The rejoicings were not yet over.  At a council which was held a few hours after the King’s public entry, the second of December was appointed to be the day of thanksgiving for the peace.  The Chapter of Saint Paul’s resolved that, on that day, their noble Cathedral, which had been long slowly rising on the ruins of a succession of pagan and Christian temples, should be opened for public worship.  William announced his intention of being one of the congregation.  But it was represented to him that, if he persisted in that intention, three hundred thousand people would assemble to see him pass, and all the parish churches of London would be left empty.  He therefore attended the service in his own chapel at Whitehall, and heard Burnet preach a sermon, somewhat too eulogistic for the place.824 At Saint Paul’s the magistrates of the City appeared in all their state.  Compton ascended, for the first time, a throne rich with the sculpture of Gibbons, and thence exhorted a numerous and splendid assembly.  His discourse has not been preserved; but its purport may be easily guessed; for he preached on that noble Psalm:  “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.”  He doubtless reminded his hearers that, in addition to the debt which was common to them with all Englishmen, they owed as Londoners a peculiar debt of gratitude to the divine goodness, which had permitted them to efface the last trace of the ravages of the great fire, and to assemble once more, for prayer and praise, after so many years, on that spot consecrated by the devotions of thirty generations.  Throughout London, and in every part of the realm, even to the remotest parishes of Cumberland and Cornwall, the churches were filled on the morning of that day; and the evening was an evening of festivity.825

These was indeed reason for joy and thankfulness.  England had passed through severe trials, and had come forth renewed in health and vigour.  Ten years before, it had seemed that both her liberty and her independence were no more.  Her liberty she had vindicated by a just and necessary revolution.  Her independence she had reconquered by a not less just and necessary war.  She had successfully defended the order of things established by the Bill of Rights against the mighty monarchy of France, against the aboriginal population of Ireland, against the avowed hostility of the nonjurors, against the more dangerous hostility of traitors who were ready to take any oath, and whom no oath could bind.  Her open enemies had been victorious on many fields of battle.  Her secret enemies had commanded her fleets and armies, had been in charge of her arsenals, had ministered at her altars, had taught at her Universities, had swarmed in her public offices, had sate in her Parliament, had bowed and fawned in the bedchamber of her King.  More than once it had seemed impossible that any thing could avert a restoration which would inevitably have been followed, first by proscriptions