Slowly did it pass from the formularies of devotion into the convictions of reason and the treasury of science. Strange blindness! They, who, repeating the Lord's Prayer, daily called for _the coming of his kingdom on earth_, who professed implicit faith in the final fulfilment of the Law, still continued in Heathen ignorance of the significance and spirit of the Prayer they daily uttered and of the Law they daily recognized. They did not perceive that the kingdom of the Lord was to come, and the Law to be fulfilled by a continuity of daily labor. As modern civilization gradually unfolded itself amidst the multiplying generations of men, they witnessed the successive manifestations of power,--but perceived no Law. They looked upon the imposing procession of events, but did not discern the rule which guided the mighty series. Ascending from triumph to triumph, they saw dominion extended by the discoveries of intrepid navigators,--saw learning strengthened by the studies of accomplished scholars,--saw universities opening their portals to ingenuous youth in all corners of the land, from Aberdeen and Copenhagen to Toledo and Ferrara,--saw Art put forth new graces in the painting of Raffaelle, new grandeur in the painting, the sculpture, and the architecture of Michel Angelo,--caught the strains of poets, no longer cramped by ancient idioms, but flowing sweetly in the language learned at a mother's knee,--received the manifold revelations of science in geometry, mathematics, astronomy,--beheld the barbarism of the barbarous Art of War changed and refined, though barbarous still, by the invention of gunpowder,--witnessed knowledge of all kinds springing to unwonted power through the marvellous agency of the printing-press,--admired the character of _the Good Man of Peace_, as described in that work of unexampled circulation, translated into all modern languages, the "Imitation of Christ," by Thomas à Kempis,--listened to the apostolic preaching of Wyckliffe in England, Huss in Bohemia, Savonarola in Florence, Luther at Worms; and yet all these things, the harmonious expression of _progressive_ energies belonging to Man, token of an untiring advance, earnest of a mightier Future, seemed to teach no certain lesson.