have since lived in Comte, Mill and Spencer, we are compelled to recognize the living power of Christian truth.

Philosophy often gathers its incentives from contact with outside facts or ideas. In his essay upon Lord Bacon, Macaulay says: "It is chiefly to the great reformation of religion that we owe the great reformation of philosophy." Guizot in his "History of Civilization" emphasizes this same thought. Schwegler, in his History of Philosophy asserts: "In their origin, both kinds of Protestantism, that of religion and that of thought, are one and the same, and in their progress they have also gone hand in hand together. For religion, reduced to its simple elements, will be found to have its source, like philosophy, in the selfknowledge of the reason."

The Reformation, above all other events, owes its chief power to the Bible alone. This was always the great text book. It was the source of Wickliffe's power, that greatest of all the reformers, before the Reformation. Erasmus, well named the "king of the schools," until then the greatest scholar since the fall of the Roman Empire, wrought more by his Greek Testament than by all his other writings. "It contributed more to the liberation

of the human mind from the thraldom of the clergy, than all the uproar and rage of Luther's many pamphlets."

Without mentioning the names of the great thinkers and actors in the two centuries preceding, and also in the Reformation struggle, we observe a few facts, viz: these great movements were directed by scholars prominent in the universities; the large majority of the men of learning were with them; and the centre of all their thoughts and writings was the Bible, confirming the statement, that the Bible incites to the study of all other books. It is not wrapped up in itself; its truths are in harmony with all true knowledge and learning.

We repeat at this point, in briefest manner, the pivotal facts on which our thoughts have rested. The Book of civilization is the Bible; Bibles are multiplied in proportion to the purity of the civilization; its great thoughts become public opinion and find expression; the Book incites to the learning that confirms its power; the secret of the Book lies in the sublimity of its themes; the oppositions it has met prove it the greatest literary work in existence; it has given the world all the institutions of learning; and in turn, sound learning is essential for a better understanding of what

it teaches. History confirms the foregoing truths in the relation of the Reformation to the Revival of Learning. The greatest thinkers have relied upon its teachings, proving the truth as quoted from a French historian: "wherever the Bible is not made the foundation stone of education, of society, and of every form of life, there is no literature for children or for the people."

This Book contains no more in quantity than the three hundredth part of what is covered by the classics and ancient literatures, and yet has held to itself the thoughts of the great thinking world more than all else together.

Principal Shairp, in his "Culture and Religion,"

says:

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Religion must embrace culture; first, because it is itself the culture of the highest capacity of our being; and, secondly, because, if not partial and blind, it must acknowledge all the other capacities of man's nature as gifts which God has given."

Aside from these more general considerations we observe the two practical and vital forces that in their proper functions are a conserving power of learning among mankind. We refer to free schools and the Christian pulpits.

First: Free Schools. Whatever, in all the range of Biblical truth, is given for one is given for all. The Bible includes among its readers "the wayfaring man" though he be void of understanding. The Book carries the old Hebrew system, everywhere; the necessity of instructing strangers as well as children. Its precepts were to be the theme of conversation, morning and night; and even the door-posts were to be inscribed with the law.

The Book recognized the virtue in kingliness, and prophesied that every man should be a king and a priest before God. There are no distinctively privileged classes. It is upon this very democracy of the truth that the common schools have their basis. Not schools for the Church alone, but for the unchurched as well; not for the rich, but also for the poor. If learning is profitable for the few, it is also profitable for the many. Ignorance may be tempted to neglect the privilege, and so the State makes education compulsory. We owe these opportunities directly to the biblical spirit of the value of learning; and is there not a mocking travesty in the demand that the Bible be excluded from the very schools its spirit has created?

The consistency of this principle of universal education is seen in the fact that literary culture

owes something to its environment. It was a conversation of plain men in the tavern at Shrewsbury, in 1774, that turned John Adams from a royalist to become a patriot. He is always the wisest politician who forecasts what the multitudes are thinking. All great reforms rest with the so-called common people. Wherever there is a galaxy of brilliant scholars, there, we may be sure, is a reasonable intelligence in their community. Our colleges and universities would die were it not for our lower schools. As a rule, literary culture works upward. Just as in the golden coming age, so is it divinely intended that "all shall know," - a time when to no one person shall knowledge be granted; "all shall know from the least to the greatest.'

Secondly: The Christian Pulpits. We are not to speak of the influence of the clergy in the formation of States.

The oracle of Massachusetts in his day was Boston's divine, John Cotton; the founder of Rhode Island was Roger Williams, and the founder of Connecticut was Thomas Hooker. Our great Western Reserve owes its freedom to the Rev. Manasseh Cutler who took out the charter for its domain.