re lost, and we cannot replace the various
arguments; but there was not a member of either House who was not
connected, either by personal interest, or by sacred associations, with
one or other of the religious houses; there was not one whose own
experience could not test in some degree the accuracy of the _Black
Book_; and there was no disposition to trifle with institutions which
were the cherished dependencies of the great English families.

[Sidenote: March. Difficulty of arriving at a resolution.]

[Sidenote: Conflicting interests. The representatives of the founders.]

[Sidenote: Divided opinion of the Reformers.]

[Sidenote: Latimer, and Knox after him, desired to preserve and reform.]

[Sidenote: Crammer opposed to ecclesiastical corporations under any
form.]

[Sidenote: Cranmer more right than Latimer, as experience has proved.]

[Sidenote: The instincts of the laity guide them truly.]

The instincts of conservatism, association, sympathy, respect for
ancient bequests, and a sense of the sacredness of property set apart
for holy uses, and guarded by anathemas, all must have been against a
dissolution; yet, so far as we can supply the loss of the journals from
other accounts of the feeling of the time, there seems to have been
neither hope nor desire of preserving the old system--of preserving the
houses, that is, collectively under their existing statutes as
foundations in themselves inviolate. The visitation had been commenced
with a hope that extremities might still be avoided. But all expectation
of this kind vanished before the fatal evidence which had been produced.
The House of Commons had for a century and a half been familiar with the
thought of suppression as a possible necessity. The time was come when,
if not suppression, yet some analogous measure had become imperative.
The smaller establishments, at least, could not and might not continue.
Yet while, so far, there was general agreement, it was no easy matter to
resolve upon a satisfactory remedy. The representatives of the founders
considered that, if houses were suppressed which had been established
out of estates which had belonged to their forefathers, those estates
should revert to the heirs, or at least, that the heirs should recover
them upon moderate terms.[521] In the Reforming party there was
difference of opinion on the legality of secularizing property which had
been given to God. Latimer, and partially Cromwell, inherited the
de