THE FIRST ŒCUMENICAL COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.
The nineteenth century is still adding to the catalogue of important events, for which it will be memorable in future histories. Men still live who looked on Fulton's first steamboat on the Hudson, who ventured on the first railway train, and who smiled incredulously at the folly of Morse stretching iron wires on poles along the country between cities a day's journey apart, and pretending thus to transmit messages between them with the velocity of electricity. The humble river steamboat has developed into the gigantic ocean steamer, that heeds not the winds and bids defiance to the waves. Lines of railway intersect continents, and cross from ocean to ocean. Telegraph wires spread their network over every civilized land, and, boldly plunging into ocean depths, aim to girdle the earth. The cotton-gin has revolutionized the habits of nations and the commerce of the world, and the sewing-machine is bringing the change into every household. This wondrous increase of travel and commerce among nations has given birth to international exhibitions of art and industry as gorgeous as the visions of the Arabian story-teller. In the Suez Canal, this century has succeeded where antiquity failed; and in the Mont Cenis tunnel, soon to be finished, it is accomplishing what past ages never dreamed of attempting.
Science, too, contributes her wonders. The sun and the stars and the nebulæ are yielding their secrets; chemistry boasts of her unexpected conquests; and the earth is giving forth its pages of geological lore, fragmentary as yet, and somewhat confused, ofttimes undecipherable, often wrongly read by men, but still presenting to us a kingdom of knowledge unknown a century ago.
In the political and social sphere this century has been equally marked. Vast wars and bloody revolutions ushered it in. Wars and revolutions have marked every decade of its progress. Empires and kingdoms have been thrown down. Others have been established instead, and have perished in their turn. The strong have grown weak, and the weak have become powerful. And to-day, the nations of the civilized world feel that they stand on the thin crust of a volcano, that trembles under our feet, and that may at any time burst forth, in other revolutions and wars, in which arms of precision, titanic artillery, and iron-clad vessels shall play a part never yet witnessed by men.
In the moral and religious world, too, there is equal excitement and confusion. Novel principles are proposed, advocated, and pushed to their extreme and most violent consequences. Nothing in government, in morals, or in religion is left unassailed. There is an incessant war against God, against truth and virtue, and against every principle that would withstand the passions, or the interests, or the caprices of men. And the press, which in its wondrous development has kept full pace with every other art, is ever busy bringing to every household, to old and young alike, sometimes words of truth and goodness, but a thousand times oftener and more actively lessons of immorality, discontent, disorder, and irreligion.
In looking at the world, as it is now, so rapidly moving on, with its vast energies and untiring activity, its ever-increasing commerce, its intense worship of luxury, its oblivion of principle, its grasping after wealth, its restlessness and craving for change for change's sake, one feels like the traveller who crosses the Alps by that late feat of modern engineering, the Mont Cenis Fell Railway. The wondrous scenery of mountain and valley charms you. You are amazed at the boldness which conceived, and the skill which executed the work. You rejoice, as you are borne rapidly on, in the luxuriously-cushioned seat and well-warmed railway compartment, over the steep road you remember well to have travelled, years ago, so slowly and painfully. But amid all this pleasure, you cannot shut out the thought that perhaps the very rumbling and jarring of the train may set in motion the vast field of freshly-fallen snow that lies so lightly on the steep side of the peak rising above you, on the right or the left, and bring it down as an irresistible avalanche, overwhelming road and train, and casting the shattered cars and mangled passengers down to the masses of rock and ice that lie in the gorge a thousand yards below.
We glory in our rapid advance in arts, science, and civilization. We feel ourselves borne rapidly and joyously forward in a career of progress. But we cannot shut out entirely a sense of danger. In many countries, society is mined by revolutionary combinations, active and vigilant, watching for any favorable opportunity, and ever ready to take advantage of it. In the universal questioning of every thing and of every principle, the minds of the masses have become excited, have lost in great part, or are fast losing, those fixed and hallowed principles of justice and truth which are absolutely necessary for correct judgment and prudent action. They are ripe for any plan to be proposed, even if its only attraction be its novelty. And they may easily become a mighty engine of brute, unthinking power, in the hands of any one bold enough to seize the control, and skilful enough to guide them for a time. Might now makes right. The world is ruled on the theory of accomplished facts. Peace itself must stand armed cap-à-pie. No one knows into what horrors the death of one individual might, any month, throw hundreds of millions of men.
Has all sense of right and justice faded from the minds of men? Must our progress be marred by this ever-increasing danger. Is there no voice to be raised, no authority to come forth to meet this emergency of the world?