e
dark period of the barbarian invasions, when they were the only
refuges of a pacific civilisation, the only libraries, the only
schools, the only centres of art, the only refuge for gentle and
intellectual natures; the chief barrier against violence and rapine;
the chief promoters of agriculture and industry! How often in
discussions on the merits and demerits of an Established Church in
England have we heard arguments drawn from the hostility which the
Church of England showed towards English liberty in the time of the
Stuarts; although it is abundantly evident that the dangers of a royal
despotism, which were then so serious, have utterly disappeared, and
that the political action of the Church of England at that period was
mainly governed by a doctrine of the Divine right of kings, and of the
duty of passive obedience, which is now as dead as the old belief that
the king's touch could cure scrofula! How often have the champions of
modern democracy appealed in support of their views to the glories of
the democracies of ancient Greece, without ever reminding their
hearers that these small municipal republics rested on the basis of
slavery, and that the bulk of those who would exercise the chief
controlling influence over affairs in a pure democracy of the modern
type were absolutely excluded from political power! How often in
discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of Home Rule in
Ireland do we find arguments drawn from the merits or demerits of the
Irish Parliament of the eighteenth century, with a complete
forgetfulness of the fact that this Parliament consisted exclusively
of a Protestant gentry; that it represented in the highest degree the
property of the country, and the classes who are most closely attached
to English rule; that it was constituted in such a manner that the
English Government could exercise a complete control over its
deliberations, and that for good or for ill it was utterly unlike any
body that could now be constituted in Ireland!

Or again, to turn to another field: it is quite certain that every age
has special dangers to guard against, and that as time moves on these
dangers not only change, but are sometimes even reversed. There have
been periods in English history when the great dangers to be
encountered sprang from the excessive and encroaching power of a
monarchy or of an aristocracy. The battle to be then fought was for
the free exercise of religious worship and expression