[Returning home from Germany, he says:] I went to Worminghurst, my house in Sussex, where I found my dear wife, child, and family all well: blessed be the name of the Lord God of all the families of the earth. I had that evening a sweet meeting amongst them; in which God's blessed power made us truly glad together; and I can say, truly blessed are they who cheerfully give up to serve the Lord: great shall be the increase and growth of their treasure, which shall never end.

The narrative of this journey, and of the interesting interviews he had with many persons eminent for their talents, learning, or social position, is almost the only autobiography which William Penn has left. The foregoing extracts from it furnish only a partial view of the industry and fervor with which he prosecuted his religious services. This extensive journey was accomplished in about three months, during which time, in addition to the numerous religious meetings and conferences which he held, and the distances traversed, sometimes on foot, at others in the tardy conveyances of that day, his letters and epistles occupy about sixty-five folio pages in his printed works. Yet, at a subsequent period of his life, he expressed a belief that if he had then had his time to live over again, he could with God's grace, not only serve Him, but his neighbor and himself, better than he had done, and have seven years to spare. If we are to consider the portion of his life which he has so minutely described as a specimen of the rest, it is not easy to perceive out of what portion of it these seven years could have been obtained.

SOME

IX.

HOME very severe laws had been enacted against the Roman Catholics by the British Parliament in 1582; one of which imposed a fine of twenty pounds a month for absence from the parish churches on the days appointed for Divine worship, and another passed shortly after the discovery of the gunpowder treason, in 1605, made it optional with the king whether he should exact twenty pounds a month, or all the personal and twothirds of the real estate of the offender. The persecutors of Friends failing in their efforts to repress the rising Society by the cruel measures they had heretofore taken, had recourse to these laws, which answered the double purpose of grievously oppressing Friends and putting money into the pockets of their oppressors.

In the beginning of the year 1678, Parliament having the laws against popery under consideration, a proposal was made to insert a clause in the bill in favor of those who should take an oath and subscribe a declaration of a prescribed form. As the conditions upon which this distinguishing clause was to be rendered available, could not be complied with by Friends, it was concluded to make a representation of their case to the two houses of Parliament. One was accordingly prepared, drawn up probably by William Penn, in which the hardships they had endured by the operation of laws which were not

intended to apply to them or to persons of their characters, were briefly yet forcibly stated. Their inability to avail themselves of the proffered distinction, was shown to arise from their conscientious objection to oaths, and not from an unwillingness to subscribe the required declaration if reduced to an unexceptionable form. They therefore requested that their word might be admitted instead of the oath, with the condition annexed, that in case of violating it, they should suffer the penalties of perjury.

On the 22d of the First month, William Penn was admitted before a committee of Parliament, and in the course of his address, said:

"That which giveth me a more than ordinary right to speak at this time and in this place, is the great abuse that I have received above any other of my profession; for of a long time I have not only been supposed a Papist, but a Seminary, a Jesuit, an emissary of Rome, and in pay from the pope, a man dedicating my endeavors to the interest and advancement of that party. Nor hath this been the report of the rabble, but the jealousy and insinuation of persons otherwise sober and discreet. Nay, some zealous for the Protestant religion have been so far gone in this mistake, as not only to think ill of us and to decline our conversation, but to take courage to themselves to prosecute us for a sort of concealed Papists; and the truth is, what with one thing, and what with another, we have been as the wool-sacks and common whipping-stock of the kingdom. All laws have been let loose upon us, as if the design were not to reform, but to destroy us, and that not for what we are, but for what we are not. It is

hard that we must thus bear the stripes of another interest, and be their proxy in punishment; but it is worse that some men can please themselves in such a sort of administration.

"I would not be mistaken. I am far from thinking it fit that Papists should be whipped for their consciences, because I exclaim against the injustice of whipping Quakers for Papists. No, for though the hand pretended to be lifted up against them hath, I know not by what discretion, lit heavily upon us, and we complain, yet we do not mean that any should take a fresh aim at them, or that they must come in our room. We must give the liberty we ask, and cannot be false to our principles, though it were to relieve ourselves, for we have good-will to all men, and would have none suffer for a truly sober and conscientious dissent on any hand."

He subsequently made to this committee a second speech, of which we give a part:

"I was bred a Protestant, and that strictly, too. I lost nothing by time or study; for years, reading, travel, and observation made the religion of my education the religion of my judgment. I do tell you again, and here solemnly declare in the presence of Almighty God, and before you all, that the profession I now make, and the society I now adhere to, have been so far from altering that Protestant judgment I had, that I am not conscious to myself of having receded from an iota of any one principle maintained by those first Protestants and reformers of Germany, and our own martyrs at home, against the pope and see of Rome.

"On the contrary, I do with great truth assure you

that we are of the same negative faith with the ancient Protestant church, and upon occasion shall be ready, by God's assistance, to make it appear that we are of the same belief as to the most fundamental, positive articles of her creed, too. And therefore it is we think it hard, that though we deny in common with her those doctrines of Rome so zealously protested against (from whence the name Protestants), yet that we should be so unhappy as to suffer, and that with extreme severity, by those very laws on purpose made against the maintainers of those doctrines we do so deny. We choose no suffering, for God knows what we have already suffered, and how many sufficient and trading families are reduced to great poverty by it. We think ourselves a useful people. We are sure we are a peaceable people; yet if we must still suffer, let us not suffer as Popish recusants, but as Protestant dissenters.

"But I would obviate another objection, and that none of the least that hath been made against us, viz., that we are enemies to government in general, and particularly disaffected to this we live under. I think it not amiss, but very seasonable, yea, my duty now to declare to you, and that I do with good conscience in the sight of Almighty God, first, that we believe government to be God's ordinance, and next, that this present government is established by the providence of God and law of the land, and that it is our Christian duty readily to obey it in all its just laws; and wherein we cannot comply through tenderness of conscience, in all such cases not to revile or conspire against the government, but with Christian humility and patience tire out all mistakes about us, and wait their better information, who, we believe, do as undeservedly