Page:The Church of England, its catholicity and continuity.djvu/167

 work. "I laboured nothing," he says, "I laboured nothing more than that the external public worship of God (too much slighted in most parts of the Kingdom) might be preserved, and that with as much decency and uniformity as might be; being still of opinion that unity cannot long continue in the Church when uniformity is shut out at the Church door." These words are almost a prophecy. They have been amply fulfilled, as you can see from the result of Puritanism in modern Dissent and Nonconformity. There must be uniformity to preserve unity, unity of doctrine, unity of religious ideals, unity in successful spiritual work.

Mr. Hore gives us a faithful account of Laud's character. "The best test of his character is to be found" he says, "in the deep love which his friends and those who knew him well bore towards him. He must have been a man of ability, for although his enemies ascribe his rise in life to Court favour, no common man could possibly have risen step by step to the high honours which he held. That he was a generous patron of learning, even his enemies allow; no one ever accused him of love of money; and of his great munificence, the Church and his University are sufficient witnesses." Another writer says (Mr. Southey) that the Puritans afforded Laud "an opportunity of displaying at his trial and on the scaffold, as in a public theatre, a presence of mind, a strength of intellect, a calm and composed temper, an heroic and saintly magnanimity, which he never could have been known to possess if he had not thus been put to the proof." And Heylyn says: "Never did man put off