Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/579

1550.] parts of religion—no one thought of at all; and unless God worked a miracle for the sake of the innocent King, some great catastrophe could not be far off. In such a disposition he could feel small sympathy with a fever about a white dress and a few gestures. To Hooper's appeal he replied coldly, that for himself he preferred simplicity, when simplicity could be had; but while the great men in England were giving benefices to their grooms—when the services in churches were left to be performed by men who could not read, and might as well be Africans or Hindoos as English—while congregations employed their time in laughing and storytelling, other things, he thought, should be first attended to: if earnest men would set themselves to contend against perjury, and adultery, theft, lying, and cheating, 'the very bones and sinews of Antichrist, whereof