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Beacon Lights of History, Volume 08 - Great Rulers by John Lord
page 58 of 272 (21%)
things which the Puritans sought to sweep away--the music of the choir,
organs, and chants, even the holidays of venerated ages--are now revived
by the descendants of the Puritans with ancient ardor; showing how
permanent are such festivals as Christmas and Easter in the heart of
Christendom, and how hopeless it is to eradicate what the Church and
Christianity, from their earliest ages, have sanctioned and commended.

The next great service which Elizabeth rendered to England was a
development of its resources,--ever a primal effort with wise statesmen,
with such administrators as Sully, Colbert, Richelieu. The policy of her
Government was not the policy of aggrandizement in war, which has ever
provoked jealousies and hatreds in other nations, and led to dangerous
combinations, and sowed the seed of future wars. The policy of Napoleon
was retaliated in the conquests of Prussia in our day; and the policy of
Prussia may yet lead to its future dismemberment, in spite of the
imperial realm shaped by Bismarck. "With what measure ye mete, it shall
be measured to you again,"--an eternal law, binding both individuals and
nations, from which there is no escape. The government of Elizabeth did
not desire or aim at foreign conquests,--the great error of European
statesmen on the Continent; it sought the establishment of the monarchy
at home, and the development of the various industries of the nation,
since in these industries are both power and wealth. Commerce was
encouraged, and she girt her island around with those "wooden walls"
which have proved England's impregnable defence against every subsequent
combination of tyrants and conquerors. The East India Company was
formed, and the fisheries of Newfoundland established. It was under
Elizabeth's auspices that Frobisher penetrated to the Polar Sea, that
Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe, that Sir Walter Raleigh
colonized Virginia, and that Sir Humphrey Gilbert attempted to discover
'a northwestern passage to India. Manufactories were set up for serges,
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