In Germany to the Leipsic Disputation - James Aitken Wylie

opening of the day. But the true light had not yet
risen, if we except a feeble dawn, in the skies of
England and Bohemia, where gathering clouds
threatened to extinguish it. Philosophy and poetry,
even when to these are added ancient learning and
modern discoveries, could not make it day. If
something better had not succeeded, the awakening
of the sixteenth century would have been but as a
watch in the night. The world, after those merely
terrestrial forces had spent themselves, would have
fallen back into its tomb. It was necessary that
God's own breath should vivify it, if it was to
continue to live. The logic of the schools, the
perfume of letters, the galvanic forces of art could
not make of the corpse a living man. As with man
at first, so with society, God must breathe into it in
order that it might become a living soul. The Bible,
so long buried, was resuscitated, was translated
into the various tongues of Europe, and thus the
breath of God was again moving over society. The
light of heaven, after its long and disastrous
eclipse, broke anew upon the world.
Three great princes occupied the three leading
6