Nor are they slow to express their admiration of the strength and majesty of this single power amid the Christian nations, which reaches back to the great civilizations that have perished, which has preserved its organic unity intact amid the social revolutions of two thousand years, and which is acknowledged still to be the greatest moral force in the world. But, underlying all they say and think, is the assumption that the foundations of this noble structure are crumbling; that the world of faith and thought in which it was upbuilt is become a desert where no flower blooms, no living soul is found; that the temple is beautiful only as a ruin is beautiful, where owls hoot and bats flit to and fro. "There is not a creed, we are told, which is not shaken, nor an accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable; not a received tradition which does not threaten to dissolve." The conquests of the human mind in the realms of nature have produced a world-wide ferment of thought, an intellectual activity which is without a parallel. They have increased the power of man to an almost incredible degree, have given him control of the earth and the seas, have placed within his grasp undreamed-of forces, have opened to his view unsuspected mysteries; they have placed him on a new earth and under new heavens, and thrown a light never seen before upon the history of his race. As a part of this vast development new questions have risen, new theories have been broached, new doubts have suggested themselves; and because we have changed, all else seems to have changed also. And since, underlying all questions, there is found a question of religion, the discussion of religious and philosophic problems has, in our day, become a social necessity, and the science of criticism, together with the physical sciences, has driven the disputants upon new and difficult ground, where the battle must be fought, and where retreat is not possible. As well imagine that society will again take on the form of feudalism, as that the human mind will return to the point of view from which our ancestors looked on nature. And this world-view shapes and colors all our thinking, in theology as in other sciences, so that truths which were latent have come to light, and principles which have long been held find new and wider application.