Page:The Church of England, its catholicity and continuity.djvu/164

 shifting from one opinion to another for any worldly ends; and if my conscience would have suffered me to shift tenets or religion with time and occasion, I could easily have slid through all the difficulties which have pressed upon me in this kind."

No! Whatever the Puritans sought fit to affirm, Laud was not a Papist. Nor did he love Rome. He was charitable towards Romanists, even more than towards the Puritans.

A well-known Unitarian writer whose sympathy is entirely opposed to Laud's, in the interests of truth bears out the same fact about his character. "There is no proof," says Mr. Taylor, "that either Charles I., or Laud, or any of the leading Churchmen, ever seriously entertained the thought of a submission to Rome. The adoption of so much that was Catholic in doctrine and ceremony was rather intended, like the efforts of modern Puseyism, to retain those who from disgust at the opposite extreme were strongly tempted to throw themselves into the arms " of Rome. So we conclude that Laud was not as bad as his enemies wished to make him.

One of the reasons why he was charged with Romanism, was due to his removing the holy table from the body of the Church to the old and accustomed place under the east-end window. By negligence and the Puritan influence the holy table had been placed in the centre of the Church, and formed a stand for hats and cloaks during the ordinary service. This outraged the refined susceptibilities of Laud, and he set about a reformation in this matter. As soon as he