them at the present day."* Such were the reasons, which convinced William Penn, that it was his duty not to accede to his father's request in the ceremony of the hat, even out of respect to the king himself. The Admiral was vexed at this persevering obstinacy in what appeared to him a thing of trifling importance as a matter of conscience, but which had become by the rules of society an innocent custom, constituting at once a test of good manners and of a regard for social order, His patience was again exhausted, his passions rose above his paternal feelings, and he compelled his son a second time to go from home under the weight of his severe displeasure.

He was now enlisted with his whole soul in the cause of the Quakers, and in the year 1668 he resolved to enter on the office of a preacher in that sect, and to devote his life to the promulgation of the tenets by which it was distinguished. No one, who has followed his progress thus far, and witnessed the inherent firmness of his mind and energy of his character, will doubt that he was true to his purpose. It was now that he entered the broad sphere of public life, and launched on the ocean of popular religious controversy, where, for upwards of forty years, he sustained himself as one of the most distinguished persons of the age in which he lived.

* Clarkson's Memoirs of the Private and Public Life of William Penn. Chap. III.

He had scarcely commenced his ministerial career, when he was furnished with convincing proofs, that tranquillity and personal comfort were the last things of which he could cherish any good hope in the discharge of his new duties. To be the preacher of an unpopular faith, to encounter prejudices and endeavour to eradicate errors, to expose the mischiefs of false religion, and call on men to relinquish their ancient belief and habits, was not a task calculated to secure rewards of gratitude, or to make the path of life peaceful and smooth. Hosts of adversaries came forward, but no power of opposition could daunt the spirit of William Penn. His zeal and exertions were adequate to every occasion, and by example and exhortation, by preaching and writing, he boldly confronted his enemies, and stood forth as the determined and unwearied champion of the cause he had espoused.

His first publication was entitled Truth Exalted, and was designed to explain the principles of his faith, to show that they were built on divine authority, that they were the true principles of pure and vital religion, far removed from human traditions and profane ceremonies, and eminently calculated to bring forth the genuine fruits of christianity, meekness, love, charity, and a good life. The point of the treatise consisted in showing, that truth was exalted in the faith and practice of the Quakers, whom bigoted sectaries, or ignorant and designing men, had been free to

calumniate as void of religion, as heretics, or infidels. The field of controversy was now fairly open, and William Penn's labours daily increased on his hands.

Shortly after this time a publication appeared, under the title of a "Guide to True Religion," in which the author undertook to point out the way by which a person must arrive at a true christian faith; and that was to believe a certain set of articles kindly strung together by the writer, and honoured with the name of a christian's creed. All who deviated from this way, or in other words, all who did not hang their faith implicitly on this creed, were declared to be without the pale of salvation, and bewildered in the hopeless region of infidelity. Among these outcasts the author particularly recounted Papists, Socinians, and Quakers. This treatise found its way into the hands of William Penn, and, as expressed by his biographer, "it set him as it were on fire." He could not brook the arrogance, which should consign to perdition a fellow mortal, who could not violate conscience by pretending to believe what his understanding pronounced to be false and at variance with the plain light of Scripture; he had no patience with the insufferable pride and antichristian spirit, which should look down as from a higher and holier eminence, and heap anathemas on the head of a brother, under the hypocritical garb of a pretended concern for his eternal welfare; he could not endure the overbearing selfsufficiency, which should rail

against the Papists for claiming infallibility, and at the same time set itself up as a universal judge, scattering the poison of calumny and the arrows of death without mercy and without shame; he might pity the ravings of deluded bigotry, and look with compassion on the extravagancies of a sickly fancy, but he was indignant at the audacity which passed a judginent, that belonged only to the Searcher of hearts, and at the hypocrisy of him, who would exalt his own goodness by fixing a stigma on the faith of his brethren, where the eye of malice could not detect a spot on the character. He felt himself bound to reply to so unjust a representation of the means of obtaining proper views of christianity, and to expose and censure so flagrant an abuse of its spirit and purposes. This was done in a small work, called the Guide Mistaken, in which he confuted the doctrines of his opponent, and placed in a clear light not only the errors of his creed, but the faults of his heart and practice.

This treatise had but recently gone out to the world, when an occurrence took place, which proved to be of no inconsiderable importance in its consequences. As it has a particular bearing on that portion of Penn's writings selected for the present work, it will doubtless not be amiss to dwell upon it in this place at considerable length. It is thus described by Mr Clarkson.

"Two persons belonging to a Presbyterian congregation in Spital Fields went one day to the meetinghouse of the Quakers, merely to learn what their religious doctrines were. It happened that they were converted there. This news being carried to Thomas Vincent their pastor, it so stirred him up, that he not only used his influence to prevent the converts in question from attending there again, but he decried the doctrines of the Quakers as damnable, and said many unhandsome things against them. This slander having gone abroad, William Penn, accompanied by George Whitehead, an eminent minister among the Quakers, who had already written twenty nine pamphlets in their defence, went to Vincent, and demanded an opportunity of defending their principles publicly. This, after a good deal of demur, was agreed to. The Presbyterian meetinghouse was fixed upon for this purpose, and the day and hour appointed also.

"When the time came the Quakers presented themselves at the door; but Vincent, to ensure a majority on his side, had filled a great part of the meetinghouse with his own hearers, so that there was but little room for them. Penn, however, and Whitehead, with a few others of the Society, pushed their way in. They had scarcely done this, when they heard it proclaimed aloud, that the Quakers held damnable doctrines.' Immediately upon this Whitehead showed himself. He began, in answer to the charge, to explain aloud what the principles of the

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