FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 113 



pletely under the parental thumb as they were 

 at ten years old. . . These men, if they 

 think thus of their own offspring, cannot be 

 expected to be more tender towards the lower 

 class around them. They did at one time, 

 and some still wish to, extend the same system 

 to the labouring population. . . . They did 

 not want only to indulge in tyranny; what 

 they did was to rule the labouring poor in the 

 same way as they did their own children 

 nothing more nor less. These labouring men, 

 like his own children, must do as the farmer 

 thought best. They must live here or there, 

 marry so and so, or forfeit favour in short, 

 obey the parental head. Each farmer was 

 king in his own domain: the united farmers 

 of a parish were kings of the whole place. 

 They did not use the power circumstances 

 gave them harshly, but they paid very little 

 regard to the liberty of the subject. ... In 

 religion it is, or lately was, the same. It was 

 not a matter with the farmer of the Athanasian 

 Creed, or the doctrine of salvation by faith, or 

 any other theological dogma To him the 

 parish church was the centre of the social 



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