tains all things by the power of His wisdom and love, to whom the most remote is not too remote, nor the least too small; who has not merely His individual favourites among mankind, but equally cherishes the whole race in His heart; who cares not merely for the most minute interests of their external life, but seeks above all things the salvation of their souls, and desires above all the affection of their hearts. These were utterly new notions, notions of which the old world had known nothing. Moreover, that God had made of one blood all nations of the earth; that all were brethren, and ought to be united by one common bond of love; that the stranger was no stranger, but a neighbour; that we should look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others; that our life should be a life of service and of sacrifice for others; that selfishness is the radical sin of human nature; self-surrender, love, the radical virtue, whose imagination had such ideas as yet entered? And finally, that one single idea ruled the fate of nations and states as well as of individuals; that there was a single history of the whole human race, commencing from one beginning, proceeding to one end, and that end the kingdom of God; that there was to be a kingdom of God upon earth, into which all were to be gathered, in which all were to be absorbed; and that this kingdom of God was already established in Him who formed the central point of history, the termination of the old, the beginning of a new era; who was not merely its

herald, but its founder, the manifestation of God himself, the manifestation of the life, the light, the love of God in history, in and towards man-Jesus Christ, in whom all the lines of former history meet, from whom all the lines of subsequent history proceed, who is also the central point of attraction to individual souls, in whom each individual, as well as the whole aggregate of humanity, attains his destiny, and thus becomes a member of that great kingdom of God which is founded upon justice and grace, upon the deepest and firmest moral basis;—what a light has all this cast upon history, upon God's dealings with nations, upon His dealings with individual souls; and how has it gathered the greatest and the least, the aggregate and the individual, into one marvellous. unity! (3) Not the very greatest of philosophers, not the most comprehensive, not the most soaring mind, had as yet formed even a conjecture of these truths, far less had thought out, recognised, and expressed them, and moreover succeeded in making them the universal view, a popular matter, a power over heart and life. Verily, Christianity brought into the world a new view of the universe.

With us these are now current notions: the things which were then new, surprising, and unheard of, now form the elementary propositions of Christian opinion. Yet these thoughts have lost nothing of their greatness; they are the same now that they ever were, as true, as sublime, as enlightening, and as enkindling. It is we who have lost the lively impression of their

greatness, sublimity, and beauty; we have become accustomed to them, and they have thus become too customary to us. Such is the fate of all great truths.

It was but natural that this new view of the universe should not immediately prevail. It had to overcome an obstinate resistance before it obtained the victory. It is true that this resistance was not offered by any united system of opinions. The world of ancient thought was dissolved. The process of decomposition had begun with the rise of philosophy in the sixth century before Christ. For philosophy had set itself to work upon traditionary religious notions, and had substituted for the intellectual forces which had hitherto governed society, the world of its own ideas. Ancient philosophy, indeed, had sought to fill the place of religion itself. It was no merely speculative theory, but was practical both in nature and tendency. Great statesmen passed through its school as a preparation for their practical labours. It dealt in moral and political, as well as in scientific problems. But its power was never a popular one. Always somewhat aristocratic, and confined to a small circle, it was incapable of taking the place of religion, and soon resolved itself into the most opposite tendencies. Hence its chief result was the establishment of a doubt in all truth, the overthrow of all conviction and certainty. And yet man could not dispense with certainty. Hence philosophy was accompanied by all sorts of secret doctrines; and the more mysterious these were, the more desirable.

The old religion and its myths

were allegorically explained, and transformed into symbols of ethics and wisdom. A whole world of views and notions had accumulated as the result of the previous development. But it was a world of ruins. Leading minds collected these fragments of former times, and sought to form them into a new structure. Laborious intellectual efforts were devoted to this restoration of heathen opinions. The NeoPlatonism of Alexandria was an experiment in which imagination and profundity united to construct an edifice, which, in fulness of thought, should far surpass the Christian, and by its profound philosophy should conquer the meagre doctrines of these "barbarians," as Christians were called. It was indeed a wondrous compound. All religions and all nations had been forced to contribute to it. But it remained only a splendid experiment. It was advocated by men of conspicuous and noble minds. General education, with which heathen opinions were most closely interwoven, lent it its support, and yet the experiment failed; the Christian view prevailed over the heathen, and has since ruled the civilised world.

The intellectual powers of Judaism and heathenism, thus conquered by Christianity, took their revenge, indeed, by seeking to make their influence felt within the Church, and upon the very soil of Christianity, in the form of heterodoxy. The special object of their attack was the doctrine of Christ's person, which they sought to misinterpret in either a Jewish or a heathen By the judaizing spirit the significance of this

sense.

doctrine was limited by lowering the dignity of Christ's person to that of a mere prophet, by the heathen spirit, by evaporating his historical reality into a mere idea; either His proper divinity was denied, or His true humanity impugned, and justice was done neither to the unity, nor to the distinction of the two natures. In all this it was no single dogma, but the very existence of Christianity itself which was attacked, for this is involved in the person of Jesus Christ. the Jewish or the heathen spirit was ever penetrating from the extra Christian into the Christian world, and was under a Christian form ever carrying on the old conflict. But even this antagonism within the Church to the full truth of the Christian view was overcome, and the exclusive supremacy of the latter established.

Either

The Middle Ages were the period of this exclusive supremacy. As the outer world of Christendom was gathered to the Vicar of Christ and the German emperor, the two supreme powers of the whole earth, the sun and moon which shed their light upon all earthly life, so also did the world of mind form itself into a compact unity. The heathen mind did indeed practically make its influence felt, but it was obliged to bow to the authority of the Church, and to the ecclesiastical view and treatment of all subjects. The Middle Ages are the eras when a single view of of the universe prevailed. It is this which forms their charm, and their greatness. In the great poems,

and works of art of this period, we encounter this single view. This never happened again in any sub