wise laws well administered, and by an enlightened public
opinion, than by priestcraft: but it is better that men should be
governed by priestcraft than by brute violence, by such a prelate
as Dunstan than by such a warrior as Penda. A society sunk in
ignorance, and ruled by mere physical force, has great reason to
rejoice when a class, of which the influence is intellectual and
moral, rises to ascendancy. Such a class will doubtless abuse its
power: but mental power, even when abused, is still a nobler and
better power than that which consists merely in corporeal
strength. We read in our Saxon chronicles of tyrants, who, when
at the height of greatness, were smitten with remorse, who
abhorred the pleasures and dignities which they had purchased by
guilt, who abdicated their crowns, and who sought to atone for
their offences by cruel penances and incessant prayers. These
stories have drawn forth bitter expressions of contempt from some
writers who, while they boasted of liberality, were in truth as
narrow-minded as any monk of the dark ages, and whose habit was
to apply to all events in the history of the world the standard
received in the Parisian society of the eighteenth century. Yet
surely a system which, however deformed by superstition,
introduced strong moral restraints into communities previously
governed only by vigour of muscle and by audacity of spirit, a
system which taught the fiercest and mightiest ruler that he was,
like his meanest bondman, a responsible being, might have seemed
to deserve a more respectful mention from philosophers and
philanthropists.

The same observations will apply to the contempt with which, in
the last century, it was fashionable to speak of the pilgrimages,
the sanctuaries, the crusades, and the monastic institutions of