Page:The House of Souls.djvu/15

 ''deposit of honest English dirt and filth which the glorious Elizabethans had allowed to gather in the churches, and the Sabbath itself was menaced by the royal authority. The Puritans saved us from disaster in those directions; but they did much more. For it must never be forgotten that the very root and essence of Puritanism is the denial of all Sacraments and of all Mysteries; so that at the present day we find the legitimate and accredited representatives of these great men applauding and quoting such enlightened French thinkers as Combes and Gambetta. Now, after the victory has been won, we can hardly realize the bondage, the Egyptian darkness, from which we have been delivered. What was it that Laud and Charles endeavoured to restore? Here is Longfellow's only too faithful picture:''

And then the organ sounds, and unseen choirs Sing the old Latin hymns of peace and love And benedictions of the Holy Ghost; And the melodious bells among the spires O'er all the house-tops and through heaven above Proclaim the elevation of the Host!

We can hardly conceive, perhaps, how in the Dark Ages man lived in a world of mystery and love and adoration, how sacraments stood about all his ways, how the Veil of the Temple grew thin before his gaze, and he saw the Great Sacrifice offered in the Holy