CHAPTER VIII.

THE MARTYR PERIODS: RELIGIOUS ZEAL AND RELIGIOUS APATHY.

Religious life in the sixteenth century--Religion the great motive-power--The Lollard persecutions--Protestant martyrs of the sixteenth century--Anne Askew--Women martyrs in the seventeenth century--Persecution of the Quakeresses--Quaker doctrines--Seventeenth-century Anglicanism--Indifference of the Church to social work--Condition of the clergy--Mary Astell and her Protestant nunnery--The Countess of Warwick 235