The History of England from the Accession of James II, vol 1 | Page 7

of a long series of salutary
revolutions. It is true that the Church had been deeply corrupted both
by that superstition and by that philosophy against which she had long
contended, and over which she had at last triumphed. She had given a
too easy admission to doctrines borrowed from the ancient schools, and
to rites borrowed from the ancient temples. Roman policy and Gothic

ignorance, Grecian ingenuity and Syrian asceticism, had contributed to
deprave her. Yet she retained enough of the sublime theology and
benevolent morality of her earlier days to elevate many intellects, and
to purify many hearts. Some things also which at a later period were
justly regarded as among her chief blemishes were, in the seventh
century, and long afterwards, among her chief merits. That the
sacerdotal order should encroach on the functions of the civil
magistrate would, in our time, be a great evil. But that which in an age
of good government is an evil may, in an ago of grossly bad
government, be a blessing. It is better that mankind should be governed
by wise laws well administered, and by an enlightened public opinion,
than by priestcraft: but it is better that men should be governed by
priestcraft than by brute violence, by such a prelate as Dunstan than by
such a warrior as Penda. A society sunk in ignorance, and ruled by
mere physical force, has great reason to rejoice when a class, of which
the influence is intellectual and moral, rises to ascendancy. Such a class
will doubtless abuse its power: but mental power, even when abused, is
still a nobler and better power than that which consists merely in
corporeal strength. We read in our Saxon chronicles of tyrants, who,
when at the height of greatness, were smitten with remorse, who
abhorred the pleasures and dignities which they had purchased by guilt,
who abdicated their crowns, and who sought to atone for their offences
by cruel penances and incessant prayers. These stories have drawn forth
bitter expressions of contempt from some writers who, while they
boasted of liberality, were in truth as narrow-minded as any monk of
the dark ages, and whose habit was to apply to all events in the history
of the world the standard received in the Parisian society of the
eighteenth century. Yet surely a system which, however deformed by
superstition, introduced strong moral restraints into communities
previously governed only by vigour of muscle and by audacity of spirit,
a system which taught the fiercest and mightiest ruler that he was, like
his meanest bondman, a responsible being, might have seemed to
deserve a more respectful mention from philosophers and
philanthropists.
The same observations will apply to the contempt with which, in the
last century, it was fashionable to speak of the pilgrimages, the

sanctuaries, the crusades, and the monastic institutions of the middle
ages. In times when men were scarcely ever induced to travel by liberal
curiosity, or by the pursuit of gain, it was better that the rude inhabitant
of the North should visit Italy and the East as a pilgrim, than that he
should never see anything but those squalid cabins and uncleared
woods amidst which he was born. In times when life and when female
honour were exposed to daily risk from tyrants and marauders, it was
better that the precinct of a shrine should be regarded with an irrational
awe, than that there should be no refuge inaccessible to cruelty and
licentiousness. In times when statesmen were incapable of forming
extensive political combinations, it was better that the Christian nations
should be roused and united for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre,
than that they should, one by one, be overwhelmed by the Mahometan
power. Whatever reproach may, at a later period, have been justly
thrown on the indolence and luxury of religious orders, it was surely
good that, in an age of ignorance and violence, there should be quiet
cloisters and gardens, in which the arts of peace could be safely
cultivated, in which gentle and contemplative natures could find an
asylum, in which one brother could employ himself in transcribing the
Æneid of Virgil, and another in meditating the Analytics of Aristotle, in
which he who had a genius for art might illuminate a martyrology or
carve a crucifix, and in which he who had a turn for natural philosophy
might make experiments on the properties of plants and minerals. Had
not such retreats been scattered here and there, among the huts of a
miserable peasantry, and the castles of a ferocious aristocracy,
European society would have consisted merely of beasts of burden and
beasts of prey. The Church has many times been compared by divines
to the ark of which we read in the Book of Genesis: but never was