We see this same fact illustrated also in the history of the church, for absolutism was not confined in the Middle Ages to the state alone. As the King was the recognized guardian of the established political order and its final interpreter, so the ecclesiastical hierarchy claimed the right to guard the faith and expound the creed of the people. Criticism and dissent, political and religious, were rigorously repressed. The people were required to accept the political and religious system imposed on them from above. Implicit faith in the superior wisdom of their temporal and spiritual rulers was made the greatest of all virtues. But with the growth of an intelligent skepticism throughout the western world, the power of king and priest has been largely overthrown. Yet even in this country something akin to the old system of political control still survives in the ascendency of our Federal judiciary. The exclusive right claimed by this branch of the government to guard and interpret the Constitution is the same prerogative originally claimed by the king. The judiciary, too, is the branch of our government farthest removed from the influence of public opinion and consequently the one in which the monarchical principle most largely survives. The courts not only claim to be the final arbiters of all constitutional questions, but have gone much farther than this and asserted their right to annul legislative acts not in conflict with any constitutional provision. Story says: "Whether, indeed, independently of the Constitution of the United States, the nature of republican and free government does not necessarily impose some restraints upon the legislative power has been much discussed. It seems to be the general opinion, fortified by a strong current of judicial opinion, that, since the American Revolution, no state government can be presumed to possess the transcendental sovereignty to take away vested rights of property."[91]