after the French Revolution, and so far from joining any mere "intellectual" revolution, they would dread such a revolution as a possible reaction and as a menace to their newly acquired rights.
V.
No doubt the political awakening of the rural masses is coming. Popular instruction is spreading. Proprietors will be induced more and more to reside on their estates. Religious freedom and the threefold struggle against Catholicism, Nonconformity, and rationalism will compel the Orthodox clergy to emerge from their ignorance and their subjection. The priests will receive a better education and thereby acquire a moral authority which will enable them in turn to educate their flocks, hitherto so sadly neglected. And, above all, with the progress of trade and industry there will arise a middle class, and with the middle class a strong and independent opinion, which is the prime condition of all political liberty. But even when these great changes are accomplished, when a ruling class and an independent class are constituted, the rural masses and their leaders, the clergy will continue to respect the
