Luther and Melancthon preceded Lord Bacon, Newton and Locke. The few stars that lit up the gloomy night that preceded the reformation and the revival of literature were lighted by the faith of God. Speaking of this fact, Dr. Goode says: "We behold a flood of noonday bursting all at once over every quarter of the horizon and dissipating the darkness of a thousand years; we behold mankind in almost every quarter of Europe, from the Carpathian Mountains to the pillars of Hercules, from the Tiber to the Vistula, waking as from a profound sleep to a life of activity and bold adventure; ignorance falling prostrate before advancing knowledge; brutality and barbarism giving way to science and polite letters; vice and anarchy to order and moral conduct. "The modern opposers of Christianity, reasoning in a retro-grade motion--that is, going backwards--ascribe every improvement to science and philosophy, but it was religion that took the lead in _both_ the great revival of learning and the reformation. Aldhelm, Bede and Alcuin were three great Anglo-Saxon luminaries of the eighth century. Alcuin was the tutor and confidential friend of Charlemagne. Ingulph, made abbot of Croyland by William the Conquerer, was the bright light of the eleventh century. To him we are indebted for much that has come down to us. John of Salisbury, Girald the Cambrian, and the monk Adelard, and Robert of Reading were all religious leaders. The last two traveled in Egypt and Arabia, studied mathematics at Cordovia. Adelard translated Euclid out of Arabic into Latin. Such also was Alfred the Great, who was victorious in prosperity and adversity, as a legislator and philosopher, as a soldier and politician, a king and a Christian; he was the pride of princes, the flower of society and the delight of mankind." Roger Bacon, of notoriety on account of his superior knowledge of physics, was the bright Christian light of the thirteenth century. From this century all the way through the reformation the revival of faith in God was the revival of the golden age of learning or literature. When faith in God expired in France the entire social fabric steadily declined until all crumbled and fell as in the ruins of an earthquake. At the same time the inhabitants, loosened from the restraints which faith in the living God imposes, stained every part of the country with blood, and its glory and grandeur perished. It has been well said that the rights of man can not be well secured and enjoyed unless he is viewed in his relations to God. Where government aims at and subserves this end it is a blessing. Blackstone has well remarked that the whole should protect all its parts, and that every part should pay obedience to the will of the whole; or, in other words, that the community shall guard the rights of each individual member, and that in return for this protection each individual should submit to the law of the community. Faith lets God