iling system of disabilities and penalties, which a
pliant judiciary was not slow in enforcing with suitable rigor. While
the Puritan could often fairly yield a sort of abstinent conformity
which saved him from penalties, the Roman Catholic, who adhered
faithfully and conscientiously to his ancestral church, made no
compromise with his allegiance. Accordingly, on him, the unholy and
intolerant law fell with all its persecuting bane.

"About the middle of the reign of Queen Elizabeth there arose among the
Calvinists, a small body, who bore nearly the same relation to them,
which they bore to the great body of the Reformed; these were ultra
Puritans, as they were ultra Protestants. These persons deemed it their
religious duty to separate themselves entirely from the church, and, in
fact, to war against it. The principle upon which they founded
themselves, was, that there should be no national church at all, but
that the whole nation should be cast in a multitude of small churches or
congregations, each self-governed, and having only, as they believed,
the officers of which we read in the New Testament,--pastor, teacher,
elder and deacon."[1]

* * * * *

Such was the ecclesiastical and political aspect of England, and of a
part of Scotland, about the period when the First James ascended the
British throne. As there is nothing that so deeply concerns our welfare
as the rights and duties of our soul, it is not at all singular to find
how quickly men became zealous in the assertion of their novel
privileges, as soon as they discovered that there were two ways of
interpreting God's law, or, at least, two modes of worshiping him,--one
wrapped in gorgeous ceremonial, the other stripped in naked
simplicity,--and that the right to this interpretation or worship was
not only secured by law, but was inherent in man's nature. Personal
interests may be indolently neglected or carelessly pursued. It is rare
to see men persecute each other about individual rights or properties.
Yet, such is not the case when a right or an interest is the religious
property of a multitude. Then, community of sentiment or of risk, bands
them together in fervent support, and when the thing contended for is
based on conscience and _eternal_ interest, instead of personal or
_temporary_ welfare, we behold its pursuit inflame gradually from a
principle into a passion,--from passion into persecution, until at
length, what once