peaceable, long-suffering, and loyal of European nations—had not yet dreamed of asserting their dignity and rights against the majesty of monarchs. They did, indeed, at last awaken. When the sceptre was held by a race intellectually and morally inferior to the Tudors; when loyalty and reverence had been sapped by contempt; when nearly half a century of treacherous oppression had roused to irresistible fury the tremendous instincts of religion and natural justice,—the people of England showed themselves. The Puritans engaged in a struggle for two objects: civil liberty, and the reformation of religion. The civil constitution of England they vindicated in its ancient principles, and placed impregnably on its modern basis. But when the long and eventful conflict was at an end, the constitution of the Church of England remained essentially unchanged, and the Christian people were not recognized as one of its integral parts.
The history of Scotland presents an entirely different ecclesiastical prospect. The vehement and impetuous nation north of the Tweed embraced the Reformation with a decision and enthusiasm which brooked no half-measures. The Church of Rome was first of all overthrown from base to turret, and a platform found for a new construction. In rearing the new edifice, divines bore a chief, and statesmen a subordinate part. And these were divines who magnified their office! They had learned in the school of Calvin to see the glitter of earthly crowns pale in the light of the sanctuary, to exalt the Church as the city of God upon earth, to set small store by human authority against the voice which they
