and village fetes.

On the other hand, it must be admitted that the people were loyal,
religious, and brave; that they had the fear of God before their eyes,
and felt personal responsibility to Him, so that crimes were uncommon
except among the lowest and most abandoned; that family ties were
strong; that simple hospitalities were everywhere exercised; that
healthy pleasures stimulated no inordinate desires; that the people, if
poor, had enough to eat and drink; that service was not held to be
degrading; that churches were not deserted; that books, what few there
were, did not enervate or demoralize; that science did not attempt to
ignore the moral government of God; that laws were a terror to
evil-doers; that philanthropists did not seek to reform the world by
mechanical inventions, or elevate society by upholding the majesty of
man rather than the majesty of God,--teaching the infallibility of
congregated masses of ignorance, inexperience, and conceit. Even in
those rude times there were the certitudes of religious faith, of
domestic endearments, of patriotic devotion, of respect for parents, of
loyalty to rulers, of kindness to the poor and miserable; there were the
latent fires of freedom, the impulses of generous enthusiasm, and
resignation to the ills which could not be removed. So that in England,
in Elizabeth's time, there was a noble material for Christianity and art
and literature to work upon, and to develop a civilization such as had
not existed previously on this earth,--a civilization destined to spread
throughout the world in new institutions, inventions, laws, language,
and literature, binding hostile races together, and proclaiming the
sovereignty of intelligence,--the [Greek: nous kratei] of the old Ionian
philosophers,--with that higher sovereignty which Moses based upon the
Ten Commandments, and that higher law still which Jesus taught upon
the Mount.

Yet with all this fine but rude material for future greatness, it was
nevertheless a glaring fact that the condition of England on the
accession of Elizabeth was most discouraging,--a poor and scattered
agricultural nation, without a navy of any size, without a regular army,
with factions in every quarter, with struggling and contending religious
parties, with a jealous parliament of unenlightened country squires; yet
a nation seriously threatened by the most powerful monarchies of the
Continent, who detested the doctrines which were then taking root