From the time of its first invention to the year 1814, scarcely any improvement had been made on the printing press. A rude machine, printing at its best scarcely 150 copies per hour, was still universally in use. Now we have machines that print 25,000 copies per hour; books and papers have greatly cheapened in consequence. Such were some of the forces at work upon society during the first half of the nineteenth century. {203} But while mankind had progressed in science they had remained stationary in religion; and how could it be otherwise? Invention and discovery are but the unfolding of the laws, attributes and objects of nature to man's limited understanding--the action of the divine will on the minds of men. When God revealed nature's laws, man progressed scientifically: until God revealed religious truth man groped in spiritual darkness. The intellectual light of that age only made to observing minds, their spiritual night more palpable; even as a candle shining in the night only intensifies the surrounding gloom. Many leading minds perceived somewhat, the errors of the times, and sought to bring about reform in various ways. These attempts brought forth discussion and division. The disintegration which had commenced in the days of Luther, now worked with unexampled rapidity, until the various so-called Christian sects numbered more than six hundred, each tenacious of its own ideas, and bitterly denouncing all the others. None of these jarring sects ever had divine authority; in fact, they denied the possibility of revelation from God. Even admitting their claims, their creeds are only the crystallized ideas of the leading men of the age that gave them birth. For example, Rome depended not upon revelation, nor even upon the letter of the scriptures, but upon the tradition of the fathers. In other words, the rule of faith, in the church of Rome was the conflicting opinions of men--often ill-informed and superstitious--who lived between the great apostasy and the time of Luther. So again, the creed of Lutherism is only the best ideas of men who lived in Central Europe three hundred and fifty years ago. In like manner, Presbyterianism is the reflex of the stern and rugged character of the Scotch in the 17th century. So also Methodism and Quakerism are the products of zealous English reformers in the 17th and 18th centuries. All of the religions that existed in America at the beginning of this century, were the outgrowth of European thought. They were systems that had been transplanted from foreign lands, by no means adapted to the progressive ideas that prevail on this continent. {204} Humanly speaking, it was time to establish a religion, which should harmonize with the circumstances and age in which we live. Divinely speaking, man had become so developed and disciplined that he could receive the gospel. It was the Lord's due time to again reveal His will and set up His kingdom upon the earth.