The Pontiff of Rome had become tutor to the nations, and his superior intelligence had made the task easy to him. He had long kept them in a state of minority, but resistance now broke forth on all sides. This venerable tutelage, which had been primarily established by the principles of eternal life, and of civilisation which Rome had imparted to barbarous nations, could no longer be exercised without opposition. A formidable adversary had met her in the face, and was prepared to control her. The natural tendency of the human mind to expand, to investigate, and acquire knowledge, had given birth to this new power. Man opened his eyes, and at every step questioned the proceedings of that long respected guide under whose direction, while blindfolded, he had moved on without saying a word. In regard to the nations of new Europe, the age of infancy had passed away, and that of manhood had begun. To the childlike simplicity, which believed everything, had succeeded a spirit of curiosity, an intellect not to be satisfied without sifting everything to the utmost. It was asked for what end God had spoken to the world, and whether men had a right to station themselves as mediators between God and their brethren. There was only one thing which could have saved the Church, and this was to raise herself still higher above the people. To keep on a level with them was not enough. But so far from this, she was even found to be far beneath them, having begun to descend at the same time that they began to rise. At the period when mankind began to ascend to the regions of intellect, the priesthood was grovelling below among earthly pursuits and worldly interests. This phenomenon has repeatedly appeared in history. The wings of the eaglet were full fledged, and what hand was high enough to prevent it from taking its flight? The human mind made its first start in Italy. Scholasticism and romantic poetry had at no time reigned unopposed. Italy never entirely lost the remembrance of antiquity; and this remembrance having been strongly awakened towards the end of the middle ages, soon gave the mind a new impulse. Even in the fourteenth century, Dante and Petrarch restored the honour of the ancient Roman poets, at the same time that the former gave the most powerful popes a place in his hell, and the latter boldly protested for the primitive constitution of the Church. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, John of Ravenna taught Latin literature with applause at Padua and Florence, while Chrysoloras, at Florence and Pavia, interpreted the beautiful writers of Greece.