The Quakers appeared about a hundred years after the decentralization of authority in theological science. The Reformers' dream of a remade church had ended in a Europe where, over against an alienated parent, four young Protestant communions disputed together as to the doctrinal interpretation of the scriptures. Within these communions the goal towards which the breaking away from the Roman centre had been an unconscious step was already well in view. It was obvious that the separated churches were helpless against the demands arising in their midst for the right of individual interpretation where they themselves drew such widely differing conclusions. The Bible, abroad amongst the people for the first time, helped on the loosening of the hold of stereotyped beliefs. Independent groups appeared in every direction. In England, the first movement towards the goal of "religious liberty" was made by a body of believers who declared that a national church was against the will of God. Catholic in ideal, democratic in form, they set their hope upon a world-wide Christendom of self-governing congregations. They increased with great rapidity, suffered persecution, martyrdom, and temporary dispersal.[1] Following on this first challenge came the earliest stirring of a more conservative catholicism. Fed by such minds as that of Nicholas Farrer, grieving in scholarly seclusion over the ravages of the Protestantisms, it found expression in Laud's effort to restore the broken continuity of tradition in the English church, to reintroduce beauty into her services, and, while preserving her identity as a developing national body, to keep open a rearward window to the light of accumulated experience and teaching. But hardly-won freedom saw popery in his every act, and his final absolutism, his demand for executive power independent of Parliament, wrecked the effort and cost him his life. [Footnote 1: The Brownists; now represented in the Congregational Union.]