The period at length arrived. In the gloom of the dark ages there had been one agent unceasing in its efforts, whose step, silent as the tread of death, was yet as certain in its progress. Unsuspected, and apparently chained down by its opposers, it had been collecting the materials of another great explosion. It had fitted and prepared them, till their energy was irresistible, and then buried them beneath the ponderous but rotten fabric of the Popish faith. The materials are ready and the time has come! It is now that there arises another and a human agent--one, whose daring spirit and unconquerable firmness, proclaim him of no common order--who bears in his hand the torch that is destined to awaken these energies to fury, and as he hurls it to its purpose, stands forth the chosen one of heaven in this mighty undertaking. Need we say that it was Luther! His is indeed, a lofty elevation in the long line of the Reformers. His too is a name, imperishable, in the pages of Christianity! His the conceded title of a universal benefactor. It was impossible, however, upon the ordinary principles of human nature, that the Reformation, glorious as was its influence, should be at once complete. The wave that had swept over the corruptions of the Romish church, had also borne forward and deposited the dregs of its pollution. By degrees, a spurious philosophy took possession of a large part of the intellect of continental Europe, and the deep degeneracy of the Papal system, which still claimed the exclusive honors of christianity, gave plausibility to an attack upon the whole of revealed religion. In the midst of this incipient regeneration of the world, there is one, a proud and mighty empire, that remains aloof! In the very heart of Christendom she has reared a temple, beautiful in its proportions and eloquent with grandeur!--whose worshipers are not of heaven. The dark banner of Infidelity is unfurled above it. On its entrance is written the inscription, that “there is no God,”--and the prayer that ascends within it is an insult and a mockery. And where now is that Christianity which the Reformation introduced? Is its purity again to be perverted and its throne usurped? We answer that it has not slumbered. Already is it going forth to battle with the giant form of Heresy. Animated with the spirit of its author, it is purifying this temple of abominations--washing out this impious inscription in the blood of a polluted nation. It has reared again the altar of a purer faith.