Act of Uniformity

“ Another circle, men of a serious cast of countenance and of a growing simplicity in dress, left the Act of Uniformity in obscurity, and after the deliverance from the Pope, made the important happening the support given the Protestant principle in France and the Netherlands. ”

“ The matter was debated with much acrimony, and the Council intervened with a royal letter forbidding any interference with the congregation. So far as I know, this was the only act of toleration perpetrated during the reign of Edward VI. [11]
The second Act of Uniformity need not detain us. The Prayer-book had been elaborately revised, still without the initiative or concurrence of Parliament. The statute of 1549, however, hindered the use of the revised Book ”

“ THE ACTS OF UNIFORMITY The Acts of Uniformity are incidents in a great movement. They are far from being the most important of its incidents. Their importance has perhaps been exaggerated, and their purport is commonly misunderstood. ”

“ You may go from Asia to America, from Vancouver to Vladivostock, and you will see uniformity in the rules of dress. This uniformity is all the more remarkable, because its laws, instead of being fixed and stationary, are constantly altered; indeed, in comparison with the power of fashion, the powers of the greatest autocrat or of the most efficient public office are as nothing. The autocrat may give an order ”

“ The policy of the Acts of Uniformity is to be taken as a whole. The writer of the paper in the Record Office to which I have referred, purporting to give an account of what was done in 1559, explains that parliamentary action is limited to enforcing the use of the Book by penalties. Further authority than this, he says emphatically, is not in the Parliament. ”

“ Perhaps equality is hardly the word to use here, since uniformity is the thing aimed at; but the root of the proposal is in the dogma we are considering. The tendency of the age is to uniformity. The facilities of travel and communication, the new inventions and the use of machinery in manufacturing, bring men into close and uniform relations, and induce the disappearance of national characteristics and of race peculiarities. ”

“ You would tell me that you asked for unity and I had given you uniformity. Uniformity you can have anywhere; in modern life all is standardized and stereotyped; you have it in the great hotel and the Atlantic liner—there you have men of all nations, they do the same thing at the same time, they eat the same food and wear the same clothes ”

“ Uniformity, or a near approach to it, was produced, not so much by the abolition of differences as by superadding one and the same governmental machinery in all parts of the Empire. It is an essential feature of the satrapial system that it does not aim at destroying differences, or assimilating to one type the various races and countries over which it is extended. ”

“ Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. ”

“ A correct orthography would render the pronunciation of the language as uniform as the spelling in books. A general uniformity thro the United States would be [Pg 198] the event of such a reformation as I am here recommending. All persons, of every rank, would speak with some degree of precision and uniformity. Such a uniformity in these States is very desirable; it would remove prejudice, and conciliate mutual affection and respect.
"3. Such a reform would diminish the number of letters about one sixteenth or eighteenth. ”

“ Much loose thinking along these lines would be obviated if every one could learn clearly the distinction between "equality" and "uniformity." It is the thought of uniformity that makes most persons belligerent toward democratic impulses in industry or society. They dislike the idea of a dead level of compulsory uniformity. ”

“ The modern condition of great states being therefore forced upon us by the railway and telegraph, the only practical question is the form of life in such communities. Uniformity that is enforced, either by law, or by custom or fashion, is certainly a detriment, as it will suppress the useful variations when they arise. ”

“ Their leaders become a prey to the great delusion of the Russian ecclesiastical tyrant, that uniformity is a beautiful thing, and that it represents power. Uniformity is not a beautiful thing. There is no uniformity in God’s creation, either in the natural or the spiritual world. The insistence on uniformity crushes out individuality and hinders initiative. ”

“ It is needless to say that the whole value and object of the whole movement for uniformity is to have actual uniformity. That is to say, unless the lawyer or citizen reading the statute can be sure that it is uniform with the laws of all other States without taking the trouble to consult them, the reform has no value. ”

“ I fully agree with Mill in recognizing the dangers of uniformity, but I doubt whether what he calls the régime of public opinion is alone, or even chiefly, answerable for it. No doubt there are some people in whose eyes uniformity seems an advantage rather than a disadvantage. If all were equally strong, equally educated, equally honest, equally rich, equally tall, or equally small, society would seem to them to have reached the highest ideal. ”

“ We burn incense and we wear Geneva gowns. This diversity is not to be condemned. What is to be deprecated is the feeling among some of us that the diversity should give place to uniformity—to uniformity of their own kind, of course. ”

“ We are but so many individuals. It is in the Legislature that the congregations, the party most interested in this cause, meet collectively by their representatives."—Lastly, let it not be overlooked, that the root of the bitterness was common to both parties,—namely, the conviction of the vital importance of uniformity;—and this admitted, surely an undoubted majority in favor of what is already law must decide whose uniformity it is to be. ”

“ Or since geography is by statutory authority taught in our elementary schools, are we to infer that the world revolves on its axis subject to the British Constitution?
The Prayer-book is a liturgical document, and surely it should be interpreted by the principles which apply not to statutes, but to liturgies in general.
If the Acts of Uniformity are not laws for regulating divine worship, what are they? I should call them, briefly, laws of persecution. They were intended to enforce on all men by criminal process the observance of the Church's forms. ”

“ The uniformity of occupation, the uniformity of law, the absence of institutions, like the church, the army, family pride, in fact, the uniformity of the present and the sudden evaporation of all the past, have ground the men to a standard.
America turns out only one kind of man. ”

“ What reason there is, or would be, to boast of the happy effects of uniformity in a great number of societies, comprehending a whole kingdom, or the whole christian world, we may judge from the horrible evils, before recited, that attend the necessary methods of enforcing this uniformity in a single society; for these must be multiplied in proportion to the number. We see, in fact, much more good than harm is found to result from the diversities in dissenting congregations. ”

“ An uniformity in the weights and measures of the country is among the important objects submitted to you by the Constitution, and if it can be derived from a standard at once invariable and universal, must be no less honorable to the public councils than conducive to the public convenience. ”

“ Each convention, every organization is founded upon the polished square of Equality, and membership is freely extended to male and female alike; thus rounding out the perfect circle of harmonious life. ”

“ The standard of uniformity, according to the bishops, was the queen's supremacy and the laws of the land; according to the puritans, the decrees of provincial and national synods, allowed and enforced by the civil magistrate; but neither party were for admitting that liberty of conscience and freedom of profession which is every man's right, as far as is consistent with the peace of the government he lives under. ”

“ We are not now to press the want of full satisfaction in the much desired work of Uniformity, as the ground of a breach between the Nations; Though we still conceive, this Nation will never be wanting to prosecute that work to the uttermost of their power in all lawful ways, according to the League and Covenant. ”

“ For the soldiers there is the same uniform, and when you say uniform you mean equality in devotion, in the risk of life, and in loyalty to duty. Between the classes of society there is no contention, there is only emulation. ”

“ It is a symptom of decline when Giovanni della Casa warns his readers not to be singular or to depart from existing fashions Our own age, which, in men's dress at any rate, treats uniformity as the supreme law, gives up by so doing far more than it is aware of. ”

“ This itself was a great blow to the feudal system, for the essence of that organized society was equality among its members, united to subordination of conventional rank,—a strange and beautiful style of feeling between the highest and the lowest of that manly brotherhood, which made the simple chevalier equal to the king as touching their common knighthood,—of which we have at the present time the modernized form in the feeling which makes the loftiest in the land recognise an equal and a friend in the person of an untitled gentleman. ”

“ What we want is to establish more fully an opinion of uniformity, and consistency of character, in the leading men of the state; such as will restore some confidence to profession and appearance, such as will fix subordination upon esteem. ”

“ There is no need for insisting on uniformity in these matters. There must be uniformity in the ends sought. There must be free recognition of the possible need of diversity in the methods of attainment. ”

“ But if, on the other hand, it be said that our character is not the mere fruit of our antecedents and surroundings, the law of uniformity is clearly broken. A new element has come into the world, namely, my character, which has not come out of the antecedents and surroundings according to any fixed law. ”

“ For, after all, clothes are a convention; a convention of decency and seemliness it is true, but still a convention and not an eternal law. An African woman, clad in a bead girdle, may be, and very likely is, as modest, or much more modest, than an Englishwoman dressed for a great dinner according to the latest dictates of the prevailing fashion. Clothes, I say, are a convention and a convention that affects the body only; how much more important is the clothing of the mind? ”

“ The advantages of a universal uniformity of costumes would be far-reaching. There would be no further occasion for any one to look askance at another, as has frequently happened when some stranger has been seen wearing what was considered an uncomely or unsuitable garb; universal uniformity of costume would also tend to draw people closer together, and to make them more friendly. Uniforms and badges promote brotherhood. I have enough faith in the American people to believe that my humble suggestion will receive their favorable consideration and that in due time it will be carried into effect. ”

“ It is difficult to find a reason why an exception should be made in favour of honorarium and honorary; and, unless the H of these words can offer a better plea for entering into the pronunciation than can the H’s of the other formatives of Honor, we may—after the style of Lucian in his trial of the letter T—move for its expulsion. The rejection of an anomaly is a valuable improvement of which judgment approves, and which a love of regularity will vindicate and maintain. Uniformity presents so many advantages, that small concessions of opinion will be willingly made in order to secure it. ”

“ The same uniformity, it is yielded, is not so strictly necessary in other matters of taste: men, though connected in general as members of the same state, are, by birth, office, or occupation, separated and distinguished into different classes ”

“ Every one who entered this society was obliged, at least so long as he continued to be a member of it, to lay aside all distinctions arising from rank, nation, or religion, in short, every general mark or distinction whatever, and to submit himself to the condition of universal equality. ”

“ The doctrine further teaches that the most perfect union, harmony, peace and good-fellowship are compatible with great diversity of character, rank, occupation and office; that this diversity, indeed, renders the union and harmony all the more perfect when the different parts in the social body are duly adjusted, and one life pervades them all. It shows us that gradations of rank and character may exist without pride, disdain, or tyranny on the one hand, or envy, jealousy, or humiliation on the other ”

“ Now, when I look around me in this dining hall and see the variety and beauty of the costumes, I am bound to say that the result of your system seems satisfactory, and yet I think it would strike even the strongest believer in the principle of democracy that the rule of the majority ought scarcely to extend to dress. ”

“ We are all formed by custom—even the difference of our race from the savage is but the transmitted continuance of custom, which becomes, through hereditary descent, part and parcel of our nature. You see there are Ana who even reconcile themselves to the responsibilities of chief magistrate, but no one would do so if his duties had not been rendered so light, or if there were any questions as to compliance with his requests. ”