And then we find that with the dividing of the two offices, the Kings grew less and less fathers of their peoples, and became more and more tyrants over the nations. In the elder days the principle that was taught was clear and simple: the greater the power, the greater the sacrifice; the greater the power, the greater the duty. And on that principle of the Law of Sacrifice the old civilisations were built up; to that they owed their splendor; to that the long ages through which they lived and flourished; to sacrifice, as the very basis of the national and religious polity, they owed the vigor, the young vigor, of humanity. Their literature was grandiose; their architecture magnificent; their art sublime. The traces of divinity ran through the whole of it. But, beautiful as it was, it would not have been well that it should have lasted, for had it been so, mankind would have grown to depend too much upon the manifested Divine life walking incarnate side by side with it. And it was necessary that the growing child should prove his own limbs, and the growing intelligence should learn to depend upon itself. Then we come to a long period when the tyranny of the King brought out more and more strongly the usefulness of the Teacher, and when the Teacher was continually standing between the power of the tyrant and the helplessness of the people; when religion became a shield for the weak, a strong check for the violence of power. And we pass thus through all that long period of human history where the oppressed found their only refuge in the priests of the religions, and found them a sure protection against the sword of the secular power. So went on for hundreds, nay, for thousands of years, the growth of humanity; and the two powers went further and further apart, coming more and more the one into opposition with the other. And the people, the nations, gradually grew in power, grew in intelligence, to a considerable extent. The priest was still the teacher, and still the schools and the temples were united. Unfortunately, after a while the religions became corrupted as well as the royalties, and priests began to share the worldliness that had already degraded the Kings; and then, with the failure of the priesthood, practically ceased the education of the people for many and many a long century, and intelligence was not developed, and the power of the mind was not assisted to manifest itself.