GREEN LAND FAR AWAY 31

Mitford. There were always a few old-fashioned flowers in the
kitchen parlour, and she herself sweetly reminded one of lavender.
The good soul was always stout for the rights and honour of the
family."1

Such folk, like the old England they belonged to, were living
on the momentum of a past tradition. It was now dying and in
many places already dead. Its purpose had been to produce
virtuous men and women. It had been rooted in the Christian
morality of the medieval church which, 'believing that the
purpose of life was to save and prepare man's soul for Heaven,
taught that worldly laws and institutions should be based as far
as possible on the gospel of Christ. The medieval state—though
its practise fell far short of its theory—had therefore condemned
usury, forbidden divorce and offences against the family, and
endeavoured to fix a "just" level of wages and prices and an
"honest" standard of workmanship. It had done so not only to
protect the public from greedy egotists but because it was believed
that the practise of anti-social activities debased the humaR soul.

A society founded on such principles did not, of course,
succeed in establishing the rule of righteousness on earth. But it
made it easier for the ordinary citizen to live a Christian life and
taught him to revere just and honest dealing. When the corrup-
tions inherent in the medieval ecclesiastical system resulted in the
Reformation, the island English—more conservative than their
fellow protestants of the Continent—carried the old ideal into
the secular organisation of the new state. The idea of moral
justice continued to haunt the English mind. The king as head
of the national church at his coronation still swore to "do
justice, stop the growth of iniquity, protect the Holy Church of
God, help and defend widows and orphans, restore things that
are gone to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish
and reform what is amiss and confirm what is in good order,"
For nearly three hundred years after the repudiation of papal
authority, a protestant but Christian Parliament, though with
diminishing faith and vigour, continued to enact moral and
sumptuary laws, to forbid usury, regulate labour and fix prices.
For it was held that the business of the statesman was to make
England strong, healthy and content by rendering her people so.
His first consideration was the elevation and maintenance of the
national character.

lLord jR/edesdak, Memoirs, /, 13-14*