tical as well as ecclesiastical issues of the day. What
great authorities in the thirteenth century were Albertus Magnus, Thomas
Aquinas, and Bonaventura! Scarcely less than they, in the next century,
were Duns Scotus and John Wyclif,--far greater in influence than any of
the proud feudal lords who rendered service to Edward III., broad as
were their acres, and grand as were their castles. Strange as it may
seem, the glory that radiated from the brow of a scholar or a saint was
greatest in ages of superstition and darkness; perhaps because both
scholars and saints were rare. The modern lights of learning may be
better paid than in former days, but they do not stand out to the eye of
admiring communities in such prominence as they did among our ancestors.
Who stops and turns back to gaze reverentially on a poet or a scholar
whom he passes by unconsciously, as both men and women strained their
eyes to see an Abelard or a Dante? Even a Webster now would not command
the homage he received fifty years ago.

It is not uninteresting to contemplate the powers that have ruled in
successive ages, outside the realms of conquerors and kings. In the
ninth and tenth centuries they were baronial lords in mail-clad armor;
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries these powers, like those of
ancient Egypt, were priests; in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
they were the learned doctors, as in the schools of Athens when
political supremacy was lost; in the sixteenth century--the era of
reforms--they were controversial theologians, like those of the age of
Theodosius; in the seventeenth century they were fighting nobles; in the
eighteenth they were titled and hereditary courtiers and great landed
proprietors; in the nineteenth they are bankers, merchants, and railway
presidents,--men who control the material interests of the country. It
is only at elections, though managed by politicians, that the people are
a power. Socially, the magnates are the rich. It is money which in these
times all classes combine to worship. If this be questioned, see the
adulation which even colleges and schools of learning pay to their
wealthy patrons or those from whom they seek benefits. The patrons of
the schools in the Middle Ages were princes and nobles; but these
princes and nobles bowed down in reverence to learned bishops and great
theological doctors.

Wyclif was the representative of the schools when he attacked the abuses
of the Church. It is not