half a generation sooner, or even half that term, the conquest of England would have been attempted as well as designed, and the battle must have been fought on your own shores. MONTESINOS. Truly, indeed, may this nation say that God has been merciful to us, and turned from us those evils which we most righteously have deserved! SIR THOMAS MORE. Think you, then, that this is felt and acknowledged as it ought to be? MONTESINOS. In thankful and thoughtful hearts assuredly it is; but how few are they! SIR THOMAS MORE. Few, because of the constitution of human nature, men being never thankful enough to the Disposer of all things for the great benefits received at his hands; and because even for those better dispositions in which natural piety prevails, there are, owing to the constitution of society, more hindrances than helps in its way. Few, therefore, as these necessarily are, can you discern in the moral and intellectual state of the world, or in its political aspects, any thing to encourage that hope for the possible extinction of war, which you deduce from the increased means of destruction wherewith it may now be carried on? MONTESINOS. May I not look to the prophecies, and say, with an old* divine, that Faith accepts God's bond, and Patience waits for payment? SIR THOMAS MORE. Individuals have not long to wait. "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you!" But for communities!..when will they be in a condition to claim the bond? It is certain that all the evils in society arise from want of faith in God, and of obedience to his laws; and it is not less certain, that by the prevalence of a lively and efficient belief, they would all be cured. If Christians in any country, yea, if any collected body of them, were what they might, and ought, and are commanded to be, the universal reception of the Gospel would follow as a natural, and a promised† result. And in a world of Christians, the extinction of physical evil might be looked for, if moral evil,.. that is, in Christian language, sin,.. were removed. I believe so. MONTESINOS. * Dr. Manton. ↑ John, xvii. 20, 21. SIR THOMAS MORE. "This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the* refreshing." But see you any thing in the actual state of the world, or of your own country, that points to this? See you any thing that tends to a pacific system, except the singular cause to which you have adverted? MONTESINOS. Little indeed as yet,.. and yet something;.. for it is something to see in the counsels of this kingdom a plain, upright, unimpeachable system of policy towards other countries, proclaimed and pursued, in the consciousness of honour and rectitude, and strength. There is hope for the world as well as for ourselves, when a nation, which is second to no other in resources and in renown, sees clearly that it needs no aggrandizement, abstains from all aggression, and disclaims any ambition, that alone excepted of maintaining the station to which its own exertions, and the blessing of God, have raised it. SIR THOMAS MORE. But other nations will seek to detrude it from that station. Before you can hope for lasting peace, the systems of dominion upon the con * Isaiah, xxviii. 12. tinent must be better developed than they yet are, or seem likely to be. MONTESINOS. Too large a part even of those countries which are comprized in the same political system with England, and by the revolutions of which our own state must unavoidably be affected, may remind us of the pantanaes or flood-lands of Australia, that younger portion of the earth, (as it should seem,) where the waters have not yet had time to form channels for themselves, and shape their course. We are happily circumscribed by our seas. The Scandinavian kingdoms have, in like manner, an advantage of position which renders them little likely to suffer molestation, and less to offer it. Spain has a similar advantage from nature; there would be nothing which could disturb the peace of Europe to be apprehended from that quarter, if it were left to itself, or interfered with no farther than to preserve an excellent people from the miserable anarchy with which they are threatened in a struggle between the worst of governments, and a party which might deserve to be called the worst of factions, if being absolutely bad, it were not opposed to the only party that could be relatively worse. Such an interference would be just and merciful... SIR THOMAS MORE. -If it stopt there, and had no other end in view than the prevention or mitigation of the evils which rendered it so. Look now at the more complicated parts of the European system, which in my days began to adjust itself, and is far from having recovered the dislocation which it has received in yours. MONTESINOS. France, which ought to be satisfied with its own power and extent of territory, will not, till a better principle prevail there than has ever yet predominated in its councils. In Germany there are jealousies which only slumber; and there is a more dangerous struggle of opinions, between governments which grant too little, and enthusiasts who demand too much. The inferior states are ill-compacted, and their weakness holds out a temptation to their ambitious neighbours. Italy is in a worse condition; a condition disgraceful to itself and reproachful to all its rulers. It suffers under the double curse of foreign dominion and of its own fatal superstition; the pestilent influence of that Upas extends far and wide,.. but Italy lies under the droppings of the poison tree. SIR THOMAS MORE. What hope is there that all which is amiss in |