services in the open air and the popular preaching of the friars, who from time to time broke the monotony of the formal services of the Church. In the sixteenth century in England all this liberty was suddenly stopped. The rude festivities by which the mediæval Church sought to bring some sense of God's presence into the ordinary life of man were done away with as being superstitious and unedifying. The friars disappeared, and in many villages the voice of the preacher was silent from one year's end to another. Homilies, injunctions and proclamations were read from the pulpit; but they were far-off echoes of struggles and controversies which did not touch the hearts of men. The mere fact that appeals to the Pope were abolished left the man of suspected opinions at the mercy of the speedy judgment which would be given within the realm, and the issue of which could be clearly foreseen. The politic uniformity of the sixteenth century was a burden which the men of previous centuries would not have been able to bear.
The men on whom the burden weighed most heavily were the more zealous or more scrupulous of the clergy. It is true that the outward expressions which they gave to their feelings of discontent were sometimes trivial. First they raised questions concerning ritual—the use of the surplice and some ceremonies to which they objected as savouring of Popery. It was a cry devoid of contents and soon passed away. Then came the purely academic movement, which had its headquarters in the University of Cambridge, the movement for Presbyterianism which was started by
