Hebert, mummeries scarcely less absurd than those of Clootz, and crimes scarcely less atrocious than those of Marat, disgrace the early history of Protestantism.  The Reformation is an event long past.  That volcano has spent its rage.  The wide waste produced by its outbreak is forgotten.  The landmarks which were swept away have been replaced.  The ruined edifices have been repaired.  The lava has covered with a rich incrustation the fields which it once devastated, and, after having turned a beautiful and fruitful garden into a desert, has again turned the desert into a still more beautiful and fruitful garden.  The second great eruption is not yet over.  The marks of its ravages are still all around us.  The ashes are still hot beneath our feet.  In some directions the deluge of fire still continues to spread.  Yet experience surely entitles us to believe that this explosion, like that which preceded it, will fertilise the soil which it has devastated.  Already, in those parts which have suffered most severely, rich cultivation and secure dwellings have begun to appear amidst the waste.  The more we read of the history of past ages, the more we observe the signs of our own times, the more do we feel our hearts filled and swelled up by a good hope for the future destinies of the human race.

The history of the Reformation in England is full of strange problems.  The most prominent and extraordinary phaenomenon which it presents to us is the gigantic strength of the government contrasted with the feebleness of the religious parties.  During the twelve or thirteen years which followed the death of Henry the Eighth, the religion of the state was thrice changed.  Protestantism was established by Edward; the Catholic Church was restored by Mary; Protestantism was again established by Elizabeth.  The faith of the nation seemed to depend on the personal inclinations of the sovereign.  Nor was this all.  An established church was then, as a matter of course, a persecuting church.  Edward persecuted Catholics.  Mary persecuted Protestants.  Elizabeth persecuted Catholics again.  The father of those three sovereigns had enjoyed the pleasure of persecuting both sects at once, and had sent to death, on the same hurdle, the heretic who denied the real presence, and the traitor who denied the royal supremacy.  There was nothing in England like that fierce and bloody opposition which, in France, each of the religious factions in its turn offered to the government.  We had neither a Coligny nor a Mayenne, neither a Moncontour nor an Ivry.  No English city braved sword and famine for the reformed doctrines with the spirit of Rochelle, or for the Catholic doctrines with the spirit of Paris.  Neither sect in England formed a League.  Neither sect extorted a recantation from the sovereign.  Neither sect could obtain from an adverse sovereign even a toleration.  The English Protestants, after several years of domination, sank down with scarcely a struggle under the tyranny