Putting together all these materials for forming an opinion of the spiritual condition of the people during the period embraced in this work, we should say, that what was true of one place might not be true of another; that in cities and larger towns many of the middle classes became sincere Presbyterians and Independents, whilst in small towns and villages Royalism lingered, associated with a strong attachment to Episcopacy; that in both Puritan and Anglican instances, eminent piety existed by the side of hypocrisy and immorality; and that amidst a great deal of formalism, superficial religion, and mere external morality, there flourished a large amount of vital godliness; that spirituality of feeling might be often found apart from wisdom, and coupled with unhealthy excitement; that Puritans were intensely anti-ritualistic, hating "pontifician fooleries," and joining to "hiss them out of the Church"[469]--their English common sense, as well as the spiritual perception of the genius of the Gospel, causing them to revolt from the absurdities of "Catholic" ceremonials; that Anglicans themselves, by the time the Civil Wars were over, had learned a salutary lesson, and were weaned somewhat from the follies of Archbishop Laud, and under the Protectorate passed through a discipline which made them somewhat wiser at the Restoration, in reference to the pomp of worship than they had been twenty years before; that a large proportion of true Christians were then, as ever, of the common mediocre type, described as neither white, nor red, but "good brown ochre;" that the furnace of affliction purified the Episcopal part of the Church from some of the dross which had largely alloyed it at a previous period, and brought out the piety and patience of its confessors in beautiful colours whilst the temporal prosperity of Puritanism proved rather unfavourable to its spiritual character; and that, on the whole, there was a broader surface, and a richer depth of genuine piety during the period we have reviewed, than was the case just before or just afterwards. [Sidenote: _Theology._]