controversy, and the solid studies with which the age was conversant,
penetrated into every corner of the land, and were incorporated with the
very being of the nation. Then, as the mist of doubt and persecution
which had covered Mary's throne cleared away, the intellect of England,
in all its health, and vigour, and symmetry, stood revealed in the men
and women of the Elizabethan age:--

"To say," observes Dr Arnold, "that the Puritans were wanting
in humility because they did not acquiesce in the state of
things which they found around them, is a mere extravagance,
arising out of a total misapprehension of the nature of
humility, and of the merits of the feeling of veneration. All
earnestness and depth of character is incompatible with such a
notion of humility. A man deeply penetrated with some great
truth, and compelled, as it were, to obey it, cannot listen to
every one who may be indifferent to it, or opposed to it. There
is a voice to which he already owes obedience, which he serves
with the humblest devotion, which he worships with the most
intense veneration. It is not that such feelings are dead in
him, but that he has bestowed them on one object, and they are
claimed for another. To which they are most due is a question
of justice; he may be wrong in his decision, and his worship
may be idolatrous; but so also may be the worship which his
opponents call upon him to render. If, indeed, it can be shown
that a man admires and reverences nothing, he may be justly
taxed with want of humility; but this is at variance with the
very notion of an earnest character; for its earnestness
consists in its devotion to some one object, as opposed to a
proud or contemptuous indifference. But if it be meant that
reverence in itself is good, so that the more objects of
veneration we have the better is our character, this is to
confound the essential difference between veneration and love.
The excellence of love is its universality; we are told that
even the highest object of all cannot be loved if inferior
objects are hated."

Opinions, in the meanwhile, not very favourable to established authority
in the state, and marked by a rooted antipathy to ecclesiastical
pretensions, were rapidly gaining proselytes in the nation, and even at
the court. But the prudence and spirit of Elizabeth, and