the quarrels and animosities within the Church, particularly about
vestments and modes of worship,--things unessential, minute,
technical,--which led to great acerbity on both sides, and to some
persecution; for these quarrels provoked the Queen and her ministers,
who wanted peace and uniformity. To the Government it seemed strange and
absurd for these returned exiles to make such a fuss about a few
externals; to these intensified Protestants it seemed harsh and cruel
that Government should insist on such a rigid uniformity, and punish
them for not doing as they were bidden by the bishops.

So they separated from the Established Church, and became what were
called Nonconformists,--having not only disgust of the decent ritualism
of the Church, but great wrath for the bishops and hierarchy and
spiritual courts. They also disapproved of the holy days which the
Church retained, and the prayers and the cathedral style of worship, the
use of the cross in baptism, godfathers and godmothers, the confirmation
of children, kneeling at the sacrament, bowing at the name of Jesus, the
ring in marriage, the surplice, the divine right of bishops, and some
other things which reminded them of Rome, for which they had absolute
detestation, seeing in the old Catholic Church nothing but abominations
and usurpations, no religion at all, only superstition and
anti-Christian government and doctrine,--the reign of the beast, the
mystic Babylon, the scarlet mother revelling in the sorceries of ancient
Paganism. These terrible animosities against even the shadows and
resemblances of what was called Popery were increased and intensified by
the persecution and massacres which the Catholics about this time were
committing on the Protestants in France and Germany and the Low
Countries, and which filled the people of England,--especially the
middle and lower classes,--with fear, alarm, anger, and detestation.

I will not enter upon the dissensions which so early crept into the
English Church, and led to a separation or a schism, whatever name it
goes by,--to most people in these times not very interesting or
edifying, because they were not based on any great ideas of universal
application, and seeming to such minds as Bacon and Parker and Jewell
rather narrow and frivolous.

The great Puritan controversy would have no dignity if it were confined
to vestments and robes and forms of worship, and hatred of ceremonies
and holy days, and other matters