Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1895 — A WONDERFUL CHANGE. [ARTICLE]

A WONDERFUL CHANGE.

How a Few Hundred Year* Altered the Face of Enrope. At the beginning of the eleventh century the towns of Europe were small clusters of miserable huts, adorned with but low, clumsy churches, the builders of which hardly knew how to make an arch; the arts, mostly consisting of some weaving and forging, were in their Infancy; learning was found In but few monasteries. Three hundred and fifty years later the face of Europe had been changed. The land was dotted with rich cities, surrounded by immense thick walls, which were imbellished by towers and gates, each of them a work of art In itself. The cathedrals, conceived in grand style and profusely decorated, lifted their bell towers to the skies, displaying a purity of form and a boldness of imagination which we now vainly strive to obtain. The crafts and arts had risen to a degree of perfection which we can hardly boast of having superseded in many directions, if the inventive skill of the worker and the superior finish of his work be appreciated higher than rapidity of fabrication. The navies of the free cities furrowed in all directions the Northern and Southern Mediterranean; one effort more and they would cross the oceans. Over large tracts of land well-being had taken the place of misery; learning had grown and spread. The methods of science had been elaborated; the basis of natural philosophy had been laid down; and the way had been paved for all the mechanical inventions of which our own times are so proud. Such were the magic changes accomplished in Europe in less than 400 years. And the losses which Europe sustained through the loss of its free cities can only be understood when we compare the seventeenth century with the fourteenth or thirteenth. The prosperity which formerly characterized Scotland, Germany, the plains of Italy, was gone. The roads had fallen into an abject state, the cities were depopulated, labor was brought Into slavery, art had vanished, commerce Itself was decaying.