The Story of Liberty. Charles Carleton Coffin
alt=""/> "HE HAS THE RIGHT OF DEPOSING EMPERORS."
Six centuries and a half have passed since that 15th of June, in 1315, at Runnymede; the meadows are as fresh and green as then; the river winds as peacefully as it has through all the years. England and America have become great and powerful nations; but would they have been what they are if the Army of God had not won that victory over John Lackland? No; for out of that Charter gave come the Parliament of Great Britain and the Congress of the United States, and many other things. It was the first great step of the English people toward freedom.
Not far from that verdant meadow where the army set up its encampment is a little old stone church, with ivy creeping over its walls and climbing its crumbling tower. One hundred and fifty years ago, Thomas Gray, a poet, who lived in a little hamlet near by, used to wander out in the evening to meditate in the old church-yard, and here ho wrote a sweet poem, beginning,
"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea;
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me."
A few years after he wrote it, in 1759, one night a great fleet of English war-ships was moored in the river St. Lawrence, and an army in boats with muffled oars was silently moving along the stream. The general commanding it was James Wolfe, a young man only thirty years of age. In his army were soldiers from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York. One of General Wolfe's officers was Colonel Israel Putnam, of Connecticut; another was Richard Montgomery, of New York. As the boats moved along the stream, the brave young general from England recited this verse of the poem :
"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth, e'er gave,
Await, alike, th' inevitable hour;
The paths of glory lead but to the grave."
"I would rather be the author of that poem than take Quebec to-mor-row," said he.
But would the poem ever have been written if the Army of God had not set up its banners? Quite likely not.
In the darkness the army under General Wolfe climbed the steep bank of the St. Lawrence — so steep and so narrow the path that only one man at a time could climb it; and in the morning the whole army stood on the Plains of Abraham, behind Quebec. Before another sunset a great battle bad been fought, a great victory won. Wolfe was victor, Montcalm the vanquished; but both were dead. The flag of France, which had floated above the citadel of Quebec, the emblem of French power, disappeared forever, and the flag of England appeared in its place. From that time on there was to be another language, another literature, another religion, another civilization, in the Western World. But would the battle ever have been fought, would things in America be as they are, if the barons had not obtained that agreement in writing from John Lackland? No. That parchment, crumpled and worn and yellow with time, with the great round seal attached to it, lies in a glass case in the British Museum, London. The parchment is but a piece of sheepskin; the wax was made by the bees which hummed amidst the hawthorn hedges of old England six hundred years ago. The parchment and the wax are of very little account in themselves, but what has come from them is of infinite value. As this story goes on, it will be seen that the assembling of the Army of God in the meadow of Runnymede was the beginning of the liberty which we now enjoy.
CHAPTER II
THE MAN WHO PREACHED AFTER HE WAS DEAD
DOCTOR JOHN WICKLIF has been dead these forty years, and his bones have been lying the while in Lutterworth Church-yard; but it has been decreed by the great Council of Constance that they shall lie there no longer. A party of monks, with pick and spade, have dug them up, and now they kindle a fire, burn them to powder, and shovel the ashes into a brook which sweeps past the church-yard; and the brook bears them oil to the Avon, which, after winding through Stratford meadows, falls into the Severn, and the Severn bears them to the sea. But why are the monks so intent upon annihilating the doctor's bones? Because the doctor, who was a preacher, though he has been dead so long, still continues to preach! The monks will have no more of it; and they think that by getting rid of his bones they will put an end to his preaching. They forget that there are some things which the tire will not burn — such as liberty, truth, justice. Little do they think that the doctor will keep on preaching; that his parish will be the world, his followers citizens of every land; that his preaching, together with that parchment and the great piece of beeswax attached to it, which the barons obtained from John Lackland, will bring about a new order of things in human affairs; that thrones will be overturned; that sovereigns will become subjects, and subjects sovereigns.
A century has passed since the Magna Charta was obtained, bat not much liberty has come from that document as jet. The people are still villains. The king and the barons plunder them; the monks, friars, bishops, and archbishops — a swarm of men live upon them. They must pay taxes to the king, to the barons, and to the priests; and they have no voice in saying what or how much the taxes shall be. They are ignorant. They have no books. Not one man in a thousand can read. The priests and the parish clerks, the bishops, rich men, and their children are the only ones who have an opportunity of obtaining an education. There are no schools for the poor.
The priests look sharply after their dues. Be it a wedding, a funeral, the saying of mass for the dead, baptizing a child, granting absolution for sin, or any other service, the priest must have his fee. The country is overrun with monks and friars — Carmelites, who wear white gowns; Franciscans, dressed in gray; Augustinians and Dominicans, who wear black. They live in monasteries and abbeys, shave their crowns, and go barefoot. They have taken solemn vows to have nothing to do with the world, to spend their time in fasting and praying; but, notwithstanding their vows, none of the people — none but the rich men — can spread such bountiful tables as they, for the monasteries, abbeys, nunneries, convents, and bishopries hold half the land in England, and their revenues are greater than the king's. In the monastery larders are shoulders of fat mutton, quarters of juicy beef, haunches of choice venison. In the cellars casks of good old wine from the vineyards o£ Spain and the banks of the Rhine, and yet the friars are the greatest beggars in the country. They go from house to house, leading a donkey, with panniers lashed to
the animal's sides, or else carry a sack on their backs, begging money, butter, eggs, cheeses, receiving anything which the people may give; and in return invoking the blessings of the saints upon their benefactors, and cursing those who refuse to give. They have relics for sale: shreds of clothing which they declare was worn by the Virgin Mary; pieces of the true cross; bones of saints — all very holy.