progress is now plain enough: political and social convulsions,
without any other probable issue than final anarchy, unless nations
consent at last to retrace their steps and reorganize Christendom.

But this was not apparent to the eyes of ordinary thinkers in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Only a few great minds saw
the logical consequences of the premises laid down by Protestantism,
and predicted something of what we now see.

The Irish was the only northern nation which, to a man, opposed
the terrible delusion, and, at the cost of all that is dear, waged
against it a relentless war.

"To a man;" for, in spite of all the wiles of Henry VIII., who
brought every resource of his political talent into play, in order
to win over to his side the great chieftains of the nation--in
spite of all the efforts of Elizabeth, who either tried to overcome
their resistance by her numerous armies, or, by the allurements
of her court, strove her best, like her father, to woo to her
allegiance the great leaders of the chief clans, particularly O'Neill
of Tyrone--at the end of her long reign, after nearly a hundred
years of Protestantism, only sixty Irishmen of all classes had
received the new religion.

At first, the struggle assumed a character more political than
religious, and Queen Elizabeth did her best to give it, apparently,
that character. But for her, religion meant politics; and, had the
Irish consented to accept the religious changes introduced by her
father and herself, there would have been no question of
"rebellion," and no army would have been sent to crush it. The