Before I proceed, then, to examine into the motives and reasons which operate on the English and American nations to justify a union, it is well to inquire into their national character. In the light of history, how do the Anglo-Saxon people stand? Guided by such, how should the outside world estimate us? Is the compact we are contemplating a false or unholy one? Is it for the present and future interest of the English-speaking people to make it? Will this union militate against the interests of the other nations of the world?
I do not propose to attempt to recall the history of England—not even in the briefest form. I will simply bring to notice certain salient epochs, which I will use as monuments to mark the progress of the Anglo-Saxon race, as it journeyed from its primitive, formative condition to a state of enlightenment. I do not stop to dwell upon intermediate history, or attempt to explain, palliate, or justify acts which of themselves may seem to deviate from the general character of the people. Such acts, indeed, were part of the conditions of their growth. I take my readers to a high vantage-ground, and point out to them the long pilgrimage of the nation from its untutored infancy to the shrine of its full manhood. And I shall hereafter {71} consider the subtle, all-pervading influences which their institutions, laws, language, and literature have had upon the formation of national and individual character.
I.—THE DIFFERENT EPOCHS WHICH LED TO THE DEVELOPMENT AND EXPANSION OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING RACE
(a) The Introduction of Christianity into England
The English race began its outward and more apparent national life as a band of marauders, rovers, and pirates, by chasing, in a large measure, the original Celtic inhabitants of Britain from their soil, and taking possession of it. The exact motives which induced them to make these excursions to that island, or the circumstances which surrounded them, are lost in the darkness of the past. Probably they were prompted by mere rapacity and the gratification of the spirit of enterprise. The tribes which are now distinctly marked, as the Engle, Saxon, and Jute, belonged to the same Low German branch of the Teutonic family, and were, as it is said by the historians, at the moment when history discovers them, being drawn together by the ties of a common blood, common speech, common social and political institutions. There is perhaps no ground for believing that these three tribes looked on themselves as one people, or that they adopted the name of Englishmen when they first settled in England, but each of them was destined to share in the conquest of that island, and it was from the {72} union of all of them, when its conquest was complete, that the English people has sprung.[1]
The real national life of the people, however, commenced in the sixth century, when Gregory (597) sent the Roman abbot Augustine, at the head of a band of monks, to preach the Gospel to them; and, as among the Greeks, the religious tie thus created, became the strongest tie.
The flood of new thoughts and new purposes which Christ had opened to the Eastern world began, by this time, to permeate Europe. The distinctive features of Christ's precepts and life, considering Him as a pure teacher alone, were that He instructed men how to make the best use of their mental, physical, and spiritual faculties. Consequently, as individual character is the real basis of human society, Christianity became a necessary part of government. At first, it was a plant of slow growth in English soil, but the seed, once sown, took firm hold, and to-day, in England, North America, and in the colonies of the British Empire, Christianity, avowedly or essentially, is strongly and healthfully entwined in all its constitutions and governments,—a strong principle of cohesion, yet yielding to the people an unrestrained freedom of religious opinion and worship of the most unqualified character.
Of course, I do not overlook the immense benefits of Christianity common to all the nations among which it was introduced; it made the great distinction between ancient and modern civilization—between {73} ancient and modern life. But, in England, it was so far peculiar, that its ready and peaceful acceptance, and the purposes of political homogeneity to which it was turned, indicate a distinct national characteristic. All the subsequent religious history of the country, even after diversities arose, bears evidence of the same general truth. In the contests through which society sought its amelioration, we can discover always that "intimate connection between personal liberty and the rights of conscience and the development of public liberty so peculiar to the English race."[2]
I take the introduction of Christianity into England to be the first great step in her natural and national progress—the first span in the bridge which led from barbarity to civilisation. Its influence upon the people can be profitably studied in the typical Englishman, King Alfred.[3]
Of Liberty, the poet Shelley sings with equal truth and beauty: