The New York herald., 1870-10-09
var Era and the Growth and Develop
ment or NalIoualities.

We live in an age which, in many respects,
is peculiar. No such age has ever existed
before 1t is the age Of the telegraph, the
newspaper, the railroad, the steam engine and
the thousand and many things Of which the
steam engine is the parent. It Is the age Of
quick life, Of broad views, Of public opinion,
of common sense. In this age we make little
of time little of distance. little of language,
little Of race, little Of religion. We have con-
| quered time, for we live years in minutes
We have conquered distance, for mountains
and oceans are no longer barriers to thought
| and the interchange Of ideas. We have con-
quered race, for the love Of race is yielding to
the love of humanity. We have conquered
language, for the railroad and the telegraph
have made common language partly fact
and mainly necessity. We have conquered
religion, for on the battle fields OF the present
| Christian soldiers keep watch and ward to give
| their Jewish comrades, if possible, a religious
holiday. All old things are rapidly dying
away. II is our happy privilege to stand upon
the confines of great and glorious past and
of greater and still more glorious future.
Within the memory Of men still living what
wondrous changes have taken place! Men
still young, scarcely out Of their teens, remem-
ber when Italy and Germany were very much,
geographically, like respectable Brussels
carpet-every square foot representing sepa-
rate kingdom or separate duchy. To-day
the duchies and kingdoms of Italy and Ger
many have disappeared, and Italy has become
a mighty kingdom and Germany has declared
herself the most mighty Of all existing con-
federations. Living yet under the shadow of
the Ecumenical Council and alongside Of the
fact Of Papal infallibility, we see the last
throes Of the temporal power of the Pope
dom-a temporal power which goes back to
the days Of the Great Charles, the restorer of
the Western Empire.
The sudden and forceful uprise Of Ger
many, following so rapidly on the uniGcation
of Italy, or rather occurring simultaneously
with il, suggests some thoughts which are not
wholly without Importance No man who
properly belongs to this generation and who
has at all been attentive to the current of
events and the tone of public sentiment, can
have had any difficulty in foreseeing that Italy
and Germany were bound to become units so
soon as the sinful barriers which restrained
them were removed. Thinking men could not
hinder themselves from being carried back in
lowed the downfall of the empire of Charlie
magne The Goths and Huns and Vandals
ruined the western section OF the empire Of
the Romans. But the Goths and the Huns
and the Vandnls could not build up-they
could only destroy. 1t required the genius Of
the great Frankish monarch to gather up the
fragments of the defunct empire and once
more to give them unity. The Western En-
pire, however, which Charlemagne called into
life depended too much on the genius of one
man. When Charlemagne died the second
Western Empire fell. Europe became chaos
once more. The Popedom alone gave
| apparent unity to the Western World.
The German empire struggled to maintain the
memory of the great King. France fought for
separate and Independent existence. Spain
awoke and found her beautiful country largely
! in the hands of the Mussulmans and con-
tended for her soil, her religion, her liberty.
| ITALY, under the shadow of the Papal See and by
means Of her commerce and her happy muni-
cipal institutions waxed wealthy, developed
art and science, and blazed with literary and
artistic glory. The Tassos, the Medicis, the
Michael Angeles, the Machiavellis and the
rest make us look back with pride to the
| reuaissant period of Italian history Eng
land meanwhile had fought down her heptar-
chy and become one of the great and growing
| States of Europe.
/ It was not, however, until the sixteenth
century that Europe really awoke from the
sleep of the Middle Ages. Intelligence had
grown and spread. The art Of printing had
made more or less common the knowledge Of
the great and glorious, but long buried past.
Literature burst forth in Spain, in Italy, in
France, in England. As yet there was
no newspaper and as yet the pulpit
was ignorant. But the theatre had once more
become the means Of giving instruction to
the masses. Spain, under Charles the Fifth,
France, under Louis the Thirteenth and his
great Minister Richelieu, England, under Eliza
beth, reverted the tendencies Of the times. The
growth of power in England, in Spain, in
France is traceable more or less directly to the
growth of intelligence among the people. The
thirty years war was a fight between the dying
past and the uprising forceful present. The
| youthful forces won and Europe took new
shape and entered upon a new life. Spain
had become great kingdom and could make
| the proud boast that the sun never set upon
her territory. France had so developed under
| Richelieu and Mazarin that she was recog-
nized as the great pivotal Power Of Europe.
England in her insular position had gradually
i Ia ho Pnuror of tho frat rna1xra;tr do.