Page:The Church of England, its catholicity and continuity.djvu/134

 or scandal, shall, from and after the said first day of January, keep any school either public or private; nor shall any person, who after that time shall be ejected for the causes aforesaid, preach in any public place, or at any private meeting of other persons besides his own family, nor administer Baptism or the Lord's Supper, or marry any persons, or use the Book of Common Prayer or the forms therein contained, upon pain that every person so offending shall be proceeded against as by the said orders is provided."

No wonder, then, that at the restoration the methods which the Puritans now used to destroy Churchmen were used in turn to ruin them. Parliament, then, was only following the methods previously laid down by the Puritans.

I must now pass on to speak of another phase of the Puritan movement. Consider, in the next place, how they used our Churches and dealt with their ministers. Certainly they showed no reverence for the sacred buildings in which people had worshipped for generations. The very idea of beauty in worship was quite enough to enrage them. Some of the finest works of art ever possessed by England were destroyed in their fanaticism. Beautiful windows and masterpieces of sculpture were shattered to atoms by their blows. We are reminded by Mr. Southey that some of the Puritans hoped to see the day when the noble building of S. Paul's should be levelled to the ground. A certain faction did demolish with axes and hammers the carved work of that noble structure, and the body of the Church was converted into a stable to shelter the troopers' horses. Old market