2010年大學英語四六級考試精讀薈萃100篇(9)

　　Passage Nine (The Continuity of the Religious Struggle in Britain)

　　Though England was on the whole prosperous and hopeful, though by comparison with her neighbors she enjoyed internal peace, she could not evade the fact that the world of which she formed a part was torn by hatred and strife as fierce as any in human history. Men were still for from recognizing that two religions could exist side by side in the same society; they believed that the toleration of another religion different from their own. And hence necessarily false, must inevitably destroy such a society and bring the souls of all its members into danger of hell. So the struggle went on with increasing fury within each nation to impose a single creed upon every subject, and within the general society of Christendom to impose it upon every nation. In England the Reformers, or Protestants, aided by the power of the Crown, had at this stage triumphed, but over Europe as a whole Rome was beginning to recover some of the ground it had lost after Martin Luther’s revolt in the earlier part of the century. It did this in two ways, by the activities of its missionaries, as in parts of Germany, or by the military might of the Catholic Powers, as in the Low Countries, where the Dutch provinces were sometimes near their last extremity under the pressure of Spanish arms. Against England, the most important of all the Protestant nations to reconquer, military might was not yet possible because the Catholic Powers were too occupied and divided: and so, in the 1570’s Rome bent her efforts, as she had done a thousand years before in the days of Saint Augustine, to win England back by means of her missionaries.

　　These were young Englishmen who had either never given up the old faith, or having done so, had returned to it and felt called to become priests. There being, of course, no Catholic seminaries left in England, they went abroad, at first quite easily, later with difficulty and danger, to study in the English colleges at Douai or Rome: the former established for the training of ordinary or secular clergy, the other for the member of the Society of Jesus, commonly known as Jesuits, a new Order established by St, Ignatius Loyola same thirty years before. The seculars came first; they achieved a success which even the most eager could hardly have expected. Cool-minded and well-informed men, like Cecil, had long surmised that the conversion of the English people to Protestantism was for from complete; many—Cecil thought even the majority—had conformed out of fear, self-interest or—possibly the commonest reason of all—sheer bewilderment at the rapid changes in doctrine and forms of worship imposed on them in so short a time. Thus it happened that the missionaries found a welcome, not only with the families who had secretly offered them hospitality if they came, but with many others whom their first hosts invited to meet them or passed them on to. They would land at the ports in disguise, as merchants, courtiers or what not, professing some plausible business in the country, and make by devious may for their first house of refuge. There they would administer the Sacraments and preach to the house holds and to such of the neighbors as their hosts trusted and presently go on to some other locality to which they were directed or from which they received a call.

　　1. The main idea of this passage is

　　[A]. The continuity of the religious struggle in Britain in new ways.

　　[B]. The conversion of religion in Britain.

　　[C]. The victory of the New religion in Britain.

　　[D]. England became prosperous.

　　2. What was Martin Luther’s religions?

　　[A]. Buddhism. [B]. Protestantism. [C]. Catholicism. [D]. Orthodox.

　　3. Through what way did the Rome recover some of the lost land?

　　[A]. Civil and military ways. [B]. Propaganda and attack.

　　[C]. Persuasion and criticism. [D]. Religious and military ways.

　　4. What did the second paragraph mainly describe?

　　[A]. The activities of missionaries in Britain.

　　[B]. The conversion of English people to Protestantism was far from complete.

　　[C]. The young in Britain began to convert to Catholicism

　　[D]. Most families offered hospitality to missionaries.

　　Vocabulary

　　1. evade 避開，回避

　　2. creed 教義，信條，主義

　　3. the Crown 原義皇冠，在英國代表王權，王室/君主

　　4. low Countries 低地國，指荷蘭，盧森堡，比利時

　　5. last extremity 最后階段，絕境，臨終。這里指那里人民臨近 無可選擇只能信奉天主教。

　　6. bend one’s effort 竭盡全力

　　7. seminary 高等中學，神學院/校

　　8. surmise 猜度，臆測

　　9. doctrine 教義

　　10. plausible 貌似合理/公平的

　　11. courtier 朝臣

　　12. devious 繞來繞去的，迂回曲折的

　　13. Sacrament 圣禮，圣事/餐

　　14. secular 修道院外的，世俗的

　　15. the society of Jesus 天主教的耶酥會

　　16. Douai 杜埃(法國地名)

　　17. Jesuit 天主耶酥會會士