the First Book of Edward VI., but some of the medieval rites were suffered to remain in the service. In the Office for the Sick the spirit of conservatism preserved still extreme unction. In the Burial Service prayers were offered, as before, for the dead. The stern, uncompromising rubric against unbaptised, excommunicated, and unhappy suicides, was only added in 1661. It found no place in the books of the Reformation age. The order to use the new Prayerbook, with its sweeping changes in the old services, in certain districts excited a religious war. In the west of England especially, the zeal for the old forms of religion seems to have been especially strong. Devonshire and Cornwall for a considerable time were the scenes of what was almost a civil war. The government eventually succeeded in restoring order; but the religious revolt. had to be stamped out in blood. The demands of the insurgents were strange, almost petulant in their anger against the new innovations. They asked that the "Six Articles" of Henry VIII. might be revived; that the mass should be again said in Latin, and be celebrated by the priest alone, without others communicating; that the sacrament might be delivered to the people only at Easter, and then but in one kind; that images should be set up again, and souls in purgatory should be prayed for by name. "We will not have," said these angry lovers of the old customs and rites, "the new service or the Bible in throw considerable light on the curious and unhappy perversions of religion which were common in, the church, when Cranmer and Ridley were firm in their determination to change the mass into a communion. Besides the west country, at this time sporadic outbreaks in the eastern counties, in Oxfordshire, and even in Yorkshire, had to be put down with a high hand and considerable bloodshed. In the east and midlands, however, although religious questions were doubtless mixed up with the causes of discontent, other reasons were at work which excited men to rebellion. The government of the upstart lords of the council was distrusted and disliked. Agrarian troubles, such as the enclosure of common lands, which deprived the poor cottagers of their ancient rights, stirred up the people to revolt. And no doubt the confiscation of the old abbey lands, followed lands, followed by the suppression of hospitals and chantries, at this time contributed largely to increase the misery of the poor. The fall of Somerset and his government quickly followed upon the bloody suppression of this wide-spread revolt. The England of 1549 and the following year was indeed a troubled scene, in the midst of which Cranmer and his associates constructed the new religious formularies of the Church of England. But the great work of reformation and reconstruction went on, though the surroundings were so unpropitious, and the government of the country so precarious, the king all the while but a child, and surrounded with vacillating and self-engrossed ministers and counsellors. CHAPTER L. THE SECOND PRAYER-BOOK. DEATH OF EDWARD VI. The Reformed Ordinal - Ridley destroys Altars in Churches - Bishop Hooper and the Puritan Party-Their Destructive Work-Hooper's Subsequent Deprivation and Martyrdom-Knox and His Influence-Further Influence of Foreign Reforming Theologians-Cranmer's Book on the Sacrament-The abortive Reformed Canon Law-The Forty-two Articles of Religion-Their Moderation-Subsequent Puritan Alterations Sketched-The Second Prayer-book-Sketch of the Variations in it- Iconoclasm of the Puritan Party- Brief Sketch of the Reformation Divines-Death of Edward VI.-His Attempt to Secure a Protestant Succession. T The 1553. HE year 1550 (April) saw the next the volume of Common Prayer until important step in the liturgical reformation, in the new English ordinal, which replaced the old "Pontificale." Great changes were made here. In the new "ordinal" the five lower grades in the ministry-ostiaries, lectors, exorcists, acolytes, and subdeacons-found no place at all. Deacons, priests, and bishops were alone retained, and in the ordination of these the ceremonies, formerly of a most elaborate nature, were reduced to a primitive simplicity. changes now made in the old "Pontificale," depriving it of many of the old medieval ceremonies, and leaving it a much simpler rite, left it indeed shorn of much of its old stateliness; but at the same time all that was necessary to convey the clerical character was maintained. The inherent authority of the episcopal office was not diminished, since no orders were admitted which it took not a bishop to confer. In the new "ordinal," shorn though it was of most of its many elaborate ceremonies, a return was merely made to primitive simplicity. It, however, offended certain of the English bishops, and led to the removal or retirement of certain of these prelates. The ordinal was not bound up with In the same year (1550) Ridley was promoted from the see of Rochester to London. He, very early in his new dignity, put forth on his own responsibility the injunction for turning altars into tables. His plea for this, in his own words, runs: "The form of a table may move and turn the people from the old superstitious opinions of the popish mass and to the right use of the Lord's table." He set the example of this change, when in St. Paul's he broke down the high altar by night and set up a table there. A very general demolition and destruction followed throughout the churches of England of much that was associated with holy things. Towards the end of the year 1550 letters legalising this destruction were sent out in the king's name to the bishops by the council. Accompanying these "state letters" ordering the demolition of the remaining altars, were certain reasons which the bishops were required to expound through the medium of discreet preachers, explaining the motives wherever altars were taken down. The stone altars thus destroyed were not unfrequently used for most ignoble purposes, and the desecration gave offence. man. This deeply regrettable development in the progress of the Reformation was pushed on by men of the spirit of Hooper, who at this juncture became one of the principal figures in the history of the time. Little is known of the early life of this celebrated He received his training at Oxford, and subsequently travelled abroad, and in Zurich saw and admired the extreme and exaggerated reforms introduced by Zwinglius-reforms in Zwinglius's teaching not unmixed with very grave doctrinal errors. He then composed several able but ill-balanced tractates on the burning and mysterious points of theology, which in this restless age of inquiry and reform were too often heedlessly tossed to and fro. Returning to England, he became the acknowledged chief of the extreme party of the "Gospellers" as they were termed. Hooper was one of the children of the Reformation for whom we cannot but feel a grudging admiration. Deeply persuaded of the evils of the corruptions of Rome, he could see no beauty or reality in mediæval symbolism which appealed to so many. His whole nature was absorbed in the thought how what he hated might be swept away. His teaching was often harsh and austere. But that, in spite of this repellent austerity, he possessed vast influence over the hearts of men, is evident. He became one of the protector Somerset's chaplains, and a prominent preacher in London. With all his faults, there was much that was admirable in Hooper. Intensely in earnest, persuaded of the dire necessity of change, able and real, never self-seeking, he only, alas! could see one side of a controversy, and ruthlessly trampled down everything which to his narrow views seemed likely to promote the superstitions which he looked on as fatal to true religion. To Hooper the new ordinal, purged though it had been of so many of the ancient ceremonies and rites, was obnoxious as still containing much that in his opinion belonged not to the primitive and best church. These scruples, boldly and rashly advanced, have gained for Hooper the title of Father of Nonconformity. Many devoted souls have since followed in his track, but they do not represent the real mind of the majority of the English people, and their teaching has generally been repudiated by the conservative spirit of the Anglican church. This has ever in the long run shown a deep and reverential regard for rites and ceremonies hallowed by long custom, and precious with their symbolism to many devout minds; a shrinking to interfere with them has ever been a characteristic feature among our most thoughtful divines. The Church of England since the Reformation has been reproached by some, lauded by others, for its adoption of a middle course, preserving as it has done the mediæval rites and ceremonies, beautiful and instructive in their touching symbolism, in all cases when this conservation of ancient uses did not teach a doctrine unknown in the primitive Christian church. This Via Media Anglicana generally approves itself, as it has been again and again seen, to the majority of, thoughtful and cultured Englishmen. But Hooper and 209 the recognised chief of a great party. Unlike Ridley, he never weaved formularies of faith and doctrine. Unlike Latimer, whose marvellously winning personality ever commended his somewhat strange views and ideas to uncounted thousands; less famous in church and state than Tunstall or Bonner, Hooper is the representative, roughhewn Eng army of re ligious Englishmen who are playing so great a part in the story of the world. Well will it be for us if those who guide the thoughts and direct the policy of our church, ever bear in mind the ex istence in our midst of the respects reformer. Unlike Cranmer, Hooper was never called to guide and direct the Church in the storm and stress of the Reformation. Unlike Gardiner, he was never thousands in his day, who were heartsick at the sight of the superstitions which overlaid and distorted all true religion. His soul loathed the flagrant abuses which disfigured all church life; and he longed with a real saint's longing for a return to the sim plicity and guileless ness painted in the beautiful lite which lives along the inspired pages of the New Testament. He saw little beauty in the majestic piles which the |