there is ever great danger of its substitution for that which has; indicates a lamentable ignorance of anything like Christian virtue or pure religion, and an utter confusion of the very elements of morality. And for the Deity, indeed, as to his blessing on such a course, we may apply the rebuke which the novelist makes Richard bestow on the Friar, in Sherwood Forest, when he declared he could answer for his patron saint. "Answer for thyself, priest!" Though surely the presumption of the friar of old, in answering for his saint, was of a lower pitch than that of the modern bishop, in affecting to answer for the Deity. It is promised that this strange quartette of virtues shall ensure not only God's blessing, but "a nation's abiding loyalty and love." The one assurance is as rash as the other; for, as it seems by no means clear that God's blessing is to be bargained for in the manner proposed, so neither would a nation's loyalty and love be retained without some material addition to, and modification of, the royal attributes of excellence enumerated by the Preacher: for the Sovereign might possess them in the highest degree, and yet be found miserably wanting in what the state of the country) and the spirit of the age imperatively demand; might allow one class to tyrannise over another class, nay, to tax its very bread; might obstinately deny political existence, when called for by the extension of intelligence and principle; and, on many other accounts, instead of "abiding loyalty and love," only become the object of sullen indifference or of deep aversion. Nor is the example of Queen Elizabeth, here referred to, altogether so appropriate as to deserve the frequency with which it has been introduced. The greatest glory of Elizabeth's reign is silently passed over; namely, the rightful position into which this country was put by her policy in relation to the rest of Europe; its connexion with the struggling in every land for reformation, which was then the struggle for mental as well as political freedom; the sympathy which her government ever manifested with the oppressed against the oppressor, whatever might be the power of the tyranny, in whatever region and under whatever forms it might be exercised. It was eminently during her reign that England took that high and noble position, and thus exercised its prerogative of "teaching the nations how to live." "Learning and the Arts," the intellectual splendours of the Elizabethan era, were not the result of her policy: they were glories not given by her but reflected upon her; they were the result of the recent emancipation of the human intellect from spiritual despotism, and of the revival of classical literature, with all its rich stores of thought and feeling that had been so long buried in a darkness deep as that of the grave. They were a blaze of glory that surrounded her policy indeed, but of which that policy was not the fountain. As to the rest there may be some question whether, completely as the energy of the Tudor Queen brought the country beneath her feet-whether such a mode of extinguishing faction and healing dissension is altogether to be desired. It did prevail; it lasted through her own reign, but it lasted very little longer. The strong coercion which Elizabeth exercised led to the revulsion of the great rebellion: the arbitrary principles which, in consequence of the men by whom she was surrounded and the energy of her character, she was able practically to realise, by their very reaction produced the fanaticism of the Puritans: the general desire of political right was extending and deepening itself in men's minds throughout the country, and as soon as her coercive power was relaxed by the hand of death, the elements of discord and confusion began to show themselves, and from clamour advanced to conflict, and conflict brought on that catastrophe which shook the altar and the throne to their foundation. Were natural phenomena always to typify mental processes, or political results, the head of Charles would have rolled to the base of the statue of Elizabeth. There was already one royal and lovely head upon its pedestal. Imitation of such a model as this, is about as questionable as that of King Josiah. The change of the times, the advance of opinion, all call for the adoption of different modes and for the exercise of power upon different principles; nor is it, as I have already remarked, by anything which royalty can achieve personally, that the improvement of a nation is to be secured. That must be done by laws, wise, just, humane, and beneficent in their operation; by institutions, adapted to the claims of humanity, embracing all classes, overthrowing old feudal distinctions and notions that, whatever their temporary benefit, have long since been outworn and wrought only mischief, degradation, and wretchedness: by a literature, freed from the pressure of arbitrary restrictions, and rendered as independent as possible of the influence of classes or of sordid interests: and by gradually diffusing notions of morality, which lead us to identify it with human nature in its highest state of excellence on the one hand, and with the strictest calculations of utilitarianism on the other. When this is done, it may then indeed appear that religion is, as here said, "the true secret of national happiness and honour;" but it is such a religion as royalty cannot command; such a religion, as established churches and established priesthoods may labour in vain to generate; such a religion, as no laws can fence nor distinctions, privations, or penalties sustain: not the superstition, the base and grovelling superstition, which is kept up by the performance of ceremonies in which no faith is placed: not the misdirection of that veneration which is so natural and so wholesome to man, from mental and moral qualities, from loftiness of character, to mere loftiness of station: but a religion which is the result of enlightenment; a religion which associates itself with growing views of the beauty and harmony, the wisdom and certainty of the great providential plan under which we live; a religion which will not fail to be found, which even if not previously implanted, will spontaneously grow, in the soil of the highest civilization: and that when it abounds will make or preserve a people free, brave, and generous, teaching them to consult, in all their arrangements, whether social or individual, only the greatest amount of good to all. The blessings of such a Religion, enriching the Nation with the largest immediate enjoyment in combination with the brightest prospects, may Providence enable this country to realise during the reign of Queen Victoria. PALMER and CLAYTON, 9, Crane Court, Fleet-street. |