!^8 ENGLISHSAGA

exchanged "a first-rate monarchy for a second-rate republic." A
uniformity which aimed at eradicating every influence that
endowed the subject with a sense of duty and civic pride, could
only end in transforming a nation into a mob.

Of such influences the greatest in Disraeli's eyes was the
Church.1 Proud in his membership of the race which had founded
the religion of the western world, this Jew never forgot the
lesson which he believed it to be the eternal lot of Israel to teach
the forgetful and materially-minded sons of men. "The
Church," he wrote, "is a sacred corporation for the promulgation
and maintenance of certain Asian principles, which, although
local in their birth, are of Divine origin, and of universal and
external application."2 Without moral justice, honesty, truth,
mercy, charity and a humble belief in a divine purpose, England
would not be England but a barbarous Teuton island on the
outer fringe of civilisation. It was the recognition of the Church
by the State that gave politics its significance and saved it from
degenerating into a mechanical affair of police and statistics. It
stood as a constant reminder to statesmen an<l electors—as it had
stood to kings in the past—that the tenure by which they ruled
was their acknowledgment of moral truth. Without this political
institutions were "meat without salt, the crown a bauble, the
Church an establishment, Parliaments debating dubs, and civilis-
ation itself but a fitful and transient dream."

It was because their rulers had felt themselves bound to honour
the Christian verities that Englishmen were free and that through-
out the world the name of England was synonymous with free-
dom. Deny or ignore them, and arbitrary acts, arising from
human passions and greeds whether of individuals or assemblies,
would be committed with as much impunity in England as in
other lands.8 But its presence beside the temporal power was a

1There are few great things left in England, and the Church is one.* Monyfenny
ar Buckle, II, 83.

^Preface ofthejiftk edition qfCaitinfsfy 1849.

*"A mse Government allying itself with religion, would, as it were, consecrate
society and sanctify the State. But how is this to be done? It is the problem of modern
politics which has always most embarrassed statesmen. No solution of the difficulty
can be found in salaried priesthoods and complicated concordats. But by the side of
the State in England there has gradually arisen a majestic corporation—wealthy,
powerful, independent—with the sanctity of a long tradition, yet sympathising with
authority, and full of conciliation, even deference, to the civil power. Broadly and
deeply planted in the land, mixed up with all our manners and customs, one of the
mam guarantees of our local government, and therefore one of the prime securities of
our common liberties, the Church of England is part of our history, part of our life,
part of England itself." Moryfaay Sf BucKk, //,$&