63 
of yeoman, or farmer, or peasant, or even country squire, before 
the mind of the preacher. They were the works of the learned 
few for the learned few — for men of scholarship and parts and 
high position, in an age when the novelty and the comparative 
rarity of learning made almost all learned men to be more or 
less ‘pedantic. The average country parson had but a slight 
tincture of such learning — often, indeed, as extant records 
show, had none at all. He was mainly such a parish priest as 
had been the ordinary type in King Henry’s reign, save that 
the forms and offices which he used had been changed. And 
as for squire, or yeoman, or farmer, or peasant, there is no 
reason to suppose that their manners or morals had greatly 
altered since the days of Chaucer, whose Canterbury Tales so 
vividly reflect to us both the manners and the morals of *his 
age. The shires and parishes of England in the days of 
Charles the First showed a form and a degree of Christian 
culture, such as it was, immeasurably inferior to what is now 
to be found in church and chapel and meeting-house, in 
Sunday-school and day-school, under the instructions and 
influence of tens of thousands of ministers of all denomina- 
tions and hundreds of thousands of devoted men and women, 
fellow-helpers of the clergy, throughout all the towns and 
villages of England. 
Such, then, is the result of Christian progress in this 
country. Christianity has leavened the whole life of the 
nation ; it has given a high tone to society, to the press, to 
Parliament : it has filled the countrv with life. In one form 
y «/ 
or other it has entered every parish and regulates every 
public organization. It has moulded our institutions ; it has 
inspired and organized our philanthropy — an all-embracing 
philanthi’opy ; it makes its voice heard in every detail of local 
government as well as in every great passage of public life ; 
it has raised England to an unparalleled eminence among 
the nations. Its most rapid strides of progress have been 
made during the past fifty years ; its most energetic efforts, 
among all sects and classes, have been put forth during the 
generation now drawing towards a close ; it was never so 
universally active, so zealous, so thoroughly organized as at 
present; never did it carry its energies and its efforts so 
boldly and so successfully into the most neglected quarters 
as now. 
Why, then, if all this be true, or if anything like it be 
true, should we hear every now and then words of despond- 
ency, should we be able yet oftener to detect tones of 
misgiving, in what some Christian men have to say, in what 
they venture to forecast, about the future of our religion and 
