Page:The Harveian oration for 1874.djvu/38

 in this time subsided, and as the waters assuaged the soil which had seemed before so barren began to show a wonderful fertility. The plants, indeed, were not all like those trees which the Apostle saw in vision, each bearing its wholesome fruit, nor were the leaves of all for the healing of the nations; but, far from it, the primæval curse remained, and thorns and thistles grew too in rank luxuriance.

But, look at it with whatever eyes we may, it must be admitted that the time was one of development of mind such as the modern world had not known before; and this development was very general, not limited, as in the middle ages, to a few who towered above the rest, not alone from their own greatness, but in part at least from the littleness of those around. The last half of the fifteenth century was a time of preparation, in which men were learning the use of the new weapons to be wielded in the storm and strife of the ensuing fifty years. The peace of Augsburg, in 1555, fixed the limits beyond which Protestantism has never passed, and the Council of Trent moulded the Roman Catholic Church into the form which it has ever since retained. The position of the two