his feet. In place of bishops and
archbishops, whose insolence had been to former kings a constant menace,
his court was filled with common soldiers selected from the body of the
nation, and raised to posts of highest honor, for no other reason than
their obedience to the monarch's will. Of the old ecclesiastical
authority not a trace was left. Rome, in ages past the ultimate tribunal
for the nation, had now no more to say in Sweden than in the kingdom of
Japan. The Reformation was so thorough that from the reign of Gustavus
Vasa to the present day, it is asserted, no citizen of Sweden has become
a Romish priest.

* * * * *

The Revolution whose main incidents have here been followed recalls
another Revolution enacted near three centuries later amid the forests
of the great continent of North America. Both originated in a long
series of acts of tyranny, and each gave birth to a hero whose name has
become a lasting synonym of strength and greatness. The lessons of
history, however, are more often found in contrasts than in
similarities, and the points of difference between these two upheavals
are no less striking than their points of likeness. The chief difference
lies in the individual characteristics of the leaders. George Washington
was pre-eminently a hero of the people. He embraced the popular cause
from no other motive than a love of what he deemed the people's rights;
and when the war of independence closed, he retired from public life and
allowed the nation whose battle he had fought to take the government of
the country upon itself. The result was the most perfect system of
republican government that the world has ever known. Gustavus Vasa, on
the other hand, though actuated in a measure by enthusiasm for the
public weal, was driven into the contest mainly by a necessity to save
himself. The calm disinterestedness which marks the career of Washington
was wholly wanting in the Swedish king. His readiness to debase the
currency, his efforts to humiliate the bishops, his confiscation of
Church property, his intimacy with foreign courtiers,--all show a desire
for personal aggrandizement inconsistent with an earnest longing to
benefit his race. One must regret that the rare talents which he
possessed, and the brilliant opportunities that lay before him, were not
employed in more unselfish ends. It is true he gave his country a better
constitution than it had before; he freed it from t