This story illustrates the feverish unrest of the time: the parish divided into furious parties; one clergyman preaching infant baptism; the other preaching that it was as idle to give the child a catechism as a rattle; calumniations and recriminations of the vilest kind; the Restoration; ejections; an attempt to earn a living by making cheese, by farming, by keeping a shop, by keeping a school. A strange story of a strange time! As a part of the religious aspect of the City one must not omit the desecration of St. Paul’s, which, during the twenty years 1640–1660, was carried out in a manner so resolute and thorough as to show the deliberate intention of giving the citizens, who still gloried in their venerable Cathedral, a lesson in the revolution of religious thought. The Cathedral, as Dean Milman says, was, under the Puritans, a vast useless pile, the lair of old superstition and idolatry. It would have been pulled down but for the trouble and the expense. The Parliament, however, did what they could to procure its destruction; there was a sum of £17,000 lying in the chambers of the City which remained out of the subscriptions for repairing the church. This was seized. There had also been erected round the tower a scaffolding of wood which was taken down and sold for £174, the whole being given to Colonel Jefferson’s regiment for arrears of pay. When the scaffolding was taken away, part of the roof of the south transept fell in. Whereupon the Mayor and Aldermen represented the necessity of getting more water into the City, and begged the lead that covered the roof towards the pipes for carrying the water. In 1642 the removal of crucifixes and other superstitious objects was ordered. In the same year all the copes belonging to the Cathedral were burned. In 1645 the silver plate of St. Paul’s was sold, and the money spent in providing artillery. The Cathedral, according to the story, was offered by Cromwell to the Jews, who refused to buy it. The east end was walled off for the congregation of the lecturer, Cornelius Burgess. Inigo’s portico was let out in small shops to sempstresses and hucksters, with chambers above and stairs leading to them. The body of the church became a cavalry barrack and stable. Paul’s Cross was pulled down. The intolerance of the time may be illustrated by a hundred stories. Take, for instance, the punishment of the unfortunate James Naylor.