Democracy anb IReltgton.

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minimum necessary for existence, and had to bemade up by various forms of poor relief. Gin andpotatoes began their victorious march. In thebourgeoisie Calvinism was losing its back-bonewith the withering up of the dogma of predestina-tion. It was becoming diluted to a thin sort oftheism, ebbing away to an aristocracy of gentle-men. The Baptist movement was losing itsmillenarian elan and receding from the poorer tothe middle classes, where, especially in agriculture,Baptists became the leaders in invention andtechnical progress. The Anglican Church failedto meet the spiritual needs of the people. It hadbecome a political institution, in which the Bishopsfavoured at court for their Whiggery, held in bridlea country clergy, Tory by inclination and closelyrelated to the Country squires. That age pro-duced the fox hunting parson, the absentee rectorand the needy curate. The highest claim of theChurch was subservience to the authority in power—a doctrine the more despicable as it worked infavour of an illegitimate dynasty.

In this world the Quakers rose to the height oftheir historic mission.

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