Roman Catholicism, during the Middle Ages, had given scope to the institution, and had paid attention to the culture, of voluntary societies. Such societies had sprung up in different parts of Europe amongst the Clergy and amongst the Laity, being placed in subjection to the laws, animated by sympathy with the spirit, and directed to the promotion of the interests of the Church. Monks praying in cloisters, friars preaching in streets, secular fraternities in towns and cities visiting the poor and sick, had engaged in spontaneous activity, yet had remained faithful to their spiritual mother. English Protestantism, at first, did not produce or encourage any such forms of operation. Cathedral and parochial clergymen, in dignified or humble routine, were its only authorized agents. Missionary efforts, foreign and domestic, as well as lay associations for spiritual improvement, were unknown. In one ascertained exceptional instance, under Edward VI., an unordained person was allowed to preach; but it was the rule to exclude all but men in orders from every kind of public or socially organized usefulness. Not only were Anglicans destitute of any association of lay helpers in Christian work at home, and of any means for carrying on Missions abroad, but Puritans were in the same predicament, since meetings for prophesying, catechizing, and lecturing, and plans for purchasing presentations to livings, did not constitute the kind of co-operation now in view. Presbyterians, and many Independents also, not only from necessity, but from that neglect of unclerical enterprise which characterized the age, confined themselves, with few exceptions, to pulpit teaching and pastoral influences. High Church and Low Church, the Establishment and the sects, exhibited disregard of a principle in full play in other portions of Western Christendom. A clerical jealousy of laymen, a fear of schism, and a dislike of everything approaching to irregularity, lay at the bottom of the Anglican aversion to lay agency. Prejudices of a similar kind influenced Puritans; for although there existed abundant religious irregularity during the Commonwealth, there were not a few amongst Nonconformists wedded to their own notions of church order. They were High Churchmen in their own way, regarding the ecclesiastical principles of the New Testament as so comprehensive in their direct application, as to render all associations distinguished from the Church itself as perfectly needless. [Sidenote: RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES.]