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235
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
·
George Gissing
224
XXII.
It
is
time
that
we
gave
a
second
thought
to
Puritanism.
In
the
heyday
of
release
from
forms
which
had
lost
their
meaning,
it
was
natural
to
look
back
on
that
period
of
our
history
with
eyes
that
saw
in
it
nothing
but
fanatical
excess;
we
approved
the
picturesque
phrase
which
showed
the
English
mind
going
into
prison
and
having
the
key
turned
upon
it.
Now,
when
the
peril
of
emancipation
becomes
as
manifest
as
was
the
hardship
of
restraint,
we
shall
do
well
to
remember
all
the
good
that
lay
in
that
stern
Puritan
discipline,
how
it
renewed
the
spiritual
vitality
of
our
race,
and
made
for
the
civic
freedom
which
is
our
highest
national
privilege.
An
age
of
intellectual
glory
is
wont
to
be
paid
for
in
the
general
decline
of
that
which
follows.
Imagine
England
under
Stuart
rule,
with
no
faith
but
the
Protestantism
of
the
Tudor.
Imagine
(not
to
think
of
worse)
English
literature
represented
by
Cowley,
and
the
name
of
Milton
unknown.
The
Puritan
came
as
the
physician;
he
brought
his
tonic
at
the
moment
when
lassitude
and
supineness
would
naturally
have
followed
upon
a
supreme
display
of
racial
vitality.
Regret,
if
you
will,
that
England
turned
for
her
religion
to
the
books
of
Israel;
this
suddenly
revealed
sympathy
of
our
race
with
a
fierce
Oriental
theocracy
is
perhaps
not
difficult
to
explain,
but
one
cannot
help
wishing
that
its
piety
had
taken
another
form;
later,
there
had
to
come
the
"exodus
from
Houndsditch,"
with
how
much
conflict
and
misery!
Such,
however,
was
the
price
of
the
soul's
health;
we
must
accept
the
fact,
and
be
content
to
see
its
better
meaning.
Health,
of
course,
in
speaking
of
mankind,
is
always
a
relative
term.
From
the
point
of
view
of
a
conceivable
civilization,
Puritan
England
was
lamentably
ailing;
but
we
must
always
ask,
not
how
much
better
off
a
people
might
be,
but
how
much
worse.
Of
all
theological
systems,
the
most
convincing
is
Manicheism,
which,
of
course,
under
another
name,
was
held
by
the
Puritans
themselves.
What
we
call
Restoration
morality--the
morality,
that
is
to
say,
of
a
king
and
court--might
well
have
become
that
of
the
nation
at
large
under
a
Stuart
dynasty
safe
from
religious
revolution.
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