of Representatives; and dissimilar as was the body,-unavoidably so through unalterable circumstances,—the animating, formative soul was the same. As in England, so in America, the germinating principles were— the love of freedom, order, and religion. An American could live in England, an Englishman could live in America. And thus, the influence and power of the same principles are in both countries declared and exhibited.

And here is to be seen the instructiveness of the subject. During the latter stages of the contest with the parent state, when successful resistance had begun to be doubtful, France, moved by political considerations, seeing America unwillingly succumbing, resolved to come to the rescue; and a number of members of her higher classes,-La Fayette and others,already to no trifling extent indoctrinated by the philosophical school, headed by Voltaire, and moved by the romantically sentimental, yet plausible, ravings of Rousseau,-volunteered to assist America. French aid decided the contest. The independence of America was acknowledged by Great Britain, and the able statesmen of America, following the example of England in 1688, drew up what was in effect their Bill of Rights, and formed the constitution which still exists, a Federal Republic. Materials for a monarchy and a peerage were not in existence, but each State was accustomed to self-government, and therefore continued to govern itself. But the government of the federal Union, President, Senate, and House of Representatives, supplied the place of a monarchy; and the reign of law was rendered complete by the establishment of a supreme Court of Judicature, bearing nearly the same relation to the several judicatures of the country that the courts at Westminster do to the inferior judicatures of England. No interregnum of anarchy and misrule was allowed to interrupt the work and progress of society. Like the fabled Minerva, America started in her career full grown. She had served a long and useful apprenticeship. She was prepared to set up for herself. The form of government she chose fairly grew out of her circumstances, as its successful administration has arisen from her character. To a people attached to order, freedom, and religion, the mere form of government matters little. In such a "whate'er is best administered is best." While to a people not thus prepared, no form, however excellent in metaphysical theory, will work successfully. It is true America had amongst her first statesmen one or two theorists, philosophers because infidels. The philosophy of Franklin, indeed, was neutralised by his sturdy English common sense; but Jefferson was, as nearly as an American could be, a Continental philosopher; and it is singular that the only portion of the Declaration of Independence which partakes of the character of an abstract principle is one which not only the individual practice of Mr. Jefferson, but the State practice of at least the Southern branches of the Union, most positively, and, if the subject were not so painfully serious, we should say, most ludicrously, contradicts. The English Bill of Rights refers throughout to matters of fact its American counterpart opens with a principle:-" All men are by nature free, equal, and independent;" and therefore have a right to resist aggressions even with the sword. The very people who chose to assert this principle, deny its application to any whose skin is not perfectly white, and punish with the utmost severity the slightest movement after liberty by any of the proscribed race. With this unhappy exception, we view the success of the American Revolution as teaching the same invaluable lessons which were taught by the successful English Revolution of

case,

1688; and it would be well for the nations of Continental Europe, and for the independent colonies of South America, if, discarding the dreams of a vain and infidel-a really godless-philosophy, they would investigate the examples thus placed before them. Both of them are recommended by a success of which history furnishes scarcely a similar instance. A complete revolution took place in what may be termed the head-quarters of society, and society itself in all its branches proceeded in its usual course, almost as if nothing were the matter. The only interruption to the course of the British Revolution-and the exception in this case does indeed prove the ruleoccurred in a part of the empire where the three great principles of English character existed in a very imperfect state. And both England and America have from that time advanced in a continual course of progress. In another work M. Guizot intimates that French civilisation may be taken as the type of European civilisation. It may be so. And that type may have more of external smoothness and polish than is exhibited by the British and American forms. But we cannot help thinking that of true human civilisation, the civilisation of which man is capable, and for which man is designed, the real type is to be seen in Britain and America: not yet, indeed, fully developed; but still, sufficiently developed to show that it is the true form, and to indicate its characteristics when it shall be full grown.

The lessons suggested by England and America are the more valuable by contrast. Europe and South America have had their revolutions; but in the march of revolution, France has led the van. Her first movements occurred almost immediately on the close of the American contest. What has been the history of America since that time? Advancing prosperity. What has been the history of France, and of those countries by whom her example has been followed? Everywhere it has been written in blood. Anarchy and despotism have reigned by turns, producing at one time a wild confusion, at others a dead, stagnant quietness. In destruction mighty, in re-edification powerless, the elements of national prosperity in them all have been neutralised, and every class has shared in the general distress. And why? The ends proposed, and the means employed, have been alike the visions of a speculative infidelity. An active minority has trampled upon the wishes and desires of a too submissive majority. At the moment that we write, that majority is making a desperate effort in France to regain its true rights, hidden as they have been under a cloud of theoretic rights, either altogether unattainable, or causing by their possession confusion and wretchedness. Groaning under the mischiefs produced by the universal diffusion of political power and the consequent limitation of personal and social freedom, the majority of the national representatives, trembling for the future, are seeking the extension of the latter by the circumscription of the former, sure, if they fail, of plunging into an anarchy which nothing can repress but the iron hand of a stern military despotism. All things show the general-we say not the universal-absence of the three principles which caused the success of the English and American Revolutions, and of that long course of stability, improvement, and prosperity by which they have been followed. In England and America the extensive meaning of the saying of the Saviour and Governor of the world has been illustrated: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Religion had shown them the true nature of liberty, the legitimate characters of order; and they sought for what was attainable, and found it to be beneficial. In other countries, the visions which arose before them who chose to

dwell in darkness, were proposed as realities, and nothing but disappointment and distress have yet ensued.* The people of England, providentially guided to a greater degree than many writers on those times are aware, gave a perfect victory to neither of the parties in the strife. They fixed on a form of government which would secure to them the full enjoyment of civil and religious freedom, and establish that legal order the absence of which renders personal liberty impossible. There is no real freedom where a man is only free to say and do that which will be acceptable to a tyrant majority.

M. Guizot rightly traces up the English movement to the German Reformation, and likewise rightly contends that the Reformation was most strictly a religious movement. His argument is too instructive, too suggestive, to be omitted. We quote it for the purpose of introducing the practical lessons for the sake of which we have noticed a work which we hope all our readers, who take a proper interest in public affairs, such as is befitting the Christian citizens of a free state,-free because of its relations to Christianity, will procure for themselves, and peruse with the thoughtfulness which it deserves.

"It has been said that Protestantism was a political rather than a religious revolution; an insurrection of worldly interests against the established order of the Church, rather than the outbreak of an ardent convic

Just before penning the above sentences, we had opened on the following notices by a lively and instructive memorialist of those stirring times. He had adverted to the fact that when the King went to York he took with him a printingpress, and that thenceforth much of the contest was carried on by what were, practically, appeals to the people, the chosen standard being the laws of the land, written or unwritten, so that the people at large became familiar with the subjects discussed, and enlightened on the great principles involved in the discussion. There can be no doubt but that to this was mainly owing the successful close, in 1688, of the protracted controversy. The shelves of the British Museum bear witness to the number of small pamphlets, official and unofficial, by which each party sought to maintain the justice of its cause, and by which the public mind was enabled to form a definite judgment on the case. The English Revolution was permanent, among other reasons, because the victory was obtained by instructed reason, not by blind passion. Mr. Warburton's paragraph is this:-"The whole nation was now thoroughly roused, and sought more eagerly than ever for the publications which were as eagerly pressed on its attention by each of the great discordant parties. It is remarkable that in these great stirring appeals to the people, the writers, preach ers, and orators never attempted to inculcate, like the French Revolutionists, any new doctrines. They knew that the affections of the English people clung fondly and faithfully to their past: it was ever in the name of the law-of the constitution—that the most opposite parties sought to canvass their hearers for the most opposite undertakings. On the one side, the reforming part of the nation saw nothing very fearful in the name of war; they had never had any experience of its horrors, and they dwelt with pride on the memories of ancient strife that had won for them their ancient liberties: they and their leaders thought that one great battle would decide the question. On the other side it was felt that nothing but a war could repress the 'overweening insolency' and extravagant claims of the Parliament, who, from the hour they had proclaimed themselves indissoluble, exercised an authority as arbitrary and intemperate as the King had ever done. Both parties set about their warfare with a grave and stern determination that was very national, and strengthened by religious feeling. Each thought they fought not only for their country, but their God." (Warburton's "Memoirs and Correspondence of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers," vol. i., p. 267.) By the way, in a note on his first page he quotes a couple of lines from Sir R. Varney, one of the parliamentary writers, which show the way in which law and fact were referred to, rather than metaphysical theories of government :-"We stood upon our liberties for the King's sake, least he might be the King of meane subjects, or we the subjects of a meane King."

tion concerning the eternal interests of man. This judgment has been superficially formed and lightly pronounced.-The spirit of revolt is doubtless very powerful, but not powerful enough to accomplish, alone and unaided, things of such magnitude. It was not merely to shake off a yoke, it was also to secure the free profession and practice of a faith,”— (and to secure them because thus alone could the Divine will be experienced and done, and the well-being of the soul delivered from imminent peril,-) "that the Reformers of the sixteenth century rose up against authority, and persevered in the conflict. It betrays a strange ignorance of human nature to believe that religious zeal would have remained at such a pitch of elevation, after the successful termination of the revolt, if religion had not been the mainspring of the whole movement.

"The Revolution which took place in Germany in the sixteenth century was religious and not political; that in France in the eighteenth was political and not religious. It was the peculiar felicity of England in the seventeenth century, that the spirit of religious faith and the spirit of political liberty reigned together, and that she entered upon the two revolutions at the same time." (M. Guizot is mistaken. The spirit of religious faith began first, and its developments strengthened and enlarged the spirit of political liberty.) "All the great passions of the human soul were thus excited and brought into action, while"-N.B.-" some of the most powerful restraints by which they are controlled remained unbroken.”

M. Guizot acknowledges the fact to which Mr. Warburton refers in the extract we have just quoted from him, and perceives the great and important distinction thus occasioned between the English and French Revolu tions, in the matter-of-fact character of the one, and the speculative, phantom-like objects and plans of the other." The great barons and the people, the country gentlemen and the burgesses, met together in 1640, not to dispute with each other claims to new acquisitions, but to regain, in concert, their common inheritance: they met to recover their ancient and positive rights, not to pursue the boundless combinations and hopes suggested by the imagination of man."

Among the religious reformers there were some, indeed, whose views of church-government influenced their wishes for a form of state policy. But these were counteracted by the prevailing feeling of the kingdom, and effectually held in check by the Protectorate. Cromwell understood the temper of the nation better than they, and, resting on this, was enabled to oppose them so far as to give, during his life, a government practically resembling that which the nation desired. Had the Republicans been favoured by the country at large, the death of Cromwell would have restored them to power; but when his administration ceased with his life, Monk saw that there was neither Protectorate for him, nor hope of acceptable and popular rule for the Ludlows, Lamberts, Fleetwoods, and Desboroughs; he therefore restored the King; and how willing the people were to return to their ancient form of government, let their reception of Charles II. testify; and when they found that with him and his brother the ancient abuses were restored, and that final resistance had become necessary, the Prince of Orange was called in, and the crown delivered to a new dynasty on the ancient constitutional principles. But even when the Republican party under Cromwell were hoping to render their own principles successful, there was a self-imposed check not less powerful than those which the power of Cromwell, and the feelings of the people, established. They were not infidel Republicans, speculative philosophers, seeking the

triumph of abstract notions, among which no ideas concerning God, Christianity, and the scripturally-described character of man were allowed to enter. Republicans as they were, they were not Republicans of the Robert Owen, the modern Socialist, school. M. Guizot only does them justice in saying, "Nevertheless, the religious innovators were not utterly absorbed by the fantasies of their own minds. There was an anchor to which they all held fast; a compass by which they were all guided." A visionary, scheming Sieyes was not to be found among them, nor a time-serving, unprincipled Talleyrand. "THE GOSPEL WAS THEIR GREAT CHARTER; subject, it is true, to their interpretations and commentaries, but anterior and superior to their own will. They held it in sincere veneration, and, spite of their pride, HUMBLED THEMSELVES BEFORE THE LAW WHICH THEY HAD NOT MADE."

The English Revolution was successful, because it was prompted by right motives, governed by right principles, and sought right objects. There was the reigning love of religion, freedom, and legal order. Englishmen contended for their ancient rights, because they believed that they would be lost if not contended for; but their resistance was directed against innovating, encroaching despotism, not against authority considered in itself.

We have said that we wished the nations of Europe would carefully study the lessons presented by this portion of English history. We wish, too, that English citizens, likewise, would study them. At the present day there is a general direction of attention to public affairs; and many persons, even professors of the religion of holiness and truth, engage in the performance of their duties as citizens under the influence of the spirit of party. Justice and truth are thus alike violated. One-sided and impassioned appeals are alone read, and conscience receives deep wounds which, unheeded as they may be, are productive of fearful moral evils. Against these practices they cannot be too strongly guarded. We would not have the Christian leave public matters in the hands of infidel speculators; but let him attend to them, remembering that his whole conduct, public and private, is to be governed by the claims of a higher citizenship than any constituted by earthly associations. "Our conversation is in heaven." The same Apostle says, "Are ye not carnal, and walk as men?"-plainly intimating that to "walk as men" is an indication of carnality. The young we especially advise to prepare, by calm, impartial, diligent study, for a wise and Christian performance of the duties they owe to the State, under the shelter of which they possess such inestimable advantages. Let them study the history of their country, and particularly those chapters in it which relate to the painful contests, in which it would not be easy to apportion the measures of blame due to the respective parties engaged in them, which, under the guidance of Providence, issued in the establishment of a Constitution suited to the wants and wishes of those who are governed by a true-hearted attachment to manly freedom, a wisely-arranged social order, and the true religion of Divine revelation. In such portions of the history of their country the intelligent youthful student will see that to neither party, while pursuing exclusively its own objects, can the praise of patriotism be awarded, and that from both did Divine Providence withhold the meed of permanent success. Instructed by experience, the truly patriotic statesmen of 1688 blended into one the objects too often before pursued separately; and when the claims of freedom, order, and religion had been adjusted and combined, the framers-they were not the founders -of the British constitutional monarchy proceeded to their establishment