orld, against which it is vain to rebel. And that government is really
the best which unfetters its spiritual influence, and encourages it; and
not that government which seeks to perpetuate its corrupt and worldly
institutions. The Roman emperors made Christianity an institution, and
obscured its truths. And perhaps that is one reason why Providence
permitted their despotism to pass away,--preferring the rude anarchy of
the Germanic nations to the dead mechanism of a lifeless Church and
imperial rottenness. Imperialism must ever end in rottenness. And that
is one reason why the heart of Christendom--I mean the people of Europe,
in its enlightened and virtuous sections--has ever opposed imperialism.
The progress has been slow, but marked, towards representative
governments,--not the reign of the people directly, but of those whom
they select to represent them. The victory has been nearly gained in
England. In France the progress has been uniform since the Revolution.
Napoleon revived, or sought to revive, the imperialism of Rome. He
failed. There is nothing which the French now so cordially detest, since
their eyes have been opened to the character and ends of that usurper,
as his imperialism. It cannot be revived any more easily than the
oracles of Dodona. Even in Germany there are dreadful discontents in
view of the imperialism which Bismarck, by the force of successful wars,
has seemingly revived. The awful standing armies are a menace to all
liberty and progress and national development. In Italy itself there is
the commencement of constitutional authority, although it is united
under a king. The great standing warfare of modern times is
constitutional authority against the absolute power of kings and
emperors. And the progress has been on the side of liberty everywhere,
with occasional drawbacks, such as when Louis Napoleon revived the
accursed despotism of his uncle, and by the same means,--a standing army
and promises of military glory.

Hence, in the order of Providence, the dream of Charlemagne as to
unbounded military aggrandizement could not be realized. He could not
revive the imperialism of Rome or Persia. No man will ever arise in
Europe who can re-establish it, except for a brief period. It will be
rebuked by the superintending Power, because it is fatal to the highest
development of nations, because all its glories are delusory, because it
sows the seeds of ruin. It produces that very egotism, materialism,