That the Puritan Revolution was followed by a sacerdotal and sensualist reaction is too true: all revolutions are followed by reactions; it is one great reason for avoiding them. But let it be remembered, first, that the disbanded soldiers of the Commonwealth and the other relics of the Puritan party still remained the most moral and respectable element in the country; and secondly, that the period of lassitude which follows great efforts, whether of men or nations, is not altogether the condemnation of the effort, but partly the weakness of humanity. Nations as well as men, if they aim high, must sometimes overstrain themselves, and weariness must ensue. Nor did the Commonwealth of England come to nothing, though in a society not half emancipated from feudalism it was premature, and therefore, at the time, a failure. It opened a glimpse of a new order of things: it was the first example of a great national republic, the republics of antiquity having been at once city republics and republics of slave-owners: it not only heralded but, to some extent, prepared the American and even the French Revolution. In its sublime death-song, chanted by the great Puritan poet, our ears catch the accents of a hope that did not die. The Restoration was the end of the Puritan party, which thenceforth separated into two portions, the high political element taking the form of Whiggism, while the more religious element was represented in subsequent history by the Nonconformists. Under the Marian reaction Protestantism had been saved, and the errors which it had committed in its hour of ascendency had been redeemed by the champions, drawn mostly from the humbler classes, who suffered for it at the stake. Under the Restoration it was again saved, and the errors which it had once more committed in the hour of political triumph were once more redeemed by martyrs of the same class, whose sufferings in the noisome and pestilential prisons of that day were probably not much less severe than the pangs of those who died by fire. Both in the Marian and in the Restoration martyrs of Protestantism there was no doubt much that was irrational and unattractive; yet the record of their services to humanity remains, and will remain; let the free-thought of modern times, for which their self-devoting loyalty to such truth as they knew made way, be grateful or ungrateful to them as it will.