Its  statesmen  were  not  immaculate  ;  but  if  you  compare
their  faults  with  the  utter  scoundrelism  which,  one
fears  it  must  be  allowed,  was  common  among  the  great
men  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth,  with  the  whims
and  fancies  and  fads  of  those  of  the  nineteenth,  with  the
class  hatreds  and  vote-catching  tricks  1  of  not  a  few  of
the  twentieth,  they  become,  if  not  white,  at  least  a  cool
and  inoffensive  grey.  Its  churchmen  did  not  always
remember  the  elementary  fact  that  if  you  take  pay  for
preaching  certain  doctrines  it  is  not  well  to  deny  or
ignore  them  ;  but  for  each  Conyers  Middleton,  or
Hoadley,  or  Herring  of  that  time  how  many  are  there
now  ?  But  it  is  scarcely  necessary,  though  it  would  be
both  easy  and  agreeable,  to  continue  this  line  of
argument.
