new life had leavened the lump, and things were not what they had been. The old liberties looked more vigorous than ever, the new ones already seemed as enduring, and together they resisted with easy indifference the dangers that threatened them from the frivolity, the bigotry, and the obstinacy of kings, and those that would assault them from the tyranny of mobs. Had Puritanism done nothing else than develop manly self-respect, the sense of individuality, and the consciousness of a power which could and would compel a reverent regard for personal rights, it had deserved well of the people. Had it limited its efforts solely to assuring the old liberties, to advancing the new, and to establishing both, it had deserved well of civilization. It did these things, and, in spite of its violence and cruelty, and of all its manifold offences, it deserves and has the good word of mankind. It started England upon the career which she has run as head of the human family; upon her career of conquest; not her conquest of brute force, but her conquest of civilization, which has subdued continents to the plough, and which has rooted her principles of liberty as sturdily in the islands of far-off seas as ever they were rooted in the soil of Runnymede. It was much to demonstrate,

if but for a single day, that conscience could be free-and this it did it was much to teach rulers that the possession of power is a trust for the benefit of society-and this it did it was much to return a parliament which really represented the people-and this it did it was much to propose reforms which it is still the endeavor of England to effect-and this it did: it was more, far more, to actually accomplish them, though but for a parliament's sitting-and this it did.

It may be urged against Puritanism, that its greatest services to freedom were given during the riot of that worst of afflictions, a people run mad, and that it was in the days of its fanaticism that liberty reaped its richest gains. But that some of these services. were involuntary by no means deprives Puritanism of the credit due her for what she did freely and from good-will. The gains. of liberty, too, before and since that time, have been due as often to the indolence, the vices, and the necessities of rulers, to the brutality of the rabble, to the passions and blunders of citizens, and to the mere accretions of time, as to the merits and virtues of mankind. All these things have proved quite as efficient for her

SERVICES OF PURITANISM TO FREEDOM.

II

ends as patriots and heroes. Does a prince become impecunious? Riches are his, if she is only given another foothold. Does a mob break in the doors of a Parliament House? Immunity from punishment is accorded, if the right of free speech-speech as secure from a mob as from a ruler—is guaranteed for the future. Does the legislature encroach on the administration or the administration on the legislature? Swarms of precedents, whose presence is justified simply because they have existed time out of mind, straightway confront the outrage and turn it to liberty's account. All this only goes to show that this ever-watchful spirit does not disdain to make use of the stones which the builders reject. She may not be nice in her agents, but she uses them to good ends and with good effect. So with Puritanism: it made use of the tools it had, not what it would have. Conservative England may have done more to hedge old liberties with safeguards; but Puritanism is good, and is to be honored for this, that it produced more new liberties which have lived, and it proposed, and, what is better, set the example of more reforms which have lasted, than ever conservatism did. It gave, too, the two great parties necessary to every free government, and of these one has made it its duty to preserve what the other originates. Beneath the froth and scum the waters of life still ran in pure and steady current. Puritanism was indeed fanatical, but it used its fanaticism in the end, to the advancement of the human race and the greater glory of God.

What, then, as the next inquiry, was the Revolution of 1688, and what did it do for the people of England?

The nerveless rule of Cromwell's successor disclosed how abruptly the work of reconstruction had been interrupted by the Protector's death, and laid bare the necessity of its continuance. The country was exhausted by convulsion; reaction naturally followed, and the conservatism of the race having nothing to withstand it, the result was, that the king had his own again. So practical a people as the English, had not, however, gone through tribulation for nothing, and when absolutism dropped its mask, the temper which had beheaded one king was not disposed to palter with another. The past was scrutinized after reflection had cooled the judgment, and the discrimination between the good and bad it

disclosed was made with just severity. Nothing could be more timely for popular rights, than that royal absolutism should choose for its attempts a moment when the recollection of what they had done was still fresh enough to show the people what they could do, and when the resolution to maintain their rights was made inflexible by the lately acquired sense of having earned them. Accordingly, as if by instinct, the whole mass set to work to secure what had been gained. The Writ of Habeas Corpus was wrung from Charles, and, in fact, during no period of English history were so many rights secured as there were under the reigns of that monarch and his brother, two of the most inveterate absolutists that ever sat upon the throne. The reason was, that though these rights were not embodied in a constitution, they were alive in the people, who were bent upon seeing them recognized elements of the law of the land; and so strong was this determination, that when, at last, the king obstructed the work, he was pushed aside, and another was called in who took his place upon the express condition, that, henceforth, the crown should act under the limitations imposed by the constitution. Thus the Restoration bestowed liberties, and the Revolution of 1688 secured them. It did more : it gave the English the solid assurance, that all their liberties, old and new, were of equal weight before the constitution, and were alike constituent elements of their social organization. No matter when this liberty or that had risen to the surface, all were now made living elements of the body politic, and when the Declaration of Rights was put forth, and Majesty did it reverence, personal freedom was set upon immovable foundations.

Such were the three periods of the Great Revolution, of which the first two may be styled emphatically the Eras of Effort, and such were what they accomplished. In surveying this mighty

movement from beginning to end, we cannot but be struck with this fact, that, though history repeats itself, the law of a people's development does not act, at any time or in any place, with the uniformity of those physical laws whose action can be measured and determined mathematically. The retrogression of the intellect is indicated by a regular and gradual relinquishment of its ground; but its advance is marked by successive steps of unequal length, taken after unequal pauses; and its expansion is characterized by efforts of increasing vehemence. In its condition of

EFFECTS OF english rEVOLUTION ON THE COLONIES. 13

effort, its action is irregular and spasmodic; it advances, rests, takes breath, and once more rushes onward. In all progress of the mind, one thing strikes the observer with a force secondary only to its achievements-its intermittent periods of repose, when, laying aside its aggressive character and patiently rebuilding the demolished fabric in another form, it gains a new point of departure for a still further advance. As each of these stages comes to an end and takes its place in the recorded past, it becomes a known and written chapter in the history of human development.

The spectacle of such results as the Revolution of 1688 displayed, had a great effect upon the English colonies in America; but there were no physical effects (for the conflict did not reach these shores), except the settlement of certain portions of American territory, notably New England and Pennsylvania, which was a direct result of the intellectual and religious disturbance of the times. But, apart from this, the importance of which can scarcely be overestimated, the colonies, when they had come to maturity, were profoundly impressed by the historical example presented : it concentrated their regards more steadfastly upon their chartered liberties, which were great, and upon those which time and their situation had brought to hand, which were greater; it popularized among them the knowledge of constitutional government; it excited a keener appreciation of the freedom they enjoyed, and it inflamed their resolution to maintain its integrity. Such were the moral effects of the Revolution of 1688 upon all the colonies in the course of time, and such was its generating influence upon the northern part of the British territory in America. Further than that, however, it did not go.

The Revolution of 1688 did not establish in America the constitutional government it had secured to England. What freedom existed, existed by the force of race instinct, of franchises expressed in charters, or by the force of time and custom. The colonies, it is true, had already been in the enjoyment of some of the liberties the English did not secure to themselves until then; but these had been quietly appropriated from time to time, or had grown up of themselves, thanks to the inducements to colonization which had to be offered in the shape of franchises, to the distance which rendered interference impracticable, to the distractions of the gov

ernment by civil wars and discord, to the indifference of kings and cabinets, to the necessity of fostering good-will which the neighborhood of an aggressive rival created, and, above all, to their character of mere commercial dependencies. What liberty they had, then, was theirs by the force of circumstances, and not by the force of the English constitution; it was liberty, but the liberty only of England before the Bill of Rights. They could not, therefore, be said to be in the constitutional enjoyment of popular representation, for their legislatures could be convened only by the breath of a king, by the same breath could they be dissolved, and their acts were subject to the scrutiny of a Board commissioned during the pleasure of the sovereign; nor could justice be considered constitutionally administered, for the judges were not independent of the crown. As the laws of England were made for that country only, and therefore were confined in their action to the British Isles, the Habeas Corpus Act was of no force in the colonies. Thus, in three essential elements of free government, viz.: popular representation, administration of justice, and inviolability of the person, the colonies lacked the safeguards of either a constitution or the law. They practically enjoyed these rights, it is true, but the enjoyment was without any such guaranty of continuance as Anglican liberty now insists upon and obtains the world over.

In one thing, however, their condition was superior to that of their fellow-subjects at home: they were not weighed down by an Established Church, and, though toleration as a principle was not accepted, save in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, toleration as a fact existed from the absence of any power which could prescribe faith or extirpate heresy. Moreover, their circumstances were not conducive to the division of society as it existed in Europe, and the expansion of social life was therefore unrestrained. These two conditions were extremely favorable to the growth of liberty, and they account for the exercise of many rights which came to the surface when a state of society existed which imposed no limitations upon their growth but those of nature. But they were the results of natural law, regulated by municipal law; they were not guaranteed by any constitution of the colonies, nor were they recognized by the constitution of England.

On the other hand, the Revolution of 1688, in one way, worked