religious. A correct estimate of her national and individual life
will point out to us all that had been done in the Age of Faith. From
her condition we may gather what is the progress made by man when guided
by such theological ideas as those which had been her rule of life.

The following paragraphs convey an instructive lesson. They dissipate
some romantic errors; they are a verdict on a political system from its
practical results. What a contrast with the prodigious advancement made
within a few years when the Age of Reason had set in! How strikingly are
we reminded of the inconsequential, the fruitless actions of youth, and
the deliberate, the durable undertakings of manhood!

For many of the facts I have now to mention the reader will find
authorities in the works of Lord Macaulay and Mr. Froude on English
history. My own reading in other directions satisfies me that the
picture here offered represents the actual condition of things.

[Sidenote: Condition at the suppression of the monasteries.] At the time
of the suppression of the monasteries in England the influences which
had been in operation for so many centuries had come to an end. Had they
endured a thousand years longer they could have accomplished nothing
more. The condition of human life shows what their uses and what their
failures had been. There were forests extending over great districts;
fens forty or fifty miles in length, reeking with miasm and fever,
though round the walls of the abbeys there might be beautiful gardens,
green lawns, shady walks, and many murmuring streams. In trackless woods
where men should have been, herds of deer were straying; the sandy hills
were alive with conies, the downs with flocks of bustards. The peasant's
cabin was made of reeds or sticks plastered over with mud. His fire was
chimneyless--often it was made of peat. In the objects and manner of his
existence he was but a step above the industrious beaver who was
building his dam in the adjacent stream. There were highwaymen on the
roads, pirates on the rivers, vermin in abundance in the clothing and
beds. The common food was peas, vetches, fern roots, and even the bark
of trees. There was no commerce to put off famine. Man was altogether at
the mercy of the seasons. The population, sparse as it was, was
perpetually thinned by pestilence and want. Nor was the state of the
townsman better than that of the rustic; his bed was a bag of straw,
with a hard round log for h