bmission to authority, in the dearest concerns of existence,
which was the real evil that was complained of. This want, so natural to
an age of mental activity, so indispensable to one of advancing freedom,
the satisfaction of which is as necessary as vital air to one of general
intelligence, distinctly appeared in the forms of worship which the
Reformers generally established when they had thrown off the authority of
the Roman pontiff. The Romish liturgies, touching, admirable, and
catholic, as great part of them are, were in general abolished; and, in
their stead, extempore prayers, often of portentous length, were used, to
give each individual minister an opportunity of introducing, in every part
of the sacred proceeding, his peculiar tenets. The sermon, for a similar
reason, became the longest and most important part of the service. Every
one knows how strongly the same lines of distinction still characterize
the ultra-Reformers, who contend for the Calvinistic tenets and
Presbyterian form of worship, and those more moderate partizans of the
Reformation who have embraced the less violent schism of the Church of
England.

Political equality was, and still is, the grand aspiration of the
nineteenth century. What the ardent multitudes who embraced the principles
of the French Revolution desired, was equality of privilege, and universal
participation in power. They saw the injustice and cruelty of their former
oppressors, they felt how galling their chains had been, and they
flattered themselves that, if they could once get possession of the reins
of power, they had suffered too severely from their abuse to be in any
danger of being led astray in the use they made of them. Abolition of rank
and privilege, the opening of all careers to all, and the admission of all
into the equal enjoyment of power, by means of a government resting on
universal suffrage, was the general object of ambition, and has been
established for a brief period in France, Spain, Portugal, and Piedmont;
more durably in North and South America. What the results of this system
of government are to be, is the great problem which is in the course of
solution in the nineteenth century; but be these results fortunate or
unfortunate, it is this which constitutes the characteristic of the
period, and will form the object of close and anxious attention to
historians in future times. It was a principle and basis of government
wholly new in human affairs. No pre