After this arose the Papacy. The Church, as a powerful institution, became ambitious to rule the state and the world. A spiritual despotism appeared, surrounding itself with earthly splendor, grasping the sword of earthly power, and the farthest removed from the humble and gentle spirit of its Master. It would tolerate no opposition to its will, in high places or low. It hurled its thunders at the head of kings, and sent crusading armies to persecute and torture the peasants of the Piedmont valleys. Nothing could seem more full of the spirit of Antichrist than this spiritual despotism embodied in the Papacy. And yet, even through this evil there was developed a truth—that there was something in the world higher than kings, greater than the state. Papacy, with all its evils, was a standing proof, in an age of brute force, of the supremacy of mind over matter. So that, even here, the pride and selfishness of the priests and the popes have been overruled, in the providence of God, to give ascendency to a Christian idea, and to cause Christ to come as the King of the world. Consider another important event in the history of Europe: the conversion of the barbarous tribes to Christianity. When the nations of the north poured from the forests of Germany and the deserts of Scandinavia over the Roman empire,—when Goths and Vandals, Franks, Lombards, and Normans, quenched the light of civilization and brought the dark ages over Europe,—how terrible seemed the gloom, and how hopeless the prospects, of the human race! But we now see the result in modern civilization. We see all these different nations subdued by the power of Christianity, and a new unity, a higher harmony, as the result. We see the great idea of the unity of the race, the harmony of nations, resulting from all this darkness and misery. So Christ has come again as the Prince of Peace, breaking down the partition walls, and proclaiming a brotherhood of man. Let us look at one more event of history—the Lutheran Reformation. What evils attended it! What wars came out of it! How has the impulse to freedom given by Luther degenerated into licentiousness, run out in infidelity and unbelief! And yet, when we consider the ideas of personal responsibility and individual independence which have been born of it,—when we consider what an impulse it has given to thought, to free inquiry, to earnest investigation of truth, all the results of this fruitful principle,—we cannot doubt that this also was a coming of Jesus, the unfolding of a new and higher power in Christianity.