Beneath the rough exterior and blunt manners of that age, lay the new sense of a prophetic power--the sense of a divine commission. And who will say that they were wrong, or prove that they were not divinely commissioned to break down the barriers to human progress, and to some extent prepare society for the "dispensation of the fullness of times?" The English translation of the Bible, became the great rule of life. The whole moral effect which is now produced by the newspaper, the sermon, the lecture and the circulating library was then produced by the Bible alone; and its effect on the national character was simply amazing. Religion was no longer confined to the cloister and cathedral, but became a subject of thought for every individual. The profound meditations that Shakspeare puts into the mouth of Hamlet were but a transcript of the thoughts and feelings of the earnest men of that age, who saw themselves day by day in the theater of a mighty struggle between the powers of light and the powers of darkness--their souls the prize of an eternal conflict between heaven and hell. It was this phase of thought that gave to the world the sublime conceptions of Milton, the realistic dreams of Bunyan, as well as the stern and solemn character of Oliver Cromwell and his followers; and made these liberty-loving peasants more {125} than a match for the chivalry and iron-clad knights of King Charles I. Nor was this feeling confined to any one class. It permeated all ranks and conditions, even to the sovereign. Tradition still points out the tree in Hatfield Park, beneath which Elizabeth was sitting when she received the news of her peaceful accession to the throne. She fell on her knees and exclaimed: "It is the Lord's doing, and marvelous in our eyes." To the end of her reign these words remained stamped on the golden coinage of the realm. Through all her long and eventful life, the feeling seems never to have left her, that her preservation and her reign were the issues of a direct interposition of God. The foregoing may help us to understand the character of the English people at the time they commenced to plant the institutions of liberty on this continent. Who can read the thrilling narrative of English history during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries without acknowledging the hand of God, in moulding the character of the British people?