2. No part of exterior religion was more prominent, or more offensive to those who had imbibed a protestant spirit, than the worship, or at least veneration, of images, which in remote and barbarous ages had given excessive scandal both in the Greek and Latin churches, though long fully established in the practice of each. The populace, in towns where the reformed tenets prevailed, began to pull them down in the very first days of Edward's reign; and after a little pretence at distinguishing those which had not been abused, orders were given that all images should be taken away from churches. It was perhaps necessary thus to hinder the zealous Protestants from abating them as nuisances, which had already caused several disturbances.[120] But this order was executed with a rigour which lovers of art and antiquity have long deplored. Our churches bear witness to the devastation committed in the wantonness of triumphant reform, by defacing statues and crosses on the exterior of buildings intended for worship, or windows and monuments within. Missals and other books dedicated to superstition perished in the same manner. Altars were taken down, and a great variety of ceremonies abrogated; such as the use of incense, tapers, and holy water; and though more of these were retained than eager innovators could approve, the whole surface of religious ordinances, all that is palpable to common minds, underwent a surprising transformation. 3. But this change in ceremonial observances and outward show was trifling, when compared to that in the objects of worship, and in the purposes for which they were addressed. Those who have visited some catholic temples, and attended to the current language of devotion, must have perceived, what the writings of apologists or decrees of councils will never enable them to discover, that the saints, but more especially the Virgin, are almost exclusively the _popular_ deities of that religion. All this polytheism was swept away by the reformers; and in this may be deemed to consist the most specific difference of the two systems. Nor did they spare the belief in purgatory, that unknown land which the hierarchy swayed with so absolute a rule, and to which the earth had been rendered a tributary province. Yet in the first liturgy put forth under Edward, the prayers for departed souls were retained; whether out of respect to the prejudices of the people, or to the immemorial antiquity of the practice. But such prayers, if not necessarily implying the doctrine of purgatory (which yet in the main they appear to do), are at least so closely connected with it, that the belief could never be eradicated while they remained. Hence, in the revision of the liturgy, four years afterwards, they were laid aside;[121] and several other changes made, to eradicate the vestiges of the ancient superstition.