The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-11-30

man, but a heavy chain on his will;
and instead of inspiring men by deeds
of love, it brushes them by acts of OPP
D preston. To be sure the art of oil
painting has been born; but those who
are familiar with the morbid subjects
and horrible details of the painters of
this period will see that there is little
hope or comfort for down trodden
peasants to be derived from these real
tStic representations of suffering and
misery. One sign of hope there is, like
the first faint rays of the dawn, pronis-
ing better things for a cold and gloomy
world. Dante and Petrarch, the heralds
of the coming Renaissance, have
charmed the leaders of thought by their
epic and lyric art; and have started
that ideal of humanism, which regards
the orator and the poet as a teacher of
the people, bound to give the world the
inspired image of a perfected personal
ity.
Again the clock strikes. The hour is
fifteen hundred. Strange rumors are
in the air. A man has set out from a
port in Spain with three small ships, to
sail around the world and find the
Indies. He has been followed by
laughter and dire predictions but
comes back to set Europe on fire with
a marvellous story of a new world to be
found over beyond the seas. Instantly,
( all the dreamers who have been shut up
in dungeons of despotism and despair,
| peering hopelesSly out at a ruined
| world, begin to picture to themselves
| other lands, where they can carry out
| those grand conceptions, which have
only haunted the mind as hopeless
| ideals amid the unyielding circum-
stances and gross prejudices of a worn
out civilization. At the same time men
are told that up in Germany some one
has been experimenting with movable
metal types" and has discovered that
it is possible to print things on sheets
of paper, and scatter them broadcast
over the world. A copy of the Bible
has actually been produced in this way.
Wonderful are to be the results On
the printed page the thoughts which
have been shut up in The minds or
few are to become the property of the
many, and to descend like melting
SHOWS into the valley to clothe the bar
rem places with fertility Another
thing has happened, Just as the clock
was about to strike a vast throng gath
cred in the Piazza della Signora, in
Florence, to witness the execution of
daring monk who has had the courage
to denounce the abuses of the church
and the corruption of the state. Just
before the fagots were lighted his sa-
cerdotal robes were stripped from him,
IA hichbr Of
crate thee from the church militant and |
the church triumphant" Clear and |
firm came back the reply, From the |
church militant? Yes From the |
church triumphant? 1t is not yours to |
do" Can this be true? Scarcely has |
the last stroke of fifteen hundred |
sounded on the air when the University |
of Erfurt, in Germany, confers the de-
gree of Bachelor of Arts" on a young |
man by the name of Luther. He shall
answer that question for all time. A
new conception of the church is being
born; and spiritual liberty, hitherto a
despised and discredited angel scorned |
at the palace of the bishop and refused
admittance to the cathedral, is to be-
come the familiar guest of the humble
cottage, and to organize there a vast |
army that shall cast down spiritual
from high places
Once more we hear the gong of our
mighty clock. 1t is the hour of sixteen
hundred rnow. Again we witness pthe
of a most precious gift to
mankind. Calico has invented the tel
escope, that marvellous eye by which
man Is enabled to follow the stars on
| 4
break their long silence. Kepler has
burst forth in his prophetic declaration
that the man who studies nature is
thinking Gods thoughts after Him"
Bacon Is about to publish his "Novum {
Organum," that is to be the declaration
IF independence for new period of in
telectual growth. Thus is begun that /
ong and brilliant career of science, s
that is to strike so many shack1es of {
superstition from the mind of man; /
hat is to enable him to read the records Y
If millions of years, written in the soil t
md on the rocks; and that is to teach !
lin to tame the monsters of the earth I
ind air, and make them do his bidding. S
The very forces, which, while our clock I
S striking the hour of sixteen hundred
ire contemplated with superstitious j
1--WE, are vainly bribed with prayer and i
and are treated as the messen- /
gers of divine caprice, shall some day t
De harnessed by the growing power of S
human knowledge, and shall become r
good tured beasts of burden, to do r
he work and carry the commerce of t
he world. v
Again the clock strikes. 1t is seven
cen hundred now. No great achieve [
nent stands out solitary and sublime, 4
s the hour sends out its solemn peal. U
md yet, for the giant strides of dis X
overy and invention, for the wonderful n
publications. of scientific principles and
he unearthing of new and strange |
orces, it is one of the most wonderful
f all the. centuries. In the University
f Lund, in Sweden, there is a young
nan, mendng his shoes with folded
ieces of paper who is to find botany a Is
haos, and leave it a cosmos, and is to u
the three kingdoms of ma
L. 4