"Such was the tolerant spirit of this Church when she was young. As to her burnings under Cranmer (who made the Prayer-book), they are hardly worthy of particular notice, when we have before us the sweeping cruelties of this first Protestant reign, during which, short as it was, the people of England suffered so much that the suffering actually thinned their numbers; it was a people partly destroyed, and that too in the space of about six years; and this is acknowledged even in Acts of Parliament of that day. But this LAW-CHURCH was established in reality during the reign of Old Bess, which lasted forty-five years; that is, from 1558 to 1603; and though this Church has always kept up its character, even to the present day, its deeds during this long reign are the most remarkable. "Bess (the shorter the name the better), established what she called a _court of high commission_, consisting chiefly of _bishops_ of your Lordship's '_most tolerant_ Church,' in order to punish all who did not conform to her religious creed, she being '_the head of the Church_.' This commission were empowered to have control over the _opinions_ of all men, and to punish all men according to their _discretion short of death_. They had power to extort evidence by the _prison_ or by the rack. They had power to compel a man (_on oath_) to _reveal his thoughts_, and to _accuse himself, his friend, brother, parent, wife, or child_; and this, too, on _pain of death_. These monsters, in order to _discover priests_, and to crush the old religion, _fined, imprisoned, racked_, and did such things as would have made Nero shudder to think of. They sent hundreds to the _rack_ in order to get from them confessions, _on which confessions many of them were put to death_. "I have not room to make even an enumeration of the deeds of religious persecution of this long and bloody reign; but I will state a few of them.