Los Angeles herald., 1892-03-10
EXAMINATIONS OF THE CENTURIES.

this is going to be no exception to the
rule that great and abnormal events
have characterized the closing years OF
every century since the discovery of
America. 1t is just four hundred years
since the great Genoese prepared his
little ships for the most eventful voyage
of all times. Europe was then strug-
Cling with the great problem of how to
keep the Turk from overrunning the
western world, and the Moor, who had
held foothold in Spain FOR several CEN
turies, had just been overthrown, the
Alhambra had been seized from his
grasp and he was sent back to the shores
from whence he had originally come.
The discovery OF America opened new
world to the adventure and enterprise OF
the old, and in an incredibly short time
the intrepid conquistadores had sub
dued and overrun an empire greater and
richer than the continent they had left
behind.
The close of the sixteenth century
was marked by one of the most far
reaching events of all the centuries.
The Reformation kindled in Europe the
fires of religious revolution that ended
in the secession of states and vast num-
bers of people from the old church, and
the division OF Europe into two great
sects. In Great Britain, Henry the
Eighth seized the advantages offered to
| him by the disturbed condition of the
times to exalt his throne and to enrich
his mobiles upon the spoils OF the old
religious institutions, assuming to him.
self the powers formerly exercised by
the pontiff of Rome. and laying the
tional church, with the king as its head,
which has subsisted, through many and
stirring vicissitudes, down to the pres
ent time. The era of the Reformation
is one of those stupendous epochal
events which has had more powerful
influences in shaping the trend of
civilization than anything else that had
occurred from the time of the Christian
dispensation.
The close of the seventeenth century
was marked by the decadence OF one OF
the most brilliant reigns the world had
seen from the time when imperial Rome
was in the zenith of her power. Louis
the Fourteenth, after ruling France for
half century, and exhausting her re.
sources and impoverishing her people to
fatter his ambition and to satiate his
appetite for military glory, went down
to his grave as complete wreck as he
had left his empire. Great Britain had
driven forth the last of her Stuarts and
taken on new life from the victory she
| had won over the assumption that the
people were made for kings and not
! kings for the people. The revolution
which ended in the flight of James and
the accession of William, planted the
seeds which a century later terminated
pendence of the thirteen american COL
onies.
AS sequence OF the exhaustion of
France by the wars OF Louis the Four
teenth, and the malgovernment and un-
speakable tyranny and corruption which
followed under the regency and the
reign of the Fifteenth Louis, the seven
teenth century closed in scene OF car
mage and terror such as the world had
rarely witnessed. Out of the great
French revolution, which not only shook
France to the center, but all the thrones
Of Europe, arose clearer and more uni
versal conception OF the rights of man
than had before been advanced in Eu-
rope. America was far ahead of Europe
at this time in its appreciation of the
problem of human freedom, and the
declaration that "all men are born free
and equal" had made wide and rapid
inroads upon the popular understand
ing of the old countries. Through an
unprecedented reign of terror, through
cruelties and crimes at which humanity
shuddered, the rights of 'the people
struggled to reach solid ground.
Now, at the close of the nineteenth
century, we are still wondering how far
off that solid ground is yet. In this
year of our Lord, 1892, the whole civil
lied world seems to be in state of con-
tention. New difficulties have arisen,
and we are confronted with problems
that would have been strange and per-
picking at any other period in the his
tory OF the world, but which assume
more dangerous and portentous proper
tions at the present time from the fact
that the people now are not bothered
about reverence for the maxims of des-
potic times. If the century should
close without satisfactory solution OF
the problems that now vex society as to
the just relations that should natur-
ally subsist between capital and
labor, the whole civilized world may be
thrown back into chaos fearful to con-
template. But we have faith in the
justice Of mankind, in the sense of cor
rect deductions from correct principles
that permeates and has possession of
the human mind OF the period, and be-
lieve that whenever the great consensus
of just opinion can arrive at an adjust
ment upon principles of right to all
classes of the questions that are now
rife with difficulties and instinct with
clashing prejudices, the problem will be