It is not too much to say that
in the seventeenth century the entire political future of mankind was
staked upon the questions that were at issue in England. To keep the
sacred flame of liberty alive required such a rare and wonderful
concurrence of conditions that, had our forefathers then succumbed in
the strife, it is hard to imagine how or where the failure could have
been repaired. Some of these conditions we have already considered; let
us now observe one of the most important of all. Let us note the part
played by that most tremendous of social forces, religious sentiment,
in its relation to the political circumstances which we have passed
in review. If we ask why it was that among modern nations absolute
despotism was soonest and most completely established in Spain, we find
it instructive to observe that the circumstances under which the
Spanish monarchy grew up, during centuries of deadly struggle with the
Mussulman, were such as to enlist the religious sentiment on the side of
despotic methods in church and state. It becomes interesting, then, to
observe by contrast how it was that in England the dominant religious
sentiment came to be enlisted on the side of political freedom.
[Illustration: Had it not been for the Puritans, political liberty would
probably have disappeared from the world]
In such an inquiry we have nothing to do with the truth or falsity of
any system of doctrines, whether Catholic or Protestant.
Pages:
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67