The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 291

that of the church. Rome began by enjoining what God had not
forbidden, and she ended by forbidding what He had explicitly enjoined.
Many earnestly desired to return to the purity and simplicity
which characterized the primitive church. They regarded many of the
established customs of the English Church as monuments of idolatry,
and they could not in conscience unite in her worship. But the church,
being supported by the civil authority, would permit no dissent from
her forms. Attendance upon her service was required by law, and
unauthorized assemblies for religious worship were prohibited, under
penalty of imprisonment, exile, and death.
At the opening of the seventeenth century the monarch who had
just ascended the throne of England declared his determination to make
the Puritans “conform, or ... harry them out of the land, or else
worse.”—George Bancroft, History of the United States of America, pt.
1, ch. 12, par. 6. Hunted, persecuted, and imprisoned, they could
discern in the future no promise of better days, and many yielded to the
conviction that for such as would serve God according to the dictates
of their conscience, “England was ceasing forever to be a habitable
place.”—J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, ch. 3, par. 43. Some
at last determined to seek refuge in Holland. Difficulties, losses, and
imprisonment were encountered. Their purposes were thwarted, and
they were betrayed into the hands of their enemies. But steadfast
perseverance finally conquered, and they found shelter on the friendly
shores of the Dutch Republic.
In their flight they had left their houses, their goods, and their means
of livelihood. They were strangers in a strange land, among a people
of different language and customs. They were forced to resort to new
and untried occupations to earn their bread. Middle-aged men, who had
spent their lives in tilling the soil, had now to learn mechanical trades.
But they cheerfully accepted the situation and lost no time in idleness or
repining. Though often pinched with poverty,

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