Page:Three introductory lectures on the study of ecclesiastical history.djvu/26

18 the river, but to track the river itself through its various channels, under its overhanging thickets, through the populous streets and gardens to which it gives life; to see what are its main, what its tributary streams; what the nature of its waters; how far impregnated with new qualities, how far coloured by the various soils, vegetations, uses, through which they pass; to trace their secret flow, as they go softly through the regions which they fertilize; not finding them where they do not exist, not denying their power where they do exist; to welcome their sound in courses however tortuous; to acknowledge their value, however stained in their downward and onward passage. Difficult as it may often be to find the stream, yet when it is found it will guide us to the green pastures of this world's wilderness, and lead us beside the still waters.

Three landmarks, at least, may be mentioned, by which this course of Ecclesiastical History may be distinguished from that of history generally.

First, there are institutions, characters, ideas, words, which can be traced to the religious, especially to the Christian, element in man, and to nothing besides. There are virtues and truths now in the world, which can only be ascribed to the influence of Christian society; and there are corruptions of those virtues and of those truths which have produced crimes and errors to be ascribed