From this compromise the Church of England sprang. In many
respects, indeed, it has been well for her that, in an age of
exuberant zeal, her principal founders were mere politicians. To
this circumstance she owes her moderate articles, her decent
ceremonies, her noble and pathetic liturgy. Her worship is not
disfigured by mummery. Yet she has preserved, in a far greater
degree than any of her Protestant sisters, that art of striking
the senses and filling the imagination in which the Catholic
Church so eminently excels. But, on the other hand, she continued
to be, for more than a hundred and fifty years, the servile
handmaid of monarchy, the steady enemy of public liberty. The
divine right of kings, and the duty of passively obeying all
their commands, were her favourite tenets. She held those tenets
firmly through times of oppression, persecution, and
licentiousness; while law was trampled down; while judgment was
perverted; while the people were eaten as though they were bread.
Once, and but once, for a moment, and but for a moment, when her
own dignity and property were touched, she forgot to practise the
submission which she had taught.

Elizabeth clearly discerned the advantages which were to be
derived from a close connection between the monarchy and the
priesthood. At the time of her accession, indeed, she evidently
meditated a partial reconciliation with Rome; and, throughout her
whole life, she leaned strongly to some of the most obnoxious
parts of the Catholic system. But her imperious temper, her keen
sagacity, and her peculiar situation, soon led her to attach
herself completely to a church which was all her own. On the same
principle on which she joined it, she attempted to drive all her