had to hear mass like his ancestors; but after the long High Mass which he was compelled to listen to on Sundays, and which he found extremely wearisome, he enjoyed a compensation and a consolation in talking impiously to his courtiers, and was maliciously pleased in shocking pious people and in forcing them to laugh against their conscience, as by courtly duty bound, at the blasphemous royal jests. This is one of the great evils of a compulsory conformity. It drives the victim into a reaction against the religion that tyrannizes over him, and makes him _anti_-religious, when without pressure he would have been simply and inoffensively _non_-religious. To understand the pressure that weighs upon royal personages in this respect, we have only to remember that there is not a sovereign in the whole world who could venture to say openly that he was a conscientious Unitarian, and would attend a Unitarian place of worship. If a King of England held Unitarian opinions, and was at the same time scrupulously honest, he would have no resource but abdication, for not only is the King a member of the Anglican Church, but he is its living head. The sacerdotal position of the Emperor of Russia is still more marked, and he can no more avoid taking part in the fatiguing ceremonies of the orthodox Greek religion than he can avoid sitting on horseback and reviewing troops. The religious slavery of princes is, however, exclusively in ceremonial acts and verbal professions. With regard to the moral side of religion, with regard to every religious doctrine that is practically favorable to good conduct, exalted personages have always enjoyed an astonishing amount of liberty. They are not free to hold themselves aloof from public ceremonies, but they are free to give themselves up to every kind of private self-indulgence, including flagrant sexual immoralities, which are readily forgiven them by a loyal priesthood and an admiring populace, if only they show an affable condescension in their manners. Surely morality is a part of Christianity; surely it is as unchristian an act to commit adultery as to walk out during service-time on Sunday morning; yet adultery is far more readily forgiven in a prince, and far easier for him, than the merely negative religious sin of abstinence from church-going. Amongst the great criminal sovereigns of the world, the Tudors, Bourbons, Bonapartes, there has never been any neglect of ceremonies, but they have treated the entire moral code of Christianity as if it were not binding on persons of their degree.