These men, mostly learned and pious, were not contented with the restoration as effected by Elizabeth’s reformers,—­they wanted greater simplicity of worship and a more definite and logical creed; and they made a good deal of trouble, being very conscientious and somewhat narrow and intolerant.  So that, after the re-establishment of Protestantism, the religious history of the reign is chiefly concerned with the quarrels and animosities within the Church, particularly about vestments and modes of worship,—­things unessential, minute, technical,—­which led to great acerbity on both sides, and to some persecution; for these quarrels provoked the Queen and her ministers, who wanted peace and uniformity.  To the Government it seemed strange and absurd for these returned exiles to make such a fuss about a few externals; to these intensified Protestants it seemed harsh and cruel that Government should insist on such a rigid uniformity, and punish them for not doing as they were bidden by the bishops.

So they separated from the Established Church, and became what were called Nonconformists,—­having not only disgust of the decent ritualism of the Church, but great wrath for the bishops and hierarchy and spiritual courts.  They also disapproved of the holy days which the Church retained, and the prayers and the cathedral style of worship, the use of the cross in baptism, godfathers and godmothers, the confirmation of children, kneeling at the sacrament, bowing at the name of Jesus, the ring in marriage, the surplice, the divine right of bishops, and some other things which reminded them of Rome, for which they had absolute detestation, seeing in the old Catholic Church nothing but abominations and usurpations, no religion at all, only superstition and anti-Christian government and doctrine,—­the reign of the beast, the mystic Babylon, the scarlet mother revelling in the sorceries of ancient Paganism.  These terrible animosities against even the shadows and resemblances of what was called Popery were increased and intensified by the persecution and massacres which the Catholics about this time were committing on the Protestants in France and Germany and the Low Countries, and which filled the people of England,—­especially the middle and lower classes,—­with fear, alarm, anger, and detestation.

I will not enter upon the dissensions which so early crept into the English Church, and led to a separation or a schism, whatever name it goes by,—­to most people in these times not very interesting or edifying, because they were not based on any great ideas of universal application, and seeming to such minds as Bacon and Parker and Jewell rather narrow and frivolous.