ized to strip the churches generally of what they might deem superfluous chalices, or cups, or other ornaments; and this appears to have been done pretty thoroughly, a single chalice or cup only being left to a church.

These robberies of church property, however inexcusable, were but the legitimate fruits of a system of falsehood and fraud which had been practised on the people for centuries. They had seen. the priestly hierarchy, by various methods and pretences, gradually absorbing the wealth of the nation. From the meanest mendicant, who went about in his accumulated filth, to the pope himself, the great licenser of them all, who supported his royal state by means of the money extorted from all, the people had been taught lessons of dishonesty; and it was not strange that when the spell of fear was broken, and these plunderers came to be seen in their true characters, as immoral, unprincipled, dissolute creatures, the people thought themselves entitled to divide the spoil of the spoilers, and get back into their own possession whatever they could of the dishonest accumulations of the priesthood.

Strype draws a pitiable picture of the men and manners of Edward's reign. He He says: " How good soever Edward was, and what care soever was taken for the bringing in the knowledge of the gospel, and restoring Christ's true religion, the manners of men were very naught, especially of a great sort of them. Among the grandees and

noblemen, many were insatiably covetous. The truth of this appears, not only in their grasping at the church lands, rents, plate, etc., but in their raising the rents on tenants, enclosing commons which had been for generations open pasturage for poor men's cattle, perverting of justice by intimidation or bribery, and finally, by hoarding up all the gold they could get. In fine," continues Strype," to this pass had covetousness brought the nation, that every man scraped and pilled [pillaged] from other; every man would seek the blood of others; every man encroached upon another. It cut away the large wings of charity, and plucked all to herself. She had chested all the old gold in England, and much of the new."

It is represented as a period of extortion, bribery, oppression of the poor by the rich; when the "commonalty" hated the gentry, and "laid all the misery of the commonwealth upon the gentlemen's shoulders"; when murders were common, and murderers went unpunished; when divorces were scandalously frequent, and when, "above all other vices, the outrageous seas of adultery" and kindred crimes "burst in, and overwhelmed all the world."

Such is the dark picture drawn by no unfriendly hand, of the men and morals of Edward's reign. But, though the age was undoubtedly a corrupt

* Ecc. Mems., vol. 11. pt. 11. bk. 11. ch. 23, pp. 131-37. The entire chapter (23d) is devoted to "The Manners of all Sorts of Men in these Times."

one, it may well be doubted whether it was more corrupt than others which had preceded it and which followed it in English history. The prominent reason why the corruptions of this period stand out before us so distinctly, is, that there was more light let in on England during this period than ever before; and in that light, vice appears more distinctly than ever before. Few periods, before or since, have had such a reprover of vice. as was old Hugh Latimer; from whose terse, rough, sharp discourses much of our knowledge of the prevailing vices and sins of the times is derived. No doubt, however, wickedness did abound during the reign of the admirable and devout young king, Edward VI., much of which might have been reduced out of sight, if not actually removed from the nation, had that wonderful prince lived to his father's age. He had but just begun to exert an influence on the manners of his age, when he was cut down by death. England had long been proverbial for its turbulent and lawless conduct during the reign of minors; as, for example, during the reign of Edward V., Henry VI., and Richard II., not to instance other reigns. It required the arm of a strong, brave man to hold and guide that great flesh-eating, beer-drinking, war-loving animal, Great Britain; and whenever an inexperienced, or a weak and timid hand was laid on the reins, the beast always knew it and acted accordingly. Edward's reign was no exceptional case therefore. But, besides all this, there

were circumstances peculiar in this case. Edward was brought to the throne in the midst of one of the mightiest revolutions ever witnessed in that kingdom or the world—a religious revolution — a change of religion—a change of gods even. The pope of Rome, who for centuries had been revered in England as the vicegerent of Christ, had just been cast down from his throne, and thrust out of the kingdom, as a loathsome imposture; and all his power and influence, his peculiar claims and rights, utterly repudiated; and all the idolatry of pilgrimages, image-worship, and relicadoration denounced; in a word, the people had just been cut loose from all their accustomed habits of thought and feeling and acts of worship, and an entirely new system had been introduced, which few thoroughly understood, and yet fewer fully appreciated. The old religion had been taken from the nation, and the new had not become familiar to the people. From a habit of entire dependence on outward rites and ceremonies and a peculiarly consecrated priesthood, the people were now being taught that a man is justified by faith alone; and that the old system was the work of the devil. Under these circumstances, it is not strange-it would have been much more strange had it been otherwise that there should have been an unsettled, unsatisfactory state of things in the community. The elements had been shaken up most thoroughly, and time was required for them to settle.

IT has been claimed that the English Reformation was essentially a triumph of Lollardism. A comparison of the sentiments of the old Lollards with those of the Reformers of Henry VIII's reign, and even with those expressed in the authoritative standards of faith promulgated by Henry, will, it is believed, demonstrate this. It is not claimed that the English church, as organized and established at the Reformation, was in all respects such as John Wickliffe would have made it, had his strong head and warm heart given it outward form and inward organization; but only, that many of the essential doctrines of the Lollards were not merely admitted by the Reformers to be sound and scriptural, but were actually established by law as the religion of the State.* Though this matter has been already alluded to generally, it may be acceptable to those for whom these pages are

* See Bishop Burnet's remarks on this topic, (Hist. Ref., vol. 1. pt. 1. bk. III. p. 454,) quoted ante, page 106.