With all their great and
terrible ostentation, they did not, in all their sailing round about
England, so much as sink or take one ship, bark, pinnace, or cock-boat
of ours, or even burn so much as one sheep-cote on the land."
CHAPTER VIII.
_FREEDOM'S VOYAGE TO AMERICA._
DISSENT AND PERSECUTION.
1. Through the middle ages England, like the rest of the world, had
been in full communion with the Church of Rome. When the Reformation
had swept over Europe and left dissent to crystallize into various
Protestant sects, England too had dissented, and her king had
established the Anglican Church. This church, when it assumed final
form, had for its supreme head, not the pope, but the king, and under
him the clergy held their offices. The Roman Catholic ritual was not,
as in some of the European sects, entirely given up, but was modified
to suit the new order. And when the change was effected, the new
ministers firm in their positions, the new service-books ready for
use, then the Catholics were summarily ordered to embrace the reformed
faith.
2. At that time it had not dawned upon the world that there might be
more than one way to worship God in truth. Catholics honestly believed
that Protestants were going straight to perdition, and Protestants as
honestly believed that a like fate was in store for the pope and his
followers.
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