and oblitera- 
 tion has covered a duration of time greater than 
 the Christian era, if not as great as from the 
 date of Moses to the present time. Who were 
 the discoverers of America? Greeks? Egyp- 
 tians ? Phoenicians ? Asiatics ? Who can tell ? 
 There can be no doubt of the similarity of Aztec 
 and Egyptian architecture and sculpture. There 
 is a remarkable resemblance between the idols 
 of the Aztecs or pre-Aztec civilizations of Amer- 
 
204 Providential Epochs. 
 
 ica and the idols of China and India. There 
 was doubtless an American art, an American 
 civilization, long before there was a European 
 art or civilization. But there are evidences fur- 
 nished by geology, archaeology, and anthropol- 
 ogy which prove that man has existed on this 
 continent for at least fifty thousand, and possibly 
 two hundred thousand years. On the authority 
 of Alexander Agassiz, this North American con- 
 tinent was the first to lift itself above the uni- 
 versal flood and chaos. Doubtless here, then, are 
 to be found the earliest traces of the existence of 
 man on the earth. Possibly the much debated 
 skull found in Calaveras County, California, be- 
 longed to an inhabitant of this continent who 
 lived a thousand centuries ago ! If the honor of 
 having discovered America is to be denied the 
 famed Italian, then must it also be withheld 
 from the Northmen and given to some daring 
 voyager no"w unknown, of an age far more re- 
 mote. It is worse than idle to put forward the 
 claims of the Northmen when, by the very argu- 
 ments which would destroy the Spanish claim, 
 the Northmen's claim itself is destroyed. Be- 
 yond all question some one found America long 
 before Ericson and much longer before Ericson 
 than Ericson before Columbus. 
 
The Discovery of America. 205 
 
 The Pilgrim Fathers were of yesterday. Co- 
 lumbus, Cabot, Ericson were but of yesterday. 
 The builders of the temples of the South on 
 whose ruins is a thousand years' growth of vege- 
 tation, they were the discoverers of America, 
 and they were the ancient of the ancients. 
 But, it may be said, we can not call this dis- 
 covery, this is not what we mean. That old 
 and vanished people did not give this New World 
 to modern civilization, they did not open the 
 land to modern progress. So may we say of 
 the Chinese. What if there may be discovered 
 traces of Asiatic art and religion in the remains 
 of the mound-builders of the North and the 
 temple-builders and idol-sculptors of the South? 
 Did the Chinese discover this land for modern 
 enterprise and modern liberty ? What if traces 
 of the Welsh language may be found in some 
 of the Indian dialects of North America in proof 
 of an early Welsh discovery of America ? Did 
 the Welsh discoverers, if they existed, discover 
 this country for human advancement, for the 
 growth of science, freedom, and civilization; or 
 were they accidentally storm-driven upon those 
 shores finally to become extinct? What if the 
 Northmen did come to Massachusetts in the 
 eleventh century, or five hundred years before 
 
2o6 Providential Epochs. 
 
 Columbus, if they left no trace of their presence, 
 if they gained no permanent footing here, and 
 if, for five hundred years following, the world 
 knew nothing about it, and it resulted in no 
 opening of the continent to the progress of the 
 nations? It is remarkable that since the moment 
 the "Te Deum" swelled out across San Salvador, 
 civilization has been taking possession of this 
 American continent — remarkable that since the 
 Cross was planted by Columbus on this new soil, 
 the golden sandal of progress has never halted. 
 Not once has humanity looked backward; not in 
 a single instance has the star of empire hesitated 
 in its westward course, or for a moment been 
 eclipsed. Who, then, was the true discoverer of 
 America? Who found this new land for hu- 
 manity and for a new civilization ? Certainly 
 none other than he who for four hundred years 
 has worn the brightest crown that fame has 
 placed upon the brow of man, Christopher Co- 
 lumbus, the Genoese. 
 
 It is claimed, however, that the discovery of 
 America was an accident ; that Columbus did 
 not set out to find new worlds ; that he was in 
 search of India, and to his dying day did not 
 know that he had found a new world. For this 
 reason it is further claimed that no credit or 
 
The Discovery of America. 207 
 
 glory is due the discoverer. By the same nar- 
 row reasoning, if the astronomer turns his tele- 
 scope towards the heavens and sees worlds he 
 had not looked for, is he to be denied the credit 
 of the discovery, and is the discovery but a 
 meaningless, unscientific, unphilosophical acci- 
 dent? If the mathematician Archimedes, by 
 stepping into the bath and displacing the water, 
 discovers a new law of physics, shall it be called 
 an accident, and all credit be denied the dis- 
 coverer? If Galvani goes into the kitchen to 
 prepare some broth for his invalid wife, and 
 places the frog's legs in contact with a scalpel 
 or a copper wire that has been charged with 
 electricity, and from the twitching of the frog's 
 legs discovers voltaic electricity, shall it be 
 called an accident for which no person is to 
 have the glory ? 
 
 Galileo at the age of eighteen watched the 
 swinging of a lamp in the Cathedral of Pisa, 
 noted the regularity of the vibrations, and 
 therefrom discovered the time-measuring prop- 
 erty of the pendulum. What or who set that 
 lamp in motion just at that time? How 
 happened it to be swinging just when Galileo 
 inadvertently looked up? "An accident," some 
 will say, " no credit to Galileo." It was an 
 
2o8 Providential Epochs. 
 
 accident of a snow-storm that baffled Han- 
 nibal ; an accident of a rain-storm, according 
 to Hugo, that defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. 
 Newton was asleep under an apple-tree, when 
 an apple fell and struck him, and gave him a 
 solution of the universe in the discovery of the 
 law of gravity. An accident! James Watt STt 
 before the kitchen fireplace warming his hands, 
 or waiting for the frugal meal, when the lid of 
 the teakettle began to dance, and the power of 
 steam revealed itself to the mind that under- 
 stood it. Another accident! In 1849, ^ "^^ 
 settler is excavating for a mill-race out in Cali- 
 fornia and finds a nugget of gold. The discov- 
 ery of gold in California an accident ! Nearly 
 every great event that has helped the world on- 
 ward may be reduced to a so-called accident. 
 Archimedes did not go to the bath-tub to find 
 a new law of physics ; Galvani did not go into 
 the kitchen to find voltaic electricity ; Galileo did 
 not go into the Cathedral of Pisa to find the 
 isochronal property of the pendulum ; Newton 
 did not fall asleep under the apple-tree to find the 
 law of gravity; Watt did not sit down before the 
 sputtering teakettle to find the power of steam ; 
 Marshall did not excavate for the mill-race in 
 California to find gold ; and, in the same sense, 
 
The Discovery of America. 209 
 
 Columbus did not sail into the West to find a new 
 world. But all the better, all the more credit 
 and glory, if the astronomer who turns his tele- 
 scope in search of a comet find a blazing sun. 
 And all the better, all the more honor and fame, 
 if the navigator who sails in search of India 
 find — America! Humanity will forever appre- 
 ciate and honor the men who have had the genius 
 to meet with such splendid accidents. Accidents? 
 No. This world is not run by chance. The des- 
 tinies of humanity are not determined by acci- 
 dents. Science and philosophy, logic and reason, 
 eliminate the word "accident" from the discus- 
 sion of history and the causes of events. The 
 true philosophy of history repudiates the reality 
 of the accidental, but recognizes the eternal and 
 necessary reality of the providential. 
 
 In his very ignorance of the true character of 
 his discovery, and his acknowledgment of Di- 
 vine guidance, as well as in the great moral and 
 social results of the opening of this long-closed, 
 inexhaustible continent, there would seem to be 
 indications that Columbus was a man of Provi- 
 dence, a man who wrought even better than he 
 knew, and was but carrying out, on a grander 
 scale than he imagined, the purpose and the plan 
 of the Divine Wisdom. Because he did not know 
 
2IO Providential Epochs. 
 
 that he had found a new world, but supposed 
 that he had reached India, some would dispar- 
 age his greatness; but on the same ground the 
 glory of Cabot's discoveries must be denied, as 
 he did not know that he had found a new conti- 
 nent, nor did any of the explorers and discover- 
 ers for several years after America was found 
 come to realize the true significance of Colum- 
 bus's achievement. 
 
 We are not disposed to ascribe to Columbus 
 all the glory for American civilization. It must 
 be admitted that he never knew to his dying day 
 that he had found a new world, other than India, 
 which, alas ! he never saw. We can not suppose 
 that he had in his noble mind all the sentiments 
 of liberty, progress, and civilization which have 
 been developed here and brought to a splendid 
 fruitage. It may, however, be very rationally 
 believed that he was one of history's providential 
 geniuses, that he possessed a lofty spirit, and 
 was actuated by holy ambitions to benefit man- 
 kind. His faith, courage, leadership, endurance, 
 and knowledge fitted him for the high enterprise 
 whose success brought humanity an eternal bless- 
 ing, and his own name an immortal renown. 
 
 Columbus had not a prophet's vision ; he 
 could not see what Spanish conquerors, French 
 
The Discovery of America. 211 
 
 explorers and English colonizers, Pilgrims, Puri- 
 tans, and Huguenots would do for this land. Nor 
 could he see new kingdoms, empires, and repub- 
 lics rise in power and flourish with happiness 
 here. Bright and extravagant were his dreams ; 
 but he could not have dreamed what this gener- 
 ation has come to realize. The men who were 
 here to be born, to rise to fame and greatness; 
 the events which were here to add glory to his- 
 tory ; the revolutions, reformations, mighty strides 
 of moral and political progress, which were here 
 to be achieved, can not be expected to have en- 
 gaged the imagination of Columbus. What four 
 hundred years, in the ages of humanity, have 
 crowded into them more advancement, more 
 light and truth, more science and liberty, more 
 righteousness and human greatness, than the 
 four hundred years since the Columbian discovery 
 of America ? If all the glory for this may not be 
 attributed to Columbus, nevertheless he takes 
 his place at the front of that long line of explor- 
 ers and discoverers, the most famous of history, 
 whose names are forever associated with the 
 name of America. What a race of history-mak- 
 ers they were : Columbus, Vespucius, Cabot, 
 Cortereal, De Leon, Magellan, Verrazzani, Car- 
 tier, De Soto, Hawkins, Drake, Frobisher, Cor- 
 
212 Providential Epochs. 
 
 tez, Pizarro, Gilbert, Davis, Raleigh, La Salle, 
 Hudson, and Cliamplain ! A score of names im- 
 mortalized and gaining glory in the history and 
 by the progress of the American world ! 
 
 Do not these names belong to us ? In a truer 
 sense than nativity, are not these all Americans ? 
 And when we call the roll of the great, must not 
 these names be mentioned as the forerunners, 
 and in a sense the national ancestors, of such 
 men as Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, 
 Hamilton, Webster, Grant, and Lincoln ? As 
 discoverers and explorers they were like the 
 spies of sacred history, the van of a mighty host 
 and the heralds of an unparalleled immigration. 
 They were even more ; for it was their mission 
 to find and clear the ground where should be 
 laid, by just as undeniably providential men, 
 the deep and broad foundations of republican 
 civilization. There seems to have been, in all 
 that discovering and exploring, a wisdom and 
 a planning above the apparent wisdom and 
 planning of men. 
 
 The discovery of America, as we have found, 
 belonged to that great intellectual awakening 
 called the Renaissance. And no event of all 
 those splendid times ministered so powerfully 
 to the perpetuation of the Renaissance, to the 
 
The Discovery of America. 213 
 
 onward, upward march of the sun of intellectual 
 enlightenment and freedom, as the finding of 
 this New World. This discovery gave intellect, 
 science, and liberty their field and opportu- 
 nity. It prevented a reaction from the revival 
 of reason, and made impossible a repetition of 
 the Dark Ages. It made way for all the lib- 
 erties, and furnished motives and inspiration for 
 all the moral and mental activities. It gave all 
 the problems arena, and made human progress 
 not only possible, but imperative and inevitable. 
 
 Martin Luther was ten years old when Colum- 
 bus discovered America, and while the naviga- 
 tor was completing his work, Luther was open- 
 ing the Bible for the first time in the University 
 of Erfurt, and committing to memory the battle- 
 cry of the coming Reformation — " The just shall 
 live by faith." These great intellectual and re- 
 ligious movements were not only related to each 
 other, but both were also related to the discovery 
 of America. The discovery of America perpetu- 
 ated the Reformation, as it did the Renaissance. 
 
 The discovery of North America by Cabot, the 
 settlement of New England by the Puritans, the 
 Declaration of Independence, the American Rev- 
 olution, the establishment of this representative 
 self-government, the emancipation of the slaves, 
 
214 Providential Epochs. 
 
 and abolition of the slave-traffic, which even Co- 
 lumbus inaugurated, and Washington and Jeffer- 
 son helped to perpetuate, were inevitable events; 
 they grew as inevitable harvests from the soil 
 which the genius of a Columbus discovered, and 
 which the doctrines of the Reformers cultivated. 
 Columbus discovered from a quarter to a third 
 of the habitable earth, and added it to the prop- 
 erty of the world. By this achievement he not 
 only revolutionized commerce, but multiplied the 
 wealth of all mankind. He has made it easier 
 for every man to earn his daily bread, and he 
 who has made bread-winning easier for human 
 muscle, has made truth-learning and God-finding 
 easier for human mind and heart. 
 
 In the age of Columbus the most abundant 
 source of national wealth was conquest; and, 
 though the discovery of America was soon fol- 
 lowed by the ruthless conquests of Cortez and 
 Pizarro, nevertheless, in the development of the 
 last four hundred years, it has been shown by 
 the opening of this New World, and the conse- 
 quent multiplication of productive industries, 
 and the augmentation of the world's com- 
 merce, that civilized nations have found the true 
 philosophy of wealth in beating their swords 
 into plowshares, and their spears into prun- 
 
The Discovery of America. 215 
 
 ing-hooks. When to celebrate the discovery 
 of America the nations of the earth met in the 
 peaceful 'rivalries of a Universal Exposition, the 
 idea of conquest was no longer to be found in 
 the political economy of any Government ; it no 
 longer exists in any accepted science or philoso- 
 phy of national prosperity; it has been elimi- 
 nated from the vocabulary of progressive states- 
 manship. 
 
 The Renaissance, the Reformation, and the 
 discovery of America quickened the intellectual 
 life of all Europe. The increase of commerce 
 greatly enriched the maritime nations, and laid 
 that foundation of material prosperity which, as 
 in the case of ancient Rome and Athens, and of 
 Venice and Florence, proved to be one of the es- 
 sential conditions for the development of science, 
 art, and literature. Germany's greatness is almost 
 entirely post-Columbian and post-Lutheran. Her 
 unity, her literature, philosophy, statesmanship, 
 and military glory belong to the last four 
 hundred years. England's literary, commercial, 
 scientific, and naval supremacy followed the dis- 
 covery of the New World. The Elizabethan age 
 of English literature was the fruit of the com- 
 bined influence of that discovery, and of the 
 Reformation. The influence of Columbus upon 
 
2i6 Providential Epochs, 
 
 Cabot, Frobisher, Clifford, Drake, and Raleigh, 
 and the further influence of their achievements 
 upon the commercial, industrial, and literary 
 life of England may be distinctly traced, and 
 therein may the philosophy of England's mod- 
 ern greatness be found. Though Chaucer had 
 sung his message a century before, it was a cen- 
 tury after the discovery of America before Sidney, 
 Bacon, Spenser, Jonson, Shakespeare, and Milton 
 came to make the English language classical. 
 
 Almost the entire history of invention belongs 
 to the post-Columbian age. The compass, the 
 telescope, and the printing-press, in rude form, 
 were here before ; but the triumph of steam and 
 electricity, by which navigation, travel, and man- 
 ufacturing, have been revolutionized, belongs 
 to the later age. Nearly all industrial machinery, 
 as the loom, steam-engine, sewing-machine, and 
 reaper, the practical and humanitarian application 
 of science, is of comparatively recent invention. 
 
 But it will be admitted that the science of 
 government has kept pace with the material 
 development, the growth of wealth, the multi- 
 plication of industries, the invention of ma- 
 chinery, and the progress of literature and art. 
 The nations have learned great lessons in law, 
 government, and freedom since humanity began 
 
The Discovery of America. 217" 
 
 to pour into this New World; and every nation 
 of the earth has been politically influenced,, 
 even educated and modified, by the rise and de- 
 velopment of this Republic. All nations have 
 been contributing to our greatness, and there 
 has been a providential preparation through the 
 centuries for the not far-distant ideal political 
 government. It can not be visionary to assume 
 that history has been shaping toward the grand 
 consummation of the establishment on this con- 
 tinent of the trinity of Republics — one united 
 Republic of all North America, one united Re- 
 public of all Central America, and one united 
 Republic of all South America; and these bound 
 together in eternal reciprocity and national 
 good-will for the maintenance of liberty and 
 the promotion of the highest material, intellect- 
 ual, and moral civilization known to mankind. 
 It is said that Ferdinand of Spain erected a 
 monument to the memory of America's discov- 
 erer with the inscription: 
 
 "For Castile and Leon, Columbus found a New World." 
 
 The history of the New World during the 
 past four hundred years has shown more and 
 more clearly, with the progress of events, the 
 narrowness of Ferdinand's conception. By what 
 
 15 
 
i'lS PkovWENTiAL Epochs. 
 
 America has come to be, not only to herself, but 
 to all the nations of the earth, the legend can no 
 longer stand — 
 
 "For Castile and Leon, Columbus found a New World;" 
 
 for it, must be substituted the broader legend, 
 and the legend that shall be truer to history, 
 truer to prophecy, truer to the hopes of men 
 and the providential purpose of God: "For 
 truth, for liberty, and for humanity, Columbus 
 found a New World." 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
lY. 
 
 The Settlement of Our Country. 
 
 219 
 
lY. 
 
 THE SETTLEMENT OF OUR COUNTRY. 
 
 IT was most fortunate for the Protestant move- 
 ment, and for the cause of religious liberty 
 in general, that the Reformation poured its life- 
 giving current into many distinct channels. A 
 multiplicity of sects appeared; but the same 
 spirit, life, and progressive impulse controlled 
 them all. Had the Protestant movement as- 
 sumed one ecclesiastical form, there would have 
 been danger of its subsidence and failure. A 
 traitor at the head of the cause might have 
 abandoned its precious interests or betrayed it 
 to its enemies. A Roman Catholic coming to 
 the throne in a Protestant country might very 
 easily have handed a single sect — such as Lu- 
 theranism, Presbyterianism, or Episcopalian- 
 ism — over to the power of the papacy, as Mary 
 attempted it in England. Indifference or cor- 
 ruption, creeping into one vast ecclesiasticism, 
 might have been fatal to the Reformation, if it 
 had embodied itself in but a single form of 
 creed and discipline. But with many sects the 
 cause was safer, since if one had failed, or had 
 
222 Providential Epochs. 
 
 grown indifferent and corrupt, the other sects 
 might have retained the true spirit of the move- 
 ment, and carried on the work of reform. With 
 the Lutherans of Germany, the Huguenots of 
 France, the Moravians of Bohemia, the Salz- 
 burgers of Austria, the Presbyterians of Scot- 
 land, and the Episcopalians and Puritans of 
 England, there were certain to be sects that 
 would remain true to the great cause, and pre- 
 serve the results of the Reformation, as would 
 not have been probable if only one sect had em- 
 bodied the genius of reform. 
 
 This epoch was a time to try men's souls. 
 The sacrifices demanded of those who first en- 
 listed under the banner of the Reformation and 
 became identified with the genesis and first 
 growth of Protestantism, can hardly be esti- 
 mated, much less appreciated, at this distance 
 of time and progress. The cause was forced to 
 develop under the most severe conditions of in- 
 tolerance and persecution. But if history is 
 stained with many a dark and shameful crime 
 against the personal, political, and religious 
 rights of humanity, there are nevertheless bright 
 spots here and there, made glorious by the hero- 
 ism and self-sacrifices of men who, loving truth 
 above honor, and liberty more than life, have 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 223 
 
 risen up in the majesty of their conscientious- 
 ness and laid all upon the altar of human free- 
 dom and progress. Men of this high and noble 
 order rose up in Germany, Holland, France, 
 Switzerland, Bohemia, and England. At first 
 their numbers were small, hence the persecu- 
 tions in some lands were very great. But as in 
 the days of the Roman emperors the persecu- 
 tions from paganism could not quench the gos- 
 pel flame that was spreading through the whole 
 empire, so in the later days of Roman Catholic 
 emperors, the persecutions of a paganized Chris- 
 tianity could not subdue the spirit of the Ref- 
 ormation, which was to restore an apostolic 
 Christianity. 
 
 In the bravery of those great days, in the 
 spirit of that many-tongued Reformation, and 
 in the devotion and progressive purpose of those 
 persecuted sects of an uprising Protestantism, 
 we may find the philosophy of American lib- 
 erty — the causes tributary to the irresistible, 
 onward current of religious and political free- 
 dom that has channeled its way from sea to sea 
 across this continent. In this mighty current 
 of liberty and progress we find elements that 
 have sprung from various fountain-heads — Lu- 
 theran elements, Huguenot elements, Moravian 
 
224 Providential Epochs. 
 
 elements, Puritan elements. So conspicuous are 
 these influences that we must acknowledge 
 American colonization, independence, and self- 
 government to have been potentially a part of 
 the Reformation. Our Republic, with all its 
 present greatness and all its possibilities, came 
 out of that Protestant revival. 
 
 The discovery of the New World by Colum- 
 bus in 1492, and Cabot's discovery of North 
 America in 1497, with England's enlightenment 
 on the subject, came just in time to aid the new 
 growth of ideas, the development of intellect- 
 ualism, the spread of Protestant Christianity, and 
 the seed-planting of the universal democracy. 
 
 The discovery of America was necessary to 
 the preservation of human liberty — necessary to 
 the securing of it. Like the plant in a tiny 
 vase, the great cause of Christian civilization, in 
 its rapid development, was bursting its limita- 
 tions, and there was danger of its so outgrowing 
 the soil as to perish for lack of nourishment. 
 But it threw new roots into the rich, exhaust- 
 less soil of the New Continent, the New World, 
 and therefrom it caught a new life, took on fresh 
 strength, spread its exultant branches, and bent 
 benignly toward every race with its weight of 
 freedom's golden fruit, 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 225 
 
 A New World was as severe a blow to super- 
 stition, bigotry, and religious intolerance as was 
 the Reformation itself. Indeed, that discovery 
 was to result in preserving and immortalizing 
 the work of the Reformers by securing its intro- 
 duction into the life and growth of a new po- 
 litical system and a new civilization. But if 
 the discovery of America was an event which 
 seems providential in its very date, in its rela- 
 tion to the progress of intellectualism and the 
 growth of religious and political freedom, so, 
 also, for the eternal good of this New World, 
 the Reformation providentially came just in 
 time. It would be difficult for the philosopher 
 to determine which was the more helpful — the 
 influence of the discovery of America on the 
 Reformation and the development of Protestant- 
 ism, or the influence of the Reformation and the 
 new Protestantism on the civilization and settle- 
 ment of America. What would all North America 
 have become without a Protestantism? A larger 
 Mexico — nothing more. Undoubtedly Roman- 
 ism had its eye on this continent with a view 
 to re-establishing here that ecclesiastical su- 
 premacy which it was losing in the Old World. 
 Spain, the ever-willing tool of the papal power, 
 laid claim to all habitable North America, and 
 
226 Providential Epochs. 
 
 sought to colonize the country in the interests 
 of the Romish faith and the Spanish treasury. 
 As the pope was losing Germany, Holland, 
 France, and England, he would offset his losses 
 by colonizing and Romanizing a New World. 
 But England, sweeping on into the new move- 
 ment under Henry VHI and Elizabeth, chal- 
 lenged at once the right and the power of the 
 pope to give America to Spain, and the right 
 and power of Spain to give America to the pope. 
 There began therefore a rivalry, if not a con- 
 test, in American colonization. It was logically 
 one of the issues of the conflict between Eng- 
 land and Spain. Pope Pius V excommunicated 
 Elizabeth, and gave England to Philip W for 
 the taking. On this high enterprise was the 
 Spanish Armada bound in 1588, when — not by 
 the renowned Raleigh, nor by the gallant Drake, 
 but by the very winds of heaven — the magnifi- 
 cent naval array was swept to destruction, the 
 power of haughty Spain was broken, and the 
 insolence of Rome was rebuked. The fate of 
 the Armada largely determined the fate of 
 Spanish-American colonization, and in no small 
 degree prevented the complete Romanizing of 
 North America. 
 
 The dominant political influence in the colo- 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 227 
 
 nization of our country was English, and the 
 controlling religious power was Protestant. How 
 much the providential storm which wrecked the 
 Armada had to do with determining the Protest- 
 antism of the Colonies it may be difficult to 
 prove; but the providential elements entering 
 into the solution of the problem are to be found 
 not only in the stars and the winds, but in the 
 brains of men and the plans and achievements 
 of peoples and nations. 
 
 Aside from the religio-political aspect of the 
 issues involved in the conflict between Spain 
 and England, the Reformation was a potent fac- 
 tor in the establishment of our national founda- 
 tion. It was the Reformation that raised up 
 and sent forth colonizers and settlers of deep 
 religious life, of advanced and liberal ideas — men 
 of high and heroic character, men of prayer and 
 faith and independent conscience, men of con- 
 victions and Bibles and Sabbaths. Without 
 that Reformation no such race of moral giants 
 could have been thrust out into this New World, 
 and without such a race of men the problem of 
 self-government could not have been solved, this 
 continent-wide Republic could not have been es- 
 tablished. 
 
 American civilization was founded by a civil- 
 
228 Providential Epochs. 
 
 ized people ; this can be said of no other great 
 nation of the past. When Julius Caesar wrote 
 the commentaries of his wars in Gaul, he said of 
 the ancestors of the Shakespeares, Newtons, and 
 Gladstones : " The greater part never sow their 
 lands (did not know enough to plow), but live 
 on flesh and milk, and go clad in skins. All the 
 Britons in general paint themselves with woad, 
 which gives a bluish cast to the skin, and makes 
 them look dreadfiil in battle." 
 
 But going back to the founding of the Rome 
 of which this very Caesar was ruler, we find that 
 the first settlers were the robbers, murderers, 
 beggars, and outlaws from all creation to whom 
 Romulus gave an asylum. The Greeks sprang 
 from wandering tribes, who in their journeys of 
 plunder and conquest from the northeast, pitched 
 upon Attica, and began the history which grew 
 to be so glorious. And Israel, did she not 
 rise out of Egypt's brickyards? Had those 
 slavish brickmakers a higher ancestry than the 
 wandering shepherds of Chaldea, dwellers in 
 tents, without learning, la.ws, and manners ? 
 
 But, as we turn to consider America's national 
 beginners, we look upon a civilized people, not 
 like the rude barbarian of painted face which 
 Csesar found in Britain ; not like the motley out- 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 229 
 
 laws which Romulus gathered about him on the 
 Capitoline ; not like the marauding Pelasgi who 
 first settled Attica ; not like the long-enslaved 
 bondmen of Egypt, the descendants of the un- 
 tutored shepherds, who came to the founding of 
 Hebrew civilization. Our grandsires were a peo- 
 ple who had in their brains and hearts the ripest 
 results of the best civilization the world had de- 
 veloped. Of such a people, well-educated and 
 thoroughly Christianized, something great should 
 have been expected. They were, doubtless, the 
 most courageous, conscientious, devout, high- 
 minded part of that seventeenth-century humanity. 
 If there existed a class of people on the earth, 
 mentally and morally qualified to found a new 
 nation, and a better nation than had yet existed, 
 it was that class who knew enough, and were 
 conscientious and courageous enough, to leave 
 historic, civilized England, Holland, France, Ger- 
 many, and Switzerland, for this mighty, limitless 
 wilderness, and for the privilege of worshiping 
 God after the dictates of their own consciences. 
 It is easy for any one to see it now, only a 
 prophet could have seen it before, that it was in 
 our human destiny, a divinely-fashioned destiny, 
 for this people in their development to break 
 from the old European alliances. Humanity 
 
2^0 Providential Epochs. 
 
 was to take a great stride of progress in the 
 work of our fathers. History was to record, not 
 only the opening of a new continent, but of a 
 new era ; it was to note, not only the advance of 
 thousands of Europeans to a new country, but 
 the advance of these minds to new ideas and 
 new institutions. Here was to be the genesis, 
 not only of a new colonization, but of a new civ- 
 ilization. The Muse of History turned a fresh 
 page to record the glory of a new and a most 
 wonderful national development. It will occur to 
 the thoughtful that the remarkable event of In- 
 dependence could have been achieved only by 
 remarkable men. 
 
 Such men are doubtless with us all the time. 
 They walk our streets unknown even to them- 
 selves, as did Grant and Lincoln, only waiting for 
 providential circumstances to call them to greatness 
 and fame. Certainly they were on the soil yonder 
 when critical hours called for power, genius, and 
 devotion. Our Pilgrim and Revolutionary fathers 
 are part of the greatness and glory of the past. 
 Bradford, Standish, and Winthrop; Oglethorpe, 
 Vane, and Roger Williams ; Warren, Otis, Henry, 
 and Adams ; Hancock, Lee, Jefferson, Hamilton, 
 and Washington, — those names have been like 
 drum-beats to quicken the pulse of patriotism. 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 231 
 
 They are histories in themselves. Greater than 
 songs and epics, greater than eloquence and 
 riches, is the name of a mighty man to influ- 
 ence generations to high ambitions, and thrill 
 them with the purpose of heroic deeds. We are 
 rich ; no nation is richer in great names. We 
 envy not Greece her Alexander and Phocion, 
 nor Rome her Caesar and Justinian, nor France 
 her Napoleon and Charlemagne, nor England 
 her Wellington and Alfred, so long as we re- 
 member the mighty-souled men who, in the 
 founding of this country, seemed to carry mil- 
 lenniums in their hearts, as well as ''empires in 
 their brains." From the hearts and brains of 
 such men came the high and distinctive charac- 
 ter of American institutions. They still live in 
 the genius of our Government, they have put 
 themselves into the very fiber of our national 
 life, and they belong as controlling, fashioning 
 forces to all the history which is and which 
 will be. 
 
 We should ever keep in mind the distinction 
 to be made between the early adventurers and 
 the early settlers of this country, between the 
 fortune-hunters and the home-hunters. The. 
 early settlers were no such men as followed Co- 
 lumbus in search of gold-mines and spice-groves ; 
 
232 Providential Epochs. 
 
 no such men as followed Pizarro to rob the 
 Incas of their glory, and reduce the proud Peru- 
 vians to slavery ; no such men as followed Cortez 
 to humble the Montezumas, and despoil ancient 
 Mexico of her old barbaric splendor. Men like 
 these historic robbers and assassins might have 
 been the first to settle America had it not been 
 for that Northern Reformation which took this 
 continent through the courage of great moral 
 heroes for a higher purpose than that of conquest 
 and plunder. If the early Colonists may be 
 severely censured for their harsh treatment of 
 the aborigines, it will be found as one of the 
 possible extenuating circumstances, that injus- 
 tice toward the American Indians first came, 
 not from the settlers, but from the adventur- 
 ers. The Indians did not distinguish the settler 
 from the adventurer; both were white men. And 
 in the wars that followed we look upon the 
 legitimate results of an hostility, which had been 
 created by unprincipled fortune-seekers. The 
 hatred of the Indian for the white man, and of 
 the white man for the Indian, was engendered 
 by the conscienceless cupidity of adventurers who 
 are not to be confounded with either the true 
 Puritan or the true Cavalier. 
 
 This peculiar people, already civilized and 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 233 
 
 Christianized, brought with them four great 
 ideas to be worked out into a new civilization. 
 It will be found in the study of ancient forms of 
 society, that every nation or civilization was but 
 the development of some one great idea. The 
 central idea in Hebrew civilization was religion. 
 Egyptian greatness was built up mainly about 
 the idea of material aggrandizement ; the Greeks 
 emphasized culture, and the Romans law or gov- 
 ernment. If no one of these great ideas alone 
 is sufficient to secure national permanency, no 
 one of them can be rejected. All of them are 
 essential to the upbuilding and strength of so- 
 ciety and government. 
 
 The settlers of the New World brought with 
 them these four ideas; namely, government, 
 material prosperity, culture, and religion. Gov- 
 ernment, in their minds, grew into democracy, 
 and democracy formulated itself in the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, the Constitution of the 
 United States, and the institutions of a repre- 
 sentative self-government. Both the settlers at 
 Jamestown and the settlers at Plymouth had 
 hopes, aspirations, and purposes from the begin- 
 ning which, by an inevitable evolution, came to 
 be the Declaration of 1776, and the Constitu- 
 tion of 1788. The children of the settlers were 
 
 16 
 
234 Providential Epochs. 
 
 the fathers of the signers. A democracy, pure 
 and simple, our fathers never intended ; such a 
 government in form is possible only within a 
 very limited territory, and, of course, would be 
 impossible on this great continent. In so far as 
 democracy meant the government of the people 
 by the people, and for the people, it was the am- 
 bition of our fathers to realize it. But the only 
 form of self-government practicable on so ex- 
 tended a territory as this continent was rep- 
 resentative self-government, or the republican 
 form of government. A Republic was es- 
 tablished. At the beginning of our national 
 history, the controversy was started as to 
 whether the union of states composing the 
 Republic constituted a National Union, one and 
 inseparable, or a mere confederacy of sovereign 
 States, which might be dissolved at any time a 
 State saw fit to withdraw or secede from the 
 Union. That controversy which divided' the very 
 heroes of the Revolution, and even the framers 
 of the Constitution, continued from the days of 
 Hamilton and Jefferson to the days of Webster 
 and Calhoun, and of Lincoln and Douglas ; nor 
 was it closed until at Appomattox the theory of 
 secession in the person of Robert B. Lee surren- 
 dered to the theory of the indivisible National 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 235 
 
 Union in the person of Ulysses S. Grant. K 
 representative self-government in the form of 
 a National Union, one and inseparable, as the 
 Republic stands to-day, is the ripe and fully de- 
 veloped fruit of the great seed-thought of democ- 
 racy brought to the New World in the brains 
 and hearts, the hopes and aspirations of the first 
 settlers. 
 
 In considering the epoch of the early settle- 
 ment of America we find three other ideas as 
 forces at work, laying the foundations of our 
 republican civilization. These ideas are indus- 
 try, intellect, and religion — forces which char- 
 acterize the men of that time and that important 
 work. 
 
 That settlement was an industrial movement. 
 Those frail ships so providentially guided to 
 these shores were filled with a people who had 
 been bred to toil — a people whose hands had 
 grown callous in the fields of England, the fac- 
 tories of Holland, and the mountains of Switzer- 
 land and Austria. Some few were soft-handed 
 fortune-hunters, who expected to gather up gold 
 from the soil of Virginia by shiploads; but the 
 great majority were intelligent toilers, who came 
 to develop the resources of the New World, to 
 make a home, and build a nation. And fortu- 
 
236 Providential Epochs. 
 
 tiate was it for this country that such a class 
 came. Perhaps the least successful of all the 
 Colonies in gaining a footing and securing per- 
 manent prosperity was Virginia. There, set- 
 tlers had more difficulty with the weather, In- 
 dians, disease, and every opposing force, than in 
 any other colony, and largely because too great 
 a proportion of the first settlers were "gentle- 
 men." The climate and the Indians made sad 
 havoc of "gentlemen." America could never 
 have been settled by "gentlemen," and yet we 
 shall find that these very "gentlemen" brought 
 into the colonization of America a valuable ele- 
 ment of power. The first great desideratum, how- 
 ever, was muscle. And in lauding the virtues 
 of the early settlers, we should not forget those 
 masses of early toilers, the thousands who sleep 
 in unmarked graves, whose names adorn no 
 songs, no histories, no page of fame, but with- 
 out whose industry, enterprise, and hardships 
 America, even to this day, could have had no 
 songs, no history, no fame. If in all that early 
 life one man was despised more than any other, 
 it was the idler. The old command seemed re- 
 newed to that people: "Replenish the earth 
 and subdue it." In those brave days, toil be- 
 came a religion; industry, a creed; muscle, a 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 237 
 
 virtue; hardship, a saintliness; and callousness, 
 character. 
 
 From men of this vigorous jEiber sprang a 
 race whose industrial achievements have no 
 parallel in history. The present state of devel- 
 opment found in this country, from sea to sea 
 and from gulf to lakes, is in itself Industry's 
 sublimest epic. Toil never accomplished so 
 much in any other three hundred years in any 
 other land as it has accomplished on this con- 
 tinent since the landing of the Pilgrims, and 
 this is largely due to the fact that from our 
 fathers' days to these, here has been recognized 
 the dignity of toil. 
 
 If the history of nations teaches us anything 
 it is that national greatness, wealth, and peace 
 are very largely conditioned on the ceaseless 
 industry of the people ; while an idle people, or 
 a people who hate toil, are incapable of great 
 social enlightenment, or of great national pros- 
 perity. Our prosperity has come, not only from 
 the soil, forests, mountains, aud mines of this 
 opulent continent, but from the intelligently 
 directed muscle of the people — from that indus- 
 try which is as necessary to virtue and intel- 
 lectuality as to wealth and material aggrandize- 
 ment. We boast an ancestry of toil — wielders, 
 
238 Providential Epochs. 
 
 not of swords and scepters, but wielders of the 
 hammer, the ax, the shovel, and the pruning- 
 hook, which have wrought more gloriously for 
 civilization than either sword or scepter. 
 
 The first great problem in the development 
 of the New World was a physical problem, and 
 it was to be solved by labor. The greatness of 
 our country thus far is largely due to the toilers 
 who have cultivated the land, built the cities, 
 constructed the railroads, developed the mines, 
 kindled the furnaces, and started the mills. 
 Prosperity must precede the refinements. Labor 
 which creates wealth, lays the foundation of 
 culture. It is after a people have reached a 
 comparative ease that they turn to art and let- 
 ters. A material prosperity, revival of indus- 
 try, trade, and wealth, preceded the intellectual 
 awakening of the Elizabethan era, and also of 
 the Renaissance. Culture followed wealth in 
 the civilization of ancient Rome, Greece, and 
 Egypt. 
 
 The development of a mighty people, how- 
 ever, will not stop at material prosperity. Great 
 granaries, railroads, machines, and houses are 
 not equal in glory to great books, colleges, and 
 thinkers. The ^Eneid stands for a greater 
 Rome than the Coliseum ; the Iliad, for a nobler 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 239 
 
 Greece than the sword of Miltiades; Oxford is 
 higher than Manchester; brain ranks brawn. 
 
 The early settlement of North America was 
 an intellectual and moral movement, as was the 
 Reformation. Its leading promoters were the 
 scholars of the age. The ignorant and super- 
 stitious masses remained with the old Roman- 
 ism; the intelligent and progressive came into 
 the new Protestantism. The first Protestants 
 were the most advanced thinkers of their time, 
 whether they were laymen or clergymen. The 
 Puritans, Moravians, and Huguenots were a 
 people of advanced ideas, thoughtful, and intel- 
 lectual. When they came to this country they 
 brought with them the intellectual tastes and 
 aspirations which were to give a high and ra- 
 tional character to American institutions and 
 life. It will also be kept in mind that the col- 
 onization of this country was promoted during 
 the'golden age of English letters, and was pat- 
 ronized by the brightest geniuses that adorned 
 the reigns of Elizabeth and James. Sir Walter 
 Raleigh, though no Puritan, was a colonizer, or 
 an organizer of colonies, and sailed for Virginia 
 with a company of "gentlemen" of taste and 
 education. He had been the companion of 
 Bacon and Spenser, and had doubtless associated 
 
240 Providential Epochs. 
 
 with Jonson and Shakespeare. He was one 
 of the most universal scholars of his age — a 
 scientist, historian, philosopher, statesman, and 
 poet, no less than a voyager and soldier. It 
 was only by an accident that he failed to reach 
 and possibly to become a settler of Virginia. 
 Sir Philip Sidney was also an active promoter 
 of Virginian colonization, organizing voyages to 
 the New World. He was actually on board the 
 ship bound for America — as was Cromwell, later 
 on — when a summons from the queen called 
 him back to the court. William Herbert, third 
 Earl of Pembroke, one of the most zealous 
 friends of Virginian colonization, a patentee of 
 vast tracts of land in the New World and a pro- 
 moter of emigration, was a patron of learning 
 and literature, after whom Pembroke College, 
 Oxford, was named, and to whom the first folio- 
 edition of Shakespeare's works was dedicated. 
 Thomas West, third Lord De La Warr, who 
 "devoted his life to the movement for estab- 
 lishing English Protestant colonies in the New 
 World," and who was the first governor and 
 captain-general of Virginia, was a graduate of 
 Oxford University, and a member of the Privy 
 Council of Queen Elizabeth and of James I. 
 George Sandys, who "spent the ripest of his 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 241 
 
 years in the public employment in Virginia," 
 was an Oxford man, a scholar and author whose 
 intellectual abilities were displayed in several 
 literary productions, including his well-known 
 "Paraphrase of the Psalms," and his transla- 
 tions into English verse of Ovid's "Metamor- 
 phoses." It was this class of highly intellect- 
 ual men that largely determined the character 
 of early Virginian settlement. The very intel- 
 lectuality of those promoters of colonization was 
 prophetic of the future culture of Virginians — a 
 people of oratory, eloquence, statesmanship, and 
 refined manners. 
 
 Among the foundation-builders of Massachu- 
 setts we find Winthrop, educated at Cambridge, 
 England; Vane, from Oxford, a scholar and 
 statesman, whose genius and life gave orna- 
 ment to both American and English history; 
 and Leverett, a member of the Royal Society, 
 whose learning was the admiration of two con- 
 tinents. Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode 
 Island, was a Cambridge man, and an intimate 
 friend of John Milton and his intellectual like. 
 The younger Winthrop was a college graduate, 
 whose name has stood for culture in Connecticut, 
 where Yale has maintained supremacy for clas- 
 sical education. John Ivocke, the philosopher, 
 
242 PROVIDEMTIAL EPOCHS. 
 
 was so interested in the early development of 
 the political institutions of this country that he 
 wrote a constitution for North Carolina. Ogle- 
 thorpe came from England's halls of learning 
 and famous fields of glory to found Georgia with 
 a colony of honest debtors, who, though bank- 
 rupt financially, were in many instances rich in 
 culture and all the refinements of civilized life. 
 Indeed, one can not walk up and down those 
 Colonies without finding scores and hundreds of 
 learned men, college graduates, who left their 
 intellectual mark upon the age. In further proof 
 of the educational tastes and tendencies of the 
 people who settled America, during the first one 
 hundred and fifty years we see springing up on 
 every hand such institutions of learning as Har- 
 vard in Massachusetts, Yale in Connecticut, 
 Princeton in New Jersey, William and Mary in 
 Virginia, Columbia in New York, Dartmouth in 
 New Hampshire, Brown in Rhode Island, and 
 the University of Pennsylvania. A larger per- 
 centage of the ministers, governors, teachers, 
 statesmen, and generals of that day, and of the 
 Revolutionary period, were liberally educated 
 than of* those in the same professions to-day. 
 By the time the Revolution was on, the 
 statesmen of the country were so universally 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 243 
 
 well educated that three-fourths of the signers 
 of the Declaration of Independence were college 
 graduates. Puritanism was born in Cambridge 
 University, and from the intellectual cradle of 
 its birth the Puritan spirit carried a taste for 
 learning into New England, where were laid the 
 foundations of American science and literature. 
 The college-born spirit of Puritanism essayed 
 to establish in this New World a civilization of 
 intellectual vigor,. no less than of material ag- 
 grandizement — a civilization which recognizes 
 the school as a bulwark of liberty more impreg- 
 nable than forts, the press as a weapon of de- 
 fense mightier than the sword, and education as 
 a guarantee of national power more potent than 
 any kingly scepter. As early as 1647 the free 
 common school was established in Massachusetts 
 by order of the General Court. They wrought 
 grandly — those serious, sensible fathers — but not 
 more grandly than they knew ; for there never 
 came to the building of a new nation a more 
 progressive and high-minded race of men than 
 our national founders, who were enlightened 
 enough to appreciate the fact that the intelli- 
 gence which had asserted their liberty -was es- 
 sential to its maintenance. So wisely did those 
 first Americans plan and execute, that, after a 
 
244 Providential Epochs. 
 
 lapse of nearly two hundred years, Daniel Web- 
 ster could say: "Among the luminaries in the 
 sky of New England, the burning lights which 
 throw intelligence and happiness on her people, 
 the first and most brilliant is her common 
 schools." Since those first days, the common 
 school has been intimately related to the growth 
 and maintenance of republicanism. It has had a 
 political mission in securing the democracy of 
 intelligence and the intelligence of democracy. 
 It has come to be a conviction with us that free- 
 dom can be achieved only by the maintenance 
 of the people's intelligence, and the people's in- 
 telligence can be maintained only by a common- 
 school system that will give universally to the 
 generations as they rise the elements of a liberal 
 education. Seminaries may educate classes; the 
 common school alone can educate the masses. 
 Despotisms may even plant and patronize col- 
 leges; republics alone are safe in establishing 
 common schools. Tyranny and aristocracy have 
 flourished in the classic halls of universities; but 
 the common school, which has stripped the peo- 
 ple of their burdens and princes of their privi- 
 leges, has ver}^ consistently received scant favor 
 from monarchical forms of government. 
 
 There is not a throne of Europe that is not 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 245 
 
 yielding its atfcient prerogatives to the rights of 
 people in the ratio of the people's advance- 
 ment in elementary education. Knowledge is 
 power, whether it be with the few or the many. 
 The power of the people is conditioned on their 
 information. 
 
 The greatest problem which our educational 
 system has to solve at the present time, and for 
 some time to come, is not how republics may 
 produce great geniuses, nor how we may come 
 to a Grecian glory in art, a Roman power in 
 arms, an English greatness in letters, or a 
 French splendor in fashion, but how shall we 
 make a homogeneous body politic out of our 
 heterogeneous population? This problem can 
 be solved only by the common school, which 
 shall take the children of American, Irish, Scotch, 
 German, Italian, Bohemian, and Scandinavian 
 parentage, and so mold and fashion them that 
 they will come forth to the duties and privileges 
 of American citizenship as characteristic Amer- 
 icans, their minds and characters stamped with 
 an indelible Americanism, and their hearts hold- 
 ing a legitimate pride of citizenship such as 
 never animated the bosom of a Roman. Not 
 by colleges, not by aristocratic private semi- 
 naries, not by the narrow denominational or 
 
246 Providential Epochs. 
 
 parochial school, but by the broad, thorough, 
 democratic, non-sectarian common school is 
 this all-important Americanizing work to be 
 accomplished. 
 
 As it was the high mission of our fathers to 
 establish the common school and thereby secure 
 an enlightened and unified Americanism, so 
 should it be recognized as our duty to preserve 
 the common school from the blighting influence 
 of an alien foreignism and an intermeddling 
 ecclesiasticism. The Mississippi was never po- 
 litically nor religiously predestined to become a 
 tributary to the Rhine, the Shannon, or the 
 Tiber. 
 
 But an elementary education, however univer- 
 sal it may become, does not constitute greatness 
 nor secure a people in their liberties. That 
 higher more liberal training of intellect and 
 genius which results in mental production, in 
 the creation of arts, sciences, and letters, is es- 
 sential to inspire a lasting pride and love of 
 country. Where, it may be asked, are our great 
 books, our works of art, our systems of phi- 
 losophy, our epics and our oratorios? Have we 
 now, or is there to be, a distinctively American 
 literature, an American school of art, an Amer- 
 ican culture and civilization ? 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 247 
 
 Though Matthew Arnold imagined that 
 American civilization was identical with Eng- 
 lish civilization, and facetiously criticised what 
 we were assuming to call "American literature," 
 "American art," and "American culture," he 
 was for the moment unphilosophical enough to 
 suppose that language more than anything else 
 gave character to art and letters, and that iden- 
 tity of language meant identity of culture and 
 of civilization. But the arts and literatures of 
 the past have found their true character in the 
 conditions, histories, faiths, struggles, aspira- 
 tions, and high purposes of peoples more than 
 in their languages. And, though our language 
 be the English, there are other elements enter- 
 ing into the structure of our civilization which 
 must make it as distinct from a purely English 
 civilization as the Hebrew was distinct from the 
 Egyptian, and the Roman from the Greek. 
 
 There is a clearly-defined Americanism in 
 the very genius of our political institutions, and 
 that Americanism will express itself in American 
 arts and letters, in the culture which must here 
 be developed. It is possible we are as yet too 
 imitative in our art and literature ; but there is 
 quite a movement toward liberty and originality 
 in recent years which encourages us to look for- 
 
248 Providential Epochs. 
 
 ward to the coming of artists and authors who 
 shall be the founders and masters of distinct- 
 ively American schools. America has already 
 distinguished herself in the production of in- 
 ventive geniuses and of political and military 
 geniuses. With such inventors as Franklin, 
 Fulton, Morse, Field, Howe, and Edison ; with 
 statesmen like Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams, 
 Webster, Seward, Sumner, and Lincoln ; and with 
 generals of the talent and genius of Washing- 
 ton, Jackson, Taylor, Scott, Sherman, Thomas, 
 Sheridan, and Grant, may we not look for artists 
 and poets of equally great powers? Shall we 
 confess that Poe, Longfellow, Whittier, and Lo- 
 well, proud of them as we may be, are more than 
 the heralds and prophets of a mightier singer yet 
 to come ? Is there not in store for this people a 
 poet who shall be to us what Homer was to the 
 Greeks, Virgil to the Romans, Dante to the 
 Italians, Goethe to the Germans, Moliere to the 
 French, and Milton or Shakespeare was to the 
 English — the undisputed and eternal exponent 
 of their poetic life and literary greatness? And, 
 likewise, may we not find in the artistic endeav- 
 orings of this people the promise of an art 
 achievement equally great with their achieve- 
 ments in science, government, and invention? 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 249 
 
 Will he not some day appear who shall be to us 
 what Raphael is to the Italians, Rembrandt to 
 the Dutch, Claude to the French, Murillo to 
 the Spaniards, and Turner to the English — our 
 master, a world master? This, it must be, is our 
 hope and our destiny in the higher realms of 
 national developments and achievements. But 
 nations are slow in coming to their best age. 
 The critics of our American culture must grant 
 us the fair privilege of ample time for full growth 
 in the intellectualities. They must consider the 
 embarrassing magnitude of the material prob- 
 lems obstructing the way of America's literary 
 and aesthetic progress. They must not demand 
 fruit before its season. 
 
 It took the Greeks six hundred years to come 
 to Phidias and the Golden Age ; it took the 
 Romans eight hundred years to reach Virgil and 
 the Augustan Age ; it took the English fifteen 
 hundred years after their first contact with classic 
 Rome to rise to a Shakespeare and an Eliza- 
 bethan Age. Let us not be discouraged if our 
 granaries do outgrow our schools of learning and 
 our galleries of art, and if our millionaires are 
 more numerous than our poets. The founda- 
 tions of culture are being laid in our material 
 prosperity. Our political development, wealth, 
 
 17 
 
250 Providential Epochs. 
 
 and stability will condition national taste and 
 refinement. Then from the amalgamation of 
 the nations of the earth now going on in America 
 there must come a new order of genius which 
 shall give forth a new and an original art and lit- 
 erature, and attain a higher, nobler culture than 
 has yet been known. The intellectual harvest has 
 not yet had time to ripen. The seed sown by 
 those strong-brained pioneers had mighty prom- 
 ise in it ; the fullness of time will reveal that it 
 was endowed with the potency of the highest re- 
 finements and of the most liberal culture. 
 
 The early settlement of our country had its 
 religious characteristics. History will teach the 
 philosophic mind that Providence has been 
 working toward the establishment of a great 
 republic. Protestantism alone can furnish a 
 basis for such a government. Roman Catholi- 
 cism for fifteen hundred years has been inimical 
 to democracy. Its policy has been to quench 
 rather than to encourage the spirit of liberty. It 
 has never believed in the power of the people. 
 It antagonizes the right of free thought and free 
 worship. It condemns what is called the right 
 of private judgment. The power that rose up 
 against the Reformation would rise up against 
 republicanism. A nationalism which does not 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 251 
 
 recognize the temporal power of the papacy, but 
 is established on the great corner-stones of free 
 judgment, free speech, free school, and free 
 Church, is a menace to the political ambition and 
 despotic power of ecclesiastical Romanism. It 
 is remarkable that Maryland alone was colonized 
 by a Roman Catholic, and that even Calvert 
 was not influential, or possibly he was not 
 Catholic enough, to prevent Protestantism in the 
 form of Episcopalianism gaining the ascendency 
 even in that Colony. It is no less remarkable 
 that nearly all the Colonies were settled by non- 
 conformists, by those independent sects which 
 were in the lead of the great Protestant develop- 
 ment. The Puritans of New England were the 
 true followers of Wyclif, "the morning star of 
 the Reformation." They were even in advance 
 of the Church of England. The Bible in the 
 translations of Wyclif, Coverdale, and Tyndale 
 had awakened them to the simplicity of Chris- 
 tianity, and they held to that fundamental idea of 
 the Reformation, "the Bible is the sole authority 
 for belief and conduct." They went a step 
 farther, and declared that in all things, in belief, 
 conduct, and even Church discipline, the Bible is 
 our only authority. This idea came in conflict 
 with the doctrine that the Church is authority, 
 
252 Providential Epochs. 
 
 and the pope or king is head of the Church. 
 Returning to apostolic simplicity of form and 
 worship the Puritans in England became the 
 true leaders of Protestantism. They were perse- 
 cuted, their ministers driven from their pulpits, 
 and they found safety only in exile. While 
 Bacon was teaching the new philosophy, while 
 Shakespeare was singing his immortal strains, 
 while England was exulting in her golden age of 
 letters, the pure-minded, honest, conscientious 
 Puritans were driven from their churches and 
 their homes to find toleration in a foreign 
 country. For a season they found a resting- 
 place in Holland. They were pilgrims indeed. 
 But one day in 1620, a company of them knelt 
 about their faithful pastor, John Robinson, at 
 Delft, bade farewell to friends and kindred, and 
 turned their faces toward "the continent of the 
 future." Those Pilgrims landed in the New 
 World as they had departed from the Old World, 
 with devout worship, and the settlement of New 
 England was inaugurated with song and prayer. 
 In the progress of the settlement of the 
 Colonies we find that Roger Williams's advanced 
 religious ideas, which made even Massachusetts 
 too narrow for him, led him to found Rhode 
 Island. It has been difficult for the human 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 253 
 
 mind to liberate itself from the spirit of intoler- 
 ance. The right of private judgment, and the 
 right of every man to worship God after the 
 dictates of his own conscience, have been relnc- 
 tantly acknowledged after centuries of persecu- 
 tion. Nor can it be claimed that the Roman 
 Catholics have had a monopoly of intolerance. 
 The very reformers had a dictatorial spirit. 
 lyUther was not entirely free from the long-cul- 
 tivated bigotry that characterized Romanism. 
 Calvin was a severe and intolerant dogmatist. 
 The Established Church of England would not 
 tolerate the advanced ideas of religious freedom 
 and independence held by the Puritans. The 
 Puritans, after having fled from the persecutions 
 of Episcopalian bigotry, became the religious 
 dictators of the New World, and were as intolerant 
 of more advanced ideas as the Church of Eng- 
 land had been of theirs. Rhode Island stands 
 on the foundation of Roger Williams's courage 
 and right to think and worship with a sense of 
 responsibility to God alone. 
 
 New Jersey was in a state of turmoil, rather 
 than of settlement, until the Quakers, under the 
 leadership of Penn, found it an asylum, and 
 made it their home. Pennsylvania was hardly 
 less religious in its settlement than the land of 
 
254 Providential Epochs. 
 
 Canaan, and William Penn was, to the persecuted 
 Quakers whom he established in this colony, 
 both a Moses and a Joshua. The foundation- 
 stone of this great Commonwealth was brotherly 
 love — the first and greatest principle of Chris- 
 tianity. It was by the very consistency of prov- 
 idential history that the first peal of independ- 
 ence should here ring forth to celebrate the 
 dawn of democracy — the new day of equality 
 and freedom. 
 
 The Carolinas were settled by the Huguenots, 
 Scotch Presbyterians, Puritans, and Quakers, a 
 mixtiire of vigorous, heroic, coHScientious mate- 
 rials for a Christian community. Georgia, under 
 the governorship of the philanthropic Oglethorpe, 
 became a most hospitable and inviting country 
 to the Moravians, who were the disciples of Huss, 
 and the Salzburgers of Austria, who had become 
 converts to the Lutheran Reformation. Thither, 
 also, came Whitefield and the Wesleys, to lay the 
 foundation of what was to be Georgia's great 
 Methodism. So strictly moral and Christian 
 were the beginnings of this Commonwealth, 
 which in our day is one of the most promising 
 industrial centers of the South, that laws were 
 enacted prohibiting slavery and the sale of in- 
 toxicants. It was not until the climate had en- 
 
JOHN WESLEY. 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 255 
 
 ervated those God-fearing first settlers, or their 
 children, that slavery was permitted to enter, os- 
 tensibly to relieve the whites of the burdens which 
 they were not strong enough to bear, and of the 
 wage expense which they were too poor to meet. 
 
 Wherever we study this early life in America, 
 it appears that religion, in form or spirit, is rec- 
 ognized as the foundation of social order; the 
 Bible is accepted as authority in social and per- 
 sonal morals — its teachings are an essential part 
 of the common law; the Sabbath is observed as 
 a day of rest and worship; Jesus Christ is adored 
 as the Savior of the world ; a Divine Providence 
 is admitted to rule over the destinies of nations ; 
 religious liberty gradually prevails; intolerance 
 disappears ; while simplicity of worship, honesty, 
 temperance, frugality, brotherly love, are growing 
 characteristics of the people. 
 
 It might have been prophesied that the 
 faults and weaknesses of character and educa- 
 tion — to which the origin of religious intolerance, 
 the witchcraft experiences, and slavery must be 
 attributed — would some day disappear. The 
 core of that early character was integrity. In 
 its development into our noble, free American- 
 ism it was destined to outgrow the limitations 
 which had been fixed by early customs and train- 
 
256 Providential Epochs. 
 
 ing, and to produce a richer, more liberal life of 
 intellectual aspiration, moral purpose, social hap- 
 piness, and political equality. 
 
 In the broad and humane character of our 
 land, in our law-protected religious and political 
 liberty, in the Christian genius of our American 
 institutions, in the growing greatness of our free 
 and prosperous Republic, we may almost felici- 
 tate ourselves upon having seen the dawning 
 splendors of that 
 
 " Oue, far-off, divine event, 
 To which the whole creation moves," 
 
 and of which the poets long have sung and seers 
 have prophesied. 
 
 A Christian republic is the ideal government 
 toward the realization of which every struggle 
 for political and religious liberty has contributed. 
 The philosophy of history reveals that the con- 
 trolling forces which have shaped events and de- 
 termined national destinies have been the love 
 of freedom and the fear of God. In the long 
 conflicts between the rights of the people and 
 the pretenses of tyrants, between the conscience 
 of the individual and the dictates of ecclesias- 
 ticism, liberty and pure religion have been con- 
 stant allies. 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 257 
 
 Religion, as distinct from superstition, lias 
 not destroyed liberty, but has championed her 
 cause; while law-protected liberty has not de- 
 stroyed religion, but has cleared a way for her 
 progress. The true spirit of Christianity and of 
 constitutional freedom have never been divorced. 
 They have walked hand in hand down our Anglo- 
 Saxon history, with songs of hope and progress, 
 scattering the precious seed that has sprouted 
 and ripened into the laws and institutions of 
 great and happy nations. When Alfred the Great 
 was laying the foundation of the English consti- 
 tution he recognized the ethics of Christianity to 
 be fundamental to the establishment of social 
 order, the stability of political government, and 
 the defense of human rights. From the days of 
 this vigorous Saxon king, English law has recog- 
 nized the authority of the Bible, and through 
 the entire warp and woof of that noble unwritten 
 constitution, which has come out of the noisy 
 loom of debate and battle, have been woven the 
 golden threads of theistic and Christian ideas. 
 Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the common 
 law of England, says : ' ' Upon the law of nature 
 and the law of revelation depend all human 
 laws, . . . yet undoubtedly the revealed law 
 is of infinitely more authority than that moral 
 
258 Providential Epochs. 
 
 system which is framed by ethical writers and 
 denominated the natural law." Judge Story 
 says: "There never has been a period when the 
 common law did not recognize Christianity as 
 lying at its foundation." Chief-Justice Shea 
 claims that "the common law of England came 
 from the Sacred Scriptures chiefly." The elo- 
 quent Erskine, in his famous prosecution of the 
 publisher of the "Age of Reason," exclaimed: 
 " The Christian religion is the very foundation of 
 the law of the land." We have inherited that 
 common law, and to eliminate therefrom the 
 spirit of Christianity and the recognition of the 
 moral authority of the Bible, would be to under- 
 mine the beautiful fabric, to rob the noble struc- 
 ture of the very cement of its unity and stability. 
 When our fathers brought their religion with 
 them to this great continent, they seemed almost 
 inspired as, with prayer and hymn and ordi- 
 nances of Christian worship, they laid the founda- 
 tion of our greatness, and planted the germs of 
 our national prosperity. Christian conviction 
 stood at the helm of the Mayfloiver ; Christian 
 hope unfurled her white sails for a new world; 
 Christian faith, with a song of praise and a 
 prayer of dependence, leaped from her deck to 
 Plymouth Rock; and Christian conscience took 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 259 
 
 this land for Christian liberty. A thoughtful, 
 serious people; a people with Bibles and relig- 
 ious scruples; a people given to worship and 
 prayer; a people believing in Providence, and 
 remembering the Sabbath to keep it holy; a 
 people of heroic mold amid dangers, privations, 
 and struggles, long and terrible, — fashioned the 
 strong framework of our Ship of State. 
 
 "We know what masters laid thy keel; 
 What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel ; 
 
 Who made each mast and sail and rope ; 
 What anvils rang, what hammers beat; 
 In what a forge and what a heat 
 
 Were shaped the anchors of thy hope." 
 
 For, whatever the poet's intention, no song that 
 celebrates our national glory and origin can be 
 true that does not include the Pilgrims with the 
 Revolutionary fathers in that noble band of 
 heroes whose love of God and liberty gave to 
 our national history its mighty initial impulse. 
 
 Referring to the Protestants who first peo- 
 pled this country, De Tocqueville says: "They 
 brought with them into the New World a form 
 of Christianity which I can not better describe 
 than by styling it a democratic and republican 
 religion. This sect contributed powerfully to 
 the establishment of democracy and a republic; 
 
26o Providential Epochs. 
 
 and from the earliest settlement of the emi- 
 grants, politics and religion contracted an alli- 
 ance which has never been dissolved." Again 
 he says: "In the United States the sovereign 
 authority is religions, . . . There is no 
 country in the whole world in which the Chris- 
 tian religion retains a greater influence over the 
 souls of men than in America, and there can be 
 no greater proof of its utility, and of its con- 
 formity to human nature, than that its influence 
 is most powerfully felt over the most enlight- 
 ened and free nation of the earth." But one 
 more statement of this noble writer is needed 
 to prevent a misapprehension of a previous as- 
 sertion. He says: "Religion in America takes 
 no direct part in the government of society, but 
 it must neverthel'ess be regarded as the fore- 
 most of the political institutions of that country ; 
 for, if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it 
 facilitates the use of free institutions." These 
 are the careful, philosophical conclusions of one 
 of the profoundest students of our American in- 
 stitutions — of the greatest political writer of the 
 nineteenth century. With Charles Sumner, every 
 American citizen of noble feeling must exclaim: 
 "Honor and gratitude to his memory!" 
 
 While Massachusetts remembers her Christian 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 261 
 
 founders: her Standisli, her Carver, her Endicott, 
 and Winthrop; while the Empire State remem- 
 bers her Stiiyvesant, and her Dutch Protestant 
 origin; while Connecticut remembers her Puri- 
 tan colonizers, her Eaton and Davenport, her 
 Vane and Winthrop, and the ministers who 
 founded her glorious Yale; while Rhode Island 
 remembers her Baptist sires and her Roger Will- 
 iams; while Georgia remembers her Oglethorpe, 
 her Methodists and Moravians; while Pennsyl- 
 vania remembers her Quaker fathers and her 
 noble Penn; and while Americans all remember 
 the first settlers of the original Colonies from 
 which our glorious States have arisen, — they 
 will remember that they are not sprung from 
 the degenerate loins of Atheism ; that they have 
 not inherited the enervated laws of a Christless 
 infidelity; that they do not belong to a race of 
 Bible-haters and Sabbath-breakers; that they 
 are not part of a Godless civilization. Nor can 
 this become an infidel nation until it has plowed 
 up the bones of its Christian ancestors, and 
 hurled them into the ingulfing sea from the 
 New England shores, which they have conse- 
 crated for two hundred and fifty years. This 
 can not become a Bibleless, Sabbathless people 
 until they have forgotten the greatest champions 
 
262 Providential Epochs. 
 
 of liberty and wisest legislators of State that 
 dignify their history. This can not become an 
 Atheistic nation until it has ceased to read its 
 charters of liberty, and has forgotten the events 
 which have forged its greatness. 
 
 The Revolutionary fathers, in times that tried 
 men's souls, were not ashamed to acknowledge 
 their dependence upon God. Those serious, de- 
 voted, firm-souled men believed in the Provi- 
 dence that fights the battles of justice and of 
 liberty. Blot out the expressions of faith, rev- 
 erence, and thanksgiving, with which those old 
 worthies recognized the providence and author- 
 ity of God, and a black stain is put on every 
 great oration that fell from the inspired lips of 
 that majestic Revolutionary eloquence. Look 
 into the speeches and correspondence of those 
 great nation-makers — what respect for religion! 
 what a noble trust in God ! On the eve of the 
 struggle for independence, Boston is electrified 
 by the patriotic eloquence of Joseph Warren. 
 " Like Harrington he wrote, like Cicero he spoke, 
 like Hampden he lived, and like Wolfe he died." 
 Urging the people on to liberty, he said: "If 
 you perform your part, you must have the 
 strongest confidence that the same Almighty 
 Being who protected your pious and venerable 
 

 V^^^V^ 
 
 
 ( 
 
 
 \ 
 
 JOHN HANCOCK. 
 
The Settlement of Our Couatry. 263 
 
 forefathers; who enabled them to turn a barren 
 wilderness into a frnitfnl field; who so often 
 made bare his arm for their salvation, — will still 
 be mindful of yon, their offspring. May this 
 Almighty Being gracionsly preside in all our 
 councils! May he direct ns to such measures 
 as he himself shall approve, and be pleased to 
 bless! May we ever be a people favored of 
 God!" Then John Hancock, still nearer the 
 Revolutionary beginning, raised his voice to 
 speak such golden words as these: "I have the 
 most animating confidence that the present 
 struggle for liberty will terminate gloriously for 
 America. And let us play the man for our God 
 and for the cities of our God. While we are 
 using the means in our power, let us humbly 
 commit our righteous cause to the great Lord 
 of the universe, who loveth righteousness and 
 hateth iniquity. And, having secured the ap- 
 probation of our hearts by a faithful and un- 
 wearied discharge of our duty to our country, 
 let us joyfully leave our concerns in the hands 
 of Him who raiseth up and putteth down the 
 empires and kingdoms of the world as he pleases ; 
 and, with cheerful submission to his sovereign 
 will, devoutly say: 'Although the fig-tree shall 
 not blossom, neither shall fruit be on the vines; 
 
264 Providential Epochs. 
 
 the labor of the olive shall fail, and the field 
 shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off 
 from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the 
 stalls, — yet we will rejoice in the Lord, we will 
 joy in the God of our salvation.' " 
 
 Still later, Patrick Henry thrills the Colonies 
 with such words as : " An appeal to arms, and 
 to the God of hosts is all that is left us. 
 Three millions of people, armed in the holy 
 cause of liberty, and in such a country as that 
 which we possess, are invincible by any force 
 which our enemies can send against us. Be- 
 sides, sir, we shall not fight our battle alone. 
 There is a just God who presides over the des- 
 tinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to 
 fight our battles for us." Samuel Adams, who 
 hardly ever delivered a great speech, or wrote 
 an article in defense of human rights, without 
 reference to the authority of God, and who 
 moved that the Continental Congress be opened 
 with prayer, drew up the report on the rights of 
 the Colonists, and therein laid down this basis for 
 their rights as Christians : " These," he says, 
 " may be best understood by reading, and care- 
 fully studying the institutes of the great Law- 
 giver and head of the Christian Church, which 
 are to be found clearly written and promulgated 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 265 
 
 in the New Testament." John Adams, who 
 called the Bible the " best book in the world," 
 wrote to his wife on the day following the vote 
 on the " Declaration of Independence," saying : 
 "The second day of July ought to be commem- 
 orated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts 
 of devotion to God Almighty." And Washing- 
 ton himself, the Father of our Country, thus 
 closes the letter in which he resigns his commis- 
 sion as general-in-chief of the victorious Ameri- 
 can armies : " I consider it as an indispensable 
 duty to close this last solemn act of my official 
 life by commending the interests of our dearest 
 country to the protection of Almighty God, and 
 those who have the superintendence of them to 
 his holy keeping." In his letter to the govern- 
 ors he closes with these noble words: "I now 
 make an earnest prayer that God would have 
 you and the State over which you preside in his 
 holy protection ; that he would incline the hearts 
 of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subor- 
 dination and obedience to government; to en- 
 tertain a brotherly affection and love for one an- 
 other, for their fellow-citizens of the United 
 States at large, and particularly for their breth- 
 ren who have served in the field ; and finally, 
 
 that he would most graciously be pleased to dis- 
 
 18 
 
266 Providential Epochs. 
 
 pose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to 
 demean ourselves with that charity, humility, 
 and pacific temper of mind, which were the char- 
 acteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed 
 religion, without a humble imitation of whose 
 example in these things we can never hope to 
 be a happy nation." Delivering the First Inau- 
 gural as first President of the United States, he 
 said: "It would be particularly improper to omit, 
 in the first official act, my fervent supplications 
 to that Almighty Being who rules over the uni- 
 verse, who presides in the councils of nations, 
 and whose providential aids can supply every 
 human defect ; that his benediction may conse- 
 crate to the liberties and happiness of the people 
 of the United States a government instituted by 
 themselves for those essential purposes, and may 
 enable every instrument employed in its admin- 
 istration to execute with success the functions 
 allotted to his charge. No people can be bound 
 to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand 
 which conducts the affairs of men, more than 
 the people of the United States. Every step by 
 which they have advanced to the character of 
 an independent nation seems to have been dis- 
 tinguished by some token of providential agency." 
 Thus spoke our God-fearing, Christian fathers. 
 
The Settlement of Our Country. 267 
 
 But more than this, not a great oration ever 
 rolled from the lips of Anglo-Saxon eloquence in 
 defense of human rights that had not in it an 
 acknowledgment of the authority of God's law, 
 and a mention of God's name with reverence 
 and faith. The blunt John Bright, the scholarly 
 Sumner, the silver-tongued Clay, the Titanic 
 Webster, the classical Everett, the polished Lee, 
 the vigorous Henry, the impassioned Otis, the 
 Demosthenean Chatham, the Ciceronian Burke, 
 never spoke an immortal oration that was not 
 adorned with a reverential mention of the name 
 and law of God. And still further, the name of 
 God and a recognition of the authority of his 
 law are found in every great written instrument 
 that has secured for man his rights and liberties 
 throughout English and American political his- 
 tory. We find the name of God, and a recog- 
 nition of his authority, engraven on the founda- 
 tion-stone of English liberty, written in the 
 famous Magna Charta of King John, in the 
 "Declaration of Independence," in the "Articles 
 of Confederation and Perpetual Union between 
 the States," in the " Emancipation Proclamation." 
 On nearly every grand monument that celebrates 
 the triumphs of human rights and the glorious 
 progress of liberty in America, is inscribed some 
 
268 Providential Epochs. 
 
 reverential recognition of the Deity. In the 
 corner-stones of a hundred thousand churches 
 that jewel this land from sea to sea, lies a copy 
 of the Word of God, which says : " Worship the 
 Lord in the beauty of holiness." In the corner- 
 stones of four hundred colleges, established for 
 the liberal education of American youth, lies a 
 copy of that Bible which says: "Receive knowl- 
 edge rather than choice gold ; for wisdom is 
 better than rubies." In the corner-stones of 
 hundreds of hospitals and asylums and other be- 
 nevolent institutions, lies a copy of that Bible 
 which teaches that of all the graces that adorn 
 manhood, the greatest is sweet charity. Every 
 great monument reared to honor heroism and 
 patriotic devotion, or to commemorate any great 
 triumph of freedom, from the granite shaft of 
 Bunker Hill to the noble piles that celebrate 
 the deeds and devotion of the late saviors of the 
 Union, every one was begun and unveiled with 
 prayer. We must plow up these prayer-planted, 
 Bible-holding corner-stones, and hurl them with 
 Plymouth Rock into the sea, before we can cease 
 to be a Christian nation. Nearly every great mon- 
 ument, every great legislative and judicial body, 
 every great code of laws and charter of rights, 
 every great liberty-advancing revolution, every 
 
 W 93 
 
The Settlement of Our Country, 269 
 
 great book, every great oration, every great poet 
 and orator, every great statesman and judge, 
 every great soldier, patriot, reformer, and philan- 
 thropist, every great discoverer and inventor, 
 hero and martyr, that has glorified our Anglo- 
 Saxon history has paid a just, reverential tribute 
 to Almighty God, to the Holy Bible, and to the 
 Christian religion. We are a Christian people, 
 and our civilization is the glorious and immortal 
 offspring of the Divine Providence. 
 
 In the character of our laws, and the genius 
 of our institutions we find the culmination of the 
 co-operative . influence of the spirit of liberty 
 and the spirit of religion, which, through the 
 ages, has been making for righteousness, and 
 peace — a righteousness based on the eternal law 
 of God, a peace founded on the inalienable rights 
 of man. 
 
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