Excerpt from Thoughts on the Mixed Character of Government Institutions in Ireland: With Particular Reference to the New System of Education The history of the world furnishes abundant ex amples of the operation of this principle. On the introduction of Christianity, no result probably was farther from the minds of its first promulgators than obtaining any share in the government of the Roman empire. The very utmost that they aspired to was toleration, or even permission to live in peace without any law for their security. Yet, when the Christian Body attained to sufficient strength and influence in the empire, it, as a natural consequence, seated itself on the throne of power. Such, precisely, was the effect of the Reformation. In every country in which the great mass of the people embraced the reformation, the reformers obtained possession of the government; no enactments, however strong, could secure to the members of the Church of Rome that authority which they conceived of right to belong to them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.