worded it a moment ago: the people of England
were never willingly ruled from without, religiously
or politically. They were sometimes
ruled from without; but they were either indifferent
to it at the time or rebellious against
it. Those who did think claimed the right to
think for themselves. The Scotch of the north
were peculiarly so, but the English of the south
claimed the same right. There has always been
an immense contrast between the two sides of
the British Channel. The French people during
all those years were deeply loyal to a foreign
religious government. The English people
were never so, not in the days of the fullest
Roman supremacy. They always demanded at
least a form of home government. That made
England a congenial home for the Protestant
spirit, which claimed the right to independent
study of the sources of religion and independent
judgment regarding them. It was only a continuance
of the spirit of Wiclif and the Lollards.
The spirit in a nation lives long, especially when
it is passed down by tradition. Those were not
the days of newspapers. They were instead
the days of great meetings, more important still
of small family gatherings, where the memory
of the older men was called into use, and where
boys and girls drank in eagerly the traditions
of their own country as expressed in the great
events of their history. Newspapers never can