and determine how it shall be enforced when enacted. And yet
English reformers, like American, have found office a veritable
cold-water bath for their ardor for change. Many a man who has made
his place in affairs as the spokesman of those who see abuses and
demand their reformation has passed from denunciation to calm and
moderate advice when he got into Parliament, and has turned
veritable conservative when made a minister of the crown. Mr.
Bright was a notable example. Slow and careful men had looked upon
him as little better than a revolutionist so long as his voice rang
free and imperious from the platforms of public meetings. They
greatly feared the influence he should exercise in Parliament, and
would have deemed the constitution itself unsafe could they have
seen foreseen that he would some day be invited to take office and a
hand of direction in affairs. But it turned out that there was
nothing to fear. Mr. Bright lived to see almost every reform he had
urged accepted and embodied in legislation; but he assisted at the
process of their realization with greater and greater temperateness
and wise deliberation as his part in affairs became more and more
prominent and responsible, and was at the last as little like an
agitator as any man that served the queen.

It is not that such men lose courage when they find themselves
charged with the actual direction of the affairs concerning which
they have held and uttered such strong, unhesitating, drastic
opinions. They have only learned discretion. For the first time
they see in its entirety what it was that they were attempting.
They are at last at close quarters with the world. Men of every
interest and variety crowd about them; new impressions throng them;
in the midst of affairs the former special objects of their zeal
fall into new environments, a better and truer perspective; seem no