e almost utter extermination of their body. But
against this persecution no Puritan voice was raised.

[Sidenote: Its wish for reforms.]

All in fact that the bulk of the Puritans asked was a change in the
outer ritual of worship which should correspond to the advance towards a
more pronounced Protestantism that had been made by the nation at large
during the years of Elizabeth's reign. Their demands were as of old for
the disuse of "superstitious ceremonies." To modern eyes the points
which they selected for change seem trivial enough. But they were in
fact of large significance. To reject the sign of the Cross in baptism
was to repudiate the whole world of ceremonies of which it was a
survivor. The disuse of the surplice would have broken down the last
outer difference which parted the minister from the congregation, and
manifested to every eye the spiritual equality of layman and priest.
Kneeling at the Communion might be a mere act of reverence, but formally
to discontinue such an act was emphatically to assert a disbelief in the
sacramental theories of Catholicism. During the later years of Elizabeth
reverence for the Queen had hindered any serious pressure for changes to
which she would never assent; but a general expectation prevailed that
at her death some change would be made. Even among men of secular stamp
there was a general conviction of the need of some concession to the
religious sentiment of the nation. They had clung to the usages which
the Puritans denounced so long as they were aids in hindering a
religious severance throughout the land. But whatever value the
retention of such ceremonies might have had in facilitating the quiet
passage of the bulk of Englishmen from the old worship to the new had
long since passed away. England as a whole was Protestant; and the
Catholics who remained were not likely to be drawn to the national
Church by trifles such as these. Instead of being the means of hindering
religious division, the usages had now become means of creating it. It
was on this ground that statesmen who had little sympathy with the
religious spirit about them pleaded for the purchase of religious and
national union by ecclesiastical reforms. "Why," asked Bacon, "should
the civil state be purged and restored by good and wholesome laws made
every three years in Parliament assembled, devising remedies as fast as
time breedeth mischief, and contrariwise the ecclesiastical state still
continue upon th