250 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



bitterness then common. It was a time of travail of throes and whirl- 

 winds. Men at length began to yearn for peace and unity, and out of 

 the embroilment was slowly consolidated that great organization, the 

 Church of Rome. The Church of Rome had its precursor in the 

 Church at Rome. But Rome was then the capital of the world ; and, 

 in the end, that gi-eat city gave the Christian Church established in 

 her midst such a decided preponderance that it eventually laid claim 

 to the proud title of " Mother and Matrix of all other Churches." 



With jolts and oscillations, resulting at times in overthrow, the 

 religious life of the world has spun down the " the ringing grooves of 

 change." A smoother route may have been undiscoverable. At all 

 events, it was undiscovered. Many years ago I found myself in dis- 

 cussion with a friend who entertained the notion that the general ten- 

 dency of things in this world is toward an equilibrium of peace and 

 blessedness to the human race. My notion was, that equilibrium 

 meant not peace and blessedness, but death. No motive power is to 

 be got from heat, save during its fall from a higher to a lower tem- 

 perature, as no power is to be got from water save during its descent 

 from a higher to a lower level. Thus also life consists, not in equilib- 

 rium but in the passage toward equilibrium. In man it is the leap 

 from the potential, through the actual, to repose. The passage often 

 involves a fight. Every natural growth is more or less of a struggle 

 with other growths, in which, in the long run, the fittest survives. 

 Some are, and must be, wiser than the rest ; and the enunciation of a 

 thought in advance of the moment provokes dissent and thus promotes 

 action. The thought may be unwise ; but it is only by discussion, 

 checked by experience, that its value can be determined. Discussion, 

 therefore, is one of the motive powers of life, and, as such, is not to 

 be deprecated. Still one can hardly look without despair on the pas- 

 sions excited and the energies wasted over questions which, after ages 

 of strife, are shown to be mere foolishness. Thus the theses which 

 shook the world during the first centuries of the Christian era have, 

 for the most part, shrunk into nothingness. It may, however, be that 

 the human mind could not become fitted to pronounce judgment on a 

 controversy otherwise than by wading through it. We get clear of 

 the jungle by traversing it. Thus even the errors, conflicts, and suf- 

 ferings of bygone times may have been necessary factors in the edu- 

 cation of the world. Let nobody, however, say that it has not been a 

 hard education. The yoke of religion has not always been easy, nor 

 its burden light a result arising, in part, from the ignorance of the 

 world at large, but more especially from the mistakes of those who 

 had the charge and guidance of a great spiritual force, and who 

 guided it blindly. Looking over the literature of the Sabbath ques- 

 tion, as catalogued and illustrated in the laborious, able, and temper- 

 ate work of the late Mr. Robert Cox, we can hardly repress a sigh in 

 thinking of the gifts and labors of intellect which this question has 



