It is very remarkable that the Act omitted to provide for uniformity in certain important particulars; and it has failed to produce the uniformity intended in others.[345] Nothing was done in relation to psalmody; forms of prayer and praise in prose were rigidly set down, but forms of prayer and praise in verse were left to be composed or adopted at the pleasure of any one, subject only to the doubtful authority of the Bishop or Ordinary. The formularies of the Prayer Book relating to baptism have long received from Episcopalians contradictory interpretations; and, of late years, liberty in this respect has been legally conceded, as not inconsistent with the Act of Uniformity. The obscurity of the rubric on the subject of ornaments renders a decision of the controversy by ecclesiastical lawyers a difficult matter, and consequently places Bishops in perplexity as to what is the law, and how they are to proceed. We are struck with the _unequal pressure_ of the Act. It made clerical practice in some respects very strict, and in others very lax: whilst, as to prominent points then in dispute between Episcopalians and Presbyterians, the law is precise; as to other points, far from unimportant, the same law, through intention or neglect, opened, or left open, a wide field for difference and for controversy. [Sidenote: 1662.] The experience of a hundred years was thrown away upon the authors of the measure. The first Act of Uniformity under Elizabeth had proved a failure--the subsequent history of her reign had shown, that this contrivance to repress the spirit of religious liberty, produced no more effect than did the green withs which bound Samson. The troubles of James' reign, the overthrow of Laud's policy, together with his sufferings and death, illustrated the mischievous consequences of confounding unity with uniformity, and of seeking the first by means of the second. Grindal and other prelates had been sick at heart, through fruitless endeavours made to secure spiritual obedience by physical force. Lord Bacon had pointed out the difference between unity and uniformity, and had reproved the persecutor, by saying, that the silencing of ministers was a punishment that lighteth upon the people, as well as upon the party;[346] others of humbler name had still more clearly explained, and still more directly enforced, the lessons of toleration. But all in vain; the teaching of a whole century had been wasted on the contrivers and supporters of the second Act of Uniformity. The Act did not merely eject all Incumbents who scrupled to comply with its requirement, but it silenced throughout the land all the preachers of Christianity who were not Conformists. [Sidenote: ACT OF UNIFORMITY.]