blics of antiquity were as incapable as the Oriental despotisms
of satisfying the Christian notion of freedom, or even of subsisting
with it. The Church has succeeded in producing the kind of liberty she
exacts for her children only in those States which she has herself
created or transformed. Real freedom has been known in no State that did
not pass through her mediaeval action. The history of the Middle Ages is
the history of the gradual emancipation of man from every species of
servitude, in proportion as the influence of religion became more
penetrating and more universal. The Church could never abandon that
principle of liberty by which she conquered pagan Rome. The history of
the last three centuries exhibits the gradual revival of declining
slavery, which appears under new forms of oppression as the authority of
religion has decreased. The efforts of deliverance have been violent and
reactionary, the progress of dependence sure and inevitable. The
political benefits of the mediaeval system have been enjoyed by no nation
which is destitute of Teutonic elements. The Slavonic races of the
north-east, the Celtic tribes of the north-west, were deprived of them.
In the centre of mediaeval civilisation, the republic of Venice, proud of
its unmixed descent from the Romans, was untouched by the new blood, and
that Christian people failed to obtain a Christian government. Where the
influence of the ideas which prevailed in those times has not been felt,
the consequence has been the utmost development of extreme principles,
such as have doomed Asia for so many ages to perpetual stagnation, and
America to endless heedless change. It is a plain fact, that that kind
of liberty which the Church everywhere and at all times requires has
been attained hitherto only in States of Teutonic origin. We need hardly
glance at the importance of this observation in considering the
missionary vocation of the English race in the distant regions it has
peopled and among the nations it has conquered; for, in spite of its
religious apostasy, no other country has preserved so pure that idea of
liberty which gave to religion of old its power in Europe, and is still
the foundation of the greatness of England. Other nations that have
preserved more faithfully their allegiance to the Church have more
decidedly broken with those political traditions, without which the
action of the Church is fettered.

It is equally clear that, in insisting upon one d