Professor Marsh's Lecture.

Professor Marsh gave the first of his course of lectures on the Relation of the Middle Ages to Modern Life and Literature, last evening in Sever 11. In his introduction Professor Marsh spoke of his intention of describing, not so much this period itself, as the profitable way in which we may all study this intensely interesting and useful subject. And the basis of his course of lectures will be in the first a historical sketch of the period; in the second, an account of the work already done on the subject; and in his final lecture, the way in which we may undertake the work for ourselves.

In his lecture last night, on Human Life and Ideals through the Dark and Middle Ages, Professor Marsh began by emphasizing the importance of comparing the present confusion in the forms of art, education and religion, with its growth and development from the Middle Ages. When the fall of the Roman Empire took place, all civilization and culture was enveloped in darkness. From that time until the 12th or 13th century, the whole world was undergoing a complete revolution, as far as civilization was concerned. The skepticism and superstition which had played so important a part in the fall of the Roman Empire, was superseded gradually by the religion of the Christians, During the period from the 4th to the 5th centuries, the invasions of the barbarians, weakened little by little the internal strength of the Church. Outwardly the Church had sustained itself, but it had lost its learning and its culture and was unable to share the new life which was now beginning.

For a long time the growth of this new life, - this new civilization, was slow and uncertain. But the key-note of growth of culture is always the mingling of religious, social and political influences. In Gaul we find the starting point of this growth. Then Germany and the Celtic races began to have a definite place in the constitution of this new civilization. By degrees monasteries, schools and convents sprung up in all parts of Europe, and it is to this fact that we owe the knowledge which we have. For the collection of books in these various places have been invaluable to the students of our subject.

But the church did much more than contribute to us its theology, for by insistence on certain types of felling, by its poetic lives of martyrs, and by its scriptural poems, it had a most powerful influence in the growth of culture. This growth extended through all the centuries from the 6th or 7th, when the new language of France was born, up to the 13th, when a new world had manifestly sprung forth. Arts of all sorts began to assert themselves. France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany and England all formed a new world in poetic life. And finally in Dante we see the magnitude of the growth in civilization and the overwhelming power of the revolution which had been going on through these many centuries.