r, and to substitute a regular system
of fines payable to the public purse.[1256]

The poet Wordsworth has said that one of his earliest remembrances was
the going to church one week-day to see a woman doing penance in a white
sheet, and the disappointment of not getting a penny, which he had been
told was given to all lookers-on.[1257] This must have been a very rare
event at that date--about 1777.[1258] Early in the century this sort of
ecclesiastical pillory was somewhat more common. But it was evidently
quite unfrequent even then. Pope's parish clerk is made to speak of it
as distinctly an event. This, which was called 'solemn penance,' as
contrasted with that lesser form which might consist only of confession
and satisfaction, was an ordeal which sounds like a strange anachronism
in times so near our own. Bishop Hildesley thus describes it in the Isle
of Man, where it was enforced upon certain delinquents far more
generally than elsewhere. 'The manner of doing penance is primitive and
edifying. The penitent, clothed in a white sheet, &c., is brought into
the church immediately before the Litany, and there continues till the
sermon is ended; after which, and a proper exhortation, the congregation
are desired to pray for him in a form prescribed for the purpose.' This
having been done, so soon as it could be certified to the bishop that
his repentance was believed to be sincere, he might be received back
again, 'by a very solemn form,' into the peace of the Church.[1259] In
England generally the ceremony was in all respects the same,[1260]
except that no regular form existed for the readmission of penitents.
Jones of Alconbury, in the 'Free and Candid Disquisitions' (1749), spoke
of the need of a recognised office for this purpose. That which was
commonly used had no authority, and was very imperfect. A form also for
excommunication was also, he thought, a definite want of the English
Church. For want of some such solemnity, excommunication was very
deficient in impressiveness, not at all understood by the people in
general, and less dreaded than should be, as signifying for the most
part nothing more than the loss of a little money.[1261]

The strongly marked division of opinion which had prevailed during the
reign of Elizabeth and Charles I. as to the mode of observing Sunday no
longer existed. Formerly, Anglicans and Puritans had taken for the most
part thoroughly opposite views, and the question had been controve