Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/128

 86 OKIGIN OF THE WAR OF 1853 chap, too, in the secret hearts of many, who were weary VL of tame life, there lurked a hope of animating tumults. This was all the English really meant. But the political philosophers of the Continent were resolved to impute to the islanders a more profound intent. They saw in the festival a solemu renouncing of all such dominion as rests upon force. England, they thought, was closing her great career by a whimsical act of abdication ; and it must be acknowledged that there was enough to confound men accustomed to lay stress upon symbols. For the glory of mechanic Arts, and in token of their conquest over nature, a cathedral of glass climbed high over the stately elms of Knightsbridge, enclosing them, as it were, in a casket the work of men's hands, and it was not thought wrong nor impious to give the work the sanction of a religious ceremony. It was by the Archbishop of Canterbury that the money- changers were brought back into the temple. Few protested. One man, indeed, abounding in Scripture, and inflamed with the sight of the glass habel ascending to the skies, stood up and de- nounced the work, and foretold 'wars' and 'judg- ' ments.' * But he was a prophet speaking to the wrong generation, and no one heeded him. In- deed, it seemed likely that the soundness of his mind would be questioned ; and if he went on to foretell that within three years England would be engaged in a bloody war springing out of a dis- pute about a key and a silver star, he was probably
 * This I witnessed.