Page:Pleasures of England (1888).djvu/69

 governed by men of similar disposition. It was eminently productive of—it was altogether governed, guided, and instructed by—men of the widest and most brilliant faculties, whether constructive or speculative, that the world till then had seen; men whose acts became the romance, whose thoughts the wisdom, and whose arts the treasure, of a thousand years of futurity.

I warned you at the close of last lecture against the too agreeable vanity of supposing that the Evangelization of the world began at St. Martin's, Canterbury. Again and again you will indeed find the stream of the Gospel contracting itself into narrow channels, and appearing, after long-concealed filtration, through veins of unmeasured rock, with the bright resilience of a mountain spring. But you will find it the only candid, and therefore the only wise, way of research, to look in each era of Christendom for the minds of culminating power in all its brotherhood of nations; and, careless of local impulse, momentary zeal, picturesque incident, or vaunted miracle, to fasten your attention upon the force of character in the men, whom, over each newly-converted race. Heaven visibly sets for its shepherds and kings, to bring forth judgment unto victory. Of these I will name to you, as messengers of God and masters of men, five monks and five kings; in whose arms during the range of swiftly gainful centuries which we are following, the life of the world