The question of stability as it affects established Churches will be dealt with in the chapters on Religion. The true cause of the instability of Anglicanism is not religious, but social. A State Church can hardly afford to be tolerant; the necessities of her position require her to repress Dissent with the strong hand, as the dominant Churches both in England and France have done in other ages. If a State Church has no longer the strength to persecute efficaciously, free religious communities will grow up around her, and in course of time they will claim equality. They have got it in France by co-establishment, which postpones the final separation; but in England there is not co-establishment, and it is too late to think of that expedient, as some well-intentioned men are now doing. The Dissenters dislike being treated as inferiors; they are weary of being put “under the ban.” I remember reading a letter from a Dissenter who had visited America, describing the novel and delightful sensation of being in a country where he was not “under the ban” on account of his religious opinions, and his sensations on returning to England, where, as a Dissenter, he felt at every step that he was placed in an inferior caste. In France the sacerdotal power owes its present instability and precariousness of tenure to its essentially political character. In both countries the real and genuine religious hatred which belonged to the old spirit of enmity between Catholic and Protestant has given place to a newer and less virulent kind of antagonism. [Sidenote: Preference of Utility to Dignity.] [Sidenote: More August Institutions in England than in France.] The essential character of all modern political change is the preference of utility to dignity, and consequently of useful institutions to august institutions. At the present time (1888) there are many more august institutions in England than in France. Not only have we the monarchy and the House of Peers, but there are still the old romantic orders of knighthood, including the Garter, which is the most august order in the world, and the least democratic. In France such institutions have been replaced by the Presidency of the Republic, the Senate, and the Legion of Honour, all much less august than the throne of Saint Louis, the Peers of France, and the Order of the Holy Ghost. The change is something like that from pope and cardinals to an evangelical consistory. [Sidenote: Security of the English Throne.] Will England herself retain eternally what remains to her of the august dignities of the past? It is now believed that the State Church and the House of Lords are both institutions of doubtful durability. Is the throne itself secure from that destructive spirit which is threatening them? [Sidenote: Effect of Personal Character in the King.] [Sidenote: Possible Consequence of the Victorian Epoch.] [Sidenote: Possible Results of an Authoritative Reign.] [Sidenote: Personal Considerations.]