1864.1 297 i Price. 



cept ns the door is opened by hospitality, was yet wanting to the 

 civilization and happiness of mankind. 



The earliest known occupation of our ancestral communities of 

 Northern Europe, was that of shifting masses, moving forward as 

 they had the desire and the strength, regardless of the rights of 

 neighboring communities, except as the latter had power, for a time, 

 to resist the ever onward pressure westward and southward. When 

 these moving masses began to appropriate the soil, and to settle in 

 fixed localities, it was under the feudal system, by which lands were 

 temporarily allotted to military followers, upon condition of rendering 

 military service, or needed supplies in kind. Hence titles came to 

 be held upon tenures which only expired in onr revolution. This 

 degree of settlement ripened into greater certainty and duration of 

 title, and the commutation of rents for njilitary services. Villages 

 and towns were built, but at first only at the base of hills, crowned by 

 the castle of the military chieftain, who was their needed protector, 

 as the inhabitants were his necessary retainers. Centuries passed be- 

 fore life and property became so secure as to admit of spiirse habita- 

 tions over the face of the country; and at this moment all Europe 

 retains the features formed by the insecurity of the middle and prior 

 ages of its history. There everywhere are yet seen the heights 

 crowned by often crumbling castles, with the village or town beneath, 

 while wide and distant tracts are cultivated, in small subdivisions, bj 

 villagers who each night return to their village homes. 



As the arts advanced and towns grew into importance, and the 

 military lords borrowed of the rich burghers, or sold them lands to 

 obtain money to enter upon the crusade to Jerusalem, and commer- 

 cial cities arose under royal charters, and formed leagues against the 

 chiefs who had levied tribute on travellers and trade, a greater de- 

 pendence was placed upon the central government or crown, and the 

 people gradually became disenthralled of the local military despotisms. 

 With a general government of law pervading a national territory, 

 came security to families, and thence arose the modern civilization of 

 Europe and America, the highest and most intelligent the world has 

 yet known. In ancient Jerusalem, and Athens, and Rome, a high 

 civilization and refinement had indeed been known, but that refine- 

 ment became steeped in corruption ■ for the world had not then 

 known the true source of the highest refinement of human manners; 

 and when Christianity first spread over Southern Europe, while yet 

 under Roman rule, it was slow to produce its legitimate effects, by 

 reason of the previous deep corruption ; so deep, indeed, that it could 



VOL. IX. — 2o 



