It is the honour of the Christian Religion that it has within it that which can cure states of their maladies, as well as individuals of their errors; and that, by the belief which it generates, and the sentiments which it inspires, it has already more than once furnished, sometimes to the friends of Order, and sometimes to the friends of Liberty, a refuge in their reverses, as well as strength to recover lost ground. It would be as imprudent as ungrateful in these days for the friends of Liberty to ignore this grand fact and its salutary admonishment. They are called to a work much more difficult than any that they have hitherto had to accomplish: their task is no longer merely to search after guarantees for Liberty against the encroachments of pre-existent Power, or the accidental and transient ebullition of License. They have to reconcile the normal and constitutional dominion of Democracy with Liberty, and with the regular action and permanence of Liberty. {26} Until modern times, political liberty, wherever it has existed, has been the result of the simultaneous presence and of the conflict of different forces of society, no one of them strong enough to rule alone, but each too weak to resist efficaciously the attack of the others; at one time the Crown, at another the Aristocracy, at another the Church, each previously powerful and independent, have lived side by side with Democracy when Democracy has had limits and restrictions imposed upon its power and success; but at the present day, there are amongst us no distinct surviving influences which are powerful enough to play a similar part in society and in the government. The Crown, the Aristocracy, and the Church are no longer anything but frail wrecks of the past, or instruments created by the Democracy, and indebted to it for a borrowed force. Is this to be henceforth the permanent condition of human society, or is it only a phase, more or less transitory, of a series of ages and of revolutions, which fresh ages and fresh revolutions will hereafter profoundly modify? Futurity must decide. In any case, it is only under the exclusive dominion of a single force, Democracy, that in these days free institutions can be founded. {27}