as, there is no fame, no name
left!"

Paulett and Charles went down among the ruins of the abbey, and there,
amidst the fallen stones and broken aisles, saw monumental marbles, old
known names, and funeral inscriptions, contrasting strongly by their
quiet character with the confusion around.

"Never forget them, Charles," said Paulett. "These are names which the
world has trembled at, and which are now like to be such as those before
the Flood, barbarous to those who are building up a new order of things,
and known merely as a barren catalogue of names. Yet, if you live,
remember Edward the king here; remember the Black Prince; remember the
days and heroes of Elizabeth; remember the poetry and the romance of the
old world."

"Ay, father, and I'll remember the great name of him who taught you to
print, and of Wicliffe the reformer, and of the man who gave you the
steam-engine."

Paulett smiled and sighed; he felt that his own ideas of things heroic
were as much contrasted with those of Charles, as their notions of the
beautiful. But he thought not to stem the stream.

"See here," he said, pointing to some new monuments, which, like the
old, were cracked by fire; "there were many brave and good actions
done, and one of those who did best was laid here. He was a clergyman,
his name Host, and during the pestilence which came on in the fourth
year, he was more like an inspired messenger of good than any mortal
creature. You must know, Charles, that the teachers of religion at this
time were greatly divided among themselves, and they had led a great
portion of the lay world into their disputes. One party, in an age of
reasoning, and when nothing in science was taken upon trust, gave up
their reason altogether, and followed authority as blindly as they
could--still, however, feeling the influence of the age; for they would
argue upon the existence or non-existence of authority, and would fit it
unconsciously each man to his own conceit. Indeed, superstition was the
disease of the age, and while the healthy part of the community employed
and enjoyed the freest use of their reason, this same infirmity appeared
among other people in other forms; so that some men took up the notion
that the human mind might act independently of sense, and see without
eyes, and know intuitively what existed at a distance. Other parties,
among professors of religion, allowed nothing in religion that they
allowed daily in the evidence of other