but to diversify the suffering; for the magistrates of Cumberland issue a warrant for his arrest. He meanwhile, travels everywhere, preaches and instructs: here the family of a judge become his converts, there a peasant; here a group of mechanics, there a garrison. Now he traverses Cumberland, preaches at Cockermouth, then in the old cathedral of Carlisle; in the Castle which overlooks the grim walls, to the garrison; in the market to a crowd; on one side a mob eager to assail him, on the other an audience resolved to protect him. Next he is hurried before the magistrates, and shut up in the Carlisle gaol: the Presbyterian ministers and sheriff vow that he should never come out alive; cudgelled, at their instance, by his gaoler; annoyed for months by insults; yet busy in the gaol, reclaiming, comforting, teaching; imitating the apostolic example by hymns of joy. Then he is released from the house of the Carlisle justices, lest his wrongs should attract the notice of Cromwell's first parliament. No sooner out, again at work, he visits Northumberland and Durham, churches and fairs,―rebukes, encourages; then we find him in Yorkshire, defying the fury of the mob at Halifax; at Drayton, arrested by one of Cromwell's officers, at the suggestion of the Independents; and next he appears in London, with crowds resorting to him at the Mermaid at Charing Cross. Then we have him disputing with Cromwell. Freed from arrest, traversing more than half England,

in 1655; stopped near Yarmouth, as a housebreaker ; at Cambridge, roughly handled by the students; then face to face with Independents, Presbyterians and Baptists, who were now in power, and all against him. Then he appears in London; in Bristol, Dorchester, and Plymouth; in Cornwall, to be arrested at St. Ives, despatched under a guard to Launceston gaol; preaching under arrest at Bodmin and Redruth, brought up before the court, and in court announcing his opinions. Then we see him buried in a filthy dungeon, in the mire of a common sewer; liberated by the Protector's order, he resumes his preaching in Devon, Somerset, and Wilts; then he returns to London, to see the Protector, and to demand toleration for the Friends. Next he is in Wales, holding meetings on the Hill-side; confuting sectaries; persecuted by magistrates; in some places welcomed by the authorities. Then in Manchester; next in Scotland, disputing with the Presbyterians, preaching in Leith and Edinburgh; summoned before the Edinburgh town-council; excommunicated, and banished; but, undaunted, travelling through Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, to Northumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire; and closing his labours, in 1658, with the yearly meeting of Friends in Bedfordshire, a controversy with a Jesuit in London, and his last visit to Cromwell at Hampton Court.

The Committee of Safety, the short administration of Monk, the Restoration of Charles, though they

affected public affairs, did not change the condition of the Quakers.

In the reign of Charles II, the law stood thus :No one could legally attend Dissenting worship, and no minister could supply it--none were allowed to preach or pray with five persons, without a licence; none could teach the Catechism to children. These acts were offences against the law, to which heavy penalties were attached-easily recovered; a single justice of the peace could break open a Conventicle, and commit to prison those who were found in it. If the party repeated the offence thrice, he might be transported. There was every encouragement to prosecute for these penalties and to inflict them. Justices and Clergymen were promoted for their activity. Bishops took an interest in the prosecutions. Constables, soldiers, and officers distinguished themselves by activity. Thus penalties fell upon numbers, and some of these the best men in the country. Henry was fined and silenced; Owen had to live in retirement: Howe could not shew himself in the streets of London; Baxter was harassed; Caryl and Manton could only preach by stealth; men of eminence were silenced, and deprived of their livelihood.

Many had to support themselves by manual labour; several were starved; hundreds were thrown into prison -some died there. Mr. Baxter was imprisoned in Clerkenwell, Manton in the Gate House; some lingered

in Newgate, some died in the Fleet, the learned Pool in exile. Many were called into the Ecclesiastical Court, where heavy costs and fines fell upon them,and thus the wrongs of the legislature were enhanced by the severities of law.

But while these sufferings fell on the body of nonconformists, a heavier visitation befel the Quakers. Under the Commonwealth they fared badly; but worse after the Restoration. In common with the church, they had received bad treatment from the non-conformists; but, when the church was in the ascendant, their trials were more severe; they suffered worse than Dissenters for while all the penal laws fell upon them, they were harassed by others, from which non-conformists were exempt. The Act of Conformity; the Act suppressing Conventicles; the Act banishing Preachers, were applied to them. But they suffered specially from the Act, which required Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy. It was the Quaker's principle to refuse an oath; whenever therefore a magistrate was angry, he tendered the oath, and committed the Quaker as a recusant to gaol; and he was odious both to magistrates and judges, as he piqued their vanity by wearing his hat in court, and braving their authority. The Ecclesiastical authorities were also annoyed by his refusal to pay tithes. Thus on all hands the Quakers raised to themselves enemies,—while among the mob their oddities, defencelessness, and sufferings made them

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their butt. By the government, their refusal of oaths made them suspected of disloyalty; for this, Cromwell threw them into prison; Venner's insurrection involved them; the foolish republican conspiracy after the Restoration, drew down penalties upon them; even Owen, when Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, thought he consulted for the good of the University, by flogging two female Quakers; and the Oxford undergraduates took the hint and ducked them at St. John's. Mayors and magistrates closed their meetings, and thrust them into gaol. Soldiers, constables and informers dogged their heels; gaolers fleeced and abused them; the prisoners found a pastime in ill-treating them ; and from them they passed into the ruder hands of the populace. By the mob they were hooted, cudgelled, dragged through the kennel, soused in ditches, pelted with rotten eggs; squibs and crackers were thrown into their meetings; drums and kettle-drums were beat under their windows. Soldiers thought themselves humane, if they only ran their swords into them, for they had orders to kill them. Gaolers held that they might work their will on them, for they were out of the King's protection. Any miscreant considered that he might seize and strip them, as they would not take the law against him.

When Cromwell died, the gaols were crammed with Quakers; at the Restoration seven hundred were released. In Charles IInd's reign, under the combined