ted Reformation] That public opinion was hardly prepared for
this as yet is shown by the act itself in which celibacy of the clergy
is declared to be the better condition, and marriage only allowed to
prevent vice. The people still regarded priests' wives much as
concubines and the government spoke of clergymen as "sotted with their
wives and children." There is one other bit of evidence, of a most
singular character, showing that this and subsequent Acts of Uniformity
were not thoroughly enforced. The test of orthodoxy came to be taking
the communion occasionally according to the Anglican rite. This was at
first expected of everyone and then demanded by law; but the law was
evaded by permitting a conscientious objector to hire a substitute to
take communion for him.

In 1552 the Prayer Book was revised in a Protestant sense. Bucer had
something to do with this revision, and so did John Knox. Little was
now left of the mass, nothing of private confession or anointing the
sick. Further steps were the reform of the Canon Law and the
publication of the Forty-two Articles of Religion. These were drawn up
by Cranmer on the basis of thirteen articles agreed upon by a
conference of three English Bishops, four English doctors, and two
German missionaries, Boyneburg and Myconius, in {314} May, 1538.
Cranmer hoped to make his statement irenic; and in fact it contained
some Roman and Calvinistic elements, but in the main it was Lutheran.
Justification by faith was asserted; only two sacraments were retained.
Transubstantiation was denounced as repugnant to Scripture and private
masses as "dangerous impostures." The real presence was maintained in
a Lutheran sense: the bread was said to be the Body of Christ, and the
wine the Blood of Christ, but only after a heavenly and spiritual
manner. It was said that by Christ's ordinance the sacrament is not
reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped.

A reform of the clergy was also undertaken, and was much needed. In
1551 Bishop Hooper found in his diocese of 311 clergymen, 171 could not
repeat the Ten Commandments, ten could not say the Lord's Prayer in
English, seven could not tell who was its author, and sixty-two were
absentees, chiefly because of pluralities.

The notable characteristic of the Edwardian Reformation was its
mildness. There were no Catholic martyrs. It is true that heretics
coming under the category of blasphemers or deniers of Christianity
could