in immediate interest under a new form.  It was no longer asked, how shall we win to our national communion those who have hitherto declined to recognise its authority?  The great ecclesiastical question of the day—­if only it could have been taken in hand with sufficient earnestness—­was rather this:  how shall we keep among us in true Church fellowship this great body of religiously minded men and women who, by the mouth of their principal leader, profess real attachment to the Church of England, and yet want a liberty and freedom from rule which we know not how to give?  No doubt it was a difficulty—­more difficult than may at first appear—­to incorporate the activities of Methodism into the general system of the National Church.  Only it is very certain that obstacles which might have been overcome were not generally grappled with in the spirit, or with the seriousness of purpose, which the crisis deserved.  Meanwhile, at the close of the period, when this question had scarcely been finally decided, the Revolution broke out in France.  In the terror of that convulsion, when Christianity itself was for the first time deposed in France, and none knew how widely the outbreak would extend, or what would be the bound of such insurrection against laws human and divine, the unity of a common Christianity could not fail to be felt more strongly than any lesser causes of disunion.  There was a kindness and sympathy of feeling manifested towards the banished French clergy, which was something almost new in the history of Protestantism.  The same cause contributed to promote the good understanding which at this time subsisted between a considerable section of Churchmen and Dissenters.  Possibly some practical efforts might have been set on foot towards healing religious divisions, if the open war waged against Christianity had long been in suspense.  As it was, other feelings came in, which tended rather to widen than to diminish the breach between men of strong and earnest opinions on different sides.  In some men of warm religious feeling the Revolution excited a fervent spirit of Radicalism.  However much they deplored the excesses and horrors which had taken place in France, they did not cease to contemplate with passionate hope the tumultuous upheaval of all old institutions, trusting that out of the ruins of the past a new and better future would derive its birth.  The great majority of Englishmen, on the other hand, startled and terrified with what they saw, became fixed in a resolute determination that they would endure no sort of tampering with the English Constitution in Church or State.  Whatever changes might be made for better or for worse, they would in any case have no change now.  Conservatism became in their eyes a sort of religious principle from which they could not deviate without peril of treason to their faith.  This was an exceedingly common feeling; among none more so than with that general bulk of steady sober-minded people of the middle classes without whose consent changes, in which they would feel strongly interested, could never be carried out.  The extreme end of the last century was not a time when Church legislation, for however excellent an object, was likely to be carried out, or even thought of.