It would be improper for me to conclude this Essay, in which I have pointed out the similarity of the present crises to others in past history, without calling the reader’s attention to one characteristic in which these Acts of Parliament stand pre-eminent in the history of our legislation. The tyrannical aggressions of those in power in former days were indeed always the fruit of lust in some form or other,—greed of gain, or personal influence, personal pleasure, jealousy, or revenge; yet the effect of those aggressions was not so directly as in the present case to make the people immoral. The immorality was at first at least confined to the aggressor. He assailed the liberties only of the subject, and in so doing struck, no doubt, more or less remotely, at the root of public virtue; but he did not proclaim a vicious moral code in the ears of the whole people. Now this last tyrannous aggression has sown broadcast the seeds of an immoral principle. This is a law which not only proceeds of evil, but immediately results in evil, by forcing a moral iniquity upon the people. It is pre-eminently an onslaught on morality, while it is an attack on the Constitution. Therefore in order to oppose this great twofold evil, we need, not only the revival of all our English patriotism, our love of freedom and of justice, but a deeper revival still, that of the soul and of the spirit. We need a renewal of faith in divine and eternal principles, a moral regeneration, a practical return to the simplicity of Christ. Guizot, in speaking of the secret of the success of the English Revolution, says that in spite of the moral scepticism of the times “the mass of the people remained faithful to simple Christianity,—as much attached to their doctrines as to their liberties. The views of the citizen, of the freeholder, and even of the peasant, soared far above his actual condition. He was a Christian; in his family or among his friends he boldly studied the mysteries of Divine power; what earthly power, he asked, could be so high that he must abstain from considering it? In the Sacred Scriptures he read the laws of God; to render obedience to them he was forced to resist other laws; it therefore became necessary to him to ascertain where human legislation ought to terminate.” It is this alternative which, in a much more marked and naked form than ever before, our citizens, our freeholders, and our peasants are once more driven to contemplate face to face; and the question, “Shall we obey God or man?” is that which they are now called upon once more to answer.