which relate to the individualizing of
social power and interests, and to progress by antagonism; with
corresponding absence of the elements active in the preceding epoch.

Turning now to Dr. Draper's storehouse of historical facts, do we find
our expectations realized or disappointed?

We discover that during the age in which the principle of unity was
dominant, vast, magnificent, opulent empires existed, consolidated,
stable, powerful, orderly; but whose subjects possessed comparatively no
freedom, which resisted all effort at progression, denied to men
political equality, and sought to prevent all desire of change. We see a
religious organization which bound the people in a single faith by a
common creed; which fostered a spirit of brotherly sympathy; kept alive
the fire of holy zeal by pious ministrations; taught the universal
brotherhood of the human race; cultured the emotional nature of its
worshippers; sought to eradicate pauperism, to abolish slavery, and to
inculcate practical humility, treating peasant and king as equals before
God; endeavored to provide for the spiritual and material wants of
mankind; to become the guardian of the weak, the educator of the
ignorant, the rescuer of the vicious, the comforter of the sorrowing,
and the strong hand of protection between selfish or brutal power and
the lowly; which, however, resisted all efforts at intellectual freedom,
shut its ears to the voice of science, strove to repress the rising
desires of the soul and keep it in perpetual bondage and darkness. We
behold, next, a social organization in which, as a general rule, though
with many exceptions, each individual held his fitting place, the
station for which he was best adapted by natural character and training;
in which each rank recognized its obligations of deference toward
superiors, and of guardianship toward inferiors, and fulfilled, in the
main, as they were then understood, the practical duties which these
obligations created; in which the rich and powerful were the social
fathers of the poor and humble, securing them from physical want and
from the snares of designing men; but in which the spirit of
independence was not alive, the dignity of labor was denied, the
development which results from competitive struggles unknown, and
education uncared for.

But the achievements of this stage of individual and social growth,
those which stand out as the illustrious and characteristic features of
the time, w