He favored the toleration of all forms of worship not directly opposed
to the government as then constituted. He befriended the Quakers, who
were looked upon as the enemies of every form of worship, and who were
treated with cruel severity both in England and America. He was
instrumental in sending the first Protestant missionaries to
Massachusetts to convert the Indiands, then supposed by many to be a
remnant of the lost tribes of Israel; and after an exclusion of many
centuries (S222), he permitted the Jews to return to England, and even
to build a synagogue in London.
On the other hand, there are few of the cathedral or parish churches
of England which do not continue to testify to the Puritan army's
destructive hatred of everything savoring of the rule of either Pope
or bishop.[1] The empty niches, where some gracious image of the
Virgin or the figure of some saint once looked down; the patched
remnants of brilliant stained glass, once part of a picture telling
some Scripture story; the mutilated statues of noted men; the tombs,
hacked and hewed by pike and sword, because they bore some emblem or
expression of the old faith,--all these still bear witness to the fury
of the Puritan soldiers, who did not respect even the graves of their
ancestors, if those ancestors had once thought differently from
themselves.
[1] But part of this destruction occurred under Henry VIII and Edward
VI (SS352, 364)