affairs. It shows us great ideas prevailing at all times; it shows us repeated failure to give these ideas effect; it shows the conditions under which these ideas influenced political action; it shows us seeming triumphs which ended only in disaster; it enables us to judge of the qualities which led to permanent achievements; it points out the nature and limits of man's foresight. These are the important lessons of history, and they are lessons which may be learned from any period, and from any field of man's activity. For my own part, I think that they are best learned in periods which do not challenge direct comparison with the present. We are calmer and more impartial when the conditions of the problem are somewhat remote, when there is no danger of awakening our own feelings of partisanship, when we are not misled by similarity of names and terms which we have adopted as our own.
I have said more than enough on these general topics. How is this study of ecclesiastical history to be promoted in this University, for what objects, and by what means? On this point I, as a stranger, can only speak with imperfect information. I would have preferred not to have spoken at all, but it occurred to me that my inexperience would perhaps enable me to say what otherwise I should not venture to say, and which might be worth saying. The fact that I am unfettered by any positive knowledge of possibilities allows me greater freedom in drawing an ideal picture of the functions which a professor of ecclesiastical history might conceivably discharge. I will express some considerations which have occurred to me.
