o Catholic, she could proudly say, had ever during that time been
molested for his belief. There was a small fine for non-attendance at
church, but even this was rarely levied, and by the confession of the
Jesuits the Queen's policy was succeeding too well. Sensible men began
to see that the differences of religion were not things to quarrel over.
Faith was growing languid. The elder generation, who had lived through
the Edward and Mary revolutions, were satisfied to be left undisturbed;
a new generation was growing up, with new ideas; and so the Church of
Rome bestirred itself. Elizabeth was excommunicated. The cycle began of
intrigue and conspiracy, assassination plots, and Jesuit invasions.
Punishments had to follow, and in spite of herself Elizabeth was driven
into what the Catholics could call religious persecution. Religious it
was not, for the seminary priests were missionaries of treason. But
religious it was made to appear. The English gentleman who wished to
remain loyal, without forfeiting his faith, was taught to see that a
sovereign under the Papal curse had no longer a claim on his allegiance.
If he disobeyed the Pope, he had ceased to be a member of the Church of
Christ. The Papal party grew in coherence, while, opposed to them as
their purpose came in view, the Protestants, who at first had been
inclined to Lutheranism, adopted the deeper and sterner creed of Calvin
and Geneva. The memories of the Marian cruelties revived again. They saw
themselves threatened with a return to stake and fagot. They closed
their ranks and resolved to die rather than submit again to Antichrist.
They might be inferior in numbers. A _plebiscite_ in England at that
moment would have sent Burghley and Walsingham to the scaffold. But the
Lord could save by few as well as by many. Judah had but two tribes out
of the twelve, but the words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the
words of Israel.

One great mistake had been made by Parsons. He could not estimate what
he could not understand. He admitted that the inhabitants of the towns
were mainly heretic--London, Bristol, Plymouth, and the rest--but he
despised them as merchants, craftsmen, mean persons who had no heart to
fight in them. Nothing is more remarkable in the history of the
sixteenth century than the effect of Calvinism in levelling distinctions
of rank and in steeling and ennobling the character of common men. In
Scotland, in the Low Countries, in France, there was t