quickly find work enough at home; each man's hands would be full by the unruliness of his own passions and in subjecting his own will, instead of devouring one another's good name, liberty, or estate. Compassion would rise, and mutual desires to be assistant to each other in a better sort of living. Oh, how delightful it would be to see mankind, the creation of one God, that hath upheld them to this day, of one accord, at least in the weighty things of God's holy law."

"A promotion of general religion, which being in itself practical, brings back ancient virtue. Good living will thrive in this soil; men will grow honest, trusty, and temperate. We may expect good neighborhood and cordial friendship. Men will be more industrious, which will increase our manufactures; set the idle and poor to work for their livelihood, and enable the several countries with more ease and decency to maintain the aged and impotent.

"It is out of this nursery of virtue men should be drawn to be planted in the government; not what is their opinion, but what is their manners and capacity. Here the field is large, and the magistrate has room to choose good officers for the public good. Heaven will prosper so natural, so noble, and so Christian an essay."

In the same year he wrote a remarkable letter to two Protestant women of rank in Germany. One of them was the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Frederick V., Prince Palatine of the Rhine and King of Bohemia, and granddaughter of James I. of England. The other was Anna Maria, Countess of Hornes, the friend and companion of Elizabeth. They were both religious women, and the princess had manifested her liberality by affording an

asylum in her dominions to persons who were persecuted for religion. The Princess Elizabeth was distinguished for her learning as well as for her benevolence. Her attachment to her Protestant belief had led her when quite young to reject the offer of marriage to the King of Poland. She was now in her fifty-sixth year. William Penn speaks of her as "choosing a single life as the freest from care, and best suited to study and meditation. Though she kept no sumptuous table in her own court, she spread the tables of the poor in their solitary cells, breaking bread to virtuous pilgrims according to their want and her ability. Abstemious in herself, and in apparel void of all vain ornaments." Robert Barclay and Benjamin Furly, when travelling in Germany in the service of the Gospel, had paid them a visit and were favorably received. This visit gave the princess such a knowledge of the principles of Friends, and so favorable an opinion of them, that hearing about this time of the imprisonment of Robert Barclay, she wrote to her brother, Prince Rupert, soliciting him to use his influence with the king to prevent or mitigate the severity with which he was threatened. The letter of William Penn, which is of great length, begins as follows:

"Noble of this world, but more noble for your inquiry after the Truth and love to it, the fame whereof hath sounded to the ears of some of us in this island. I have had you, worthy women, often in my remembrance, with that honor which is not of this world; even when my soul has been in its purest retirements, not only from all visibles, but from their very ideas in the mind, and every other imagination; resting with the Lord in his own sab.

bath, which is the true silence of all flesh indeed, which profits above the formal Christian's bodily exercise. And in these heavenly sequestrations of soul, and true resignation unto the divine will of my Father, have I taken a most clear prospect of you, and every circumstance that may be fit for me to know: your education, your quality, your dignity, the envy of the clergy, the fury of the rabble, and the strength and power of temptation, arising from all these considerations, if possible to smother your blessed beginnings; and as so many bands of soldiers, employed and commissioned of their great prince of darkness, to watch and to hinder Jesus from rising in you. In a weighty sense of all which my heart opens itself unto you in God's counsel, after this manner.

"Be faithful to what you know, and obedient to that which God, by the light of his Son, makes manifest in your consciences. Consult not away the pure and gentle strivings of the Holy Ghost; drown not his still voice ⚫with the crowd of careful thoughts and vain contrivances; break not the bruised reed, neither quench the smoking flax in yourselves. If you truly love Jesus, hear Him; and since it hath pleased God in some measure, as with Paul, to reveal his blessed Son in you, consult not with flesh and blood, which are below the heavenly things; for that inherits not the kingdom of God; but with sincere Mary, from a deep sense of the beauty, virtue, and excellency of that life, that is hid with Christ in God, wait out of all cumber, free from that running, willing, sacrificing spirit that is in the world, in the pure obedience, humiliation, godly death or silence, at the feet of Jesus, choosing the better part, which shall never be taken from you: and

Jesus will be with you; He will shed his peace abroad in the midst of you, even that which flows from the crystal streams of life, that arise from under the throne of God."

It concludes in the following manner: "Remember the poverty, simplicity, self-denial, patience, and the cross of Jesus. I beg of you, by all that is dear and sacred to you, shrink not at this baptism, neither so much as tamper with any latitude that would evade his bitter cup. Let not his vinegar and gall be unpleasant, nor his crown of thorns troublesome; last of all, let not his nails and spear be terrible to you. For they that will not forsake Him in his agonies, but be the companions of his tribulations, and cheerfully lay down their life and die with Him to the world, they and none else shall rise with Him in the newness of life, and ascend with Him to his Father, by Him to be glorified with that glory which He had with his Father before the world began. Unto which kingdom, God Almighty conduct you, through this earthly pilgrim age. Amen."

.

ITV

VIII.

T has been mentioned that William Penn, about the year 1671, travelled in the work of the ministry through some parts of the continent; but of that journey there is no particular account. By the labors of Friends, particularly William Penn and William Caton, a knowledge of the doctrines of the Society of Friends was spread on the continent; and a number had been convinced, and joined in fellowship with them.

In the Fourth month of 1676, we find William Penn leaving his family at Worminghurst, in Sussex, where he then lived, and attending the Yearly Meeting at London.

Soon after this he parted with his wife and family, in order to make a second visit, in the love of the Gospel, to Friends and others in Holland and Germany. Of this journey he has preserved an account, which was first published in the year 1694, from which the following is taken:

This ensuing "JOURNAL OF MY TRAVELS IN HOLLAND AND GERMANY," in the service of the Gospel of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, was written for my own satisfaction, and that of some relations and particular friends, as the long time it has lain silent shows. But a copy that was found amongst the late Countess of Conway's papers, falling into the hands of a person who much frequented