364 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



saw the change ; and, as was her custom, proceeded to crush the 

 new movement, for rebellion against authority was, in her eyes, 

 the one unpardonable sin. The church teaching began to assume, 

 therefore, a more somber cast ; the people became more gloomy 

 and fanatical. This is clearly seen in art, which, before the in- 

 vention of printing, served as an index to the spirit of the age. 

 For example, up to the end of the tenth century Christ was always 

 represented in painting as having a peaceful, gentle face, and as 

 being engaged in works of mercy. The parable of the Good 

 Shepherd was the favorite subject for the artist. But in the elev- 

 enth century this began to change: the painters deal with the 

 death of Christ and with the last judgment. Moreover, Christ's 

 face becomes sterner and mournful. In the twelfth century the 

 change is complete : Christ appears stern and unyielding, like the 

 God of old, whom it repented that he had made man. In this age 

 and the succeeding ages occurred also a succession of physical, 

 social, and political events, all tending to heighten and deepen the 

 gloom which seemed to have settled upon men's minds. Chief 

 among these was that awful scourge, " the Black Death," in all 

 probability the greatest calamity that has ever visited the world, 

 by which in six years twenty-five millions of persons, or one quar- 

 ter the population of Europe, were swept away. Then began a 

 veritable reign of terrorism : men's minds were paralyzed with 

 dread, uncertain fear. They knew not whither to look ; they 

 abandoned themselves to the anguish of despair. Then it was 

 that reappeared the Flagellants, scourging themselves and crying 

 aloud like the prophets of old. Then it was that there wandered 

 from land to land those bands of monks whose bodies were ever 

 bleeding with self-inflicted torture ; and then there loomed upon 

 the horizon of a startled world the dread figure of the Inquisition, 

 to whose autos da fe had been given the task of crushing out 

 heresy and witchcraft. The trials for witchcraft increased ten- 

 fold, and in the fifteenth and the sixteenth century the persecu- 

 tion reached its climax. And truly the aspect which Europe pre- 

 sented at that time was in many ways full of discouragement for 

 those who believed in the ultimate progress of humanity. As a 

 great writer has said : " The Church, which had been all in all to 

 Christendom, was heaving in what seemed the last throes of dis- 

 solution. The boundaries of religious thought were all obscured. 

 Conflicting tendencies and passions were raging with a tempestu- 

 ous violence, . . . and each of the opposing sects proclaimed its 

 distinctive doctrines essential to salvation. Yet over all this 

 chaos there were two great conceptions dominating unchanged. 

 They were the sense of sin and of Satan, and the absolute ne- 

 cessity of a correct dogmatic system to save men from the agonies 

 of hell." This was the state of Europe at the time of the Protest- 



