Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/287

 were nearly identical; but in order that the ambitions in each might reign with diminished force, the Divine providence permitted them to divide; this or a greater calamity was the only alternative. The Patriarch cast out the Pope, and the Pope excommunicated the Patriarch. In those contentions violent passions were evoked, and multitudes were affected by the mischiefs they produced; truth was sacrificed upon the altar of mutual recrimination, and charity, without which there can be no useful religion, was dragged from her pedestal and lost amidst the confusion which prevailed. This separation was followed, not by any abandonment of the animosities which had been raised, but by the restoration of a political quiet. Doubtless these facts indicate the execution of a judgment: by that means the Lord, in His providence, dispersed certain ambitious principles and projects which had been carried into the spiritual world, through the decease of a succession of ecclesiastical tyrants and their abettors.

What are called "the dark ages" followed. Those periods continued to provide for the world of spirits a multitude of inhabitants who, with strong love of self and of the world, had but imperfect ideas of God, and faint perceptions of duty towards Him. These, in their turn, would encourage the development of perversity in men; and it is well known that it was the successive increase and growth of base principles and scandalous practices in the Church, which led to the adoption of those enormities against which Luther and his compatriots so heartily protested. By the defiant attitude which they assumed, and the noble exertions which they made, the whole Christian world was thrown into a commotion, aiming at better things. The result was a restoration of some of the advantages which had been lost; for besides the liberty of pro-