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In 1635, Fox returned to his native town, where he continued to preach, dispute, and hold conferences, till he was sent by Colonel Hacker to Cromwell, under the charge of Captain Drury. Of this memorable interview, he gives an account in his Journal:

[Interview with Oliver Cromwell.]

told me the lord Protector said I was at liberty, and might go whither I would. Then I was brought into a great hall, where the Protector's gentlemen were to dine. I asked them what they brought me thither for. They said it was by the Protector's order, that I might dine with them. I bid them let the Protector know I would not eat of his bread, nor drink of his drink. When he heard this, he said: 'Now I see there is a people risen that I cannot win, either with gifts, honours, offices, or places; but all other sects and people I can.' It was told him again, 'That we had forsook our own, and were not like to look for such things from him.'

Fox had a brief meeting with Cromwell very shortly before the Protector's death, which we shall subjoin with Mr Carlyle's characteristic comment:

After Captain Drury had lodged me at the Mermaid, over against the Mews at Charing Cross, he went to give the Protector an account of me. When he came to me again, he told me the Protector required that I should promise not to take up a carnal sword or weapon against him or the government, as it then was; and that I should write it in what words I saw good, and set my hand to it. I said little in reply to Captain Drury, but the next morning I was moved of the Lord to write a paper to the Protector, by the name of Oliver Cromwell, wherein 'The same day, taking boat, I went down (up) to I did, in the presence of the Lord God, declare that I Kingston, and from thence to Hampton Court, to speak did deny the wearing or drawing of a 'carnal sword, or with the Protector about the sufferings of friends. I any other outward weapon, against him or any man; met him riding into Hampton Court Park; and before and that I was sent of God to stand a witness against I came to him, as he rode at the head of his life-guard, all violence, and against the works of darkness, and to I saw and felt a waft (whiff) of death go forth against turn people from darkness to light; to bring them from him.'-Or in favour of him, George? His life, if thou the occasion of war and fighting to the peaceable Gospel, knew it, has not been a merry thing for this man, now and from being evil-doers, which the magistrates' sword or heretofore! I fancy he has been looking this long should be a terror to.' When I had written what the while to give it up, whenever the Commander-in-chief Lord had given me to write, I set my name to it, and required. To quit his laborious sentry-post; honourably gave it to Captain Drury to hand to Oliver Cromwell, lay up his arms, and be gone to his rest-all eternity to which he did. After some time, Captain Drury brought rest in, George! Was thy own life merry, for example, me before the Protector himself at Whitehall. It was in the hollow of the tree; clad permanently in leather? in a morning, before he was dressed; and one Harvey, And does kingly purple, and governing refractory worlds who had come a little among friends, but was dis- instead of stitching coarse shoes, make it merrier? The obedient, waited upon him. When I came in, I was waft of death is not against him, I think-perhaps, moved to say: 'Peace be in this house;' and I exhorted against thee, and me, and others, Ó George, when the him to keep in the fear of God, that he might receive Nell Gwynne defender and two centuries of all-victorious wisdom from him; that by it he might be ordered, and cant have come in upon us! My unfortunate Georgewith it might order all things under his hand untoa waft of death go forth against him; and when I came God's glory. I spoke much to him of truth; and a great deal of discourse I had with him about religion, wherein he carried himself very moderately. But he said we quarrelled with the priests, whom he called ministers. I told him, 'I did not quarrel with them, they quarrelled with me and my friends. But, said I, if we own the prophets, Christ, and the apostles, we cannot hold up such teachers, prophets, and shepherds, as the prophets, Christ, and the apostles declared against; but we must declare against them by the same power and spirit.' Then I shewed him that the prophets, Christ, and the apostles, declared freely, and declared against them that did not declare freely; such as preached for filthy lucre, divined for money, and preached for hire, and were covetous and greedy, like the dumb dogs that could never have enough; and that they who have the same spirit that Christ, and the prophets, and the apostles had, could not but declare against all such now, as they did then. As I spoke, he several times said it was very good, and it was truth. I told him: "That all Christendom, so called, had the Scriptures, but they wanted the power and spirit that those had who gave forth the Scriptures, and that was the reason they were not in fellowship with the Son, nor with the Father, nor with the Scriptures, nor one with another.' Many more words I had with him, but people coming in, I drew a little back. As I was turning, he catched me by the hand, and with tears in his eyes said: 'Come again to my house, for if thou and I were but an hour of a day together, we should be nearer one to the other;' adding, that he wished me no more ill than he did to his own soul. I told him, if he did, he wronged his own soul, and admonished him to hearken to God's voice, that he might stand in his counsel, and obey it; and if he did so, that would keep him from hardness of heart; but if he did not hear God's voice, his heart would be hardened. He said it was true. Then I went out; and when Captain Drury came out after me, he

to him he looked like a dead man. After I had laid the sufferings of friends before him, and had warned him according as I was moved to speak to him, he bade me come to his house. So I returned to Kingston, and the next day went up to Hampton Court to speak further with him. But when I came, Harvey, who was one that waited on him, told me the doctors were not willing that I should speak with him. So I passed away, and never saw him more.' *

The sect headed by Fox was now becoming numerous, and attracted much opposition from the pulpit and press. He therefore continued to travel through the kingdom, expounding his views, and answering objections both verbally and by the publication of controversial pamphlets. In the course of his peregrinations he still suffered frequent imprisonment, sometimes as a disturber of the peace, and sometimes because he refused to uncover his head in the presence of magistrates, or to do violence to his principles by taking the oath of allegiance. After reducing-with the assistance of his educated disciples, Robert Barclay, Samuel Fisher, and George Keith-the doctrine and discipline of his sect to a more systematic and permanent form than that in which it had hitherto existed, he visited Ireland and the American plantations, employing in the latter nearly two years in confirming and increasing his followers. He afterwards repeatedly visited Holland, and other parts of the continent, for similar purposes. He died in London in 1690, aged sixty-six.

That Fox was a sincere believer of what he preached, no rational doubt can be entertained; and that he was of a meek and forgiving disposition towards his persecutors, is equally unquestionable. His integrity, also, was so remarkable that his word

* Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, by Carlyle.

was taken as of equal value with his oath. Religious enthusiasm, however, amounting to madness in the earlier stage of his career, led him into many extravagances, in which few members of the respectable society which he founded have partaken. Fox not only acted as a prophet, but assumed the power of working miracles-in the exercise of which he claims to have cured various individuals, including a man whose arm had long been disabled, and a woman troubled with king's evil. On one occasion he ran with bare feet through Lichfield, exclaiming: 'Wo to the bloody city of Lichfield!' and, when no calamity followed this denouncement as expected, he found no better mode of accounting for the failure than discovering that some Christians had once been slain there. Of his power of discerning witches, the following examples are given in his Journal: As I was sitting in a house full of people, declaring the word of life to them, I cast mine eyes upon a woman, and I discerned an unclean spirit in her; and I was moved of the Lord to speak sharply to her, and told her she was a witch; whereupon the woman went out of the room. Now, I being a stranger there, and knowing nothing of the woman outwardly, the people wondered at it, and told me afterwards I had discovered a great thing, for all the country looked

upon her as a witch. The Lord had given me a spirit of discerning, by which I many times saw the states and conditions of people, and could try their spirits. For, not long before, as I was going to a meeting, I saw women in a field, and I discerned them to be witches; and I was moved to go out of my way into the field to them, and to declare unto them their conditions, telling them plainly they were in the spirit of witchcraft. At another time, there came such a one into Swarthmore Hall, in the meeting time, and I was moved to speak sharply to her, and told her she was a witch; and the people said afterwards, she was generally accounted so.'

The writings of George Fox are comprised in three folio volumes, printed respectively in 1694, 1698, and 1706. The first contains his Journal, largely quoted from above; the second, a collection of his Epistles; and the third, his Doctrinal Pieces.

ROBERT BARCLAY.

The two great founders of Quakerism, as a respectable and considerable religious body in this country, were ROBERT BARCLAY and WILLIAM PENN. Both were gentlemen by birth and education, amiable and accomplished men, who sacrificed

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worldly honours, and suffered persecution for conscience' sake. Barclay was born at Gordonstown, in Moray, December 23, 1648. He was educated at the Scots College at Paris, of which his uncle was rector, but returned to his native country in 1664. Two years afterwards, his father, Colonel Barclay of Ury, in Kincardineshire, made open profession of the principles of Quakerism; and in 1667, when only nineteen years of age, Robert Barclay, became 'fully convinced,' as his friend William Penn has expressed it, and publicly owned the testimony of the true light.' His first defence of the new doctrines appeared in 1670, and bore the title of Truth cleared of Calumnies. It was a reply to a work published in Aberdeen, and other controversial treatises followed. His great work, originally written and published in Latin, appeared in 1676, and is entitled An Apology for the true Christian Divinity, as the same is held forth and preached by the people called in scorn Quakers, &c. The Apology of Barclay is a learned and methodical

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Its

treatise, very different from what the world expected on such a subject, and it was therefore read with avidity both in Britain and on the continent. most remarkable theological feature is the attempt to prove that there is an internal light in man, which is better fitted to guide him aright in religious matters than even the Scriptures themselves; the genuine doctrines of which he asserts to be rendered uncertain by various readings in different manuscripts, and the fallibility of translators and interpreters. These circumstances, says he, and much more which might be alleged, put the minds, even of the learned, into infinite doubts, scruples, and inextricable difficulties; whence we may very safely conclude, that Jesus Christ, who promised to be always with his children, to lead them into all truth, to guard them against the devices of the enemy, and to establish their faith upon an unmovable rock, left them not to be principally ruled by that which was subject, in itself, to many

to be base and ignoble. I wonder what law of man, or what patent, ought to oblige me to make a lie, in calling good evil, and evil good. I wonder what law of man can secure me, in so doing, from the just judgment of God, that will make me count for every idle word. And to lie is something more. Surely Christians should be ashamed that such laws, manifestly crossing the law of God, should be among them.

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uncertainties; and therefore he gave them his Spirit as their principal guide, which neither moths nor time can wear out, nor transcribers nor translators corrupt; which none are so young, none so illiterate, none in so remote a place, but they may come to be reached and rightly informed by it.' It would be erroneous, however, to regard this work of Barclay as an exposition of all the doctrines which have been or are prevalent among the Quakers, or, indeed, to Fourthly, as to those titles of 'Holiness,' 'Eminency,' consider it as anything more than the vehicle of and 'Excellency,' used among the Papists to the pope such of his own views as, in his character of an and cardinals, &c.; and Grace,' Lordship,' and apologist, he thought it desirable to state. This Worship,' used to the clergy among the Protestants, it ingenious man,' says Mosheim, 'appeared as a patron is a most blasphemous usurpation. For if they use and defender of Quakerism, and not as a professed'Holiness' and 'Grace' because these things ought to teacher or expositor of its various doctrines; and he be in a pope or in a bishop, how come they to usurp interpreted and modified the opinions of this sect that peculiarly to themselves? Ought not holiness and after the manner of a champion or advocate who grace to be in every Christian? And so every Christian undertakes the defence of an odious cause.' The should say 'Your Holiness' and 'Your Grace' one to dedication of Barclay's Apology to King Charles II. another. Next, how can they in reason claim any more has always been particularly admired for its respect- and primitive Christians, whose successors they pretend titles than were practised and received by the apostles ful yet manly freedom of style, and for the pathos of they are; and as whose successors, and no otherwise, its allusion to his majesty's own early troubles, as themselves, I judge, will confess any honour they seek is a reason for his extending mercy and favour to the due to them? Now, if they neither sought, received, persecuted Quakers. Thou hast tasted,' says he, nor admitted such honour nor titles, how came these of prosperity and adversity; thou knowest what it is to be banished thy native country, to be overruled as well as to rule and sit upon the throne; and, being oppressed, thou hast reason to know how hateful the oppressor is to both God and man: if, after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart, but forget Him, who remembered thee in thy distress, and give up thyself to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy condemnation.' But this appeal had no effect in stopping persecution; for after Barclay's return from Holland and Germany, which he had visited in company with Fox and Penn, he was, in 1677, imprisoned along with many other Quakers, at Aberdeen, through the instrumentality of Archbishop Sharpe. He was soon liberated, however, and subsequently gained favour at court. Both Penn and he were on terms of intimacy with James II.; and just before the sailing of the Prince of Orange for England in 1688, Barclay, in a private conference with his majesty, urged him to make some concessions to the people. The death of this respectable and amiable person took place at his seat of Ury on the 8th of August 1690.

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[Against Titles of Honour.]

We affirm positively, that it is not lawful for Christians either to give or receive these titles of honour, as, Your Holiness, Your Majesty, Your Excellency, Your Eminency, &c.

First, because these titles are no part of that obedience which is due to magistrates or superiors; neither doth the giving them add to or diminish from that subjection we owe to them, which consists in obeying their just and lawful commands, not in titles and designations.

Secondly, we find not that in the Scripture any such titles are used, either under the law or the gospel; but that, in speaking to kings, princes, or nobles, they used only a simple compellation, as, O King!' and that without any further designation, save, perhaps, the name of the person, as, 'O King Agrippa,' &c.

Thirdly, it lays a necessity upon Christians most frequently to lie; because the persons obtaining these titles, either by election or hereditarily, may frequently be found to have nothing really in them deserving them, or answering to them: as some, to whom it is said, 'Your Excellency,' having nothing of excellency in them; and who is called 'Your Grace,' appear to be an enemy to grace; and he who is called Your Honour,' is known

by them? If they say they did, let them prove it if they can: we find no such thing in the Scripture. The Christians speak to the apostles without any such denomination, neither saying, 'If it please your Grace,' 'your Holiness,' nor your Worship; they are neither called My Lord Peter, nor My Lord Paul; nor yet Master Peter, nor Master Paul; nor Doctor Peter, nor Doctor Paul; but singly Peter and Paul; and that not only in the Scripture, but for some hundreds of years after: so that this appears to be a manifest fruit of the apostasy. For if these titles arise either from the office or worth of the persons, it will not be denied but the apostles deserved them better than any now that call for them. But the case is plain; the apostles had the holiness, the excellency, the grace; and because they were holy, excellent, and gracious, they neither used nor admitted such titles; but these having neither holiness, excellency, nor grace, will needs be so called to satisfy their ambitious and ostentatious mind, which is a manifest token of their hypocrisy.

Fifthly, as to that title of 'Majesty' usually ascribed to princes, we do not find it given to any such in the Holy Scripture; but that it is specially and peculiarly ascribed unto God. We find in the Scripture the proud king Nebuchadnezzar assuming this title to himself, who at that time received a sufficient reproof, by a sudden judgment which came upon him. Therefore, in all the compellations used to princes in the Old Testament, it is not to be found, nor yet in the New. Paul was very civil to Agrippa, yet he gives him no such title. Neither was this title used among Christians in the primitive times.

WILLIAM PENN.

WILLIAM PENN (1644-1718), the son of an English admiral, is celebrated not only as a distinguished writer on Quakerism, but as the founder of the state of Pennsylvania in North America. In his fifteenth year, while a student at Oxford, Penn embraced the doctrines of the Society of Friends. He was expelled the university, and his father sent him abroad to travel on the continent. He returned at the end of two years, accomplished in all the graces of the fine gentleman and courtier. In a short time, however, the plague broke out in London, and William Penn's serious impressions were renewed. He ceased to frequent the court and to visit his gay friends, employing himself in the study of divinity. His father conceived that it was time he should again interfere. An estate

in Ireland had been presented to the admiral by the king; it required superintendence, and William Penn was despatched to Dublin, furnished with letters to the Viceroy, the Duke of Ormond. Again the cloud passed off; Penn was a favourite in all circles, and he even served for a short time as a volunteer officer in the army. One day, however, in the city of Cork, he went to hear a sermon by the same Quaker preacher that he had listened to in Oxford. The effect was irresistible: Penn became a Quaker for life. His father sent for him home, and finding him immovable in his resolution to adhere to the despised and persecuted sect, he turned him out of doors. William Penn now began to preach and write in defence of the new creed. He was committed to the Tower, but this only increased his ardour. During a confinement of eight months in 1668-9, he produced four treatises, the best of which, No Cross, no Crown, enjoyed great popularity. In 1670, shortly after his release, he was again taken up and tried by the city authorities. The jury sympathised with the persecuted apostle of peace, and would return no harsher verdict than 'Guilty of speaking in Gracechurch Street.' They were browbeat by the insolent court, and kept two days and nights without food, fire, or light; but they would not yield, and their final verdict was 'Not Guilty.' Penn and the jury were all thrown into Newgate. An appeal was made to the Court of Common Pleas, and Penn was triumphant; thus vindicating the right of juries to judge of the value of evidence independent of the direction of the court. Admiral Penn died in 1670, having been reconciled to his son, whom he left sole executor of his will. The admiral's estate was worth £1500 a year, and he had claims on the government amounting to about £15,000. In consideration of these unliquidated but acknowledged claims, Charles II. granted to William Penn-who longed to establish a Christian democracy across the Atlantic-a vast territory on the banks of the Delaware in North America. Penn was constituted sole proprietor and governor. He proposed to call his colony Sylvania, as it was covered with woods. The king suggested, in compliment to the admiral, that Penn should be prefixed, and in the charter the colony was named Pennsylvania. With the aid of Algernon Sidney, articles for the settlement and government of the new state were drawn up by Penn. They were liberal and comprehensive, allowing the utmost civil and religious freedom to the colonists. The governor sailed to America in 1682, and entered into a treaty of peace and friendship with the native tribes, which was religiously observed. The signing of this treaty under an elm-tree, the Indian king being attended by his sachems or warriors, and Penn accompanied by a large body of his pilgrim-followers, forms one of those picturesque passages in history on which poets and painters delight to dwell. The governor having constituted his council or legislative assembly, laid out his capital city of Philadelphia, and made other arrangements, returned to England. He landed in June 1684. For the next four years and a half, till the abdication of James II., Penn appears in the novel character of a court favourite. He attended Whitehall almost daily, his house was crowded with visitors, and in consequence of his supposed influence with the king, he might, as he states, have amassed great riches. He procured the release of about fourteen hundred of his oppressed Quaker brethren who had been imprisoned for refusing to take the oath of allegiance or to attend church. Penn was accused of being a Jesuit in disguise, and

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of holding correspondence with the court of Rome. Even the pious and excellent Dr Tillotson was led to give credence to this calumny, but was convinced by Penn of the entire falsehood of the charge. In our own day, an eminent historian, Lord Macaulay, has revived some of the accusations against Penn, and represented him as conniving at the intolerance and corruption of the court. Specific cases are adduced, but they rest on doubtful evidence, and seem to prove no more than that Penn, misled by a little vanity and self-importance, had mixed himself up too much with the proceedings of the court, and could not prevent those acts of cruelty and extortion which disgraced the miserable reign of the last of the Stuart monarchs. The uniform tenor of Penn's life was generous, self-sacrificing, and beneficent. After the Revolution, Penn's former intimacy with James caused him to be regarded as a disaffected person, and led to various troubles; but he still continued to preach and write in support of his favourite doctrines. Having once more gone out to America in 1699, he there exerted himself for the improvement of his colony till 1701, when he finally returned to England. His latter days were imbittered by personal griefs and losses, and his mental vigour was prostrated by disease. He died in 1718.

Besides the work already mentioned, Penn wrote Reflections and Maxims relating to the Conduct of Life, and A Key, &c., to discern the Difference between the Religion professed by the Quakers, and the Misrepresentations of their Adversaries. To George Fox's Journal, which was published in 1694, he prefixed A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People called Quakers. His works fill three volumes, and an excellent Life of Penn has lately (1855) been written by Mr Hepworth Dixon. The style of Penn's works is often harsh and incorrect, but his language is copious, and his enthusiasm occasionally renders him forcible and impressive. The first of the subjoined specimens is extracted from his No Cross, no Crown.

[Against the Pride of Noble Birth.]

That people are generally proud of their persons, is too visible and troublesome, especially if they have any pretence either to blood or beauty; the one has raised many quarrels among men, and the other among women, and men too often for their sakes, and at their excitements. But to the first: what a pother has this noble blood made in the world, antiquity of name or family, whose father or mother, great-grandallied? what stock or what clan they came of? what father or great-grandmother, was best descended or coat of arms they gave? which had, of right, the preless show of reason to palliate it. cedence? But, methinks, nothing of man's folly has

descended, that is not of ill-fame; since 'tis his own For, first, what matter is it of whom any one is virtue that must raise, or vice depress him? An ancestor's character is no excuse to a man's ill actions, but an aggravation of his degeneracy; and since virtue comes not by generation, I neither am the better nor the worse for my forefather: to be sure, not in God's account; nor should it be in man's. Nobody would endure injuries the easier, or reject favours the more, for coming by the hand of a man well or ill descended. I confess it were greater honour to have had no blots, and with an hereditary estate to have had a lineal descent of worth: but that was never found; no, not in the most blessed of families upon earth; I mean Abraham's, to be descended of wealth and titles, fills no man's head with brains, or heart with truth; those qualities come from a higher cause. 'Tis vanity, then, and most condemnable pride, for a man of bulk and character

to despise another of less size in the world, and of meaner alliance, for want of them; because the latter may have the merit, where the former has only the effects of it in an ancestor; and though the one be great by means of a forefather, the other is so too, but 'tis by his own; then, pray, which is the bravest man of the two?

'Oh,' says the person proud of blood, it was never a good world since we have had so many upstart gentlemen!' But what should others have said of that man's ancestor, when he started first up into the knowledge of the world? For he, and all men and families, ay, and all states and kingdoms too, have had their upstarts, that is, their beginnings. This is like being the True Church, because old, not because good; for families to be noble by being old, and not by being virtuous. No such matter: it must be age in virtue, or else virtue before age; for otherwise, a man should be noble by means of his predecessor, and yet the predecessor less noble than he, because he was the acquirer; which is a paradox that will puzzle all their heraldry to explain. Strange! that they should be more noble than their ancestor, that got their nobility for them! But if this be absurd, as it is, then the upstart is the noble man; the man that got it by his virtue: and those only are entitled to his honour that are imitators of his virtue; the rest may bear his name from his blood, but that is all. If virtue, then, give nobility, which heathens themselves agree, then families are no longer truly noble than they are virtuous. And if virtue go not by blood, but by the qualifications of the descendants, it follows, blood is excluded; else blood would bar virtue, and no man that wanted the one should be allowed the benefit of the other; which were to stint and bound nobility for want of antiquity, and make virtue useless.

No, let blood and name go together; but pray, let nobility and virtue keep company, for they are nearest of kin. 'Tis thus posited by God himself, that best knows how to apportion things with an equal and just hand. He neither likes nor dislikes by descent; nor does he regard what people were, but are. He remembers not the righteousness of any man that leaves his righteousness, much less any unrighteous man for the righteousness of his ancestor.

But if these men of blood please to think themselves concerned to believe and reverence God in his Holy Scriptures, they may learn that, in the beginning, he made of one blood all nations of men, to dwell upon all the face of the earth; and that we are descended of one father and mother; a more certain original than the best of us can assign. From thence go down to Noah, who was the second planter of human race, and we are upon some certainty for our forefathers. What violence has rapt, or virtue merited since, and how far we that are alive are concerned in either, will be hard for us to determine but a few ages off us.

But, methinks, it should suffice to say, our own eyes see that men of blood, out of their gear and trappings, without their feathers and finery, have no more marks of honour by nature stamped upon them than their inferior neighbours. Nay, themselves being judges, they will frankly tell us they feel all those passions in their blood that make them like other men, if not further from the virtue that truly dignifies. The lamentable ignorance and debauchery that now rages among too many of our greater sort of folks, is too clear and casting an evidence in the point and pray, tell me of what blood are they come?

Howbeit, when I have said all this, I intend not, by debasing one false quality, to make insolent another that is not true. I would not be thought to set the churl upon the present gentleman's shoulder: by no means; his rudeness will not mend the matter. But what I have writ, is to give aim to all, where true nobility dwells, that every one may arrive at it

by the ways of virtue and goodness. But for all this, I must allow a great advantage to the gentleman; and therefore prefer his station, just as the apostle Paul, who, after he had humbled the Jews, that insulted upon the Christians with their law and rites, gave them the advantage upon all other nations in statutes and judgments. I must grant that the condition of our great men is much to be preferred to the ranks of inferior people. For, first, they have more power to do good; and, if their hearts be equal to their ability, they are blessings to the people of any country. Secondly, the eyes of the people are usually directed to them; and if they will be kind, just, and helpful, they shall have their affections and services. Thirdly, they are not under equal straits with the inferior sort; and consequently they have more help, leisure, and occasion, to polish their passions and tempers with books and conversation. Fourthly, they have more time to observe the actions of other nations; to travel and view the laws, customs, and interests of other countries; and bring home whatsoever is worthy or imitable. And so, an easier way is open for great men to get honour; and such as love true reputation will embrace the best means to it. But because it too often happens that great men do little mind to give God the glory of their prosperity, and to live answerable to his mercies, but, on the contrary, live without God in the world, fulfilling the lusts thereof, His hand is often seen, either in impoverishing or extinguishing them, and raising up men of more virtue and humility to their estates and dignity. However, I must allow, that among people of this rank, there have been some of them of more than ordinary virtue, whose examples have given light to their families. And it has been something natural for some of their descendants to endeavour to keep up the credit of their houses in proportion to the merit of their founder. And, to say true, if there be any advantage in such descent, 'tis not from blood, but education; for blood has no intelligence in it, and is often spurious and uncertain; but education has a mighty influence and strong bias upon the affections and actions of men. In this the ancient nobles and gentry of this kingdom did excel; and it were much to be wished that our great people would set about to recover the ancient economy of their houses, the strict and virtuous discipline of their ancestors, when men were honoured for their achievements, and when nothing more exposed a man to shame, than his being born to a nobility that he had not a virtue to support.

[Penn's Advice to his Children.]

Next, betake yourselves to some honest, industrious course of life, and that not of sordid covetousness, but for example, and to avoid idleness. And if you change your condition and marry, choose with the knowledge and consent of your mother, if living, or of guardians, or those that have the charge of you. Mind neither beauty nor riches, but the fear of the Lord, and a sweet and amiable disposition, such as you can love above all this world, and that may make your habitations pleasant and desirable to you.

And being married, be tender, affectionate, patient, and meek. Live in the fear of the Lord, and He will bless you and your offspring. Be sure to live within compass; borrow not, neither be beholden to any. Ruin not yourselves by kindness to others; for that exceeds the due bounds of friendship, neither will a true friend expect it. Small matters I heed not.

Let your industry and parsimony go no further than for a sufficiency for life, and to make a provision for your children, and that in moderation, if the Lord gives you any. charge you help the poor and needy: let the Lord have a voluntary share of your income for the good of the poor, both in our society and others;

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