Page:Christian Marriage.djvu/129

 lecture on the "Beginning of the Modern State" will serve excellently to indicate the nature of the change which passed over Christendom when the mediaval epoch ended:

"Modern history tells how the last four hundred years have modified the medieval conditions of life and thought. In comparison with them, the Middle Ages were the domain of stability, and continuity, and in- stinctive evolution, seldom interrupted by such origina- tors as Gregory VII. or St. Francis of Assisi. Ignorant of history, they allowed themselves to be governed by the unknown Past; ignorant of Science, they never believed in hidden forces working onwards to a happier future. The sense of decay was upon them, and each generation seemed so inferior to the last, in ancient wisdom and ancestral virtue, that they found comfort in the assurance that the end of the world was at hand."

In this state of feeling there could be no free expansion of the human spirit; a dead weight of self-conscious futility hung over life, and the deeper natures felt its burden most. Marriage is the climax and covenant of human life, and it cannot take its due place in the estimate of mankind, unless human life is