limits of early times. The very title "ecclesiastical history" till recent years suggested to the ordinary hearer only the history of the first five Christian centuries.
Moreover, little need was felt of history for the purpose of dealing with the internal organisation of the Church. The English Reformation in one sense did not go nearly far enough. The Roman jurisdiction had broken down the machinery of the Church, had destroyed its organisation for self-government. The Roman jurisdiction was swept away, but the disordered machinery was left unamended. Questions affecting the fundamental basis of the English Church were eagerly discussed and zealously maintained by skilful disputants, while its internal organisation was never definitely settled. The union between Church and State depended on mutual alliance against those who were supposed to be common foes. Not until the present century, when the State had gradually given equal rights to all its citizens without distinction of religious belief, did the question of its relations to the Church become serious. Historical learning was then hastily enrolled in the service of preconceived theories, and a fitful glamour was thrown over an uncertain past. The facts brought to light by the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission were almost entirely forgotten. Again, the national life of England has in modern times given the Englishman strong political instincts of a decidedly practical kind. He has been concerned with problems as they arose, and he has dealt with them as they presented themselves before him. The Englishman studied history, if he studied it at all, to find in it
