t of the habits and ceremonies, and
was afterwards deprived of his deanery by archbishop Parker for
nonconformity.

Never did parties in religion run higher than about this period of the
reign of Elizabeth; and we may remark as symptomatic of the temper of
the times, the manner in which a trivial accident was commented upon by
adverse disputants. The beautiful steeple of St. Paul's cathedral, the
loftiest in the kingdom, had been stricken by lightning and utterly
destroyed, together with the bells and roof. A papist immediately
dispersed a paper representing this accident as a judgement of Heaven
for the discontinuance of the matins and other services which had used
to be performed in the church at different hours of the day and night.
Pilkington bishop of Durham, who preached at Paul's cross after the
accident, was equally disposed to regard it as a judgement, but on the
sins of London in general, and particularly on certain abuses by which
the church had formerly been polluted. In a tract published in answer to
that of the papist he afterwards gave an animated description of the
practices of which this cathedral had been the theatre; curious at the
present day as a record of forgotten customs. He said that "no place had
been more abused than Paul's had been, nor more against the receiving of
Christ's Gospel; wherefore it was more wonder that God had spared it so
long, than that he overthrew it now.... From the top of the spire, at
coronations or other solemn triumphs, some for vain glory had used to
throw themselves down by a rope, and so killed themselves, vainly to
please other men's eyes. At the battlements of the steeple, sundry times
were used their popish anthems, to call upon their Gods, with torch and
taper, in the evenings. In the top of one of the pinnacles was Lollards'
Tower, where many an innocent soul had been by them cruelly tormented
and murdered. In the middest alley was their long censer, reaching from
the roof to the ground; as though the Holy Ghost came down in their
censing, in likeness of a dove. In the arches, men commonly complained
of wrong and delayed judgments in ecclesiastical causes: and divers had
been condemned there by Annas and Caiaphas for Christ's cause. Their
images hung on every wall, pillar and door, with their pilgrimages and
worshipings of them: passing over their massing and many altars, and the
rest of their popish service. The south alley was for usury and popery,
the north f