Introduction--Work of the Sixteenth Century--Unity and Diversity--Necessity of considering the entire Religious History of England--Establishment of Christianity in Great Britain--Formation of Ecclesiastical Catholicism in the Roman Empire--Spiritual Christianity received by Britain--Slavery and Conversion of Succat--His Mission to Ireland--Anglo-Saxons re-establish Paganism in England--Columba at Iona--Evangelical Teaching--Presbytery and Episcopacy in Great Britain--Continental Missions of the Britons--An Omission. Those heavenly powers which had lain dormant in the Church since the first ages of Christianity, awoke from their slumber in the sixteenth century, and this awakening called the modern times into existence. The Church was created anew, and from that regeneration have flowed the great developments of literature and science, of morality, liberty, and industry, which at present characterize the nations of Christendom. None of these things would have existed without the Reformation. Whenever society enters upon a new era, it requires the baptism of faith. In the sixteenth century God gave to man this consecration from on high by leading him back from mere outward profession and the mechanism of works to an inward and lively faith. [Sidenote: UNITY AND DIVERSITY.] This transformation was not effected without struggles--struggles which presented at first a remarkable unity. On the day of battle one and the same feeling animated every bosom: after the victory they became divided. Unity of faith indeed remained, but the difference of nationalities brought into the Church a diversity of forms. Of this we are about to witness a striking example. The Reformation, which had begun its triumphal march in Germany, Switzerland, France, and several other parts of the continent, was destined to receive new strength by the conversion of a celebrated country, long known as the _Isle of Saints_. This island was to add its banner to the trophy of Protestantism, but that banner preserved its distinctive colours. When England became reformed, a puissant individualism joined its might to the great unity. If we search for the characteristics of the British Reformation, we shall find that, beyond any other, they were social, national, and truly human. There is no people among whom the Reformation has produced to the same degree that morality and order, that liberty, public spirit, and activity, which are the very essence of a nation's greatness. Just as the papacy has degraded the Spanish peninsula, has the Gospel exalted the British islands. Hence the study upon which we are entering possesses an interest peculiar to itself.