77/1? Sifted Grain and t lie Grain Sifters 201 pher Columbus had little in common except that their lives over- lapped ; but those two dates, 1492 and 15 17, — the landfall at San Sah'ador and the theses nailed on the church door at Wittenberg, — those two dates began a new chapter in human history, the chapter in which is recounted the fierce struggle over the establishment of the principles of civil and religious liberty, and the recognition of the equality of men before the law. For, speaking generally but with approximate correctness, it may be asserted that, prior to the year i 500, the domestic political action and the foreign compli- cations of even the most advanced nations turned on other issues, — dynastic, predatory, social ; but, since that date, from the wars of Charles V., of Francis I., and of Elizabeth down to our own Confederate rebellion, almost every great struggle or debate has either directly arisen out of some religious dispute or some demand for increased civil rights, or, if it had not there its origin, it has invariably gravitated in that direction. Even Frederick of Prussia, the so-called Great — that skeptical, irreligious cut-purse of the Empire, — the disciple and protector of Voltaire and the apotheo- sized of Thomas Carlyle, — even Frederick figured as " the Protes- tant Hero ; " while Francis I. was "the Eldest Son of the Church," and Henry VHI. received from Rome the title of " Defender of the Faith." Since the year 1500, on the other hand, what' is known as modern history has been little more than a narrative of the episodes in the struggle not yet closed against arbitrary rule, whether by a priesthood or through divine right, or by the members of a caste or of a privileged class, — whether ennobled, plutocratic or industrial. The right of the individual man, no matter how ignorant or how poor, to think, worship and do as seems to him best, provided al- ways in so doing he does not infringe upon the rights of others, has through these four centuries been, as it still is, the underlying issue in every conflict. It seems likely, also, to continue to be the issue for a long time to come, for it never was more firmly asserted or sternly denied than now ; though to-day the opposition comes, not, as heretofore, from above, but from below, and finds its widest and most formidable expression in the teachings of those socialists who preach a doctrine of collectivism, or the complete suppression of the individual. That proposition, however, does not concern us here and now. Our business is with the middle period of the nineteenth century, and not with the first half of the twentieth ; and no matter how closely we confine ourselves to the subject in hand, space and time will scarcely be found in which properly to develop the theme.
