Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/276

286 different to her own, and so it is, at the present day, in many countries. Perhaps it was necessary in the earliest times, but——now? She has honestly—even as the Catholic church in its time—fulfilled her mission of educating the people by instruction and preaching; but her power over human souls will decrease more and more, if she herself do not more deeply comprehend her own part of the object which it is designed to accomplish, that of placing every human being in a position of self-responsibility to God, and to preach his kingdom: not a something only beyond the grave, in heaven itself, but as a something which is to be worked out upon earth. For this purpose, it is necessary that she do not cast aside those means which develop the freedom and independence of the human mind. She must not be afraid of freedom, but make it a familiar guest on earth, as it is in heaven.

Why should she fear? Has she not, during the three centuries in which she has taught and labored, seen the nations favorably develop themselves in their inner life and outward prosperity? Has she not also seen persons who hold themselves apart from the outer church, devote themselves to labor for the kingdom which the Saviour will found upon earth? Does she not behold an improvement in prisons, the naked clothed, the hungry fed, neglected children cared for and educated? Does she not behold domestic life purified, sanctified, and civil freedom extended more and more to the children of the land? Does she not behold science and art, and, above all, literature—that great popular rostrum in the forum of the world—become servants of that kingdom, and that the time of the silent sufferers is approaching its end?