He was in October only the same versatile and impetuous, but well-meaning person, which he had shewn himself to be in May. [Sidenote: 1641, September.] Another member, who expressed his alarm at the distractions of the times, was Mr. Smith, of the Middle Temple. While denouncing the "Book of Sports" and the persecutions inflicted by the Anglican party, he deplored existing differences of religious opinion, and besought his countrymen to worship God with one mind, and not go every one a way by himself. In the stilted euphuism of the day, he lamented that uncertainty staggers the unresolved soul, and leads it into such a labyrinth, that, not knowing where to fix for fear of erring, it adheres to nothing, and so dies ere it performs that for which it was made to live. Uniformity in religious worship, he proceeded to say, is that which pleaseth God, and, if we will thus serve Him, we may expect His protection; and then, passing over to the constitutional question, the orator declared both prerogative and liberty to be necessary, and that like the sun and moon they gave a lustre to the nation, so long as they walked at proper distances. But, he added, when one ventures into the other's orbit, like planets in conjunction, they then occasion a deep eclipse. "What shall be the compass, then, by which these two must steer? Why, nothing but the same by which they subsist--the law, which if it might run in the free current of its purity, without being poisoned by the venomous spirits of ill-affected dispositions, would so fix the King to his crown that it would make him stand like a star in the firmament, for the neighbour world to behold and tremble at."[224] Smith did not plunge into that ecclesiastical reaction which had carried Dering completely away; but he contended for some measure of uniformity and for the suppression of increasing sects, whilst in political matters he recommended a course of moderation. [Sidenote: _Debates by the Commons._]