Chapter LXIII: Conclusion: The treaty of Westphalia is a prominent landmark in universal

history. It stands at the dividing line of two great epochs. It marks the end of the Reformation Era and the beginning of that of the Political Revolution. Henceforth men will fight for constitutions, not creeds. We shall not often see one nation attacking another, or one party in a nation assaulting another party, on account of a difference in religious opinion. [Footnote: The Puritan Revolution in England may look like a religious war, but we shall learn that it was primarily a political contest,--a struggle against despotism in the state.]

But in setting the Peace of Westphalia to mark the end of the religious wars occasioned by the Reformation, we do not mean to convey the idea that men had come to embrace the beneficent doctrine of religious toleration. As a matter of fact, no real toleration had yet been reached--nothing save the semblance of toleration. The long conflict of a century and more, and the vicissitudes of fortune, which to-day gave one party the power of the persecutor and to-morrow made the same sect the victims of persecution, had simply forced all to the practical conclusion that they must tolerate one another,--that one sect must not attempt to put another down by force. But it required the broadening and liberalizing lessons of another full century to bring men to see that the thing they _must_ do is the very thing they _ought_ to do,--to make men tolerant not only in outward conduct, but in spirit.

With this single word of caution, we now pass to the study of the Era of the Political Revolution, the period marked by the struggle between despotic and liberal principles of government. And first, we shall give a sketch of absolute monarchy as it exhibited itself in France under the autocrat Louis XIV.

SECOND PERIOD.--THE ERA OF THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION. (FROM THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA IN 1648 TO THE PRESENT TIME.)