his own religious faith. He began by ex plaining to these, whom he considered to have been called out of the pleasures and vanities of the world, the nature of their new calling. He visited them, he said, as a traveller in the same path, in bowels of tenderness and compassion, to exhort them to make this their calling and election sure. For this purpose he invited them to hold meetings for worship frequently, to beware of all lightness, jesting, and a careless mind; and to endeavour as much as possible, both by their conversation and conduct, to keep in the simplicity of the cross of Christ. If the world was constant to its own momentary fashions, the more it became them to be constant in their testimony against it. If, however, in doing this they should meet with heavy exercises, they were not to murmur against God, but to give themselves up to his will. No external fear was to shake them for that same Power, which had wrought a change in their hearts, was able to carry them through this their tèrrestrial trial.

But his great employment, during his leisure, was in visiting those of his poor brethren

brethren who were in prison on account of their religion, a case which he could well estimate by reflecting upon that which had been his own. He held religious meetings with these in their gaols, in which he endeavoured to comfort them to the

utmost of his power. He drew up also an account of the cases of several, most of whom were then in confinement for no other reason than that they had been found worshiping in places which the law did not then recognise. This account, which was of the nature of an address, he presented to the Lord Lieutenant with his own hand; and he followed it up with such unremitting zeal, calling in the aid of his father, and of all those courtiers whom he could interest, that at length an order in council was obtained for their release.

Having executed his father's commission, he returned to England. On his arrival there a reconciliation took place, to the joy of all concerned, but particularly of his mother; after which he took up his residence in his father's house.

CHAP

CHAPTER VI.

A. 1670—preaches in Gracechurch-street—is taken up and committed to Newgate-is tried at the Old Bailey and acquitted-account of this memorable trial-attends his father on his death-bed-dying sayings of the latter -publishes "The People's ancient and just Liberties asserted"-disputes publicly with Jeremy Ives at High Wycomb-writes to the Vice-chancellor of Oxfordpublishes "A seasonable Caveat against Popery"-is again taken up for preaching, and sent to the Tower, and from thence to Newgate.

In the year 1670 the famous Conventicle Act was passed by Parliament, which prohibited Dissenters from worshiping God in their own way. It had been first suggested by some of the bishops. The chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury had previously printed a discourse against toleration, in which he asserted as a main principle, that it would be less injurious to the Government to dispense with profane and loose persons than to allow a toleration to religious Dissenters. "This act," says Thomas Ellwood, "brake down and overran the bounds and banks anciently set for the defence and security of Englishmen's lives, liberties, and properties, namely, trials by jury, instead thereof

directing

directing and authorizing justices of the peace (and that too privately out of sessions) to convict, fine, and by their warrants distrain upon offenders against it, directly contrary to the Great Charter." It was impossible that an act like this could pass without becoming a source of new suffering to William Penn, situated as he then was, first, as a minister of the Gospel, and secondly, as a man who always dared to do what he thought to be his duty. Accordingly he was one of the earliest victims to its decrees: for, going as usual with others of his own religious society to their meeting-house in Gracechurch-street to perform divine worship, they found it guarded by a band of soldiers. Being thus hindered from entering it,` they stopped for a while about the doors. Others who came up joined the former, and stopped also, so that in a little time there was a considerable assembly on the spot. By this time William Penn felt himself called upon to preach; but he had not advanced far in his discourse, when he and another of the society, William Mead, were seized by constables, who produced warrants signed by Sir Samuel Starling, then lord mayor,

VOL. I.

F

for

1

for that purpose. The whole plan of the arrest had been previously concerted, and the warrants contrived accordingly. The constables, after they had seized them, conveyed them to Newgate, where they were lodged, that they might be ready to take their trial at the next session at the Old Bailey.

On the first of September the trial came on; and here I have to express my regret that the limits which I have proposed to this work should prevent me from presenting it at full length to the notice of the reader, because altogether it is a very interesting event in our history, and one of which no part that is recorded, ought to be lost to posterity. I will, however, give, as far as I am able, the most prominent features in it.

The persons who were present on the bench as Justices on this day, were Sir Samuel Starling, lord mayor; John Howel, recorder ; Thomas Bludworth, William Peak, Richard Ford, John Robinson, Joseph Shelden, aldermen; and Richard Brown, John Smith, and James Edwards, sheriffs.

The Jury, who were impanelled, and whose names ought to be handed down to

the