The intelligent part of the people of southern Europe have been, for many years, more thoroughly divested of reverence for the papacy, than was Luther in the days of his greatest vehemence.  But they have quietly taken things as they are.  They have wanted Luther’s substitute for superstition—­a fervently religious spirit.  They have had only worldly and political motives, for wishing to see the old imposition done away; and these have been powerless against natural apathy, and the fixedness of old establishment.  Infidelity and indifferentism prove poor antagonists to superstition.

But when this apathy is one overcome, then the difficulty is, to temper with discretion the zeal for innovation.  Throughout, such only as heartily prize the true, because it is true, will be likely to shun alike, rejecting the old for its antiquity, and the new for its novelty.

The first lesson is, to learn how much of human wisdom is but folly:  the second, that it is not yet all folly, but a good deal of it genuine wisdom.  And he will be most likely to unite these in the habit of thinking soberly, who first moderates his estimate of human power and wisdom, by marking how far their utmost flights had failed to anticipate, what has proved the power of God and the wisdom of God to the world’s renovation.  Such is the best preparation for still learning, how much that wears the appearance of wisdom and science unsubstantial.  This best teaches so to reason soberly and conscientiously, as not to run into licentiousness the liberty of thinking.  Religious zeal indeed has hitherto been little enough tempered with discretion; but no other zeal has glowed so intensely, without still more disastrous consequences, in setting the world on fire.

It is yet a consideration in point, that, as in all undertakings hope of success best stimulates and sustains exertion; so the hope, that the world’s disorders will yet be cured, is best furnished by the faith, which recognizes a Sovereign ordering and disposing all, bringing light out of darkness; making the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder thereof pledged to restrain.  Judging from history and appearances, the philanthropist may often doubt, whether the race be not destined still to go a ceaseless round; ever exchanging one delusion for another, but no real progress.

As it was in character for the prophetess of Apollo, it complain: 
           “My youth was by my tears corroded,
                   My sole familiar was my pain;
            Each coming ill my heart foreboded,
                   And felt at first—­in vain.” 
So the philosophic prophet may lament, that he anticipates so much more
clearly, what ought to be, than what will be; that he finds the
increase of knowledge, beyond the general sense of the age, to be but
the increase of sorrow.  But the religious insight into futurity saves
from such anguish, by the hope which gilds and realizes the future: 
hope for the race, armed with a higher assurance than philosophy can
work out, that and right and peace shall reign triumphant; and personal
hope, inasmuch as, however dark the prospect for earth’s races may be,
the individual has a future, whose joy is his strength.