Every lover of peace will rejoice that the Restoration was a bloodless change; but the mode of deciding upon it suggests grave reflections. After a long period of strife spent in order to bring within limits the prerogatives of the Crown; after the desperate remedies which had been adopted for the cure of evils brought on by Royal aggression; after all which had been done to resist and overcome the intolerance of the High Church party,--the nation invited Charles Stuart back without any condition, and opened the way for the re-establishment of the old order of things, without any provision against the recurrence of mischief. Such a proceeding, to say the least, exposed the country to imminent hazard; and the history of the next eight and twenty years proves that the fears which were entertained by a few were but too well founded. The old Stuart disposition and habits reappeared, the old ecclesiastical intolerance returned, and the Revolution of 1688 was found necessary to supply the defects of the Restoration of 1660. [Sidenote: 1660.] [Sidenote: PROGRESS OF RESTORATION.] Yet, after all, the mode of the Restoration excites less surprise than lamentation. For it is easy to understand how natural it was for the Royalist party, even the more moderate portion of it, to feel extremely anxious to accomplish the one thing which at that critical juncture seemed to them so necessary. As in private affairs, as in the exigencies of domestic and social life, people are apt precipitately to adopt a certain course, at the moment appearing indispensable--flattering themselves that afterwards, with proper care, any seriously unpleasant results may be prevented or cured, that matters can be made all right in the end: so the leaders of the English people, at that moment, felt the question to be Restoration or Ruin; and that, the grand prerequisite for renewed prosperity being secured, other desirable things could be afterwards shaped according to pleasure or circumstances. Besides, the Presbyterians clung to the Breda Declaration as a sheet anchor of hope. It was thought then, and is still so thought by some, that however theoretically desirable stipulations might have been, it was practically unwise to insist upon them at the time; that delay in negotiation with the exiled Prince tended to involve the country in fresh confusions, and exposed it to the risk of a military despotism; and that what Parliament could not then safely wait to do might be subsequently effected. After all reasonable excuses and palliations for the course adopted, that course is now seen to have been an enormous mistake. The dangers of a little delay have been assumed, not proved; there could be no probability of losing the chance of restoring Charles, had Parliament determined beforehand to bind him to terms. He would gladly have accepted the Royalty of England, with such guarantees for public liberty as were accorded by William III. And as to the Army, from which chiefly alarm