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BOOK SECOND.

GENERAL CONDITION OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE IN PAST AGES THEIR BURDENS AND SUFFERINGS.

I HAVE Somewhere seen it stated, that the great Hampden, just before he died, remarked, while conversing with a friend on the condition and prospects of the English Nation, "with how much astonishment will the men of future times read the history of the injustice and oppression of Kings and Tyrants."

A striking fulfilment of this prediction is furnished in our own age. As the darkness which gathered over the human mind in former centuries passes away, no inquiries become so earnest as those which relate to the rights, privileges, and destiny of man; rights of which he has always been robbed; privileges he never dared to hope for, and a destiny of whose glory he never dreamed.

Every age has what is called its great principle or motive, which more than all others controls

the minds of men, and which by universal consent is adopted as the indisputable axiom of the time. The grand motive of one age has been policy, of another valor, and of another truth. The times of Justinian afford an example of the first; the age of Feudalism of the second, and the Reformation of the last.

During the reign of the Roman Emperor, when the public mind had become enervated by luxury, artfulness and finesse were the qualities most admired, and the only means of self-elevation. But during the long and gloomy period when Europe was under the sway of the Feudal Baronies, military accomplishments were the chief objects of ambition, and the surest road to honor. Chivalry was the reigning spirit of the age. The people followed, not principles, but men. All other considerations were lost in enthusiasm for the personal heroism of their leader. If you wished to rouse the energies of a nation to move in some great enterprize, you had but to point to a gallant knight, accomplished in all the warlike virtues of his time, and uncounted thousands burning with enthusiasm would flock to his standard. This spirit gave birth to those heroic actions which fill up the brilliant legends of the old crusaders. It was a far more enterprizing and stirring principle than had hitherto guided the world.

When turbulent Europe settled back to its repose after the crusades were over, it had assumed an entirely new aspect. The human mind was

now prepared for higher achievements. For the heavy tread of those indomitable masses of living valour, that fought for the Holy Sepulchre, had hardly died away on the ear of Europe, before the trumpet call of the Reformation was sounded from the woods of Germany by the Monk of Erfurth, and a new principle took possession of the civilized world. Resting from its bold struggles with the infidel hosts of the East, the exploits of heroism were no longer the theme of universal admiration, and the hero and his deeds were forgotten together. Other and higher objects of contemplation filled the minds of men. They began to gaze dimly through the dust of ages after truth-long-buried Religious Truth-truth that would satisfy the wants of man's higher nature-truth descended from Heaven for the soul, and yet hitherto denied it.

The awakening truth-seeking world no longer cares for the Politician, the Crusader or the King. It boldly asks whence the mitre derives its sacredness the Pope his infallibility? Where are the Records of God's Prophets and God's anointed Son? What has obscured their pages? Who has dared to hide them from the sight of man? This new love of Truth which inflamed the souls of the Reformers, spread from hamlet to hamlet, and province to province, until it well nigh emancipated Europe from a spiritual despotism that had been consolidated by the slow growth of ages. Then followed the controversial age, and the

world became weary in the fruitless effort to settle upon a creed that should unite the religious opinions of mankind. One grand result however crowned these efforts. The foundations of Christianity were carefully examined and found to be firm and immovable; and although little approximation was made towards a unity of belief in unessential matters, yet a solid and secure lodgement was gained in the human mind for the great principles of Christianity, which in their turn, gave birth to civil freedom, and settled in the human soul a conviction of the equal rights of man, and imparted a firm determination to possess them.

A spirit of inquiry has gone abroad over the world peculiar to our own age. Everywhere men are becoming restive under oppression. Something of the greatness and value of man, of the sacredness of his rights as a creature of God, and the grandeur of his destiny, is dawning on the human mind. The truth of Hampden's words is written out in clear bold characters upon the institutions, the changes, the endeavours, and the spirit of this generation. Man is beginning to be understood that which "hath been the riddle of ages." His rights are beginning to be respected, and the few guiding minds of the world to whom God has committed the ark of human liberty, are rallying the innumerable host of their down-trodden brethren, to lead them forth from a worse than Egyptian bondage. They are teaching them the great lessons of liberty, and inspiring them with

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