100 MANUAL OF INSTRUCTION 



opposed to the continuance of a system of multi- 

 plied petty governments, and of the depression of 

 the lower classes of society. So long as the peasant 

 was ignorant, he was content to be the vassal of the 

 baron ; but as he grew in the scale of enlightenment 

 he. became restive under such a yoke. Then, after 

 the Crusades, there was a great unsettling of all 

 previous relationships. The peasant had become 

 the warrior ; from that he glided into mercantile 

 callings; and thence into the position of the wealthy 

 townsman. As commerce became established, the 

 manufacture of commodities was pressed with vigor, 

 and gradually there arose a class of citizens as 

 wealthy and as intelligent as their former rulers had 

 been. The changes in the modes of warfare which 

 were introduced diminished the effectiveness of the 

 knight as a soldier, and ancient military tactics 

 gave way before the use of gunpowder. For these 

 reasons, and for many others, the feudal system 

 faded away. The remnants of it existed still in 

 very modified forms, but it was impossible to revive 

 it as it once existed. 



It required no prophet to declare that the world 

 was approaching a mighty crisis of some kind, when 

 the years rolled along, and there came to be an 

 earnest life in the world which had not been so 

 seen before. We must think of society as being 

 acted upon by mighty forces which were preparing 

 it to break the trammels in which it was held. 



