Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/223

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
DISSENT
203

music." They did not want to separate themselves from the Church of England, only to reform the abuses that had crept in; A conference took place, but neither party would concede ground. The King definitely declared for the historic tradition of the Church service, but agreed to the Puritan demand for a new translation of the Bible. This accordingly was made by forty-seven scholars and dedicated to King James I. in the year 1611, since which date it has been in general use till to-day.

The results of the conference were far reaching. Two irreconcilable parties had arisen in England—those who clung to the historic Church of England and those who dissented from it or refused to conform to it. Hence the name Dissenter and Nonconformist. Statesmen who had little sympathy with the religious spirit pleaded for the purchase of national union by ecclesiastical reform.

"Why," asked Bacon, "should the Civil State be purged and restored by good and wholesome laws made every three years in Parliament assembled, devising remedies as fast as time breedeth mischief, and contrariwise the Ecclesiastical State still continue upon the dregs of time and