358 
days striven to supplant provincial jealousies by a feeling of 
nationality; now they quickened the national religious life, 
which was dying out in its isolation, by new and worthier ideas 
from without, and by their fearless opposition to royal lawless- 
ness they did much to improve the condition of the enslaved 
English people. It was the succession of patriot prelates in 
medieval English history that did most to organize a national 
feeling to convert the “ sic volo hoc jubeo , stet pro ratione 
voluntas ” of the kings into the rudiments of our present 
English Constitution * 
11. But I must hasten to bring this historical review to a close. 
The time would fail me were I to attempt to enumerate all the 
triumphs Christianity has achieved over the lawless passions of 
humanity. But what Christianity did for the Middle Ages 
she is doing still. Then she evolved order out of chaos ; she 
tamed the savage, she imposed laws on him who knew no 
law but his own will. And she has not ceased in her mission 
of mercy. Nothing is more remarkable, more startling in our 
own time, among much to sadden and depress us, than the 
extraordinary strides which the love of our neighbour has made 
among us here in England within the last century. We have 
seen slavery abolished, duelling put down, drunkenness banished, 
at least from among the upper and middle classes. If war 
exists, it has lost half its atrocity. The spirit which once was 
confined to nobles has seized on the common soldier ; and pity 
for the helpless and the vanquished, moderation in the hour of 
triumph, a respect for law and order even in times of war, are 
elementary principles of humanity recognized by all Christian 
nations, though, it must be confessed, they are as yet but imper- 
fectly carried out. Where the wounded were once left to groan in 
misery upon the field of battle, to seek such succoui as chance 
might afford, the Society of the Red Cross is now to be found, 
tempering by its gentle influences the horrors of war, enlisting in 
its service man’s skill and woman’s tenderness and sympathy. 
And we may add to this the reluctance which nations now 
feel to enter into deadly conflict. War, which at one time 
could be produced by causes of the most insignificant kind, — 
the ambition of one king, the jealousy or irritability of another 
is n ow avoided wherever possible, and nothing but the clash 
of opposing principles, as held by large masses of men, principles 
which seem to permit of no other arbitrament than the sword, 
are capable in our times of precipitating the strife which all men 
* Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, vol. i. p. 632. 
