Burlington hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington, Iowa) 1845-185?, 1851-02-27
A Review of the First Half of the Nineteenth
Century.
BY W. sALTER, PASTOR OF A CHURCH OF CHRIST
IN BURLINGTON.
Preached December 90, 1850.

BY W. sALTER, PASTOR OF CHURCH OF CHRIST
IN BURLINGTON.
Preached December 90, 1850.
Eccl. 7: 10, Say not thou, What is the cause that
the former days were better than hese? for thou
dost not inquire wisely concerning this.
No man can take large view of things, and
doubt for moment that the world is growing bet
ter. But those who judge of every thing by the
narrow circle in which they themselves move, are
tempted to ask. in times ofdsappontment and trou.
bic, What is the that the former days ,cere bet
ter than these!-and to complain that the world is
going backward. We are very poor judges as to
what is best. And especially we incompetent
judges upon matters in which we have a personal
interest. We give to the world around us shape
and coloring from own passions and prejudi-
ces. Hence no age is expected to give an Impair
tial history OF its own time. Most Of our standard
historical writers have written of times far distant
from their own, and many of them of countries to
which they were foreigners. Hame's history does
not come down to within sixty years of his own
times. The Decline and Fall Of the Roman Empire
was written by an Eagshman. The most reliable
Colonial History of the United States was written
by a Scotchman.Q) An American has given US the
best history of the brightest period of the annals
of Spain, and Of her conQuests on this Con-
tinent What have been judged the most terrible
evils in the time Of their existence, have frequent
ly been regarded as blessings, by calm and dispas
sioaate observers in after years.
No doctrine is more clearly taught in the Holy
Scriptures, than that God has plan in the govern
Christ, is prime article in the faith of every
Cbris pRo lalia ,b,to al, ~,
prior to his advent preparatory to it, be-
lieve that all subsequent time is to prepare the way
for his triumph. There has been progress in all the
ages that past. The world is richer and better
to-day than it before. "Say not then what
is the that the former days were better than
these? for thou dost not inquire wisely conce ming
this" There have been better days. Look
back through the history of the world, despondins
hearer, and tell me what age you would prefer to
this. In what time would you rather have lived
than now9 Would you prefer SO, or 100, or 800,
or a thousand years ago? No. we might with per-
haps some reason have wished to have lived later,
but regret that he was not born earlier.
This is the best period there has ever yet been We
look forward to the future with hope, but in the
past there has been no brighter period than the
present.
We are perhaps liable to the charge of presump-
ton for attempting review of the first half of the
18th century, which is now fastening to its close.
Many of the questions that have been dur
ing this period still undecided. and in relation
to them it is idle for any living man to assume an
entirely disinterested position. But it is neither
my object, nor in my power, nor within the COM
pass Of the half hour allotted to this discourse, to
do more than briefly notice some OF the evidences
that during the last fifty years there has been pro-
gress.
| The 18th century has been justly regarded by all
historians greatly advance Of any that preced-
| ed 1t. was the period Of free inquiry. wit.
messed the downfall Of supposititious authority. 1t
successfully called in question the Divine right Of
bishops and kings. 1t taught men to think, and
| inquire aud reason, independently Of others. II
stimulated Investigation all subjects. It recog-
nized nothing as too sacred too high for scru,i
ny. tiled unquestonably to the most terrible abu-
ses. 1t was the era of Voitaire and Rousseau, who
maintain their ascendency over millions, even to
our own time. They the masters of all the semi
| infideity and fashionable religion irreligion,
whichever it may be, that prevail among US. The
later years Of this century witnessed not only the
American. but also the French Revolution. But
judgment which has been expressed by one of the
| most learned and conservative philosophical wri-
| tiers and statesmen of France-Guizot-that ..the
18th century appears to have been Of the grand.
est epochs in the history of the world-thai per-
haps which has done the greatest service to man.
kind, and has odaced the greatest and most gen.
eral improvement."(2)
Out Of that century at any rate our own has
grown. The freedom Of inquiry which character
lied that period has been the source of the great
improvements in the arts and sciences, of the ad-
vances in knowledge, and of the social progress,
! which have marked our times
The master spirit upon the worlds stage at the
commencement of the nineteenth century was
Napoleon Bonaparte. He terribly redressed the
cruel tyrannies Of many princes, and the base cen
tiousness and mean subjcc.ion of millions of the
people. His path was one of blood. But the air
of Europe is to day the purer for him. Instead of
his career afordins any occasion for dependency,
it has seemed to some of the most judicious OBJ
servers that his fall is to be regarded as untimey
for the hest good Of Europe.(3) A, the commence
ment Of this century, Indeli,y was fearfuy preva.
| lent. In our own country and England il assumed
the gross form Of which Thomas Paine was the
author. IN germany II was elegant. learned, and
assumed the garh of philosophy. In no period of
the Christian era have the foundations of our faith
been subjected to closer and severer criticism than
in that hefo.e us. The most elaborate inf lei work
ever published was issued in 1895. I allude to
strauss life OF Jesus. Its appearance produced
great alarm among those whose faith is little better
than ssa reed shaken with the wind.' and it was
even proposed hy good men to call upon govern
ment to suppress the book. But thanks to that
better spirit which God has infused into our age.
different counscls pre- vailed and the book was met,
not by authority, but by by argument by
truth. All attacks that have beer made upon Chris
tanity have only been the of establi the
ly Some of the rubbish, hich the corruption of a.
ges had gathered round it, has been swept away, and
! some OF the untenabe arguments, by which in
| times past it had been attempted to support it.,
have been given up But Christianity in its Divine
simplicity and purity never stood upon a more
| approved basis than now. DAubigne, in one of
his eloquent discourses, afirms that our Religion
has already passed through four periods or forms.
He calls the first, the primitive, or the form of
life the second, the form of dogma the third. the
| form of the school, or the scholastic ]; and the
fourth, the form OF the reformation. We are now
| entering, he adds, upon new form, which shalt
re-unte all that good in the past, and possess
characteristics, as yet unknown and mysterious,