braved the world. The same was true of Columbus, while following the court of Spain from place to place, petitioning for assistance to aid him in his discovery of a new world. Every time he repeated his story, the same pure feelings filled his heart. And when he stood upon the prow of his ship, watching the lights of the fishermen on the coast of the new world, he felt as Columbus alone could feel, solemn, great and happy, while every one else was full of doubt and fear. Here was individual feeling; but the cause is found elsewhere. The mother, by her manifestations of joy, awakens the same emotion in the child; but it is, after all, the child that feels. The mother and child are bound together by the strongest ties; yet in all that makes up the reality of life, they are as distinct as though but one of them had existence.

Man is alone in his sorrows. How often we meet with those whose hearts are crushed by some great sorrow, whom we would, but cannot relieve. We have been obliged to stand by, and see them struggle alone. The human heart may break, but we cannot go effectually to its assistance. The tear and the groan are merely the manifestations of the storm that is raging beyond our reach. Let us suppose the case of a young and sensitive mother weeping over the loss of her first-born. The merry peal and the ringing laugh are notes of sadness to her. She walks among the multitude, but she is not one of them. Her little one sleeps in the grave; there is her heart, her all. You may sympathize with her, but her feeling is still the same. She lives apart from her kindred and the world, in her agony. So, too, it is in general. While we are happy, other hearts lie bleeding. And in hours of sorrow we know but too well that we are alone in this world, that we possess an individuality, and that there is something in us that cannot be shared by another.

Man is alone in much that makes up the reality of life. There is an outward show, and an inward reality of life. In the latter, I am alone; in the former, mere artificial existence, I live in common with those around me.

Mere outer life may be counterfeited. We may manifest feelings that we do not possess, and retail thoughts that were not begotten in our own minds. Many of our actions may be inconsistent with our principles. But the life which is real cannot be counterfeited.

Let us for a moment examine the history of the race, in reference to the doctrine under consideration.

In the first stages of society, men lived in tribes, without any permanent habitation, seeking little more than a supply of their immediate wants. In this state, like the infant, they are moved wholly by impulse. They neither think, nor investigate, nor reason. Their leader is chosen with reference to his physical strength and courage, and all the superiority they acknowledge may be found among the brutes. The real man, with all his thoughts and feelings and noble deeds, lies dormant in their hearts. There are no signs of true individualism among them. They grow up together into one solid, compact man. The successive generations adopt the habits and customs of their fathers without ever dreaming of improvement. No man breaks away from his tribe and stands in advance of the rest, unless it be on the ground of physical strength, or of some accidental circumstance, apart, however, from mental greatness and intellectual superiority. They all live and move in the same beaten path, and die together. Thus years, and perhaps centuries, pass away. But when a pure Christianity is introduced among them, their moral powers are awakened under its influence; they throw away their bow and arrow, or shepherd's crook and sack, and betake themselves to more ingenious labor. Their eyes are now opened to discover their nakedness. A demand is made où their inventive powers, which must be met. Manufactures and commerce are created. The men who are employed in the work-shops need food. That food must come out of the ground. Hence another demand for cultivators of the soil. To prevent ten thousand inconveniences, that soil must be owned by somebody. Trade requires some rules by which it shall be carried on. Hence the demand for a civil government, That government, like every thing else which man invents, will be such as will best meet his present wants. If the people are in that state in which they are incapable of self-government, having no thought but for their simple direction and protection, they will form a monarchical government, and submit to it with as much cheerfulness as their children, more intelligent, will to one founded on strict republican principles. Thus they pass from one step in the progress of civilization to another45

VOL. XIII.-NO. LII.

from the blind control of the nomadic tribe, by a single despotic will, to the most perfect democratic government.

We might here stop, and point out each step of the world's advancement, but it is not necessary for our argument. We need only state the fact that each succeeding period in the history of the race, has, by developing and establishing some new fact or truth, prepared the way for the next following to take an advanced position. Thus the world has been ascending upward, by regular steps, from the beginning. To go no farther back than the commencement of the Christian era, we find that the Romans during an existence of several centuries, wrought out the idea of universal empire that effectually broke up and forever destroyed the clanship of the world, and established the necessity of submission to law. At the fall of the Roman empire, the Romish Church took her rise. That this church ever has been and is, in the spiritual world, what the Roman empire was in the civil, is too evident to need illustration. Her organization is a complete transcript of the spirit of the Republic. She claims universal dominion, and blind, unquestioning obedience. Universal empire and strict obedience to law is the all of the Romish church. She has not made a single advance step, and never will; for her notion of infallibility forbids it. Beyond these two principles, every thing in the Romish church is designed as regulating machinery, by which they shall obtain full development and permanence.

In securing her object, which was obtained during the twelfth century, the Romish church effectually welded the race together, thereby destroying man's individuality. We look in vain through the records of history, during the supremacy of this church, for men. There is the race, sometimes docile and obedient, following their spiritual leader like sheep on the Alpine mountains, and then tossing and floundering in perfect chaos. The element was yet in its liquid state; but rapidly preparing, by crystalization, to become separate and distinct. To be sure, we now and then find a beautiful crystal on the shore; but it is soon picked up, and, like John Huss and Jerome of Prague, thrown back into the boiling crater of time. No man who sought to think and act for himself was allowed to live. Parents and children, neighbors and citizens, and

all men were one; but it was the unity we find in liquid metal, melted from a thousand bars.

Had not this reign of death been broken up, we should not have heard, in these latter days, men crying out against the doctrine of individualism. We find the cause of the overthrow of the Romish church in the tendency of the race towards individualism. In the very commencement of her existence, the independent spirit of the barbarians who broke up the Roman empire, began to circulate freely among the people. The feudal system were the result. This was one step towards a separation. To guard against this tendency, the church herself assumed the form of feudalism; but her real spirit and object was not changed. Men became more independent. They began to think in their old feudal castles. They had time for it, and their situation called them to it. When this system was broken up and that of free cities was established, it was another step in the same direction. It were feudalism enlarged. It increased activity, enterprise and thought. The world began to boil up together, and a general movement, under a single impulse, was effected in the crusades. This was needed to start into life great and heroic thoughts, to prepare the world to listen to the truth, and act together in reference to it.

Under these influences, we see the human mind separating from its chrysalis state, and beginning to think and act for itself, preparatory to the new position it was soon to оссиру. Out of the sight of men, a plan for a general revolution was in an active state of preparation. The church was unmindful of her danger. She knew she could not be destroyed from without, and she did not dream of a separation of the immense mass she governed into men, each armed with the sword of truth and ready to pierce her vitals. But under Luther this plan was carried into execution. He rose up amid his countrymen and the world, and spoke as a man to men. The world heard him. He started into life thoughts and feelings that had been dormant for ages. He brought men to their feet

who had ever been crushed down beneath the irou heel of tyranny. His voice went pealing through the world, inspiring all with hope and courage. He broke up the union that had been the pride and boast of the world for centuries-the union of death, in which every heroic

thought was stifled and every noble feeling crushed. Nor did he leave men to live in a state of isolation, and to become a prey again to their own impetuous passions. On the contrary, he formed a union in which each man was recognized as a part-a distinct, important, and responsible part-a union not unfitly represented by a cable of a thousand cords. He thus gave each man his proper place, and presented an object before him every way worthy of his noblest powers. He opened the way to honor and immortality. He fired each heart with a zeal for distinction that arises from a consciousness of being men, made in the image of God.

Here the reign of individualism began. What has been its result thus far? Let our advancement in the arts and sciences, in general intelligence and virtue, answer. Ascend some eminence that overlooks the continent, and there view the result in the ten thousand thriving villages and cities that dot the entire landscape like so many beautiful stars, in roads for the steam car that run through every section, in the innumerable floating palaces that navigate every stream, and lake and sound, and in the lengthened wire on which the lightning bears our thoughts. In every direction, all around us, are proofs of the glorious results of this reign of individualism. In those kingdoms where this union of death has not been broken up, where we look in vain to find men living in possession of themselves, in Italy, in Spain, and among the oriental nations, we may see what England and America would have been without the reign of individualism.

It may be said, great and good men lived before Luther, men who left their impress on the world, men whose words can never be forgotten. This is true; but who were they? They were isolated cases of individual men, exceptions to the general rule. They thought, spoke and acted like men. We honor, respect and love them, simply because they were men. As soon as men begin to think and investigate for themselves, they begin to be men. When we look back through the past, and behold these few men standing up alone amid their countrymen, giving utterance to rich and glowing truths, in firm, clear tones of voice, that found no echo in the heart of their generation, we have not language to express our admiration and profound regard for them.