xvi LIFE OF DR. ROLLESTON. 



distant sounds of latrations from without. There has, I see, 

 been a meeting in London of High Churchmen, who have been 

 very vigorous and amusing. The triumph of Low Church, the 

 religion of a northern democracy, is only one step forward in 

 the race of Liberty which this century has witnessed. If bigotry 

 had carried the day it would have been a violation of the spirit 

 of the age, and its triumph would not have been permanent. 

 And the defeated party, not seeing this, not knowing when they 

 are well off, nor understanding in what utter ruin they and the 

 whole Church would have been swallowed up if the result had 

 been otherwise, are enduring indignation and unknown pangs. 

 The man who has an eye to see the movements, an ear to hear 

 the voices of the age, cannot doubt that the spirit it breathes is 

 Individual Freedom, Individual Responsibility, and National 

 Progress. And then, seemingly as much out of place as a figure 

 in chain armour in a modern banqueting-room, do we see the 

 reactionaries struggling against the stream which flows past, 

 uninjuring while unprovoked. The apex of the Delta should 

 meet the stream, not any one of its three longitudinal boun- 

 daries. If so, by constant alluvial deposit it becomes assimi- 

 lated: if not, it is overwhelmed by the outspreading of the 

 waters. This latter course seems to have been chosen by the 

 present champions of Despotism. But who is so free from 

 prejudice as to be able to read aright the spirit of the age he 

 lives in? We have not yet left off quarrelling about the 

 characters of Pericles and Cimon, men who lived 2000 years 

 ago, and are out of the sphere of party passion and interest. 

 There is no hope of wide views for present times. " If we had 

 lived in the days of our fathers," said the Jews of old, and we 

 say now with equal truth. The Tory party now (for a High 

 Churchman on any other principles but Tory is a Centaur) is 

 not content with building the sepulchres, it would raise the 

 ghost of the monsters who received a deadly hurt now 200 years 

 ago at the hands of their ancestors. My most favourite subject 

 of contemplation at present is the fight made for the principles 

 of Liberty at the beginning of this century. Dark clouds seem 



