Page:Dr Stiggins, His Views and Principles.pdf/26

 day of the Divorce Court from afar off and was glad; remember, I say, that Milton served a Government—England's noblest Government—that made the recitation of the Prayer Book, the "mass in masquerade," a penal offence. You see, don't you, the wide distinction between the censorship of tyrants and bigots such as Charles and Laud, with their detestable Star Chamber, and the wise restraints of England's great Captain Cromwell? But I am afraid that if you are not quite clear upon this point, you must have failed to grasp those basic principles which lie at the root of all true Liberalism and Protestantism. Let us go a little farther back in the past: the ordinary observer sees, perhaps, but little difference between Queen Mary's executions by fire and Queen Elizabeth's executions by tearing the heart from the living man. But if we are Protestants we know that the former were the monstrous cruelties of devils in human form, while the latter were entirely justifiable punishments. Again, the Liberal knows that the severities of the feudal