"Such was the tolerant spirit of this church when she was young. As to her burnings under Cranmer (who made the prayer book), they are hardly worthy of particular notice, when we have before us the sweeping cruelties of this first Protestant reign, during which, short as it was, the people of England suffered so much that the suffering actually thinned their numbers; it was a people partly destroyed, and that, too, in the space of about six years; and this is acknowledged even in acts of Parliament of that day. But this law-church was established in reality during the reign of Elizabeth, which lasted forty-five years; that is, from 1558 to 1603; and though this church has always kept up its character, even to the present day, its deeds during this long reign are the most remarkable. "Elizabeth established what she called 'a court of high commission' consisting chiefly of bishops of your lordship's 'most tolerant church,' in order to punish all who did not conform to her religious creed, she being 'the head of the church.' This commission was empowered to have control over the 'opinions' of all men, and to punish all men according to their 'discretion, short of death.' They had power to extort evidence by prison or the rack. They had power to compel a man (on oath) to 'reveal his thoughts,' and to 'accuse his friend, brother, parent, wife, or child;' and this, too, on 'pain of death.' These monsters, in order to 'discover priests,' and to crush the old religion, 'fined, imprisoned, racked,' and did such things as would have made Nero shudder to think of. They sent hundreds to the rack in order to get from them confessions, 'on which confession many of them were put to death.' "I have not room to make even an enumeration of the deeds of religious persecution during this long and 'tolerant' reign; but I will state a few of them: 1. It was death to make a new Catholic priest within the kingdom. 2. It was death for a Catholic priest to come into the kingdom from abroad. 3. It was death to harbor a Catholic priest coming from abroad. 4. It was death to confess to such a priest. 5. It was death for any priest to say mass. 6. It was death for any one to hear mass. 7. It was death to deny, or not to swear, if called on, that this woman was the head of the church of Christ.