The influence continued to spread until it effected all the states of western Europe. It turned men's minds everywhere to political thought and discussion. It quickened the hardy mountaineers of Switzerland to reorganize their republican institutions, on the basis of equal rights. The little republic of the mountains founded so long ago, in the days of William Tell, started on a new era of prosperity. France, in 1830, once more attempted to throw off the yoke of her ancient kings.
Scene in Switzerland.
These events may be said to mark the complete political awakening of Europe. Western Europe was now free and self-governing. The long and painful transition from despotism to responsible government was at length accomplished. One hundred and eighty millions of Europeans had risen from a degraded vassalage to the rank and condition of freemen.
CHAPTER XX.
FORCES OF CIVILIZATION IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
THE GENIUS OF THE AGE—EUROPEAN WARS—AMERICA TRANQUIL—DECLARATION OF WAR—DIVISIONS OF NORTH AMERICA—UNITED STATES—CANADA—MEXICO—AMERICAN COMMON SCHOOLS—THEIR INFLUENCE—PROGRESS OF INVENTION—FIRST STEAMBOAT—FIRST LOCOMOTIVE—ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH—IMPROVEMENTS IN PRINTING—SPIRITUAL DARKNESS—THE KINGDOM OF GOD—WANTS OF THE PRESENT AGE—JOSEPH SMITH—HIS TRAGIC DEATH—CONCLUSION.
Human history should be a record of progress—a record of accumulating knowledge and increasing wisdom, of continual advancement from a lower to a higher platform of intelligence and well-being. Each generation should pass on to the next the treasures which it has inherited, beneficially modified by its own experience, and enlarged by the acquisitions which itself has gained.
Sometimes the stream of human development seems to pause and the years seem to roll on without change. Yet this is only apparent. All the while there is a silent accumulation of forces, which at length burst forth in the violent overthrow of evils, which had been endured for generations.