People's Candle); and it was published in four parts, in 1646, 1659, 1670, and 1672, all of them after the death of their author. To us the work is valuable for the light which it sheds upon the manners of the day. If the good Vicar is to be believed, Wales must have been in a most deplorable condition, the people's ignorance gross and sordid, and their morals simply bestial. No Separatist ever painted a darker picture of Wales in the first century of the history of the Anglican Church than did this candid and friendly critic. After a life of faithful service, the Vicar died in 1644. Before the close of the sixteenth century the future religious boundaries of this country had been clearly marked. The Elizabethan Settlement of religion had aimed at constructing a Church which should be wide enough to include the vast majority of English people. It was frankly a compromise, created with that express purpose. In spite, {165} however, of the latitude allowed, it had become apparent that for many people it was not wide enough. At one end stood a band of irreconcilable Catholics, who positively refused to conform, preferring to endure all manner of penalties and disabilities. At the other extremity stood an ever-growing body of people who longed for a more thorough Reformation, and who cast longing glances in the direction of Geneva. Already these people were beginning to be known as Puritans; and before the close of her reign Elizabeth had passed a statute to penalize them. A few implacable extremists had been deprived of their preferments in the Church as early as 1567, and had begun to form a Nonconformist Church at the Plumbers' Hall, in London, under the leadership of one Richard Fitz. He was followed by Robert Browne, Barrowe, Greenwood, Penry, and Robinson. These men were Independents. Meanwhile Thomas Helwys had come from Leyden, and had founded a Baptist Church in London. But for a long time the majority of Puritans remained within the Anglican Church; and it was not until the Romanizing policy of Laud, crudely conceived and savagely enforced, had declared itself that they came {166} out in thousands, and formed Churches of their own.