Immediately afterward domestic polities needed
adjustment. "The disabilities were swept away," says a writer, "the
House of Commons was reconstituted, the municipalities were reformed,
slavery was abolished."[142] In due time the nation became adjusted to
peace; the popular mind lost its nervousness; the universities returned
to their sober thinking; and the Church took a careful survey to
ascertain what had been lost in the recent conflict, what gained, and
what new fields lay ready for her enterprise. But very soon fresh
political combinations attracted the attention of all classes. The
revolutionary changes and counter-changes in France were watched with
eager attention lest Waterloo might be avenged in some unexpected
manner. At home, church parties were reviving the old antagonisms
described by the pen of Macaulay. The popular mind has thus been
continually directed toward some exciting theme. England has not had a
day of leisure during the whole of the last half-century, when she
could come to a judicious conclusion concerning that class of her
thinkers who, though they make theology their profession, are so
intensely independent as to attach themselves to no creed or
ecclesiastical organization.
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