"I can see naught idolatrous in it."
"Why should our pretty May Queen be despoiled of her ornaments because
they please not his fanatical taste?" Dick Taverner demanded. "For my
part I can discern no difference between a Puritan and a knave, and I
would hang both."
This sally met with a favourable reception from the crowd, and a voice
exclaimed--"Ay, hang all knavish Puritans."
Again Hugh Calveley lifted up his voice. "Think not to make me afraid,"
he cried; "I have confronted armed hosts with boldness when engaged in a
worse cause than this, and I am not likely to give way before a base
rabble, now that I have become a soldier of Christ and fight his
battles. I repeat my warnings to you, and will not hold my peace till
you give heed to them. Continue not in the sins of the Gentiles lest
their punishment come upon you. These are fearful times we live in.
London is become another Nineveh, and will be devoured by flames like
that great city. It is full of corruption and debauchery, of
oppressions, thefts, and deceits. With the prophet Nahum I exclaim--'Wo
to the city, it is full of lies and robbery! What griping usury, what
extortion are practised within it! What fraud, what injustice, what
misrule! But the Lord's anger will be awakened against it. Palaces of
kings are of no more account in His eyes than cottages of peasants.--He
cutteth off the spirits of Princes: he is terrible to the Kings of the
earth.' He knoweth no difference between them that sit on thrones, and
those that go from door to door.
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