In the Catholic church, two Popes stand as representative, Plus IX. and Leo XIII. Under the first, the monarchic system of the church was made complete, and the highest function of the Council, the definition of religious truth, was assigned to the Pope. By Leo XIII. this autocracy is administered in sympathy largely with modern ideas. The church allies itself less with the temporal monarch than with the common people. It throws much of its force into ethical channels. Its characteristic interest is in education, temperance, social reform; and along with these it still ministers publicly and privately to that communion with God in which it places the foundation and secret of human life. Its limitations are that it still claims not only to persuade but to rule--a useful function toward some classes, but impossible toward other classes; that its pretension to infallibility obliges it to misread history; and that its foundation of dogma admits no frank and full reconciliation with modern knowledge. But to know the full mind and heart of our age, we must again take a survey beyond the church walls. The emotional forces which have moved the world have been largely in the direction of certain social aspirations. The first was for Liberty--freedom from the tyranny of king's and priests. It won its first great victory in America, where the War of Independence and the making of the Constitution marked by a brave struggle and a masterpiece of good sense the consummation of many years' growth of an English shoot in virgin soil. England herself has followed with more unequal steps to a similar result. In France, there was volcanic explosion which convulsed Europe. The other Continental states have variously followed, save Russia, which as yet lies impotent under despotism. Following the substantial success of the effort for Liberty, or blending with it, came the aspiration for a better Social Order. In one phase, this worked toward the consolidation of nations on natural lines of race and history, as in Germany and Italy. In America, the two ideas of universal Freedom and national Union, conflicting for a while with each other, blent at last and triumphed after a mighty struggle. The supreme figure in that struggle was Abraham Lincoln; who in his public capacity illustrated how the most complicated problems of statesmanship find their best solution through good-will, resolution, patience, and homely shrewdness; while in his own life he showed that a man may rise above misfortune and melancholy, unaided by creed or church, working only by absolute fidelity to the right as he sees the right, till he renders to his fellows a supreme service and wins their unbounded love.