him to rule so turbulent and so
animal a people; we shall be apt to understand that the only being who
could, in that age, stand first among his fellows, must have been the
superior brute of all.

If we consider still further the ferocious natures of the men of that
time, we shall perceive the necessity which existed for a strong
Government, regulating all the affairs of Society, and administered by
the most severe and savage chieftain; one who could hold all others in
subjection by the terror of his might, preserve a semblance at least of
order in the community, and protect his subjects from outside wrong.

But what could hold _him_ in subjection--an irresponsible despot,
without human sympathy, without any awakened sense of moral
responsibility, capricious, self-willed, ambitious, lustful, vindictive,
without self-control, and possessing absolute power over the lives and
property of his subjects? Nothing but the dread of an offended God or
gods. And, as a consolidated despotism, wielded by brute force, was the
best form of Government possible in this age; so a worship based chiefly
upon the incitements and terrors of retributive law--the holding out of
inducements of reward for the good, and of determents of direful
punishment for the wicked, in a future world--was the best religion for
which the time was prepared.

Tracing the history of the world down to later times, we shall find the
same state of things in society at large, until a period which it is
difficult to fix, but which, we may say, did not fairly begin until the
beginning or the middle of the eighteenth century. Down to that time,
physical force was the dominant element among the nations. The great
warriors were still the prominent men upon the stage of action, though
many of the brutal characteristics of the earlier ages had disappeared.
The people were still ignorant, credulous, childlike, and looked to the
Feudal Aristocracy for direction and support--an Aristocracy founded on
superiority of warlike talent; thus fitly representing the leading
spirit of the age, and the proper guardians of the people in this
warlike time. The Catholic Church, and, at a later period, the
Protestant sects, held the upper classes from oppressing the lower, and
taught the latter to respect and defer to the former. The Feudal Lords
were thus the Social providence and protection of the poor and weak,
thinking and acting for them in things beyond their range of capacity;
w