J. H. Ward

“ The minds of men could not take a broader view of things than the horizon of their knowledge let them. Ignorance and superstition still held a terrible sway.
It is true that the whole character of that age bears the stamp of the German rather than the Italian intellect. It was the energy of a Luther, the learning and loving heart of a Melanchthon, the polished wit of an Erasmus, which then gave impulse and direction to the thoughts and opinions of the world, much more than the frivolous jesting of the infidel priests who thronged the streets of Rome and the halls of the Vatican. ”

“ The time-worn colossus of Rome was tottering under its own weight. Great princes filled the thrones of all the principal countries of Europe. The minds of men seemed awakening as from a sleep. A spirit of scientific research had seized the learned, and a desire for knowledge found its way even to the homes of the lowly.
In every grade of society a new life was in motion. "What an age!" exclaimed Huetton, the religious knight of Germany, "studies flourish, minds are awakening; it is a joy merely to be alive!" ”

“ The close of the seven years' war, which ended at the peace of Paris, 1763, was a turning point in the history of the world. England was no longer a mere European power. Her future action lay in a wider sphere than that of Europe. Mistress of North America, the future mistress of India, claiming as her own the empire of the seas, Britain suddenly towered high above rival nations whose interest and position, being on a single continent, doomed them to comparative insignificance in the after history of mankind. ”

“ The fair-haired natives of northern Europe, the swarthy inhabitants of Tartary, tall fierce-looking Circassians, and flat-nosed, woolly-headed negroes from central Africa; all mingling with the more polished inhabitants of western Europe, each dressed in his own peculiar garb, and presenting a living picture no less striking than strange. In this great hive of humanity may be heard at least fifty different languages making a complete Babel of sounds. Here, also, may be seen in striking contrast, the different manners, customs and usages of oriental and western nations. ”

“ By expulsion she lost some of her best citizens; and the wealth of Mexico and Peru, induced habits of luxury and effeminacy among the remainder. Her great cities have sunk into insignificance, and towns that once boasted of more than a million inhabitants can now only show a few scanty thousands. Surely the hand of God is visible in the degradation of Spain.
It is not alone the massive ruins of Central America, Yucatan, Peru and Mexico, that astonish the beholder. In almost every part of the western continent may be found the footprints of a mighty race, now vanished from the earth. ”

“ Few things are more appalling to the imagination than the rising ocean tide, when man feels himself within its power. The Spanish soldiers saw the waters deepening and closing around them, and, as it were, devouring the earth beneath their feet, while on the waves rode a flotilla, manned by a liberty-loving and determined race, whose courage was known throughout the world. No wonder the Spaniards were seized with a panic and fled precipitately. ”

“ The generations that handed the truth, from rank to rank down the ages, have themselves become dust; but the light still increases its ever-burning flame. From the intelligence that had been slowly ripening sprang the American revolution. While Rosseau was putting his burning thoughts in print, and Voltaire, the prince of scoffers, was hurling his venomed shafts of sarcasm at the priesthood of the Roman church, farther north was the little country, Holland, which had already gained a large share of civil and religious liberty. ”

“ Thus the youthful nation, as it took its place among the powers of the world, proclaimed its faith in the truth and reality and unchangeableness of freedom, virtue and right. The heart of Jefferson, in writing the declaration, and of Congress in adopting it, beat for all humanity. The assertion of right was made for all nations and for all coming generations. It was addressed to all mankind and was destined to make the circuit of the world. ”

“ The enormous crime of Spain in destroying this civilization has never been fully appreciated. In vain the Spaniards excuse their atrocities, on the plea that those nations were savages and permitted human sacrifices. True, the nations of America sank very low when the light of the gospel was withdrawn; but every candid mind will ask: "Which was the more degraded, papal Europe or apostate America?" Human sacrifice, however cruel, has nothing in it degrading to its victim. ”

“ Who does not see a divine providence—a marvelous wisdom in all this?
Though the pilgrims had left their native lands, that they might enjoy the liberty to worship God in the way which they deemed right; yet they had not discovered that people who differed from them were as well entitled to be tolerated as they themselves were. Simple as it seems there are many to this day who have not found out that every one is entitled to think for himself. ”

“ By doing this act of justice to her former colonies, England rescued her own liberties from imminent danger, and gave a pledge of liberty to her other dependencies. That selfish colonial policy, which had led to the cruel and unnatural war, was laid aside forever. Great Britain was henceforth the mother of nations—the great colonizing power—destined to found colonies in every quarter of the globe, and sow the islands of the ocean with the seeds of freedom. ”

“ On the banks of the stream of time not a great deed has been done by a hero, or monument raised by a nation, but tells the story of human progress. Each people that has disappeared, every great institution that has passed away, has been but a step in the ladder by which humanity ascends to a higher plane. ”

“ Thus, Crusade followed Crusade for more than one hundred and fifty years, until nine armies, comprising more than three millions of men, laid their bodies down to decay and their bones to whiten on the plains and hill-sides of the East.
Among all the enterprises, none were more wild and wicked than those which are called the "Crusades of the children." Emissaries from Rome went throughout Western Europe, preaching and declaring that God would only give the Holy Land into the hands of innocent children. ”

“ The principles that gave life to the new institutions pervaded history like a prophecy, and seemed like the realizing of the golden age of which the poets dreamed. The most profound thinkers and most intense lovers of the race saw in America's future an opportunity for man's higher development; the spiritual-minded saw in the history and circumstances of America the wonder-working and controlling hand of Providence. ”

“ They vowed to live in love with William Penn and his children as long as the moon and the sun should endure. Long years after, aged Indians were accustomed to come from the distant forests and recount with deep emotion the words that Penn had spoken to them under the old elm-tree.
The fame of Penn's settlements went abroad in all lands. An asylum was opened for the good and oppressed of every nation. Grave and God-fearing men from all the Protestant countries of Europe sought a home where they might live as conscience taught them. ”

“ Even as in days of old the light shone in the darkness and the darkness comprehended it not. Contemplating his death the mind instinctively reverts to that scene, when the Savior suffered on Calvary, eighteen hundred years ago. Across the ages stride the footprints of the self-same spirit. Unconsciously are associated the death of the Redeemer and the martyrdom of His servant. Already the principles enunciated by Joseph Smith, have shaken the religious world from center to circumference. The ignorant may effect to scorn, yet the day is nigh, when America will be proud of her prophet son. ”

“ From the age of Augustus Caesar her power had been waning, and when the Emperor Constantine removed the capital to Constantinople, Rome became a city of secondary importance. Though her political prestige was gone she became the seat of a religious empire which had and still has a mighty influence in the nations of the earth. The wrongs which she inflicted on others have recoiled with terrible retribution on herself. Her ruins are silent and majestic witnesses of the providence of God. ”

“ The time had at length arrived when the wild, wandering and discordant tribes of Arabia were to be marshalled under one banner, united in one creed and animated by one cause; when a mighty genius had arisen, who should bring together those scattered remnants, inspire them with his own religious zeal and daring spirit, and send them forth an invincible host, to shake and overturn the empires of the earth. ”

“ The conquest of Mexico and Peru by the Spaniards will ever remain one of "the bloodiest pictures in the book of Time." By millions upon millions, whole races and nations were ruthlessly destroyed. It was one unspeakable outrage, one unutterable ruin, without discrimination of age, sex or character. Those who fell not by the sword, died under the lash in a tropical clime, or perished in the darkness and dampness of the mines. From the fever-stricken coast of Mexico, and the gloom of dense forests in Central America ”

“ The religious teachers of those days never raised their voices in the sacred cause of liberty, or spoke in defense of the outraged rights of man.
No wonder then that, in the midst of the wrangling of sects, and unintelligible jargon of Arians, Augustinians, Nestorians and Marianites, society stood in breathless awe, when it heard the terrible Arabian battle cry, "There is but one God, and Mahomet is His prophet!" ”

“ The battle that Luther fought was not only for Germany and the sixteenth century, but for all countries, all peoples and all coming times. It was a battle not merely against the pope, but against all powers religious or secular, that seek to enchain the human mind or prevent the free exercise of religion. ”

“ Yet from the woes of the world in which he had suffered, from the wrongs of the down-trodden which he had shared, he derived an eloquence that went to the heart of the masses of Europe. Beyond most men of his time he saw the hand of Providence in the history of men.
"Nor God alone in the still calm we find,
He mounts the storm and rides upon the wind."
Institutions may crumble and governments fall, but it is only that they may renew a better youth; the petals of the flower wither that fruit may form. ”

“ America opened wide her hospitable doors and gave assurance of liberty and comfort to all who came. The thirteen colonies now contained a population of about three millions.
Up to the year 1764, the Americans cherished a deep reverence and affection for the mother country. They were proud to be considered British subjects, and of the lofty place England held among the nations of the earth. They gloried in the splendor of her military achievements. They copied her manners and her fashions. Her language, laws and literature were as fondly cherished by the colonists as by the English themselves. ”

“ Chivalry was the religion of the heart, in a rude and untutored age. It had the effect of infusing more of humanity and generous principle into the operations of war than the ancient nations had any conception of. Hence we seldom or never hear in modern times of such scenes of unmingled atrocity, such deadly treachery, such extensive and cold-blooded massacres as we so frequently read of in ancient pagan or papal history.
At the close of the Crusades a great change commenced in society. ”

“ Again, when we consider that a large majority of their teachers and philosophers were of the Jewish nation, we see a beautiful Providence in all this. The remnants of God's chosen people, though exiles and wanderers, despised and down-trodden by the Gentiles, were yet the instruments in God's hands for the execution of His purposes and the elevation of the race.
Surely there is a broader, higher, grander meaning in the promise given to Abraham, "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed," than many are willing to admit! ”

“ The mind instinctively turns to the colonizing of New England as one of the great landmarks of human history. A little more than two centuries ago this land was covered with forests in which roamed various tribes of Indians; and the rivers, which now give life to so much cheerful industry, flowed uselessly to the sea. To-day this same land is covered with cities, towns and villages, gardens, vineyards and orchards, schools and palaces—a civilization surpassing, in some respects, that of any other country on the face of the globe. ”

“ And when all has perished but ourselves, be sure that we will each devour our left arms, retaining our right to defend our women, our liberty and our religion, against the foreign tyrant. Should God, in His providence, deny us all relief, even then will we maintain ourselves against your entrance. When the last hour has come, with our own hands we will set fire to the city and perish, men, women and children, together in the flames, rather than suffer our homes to be polluted and our liberties to be crushed. ”

“ It had given to the world the philosophy of Newton, the literature of Shakspeare, and Addison, Pope and Swift, the political agitation of Cromwell, and the colonization of America. The avenues of knowledge were thus opened to the masses. Even the dullest and most backward minds began to have notions of literature and the discoveries of science. The ancient forms of royalty and chivalry had lost their prestige and stood in the shady background of the past. ”

“ In the whole history of human undertakings there is nothing that exceeds, if indeed there is anything that equals, this voyage of Magellan. That of Columbus dwindles away in comparison. It is a display of super-human courage and perseverance, an exhibition of heroic resolution, not to be diverted from its purpose by any motive, or any suffering, but inflexibly persisting to its end. ”

“ It is true He is unseen; and the unthinking multitude may pass heedlessly by. To the ignorant crowd, the history of the world presents a confused chaos; but to men of thought, it appears as a majestic temple on which the invisible hand of God is at work.
Modern minds might learn a lesson from heathen mythology. The name given by the ancient Greeks to the Deity shows that they had received some primeval revelation of this great truth. He was styled Zeus, or the life-giver to all that lives—to nations as well as individuals. ”

“ The foregoing may help us to understand the character of the English people at the time they commenced to plant the institutions of liberty on this continent. Who can read the thrilling narrative of English history during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries without acknowledging the hand of God, in moulding the character of the British people?
It was not a pleasant world which the men and women of Europe had to live in during the sixteenth century. Fighting was the constant occupation of the kings of that time; civil wars were also frequent. ”