ion of indifference and atheism. For the first years,
before the Reformation, the _Utopia_ may serve as an example. More,
under the influence {634} of the Italian Platonists, pictured his ideal
people as adherents of a deistic, humanitarian religion, with few
priests and holy, tolerant of everything save intolerance. They
worshipped one God, believed in immortality and yet thought that "the
chief felicity of man" lay in the pursuit of rational pleasure.
Whether More depicted this cult simply to fulfil the dramatic
probabilities and to show what was natural religion among men before
revelation came to them, or whether his own opinions altered in later
life, it is certain that he became robustly Catholic. He spent much
time in religious controversy and resorted to austerities. In one
place he tells of a lewd gallant who asked a friar why he gave himself
the pain of walking barefoot. Answered that this pain was less than
hell, the gallant replied, "If there be no hell, what a fool are you,"
and received the retort, "If there be hell, what a fool are you." Sir
Thomas evidently believed there was a hell, or preferred to take no
chances. In one place he argues at length that many and great miracles
daily take place at shrines.

The feverish crisis of the Reformation was followed in the reign of
Elizabeth by an epidemic of skepticism. Widely as it was spread there
can be found little philosophical thought in it. It was simply the
pendulum pulled far to the right swinging back again to the extreme
left. The suspicions expressed that the queen herself was an atheist
were unfounded, but it is impossible to dismiss as easily the numerous
testimonies of infidelity among her subjects. Roger Ascham wrote in
his _Schoolmaster_ [Sidenote: 1563] that the "incarnate devils" of
Englishmen returned from Italy said "there is no God" and then, "they
first lustily condemn God, then scornfully mock his Word . . . counting
as fables the holy mysteries of religion. They make Christ and his
Gospel only serve civil policies. . . . They boldly laugh {635} to
scorn both Protestant and Papist. They confess no Scripture. . . .
They mock the pope; they rail on Luther. . . . They are Epicures in
living and [Greek] _atheoi_ in doctrine."

[Sidenote: 1569]

In like manner Cecil wrote: "The service of God and the sincere
profession of Christianity are much decayed, and in place of it, partly
papistry, partly paganism and irreligion have