Page:The Church of England, its catholicity and continuity.djvu/131

 majority of them were married," says Mr. Hore, "it is clear fully thirty thousand persons were turned out on the world to get their livings in the best way they could."

The religious life of England under the Commonwealth was a miserable picture of wreckage; and Cromwell lived long enough to be embittered by some of his failures. His last days were spent in remorse. After his death there were eighteen months of anarchy. The nation was degraded, and with a great longing it looked for the restoration of Charles II. to the throne. This took place in the year 1660. After his accession the Church was revived. The old Bishops who were living were restored to their old Sees, and the clergy regained their rectories and vicarages. The national Church was put in power again, and the Prayer Book with alterations brought back to use. The Puritans were ejected from the Church by successive Acts of Parliament passed in the early years of Charles; and dissent, as a consequence, became established in our land.

From what I have already said of the Puritans, you must conclude that their work was not worthy of the highest respect. They almost succeeded in destroying the religious sentiment in England. In fact, I consider that they greatly added to the woes of England, for they did not scruple to wound people in the tenderest parts of their nature. They tried to destroy all beauty in our public services. They despised every material aid to devotion. Their movement was essentially a political affair; and it is due to this that dissent to-day, to speak the truth about it, is quite as much, if not more, a political than a religious campaign.

Notice next the intolerance of the Puritans to any form of