“The voice is to be tunably and gravely ordered: but the chief care must be, to sing with understanding, and with Grace in the heart, making melody unto the Lord.” “That the whole Congregation may joyne herein, every one that can read is to have a Psalme book, and all others not disabled by age, or otherwise, are to be exhorted to learn to read. But for the present, where many in the Congregation cannot read, it is convenient that the Minister, or some other fit person appointed by him and the other Ruling Officers, doe read the Psalme, line by line, before the singing thereof” (_Directory_, p. 43). On the 23rd of August following, another ordinance was passed for the taking away of the Book of Common Prayer from all churches and chapels in the kingdom. It was also ordered that the knights and burgesses of the counties should send copies of the Directory, bound in leather, to the constables and other officers of every parish in the kingdom, and that within one week after receiving the books, the constables should hand the books to the minister of the parish. Pains and penalties for disobedience to these orders conclude the Ordinance. There are abundant materials for showing the violence of the passions excited in London by the religious controversy of the time. We see the soldiers on guard at Lambeth breaking into the church in time of service, tearing the Prayer Book to pieces, stripping the clergyman of his surplice, and desecrating the altar, until the Thames watermen come to the assistance of the people and there is a fight in the body of the church. We see a party of horse riding through the streets, four of them attired in surplices, tearing the Book of Common Prayer in pieces, leaf by leaf, with gestures unseemly. We find the clergy accused of the most infamous crimes—“common drunkenness, looseness of life, adultery,” and worse. We find some of the people in church sitting with their hats on, and some with their hats off, and riots in consequence. We hear of fanatics preaching the wildest doctrines and forming the most wonderful sects. There is neither tolerance, nor charity, nor patience. There is no authority; there is no respect for learning; every one, in every station, interprets Scripture in blind confidence that he is fully equal to the task of framing a bran-new constitution for a bran-new sect. And with it all, a power almost pathetic, of sitting out the longest sermons. On one occasion two ministers, one after the other, engaged the attention of the House of Commons for seven long hours. The people presently grew weary of the incessant wranglings over doctrine; sane persons began to understand that the task of making ignorant men and women agree in matters of creed was hopeless; it became understood that divergence of opinion would be no more tolerated by Independents than it was by Presbyterians; at this point of weariness it was extremely fortunate for the country that the reaction restored