s found impracticable to compromise this difference; a considerable
number finally seceded from the congregation, and it was from this
division at Frankfort that English nonconformity took its birth. No
equally strong manifestation of opinion occurred amongst the exiles in
other cities; but on the whole it may be affirmed, that the majority of
these persons returned from their wanderings with their previous
predilection for the Calvinistic model confirmed and augmented by the
united influence of the reasonings and persuasions of its ablest
apostles, and of those sentiments of love and hatred from which the
speculative opinions of most men receive an irresistible though secret
bias.

Their more unfortunate brethren, in the mean time, who, unwilling to
resign their country, or unable to escape from it, had been compelled to
look persecution in the face and deliberately acquaint themselves with
all its horrors, were undergoing other and in some respects opposite
influences.

An overpowering dread and abhorrence of the doctrines of the church of
Rome must so have absorbed all other thoughts and feelings in the minds
of this dispersed and affrighted remnant of the English church, as to
leave them little attention to bestow upon the comparatively trifling
objects of dispute between protestant and protestant. They might even be
disposed to regard such squabbles with emotions of indignation and
disgust, and to ask how brethren in affliction could have the heart to
nourish animosities against each other. The memory of Edward VI. was
deservedly dear to them, and they would contemplate the restoration of
his ritual by the successor of Mary as an event in which they ought to
regard all their prayers as fulfilled:--yet the practice, forced upon
them by the vigilance of persecution, of holding their assemblies for
divine worship in places unconsecrated, with the omission of every
customary ceremonial and under the guidance frequently of men whom zeal
and piety alone had ordained to the office of teachers and ministers of
religion, must amongst them also have been producing a secret alienation
from established forms and rituals, and a propensity to those
extemporaneous effusions of devotion, or urgencies of supplication,
which seem best adapted to satisfy the wants of the pious soul under the
fiery trial of persecution and distress. The Calvinistic model
therefore, as the freest of all, and that which most industriously
avoided any