Protestantism was, therefore, not a popular religion, and to thousands of educated men it did not appeal. Few people are so immaterialistic that they can dispense with symbols; many can idealize symbols in which others see nothing but matter; and only those devoid of artistic perception deny the religious value of sculpture, painting, and music. Protestantism might be an ideal religion if men were compounded of pure reason; being what they were, many adopted it because they were impervious to artistic influence or impatient of spiritual discipline. It will hardly do to divide the nation into intelligent Protestants and illiterate Catholics: the point is that the somewhat crude symbolism which had satisfied the cravings of the average man had ceased to be sufficient for his newer intelligent needs; he demanded either a higher symbolism or else as little as possible. Some felt the symbol a help, others felt it a hindrance to the realization of the ideal; so some men can see better with, others without, spectacles, but that fact would hardly justify their abolition. Henry VIII confined his sympathies to the revolt of the nation against Rome and the revolt of the laity against the priests. The former he used to make himself Supreme Head of the church, the latter to subdue convocation and despoil the monasteries. All civilized countries have found it expedient sooner or later to follow his example with regard to monastic wealth; and there can be little doubt that the withholding of so much land and so many men and women from productive purposes impeded the material prosperity of the nation. But the devotion of the proceeds to the foundation of private families, instead of to educational endowment, can only be explained and not excused by the exigencies of political tactics. His real services were political, not religious. He taught England a good deal of her insular confidence; he proclaimed the indivisible and indisputable sovereignty of the crown in parliament; he not only incorporated Wales and the county palatine of Chester with England, and began the English re-organization of Ireland, but he united England north with England south of the Humber, and consolidated the Borders, those frayed edges of the national state. He carried on the work of Henry II and Edward I, and by subduing rival jurisdictions stamped a final unity on the framework of the government.