2. The next lesson is your duty to your country. What does it mean, the right of the Folk Mote? The Mote has now become a House of Commons, a County Council, a School Board. You have the same rights that your ancestor had. He was jealous over them: he fought to the death to preserve them and to strengthen them. Be as jealous, for they are far more important to you than ever they were to him. You have a hundred times as much to defend: you have dangers which he did not know or fear. Show your jealousy by exercising your right as the most sacred duty you have to fulfil. Your vote is an inheritance and a trust. You have inherited it direct from the Angles and the Jutes: as you exercise that vote so it will be ill or well with you and your children. Be very jealous of the man you put in power: learn to distinguish the man who wants place from the man who wants justice: vote only for the right man: and do your best to find out the right man. It is difficult at all times. You may make it less difficult by sending to the various Parliaments of the country a man you know, who has lived among you, whose life, whose private character, whose previous record you know instead of the stranger who comes to court your vote. Above all things _vote always_ and let the first duty in your mind always be to protect your rights and your liberties. These are the two lessons that this book should teach you--the respect that is due to the past and the duty that is owed to the present. NOTES 1. THE FOUNDATION OF LONDON. PART I. ~AEneas~: a Trojan prince who escaped from Troy when it was destroyed by the Greeks. ~Venus~, the Roman Goddess of Love and Beauty, was the mother of AEneas. ~Troy~: a famous city in the north-west corner of Asia Minor. It was destroyed by Greek invaders about 1,000 years before Christ, and the stories connected with it form one of the chief subjects of Greek and Latin poets. ~Troynovant~ means New Troy. ~Constantine the Great~ was Emperor of Rome, that is, of all the then known world from 305 to 337 A.D. He was the first Roman Emperor to adopt and favour Christianity. Constantinople is named after him, and was made by him the capital of the Empire. ~Geoffrey of Monmouth~ was a British historian of the twelfth century. He was made Bishop of St. Asaph in 1152. His 'histories' are largely made up of stories, such as that about Brutus, which nobody believes now. ~historical document~: a piece of writing that can be used to prove some event in the history of past times. ~architecture~: the art of building; the style in which houses are built. ~Cornhill~: a street in the City of London running west to east from the Royal Exchange into Leadenhall Street. It was probably named after a family of that name, and not from any corn market on the site. ~bastion~: a strong turret or tower at the corner of a fortified building.