Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/351

 THE RIDOLFI CONSPIRACY. 33? the people were least exposed to contact with strangers. In the Midland and Northern counties, where the feudal traditions lingered, the habits were unaltered and the superstitions undispelled. The customs by which old English country life had been made beautiful the fes- tivals of the recurring seasons, the .church bells, the monuments of the dead, the roofless aisles of the perish- ing abbeys all were silent preachers of the old faith and passionate protests against the new ; while for good and evil, peer and peasant, knight and yeoman, were linked together in the ancient social organization which thus survived unbroken. In sharp contrast, the mer- chant of the seaport was driven by his occupation to comprehend and utilize the knowledge which was break- ing upon mankind. To him. to live by custom was bankruptcy and ruin. Unless he could grow with the times, unless he could distinguish fact from imagination, and laws of nature from theories of faith, he was left behind in the race by keener and less devout competitors. It was no longer enough for him to christen his ship by the name of a saint, and pray to Paul or Peter to bring it safe to harbour. Peter had enough to do to save hia own bark in the tempest which was raging, and had no leisure to listen to the seaman's orisons. The stars were now the mariner's patrons, and the tables of longitude and latitude were his Liturgy. The sun and moon pointed the road to him to the Pearl Islands and gleam- ing gold mines of the New Continent, and he looked out on nature and the world, on God and man, and all things in earth and heaven, with altered and open eyes. VOL. ix. 22