action of the Act of Uniformity, Five Mile Act, Acts against Meetings, and to enforce Tithes, Act to prescribe Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, Quakers were imprisoned, their property confiscated, and themselves transported. In 1662, above four thousand Quakers were in gaol. In London alone, four hundred. In 1662, twenty died in gaol; twenty-five in 1664; fifty-two in 1665. By that year nearly four hundred had fallen victims. On the death of Charles II. (when James II. ordered their release) nearly fifteen hundred Quakers were found in gaol.

But their constancy never failed. When one of the Quakers, Parnell, was preaching at St. Nicholas' Church in Colchester, some one struck him with a stick, saying, 'Thou, take that for Christ's sake." His answer was, 'Friend, I do receive it for Jesus Christ's sake." Two Quaker women went to Oxford, to preach repentance to the people. They were beaten and thrust into the prison of Bocardo, sentenced to be whipped out of the city, and their sentence was executed. Two Quaker men set off to Rome, to convert the Pope; one of them died in the hands of the Inquisition, the other was, with some difficulty, by the interposition of our government, rescued. So far from these sufferings checking the sect, it throve by them. The Quakers went to every place, to the camp and the barracks, to foreign countries, to Jerusalem, China, even to Japan. Some went to reclaim the savages, others to convert the

negroes. One young woman found her way to the presence of the Sultan at Adrianople. Another penetrated with her warnings into the gorgeous presence of Louis XIV. in Versailles. Fox himself swept with his visits all ranks of society and all nations-the Protector, the King, the Pope, German princes, the Electors, burgo-masters, and the King of Poland. By his activity, the sect grew. Its meetings in London were so crowded, that already, under the Commonwealth, they had swelled beyond the accommodation of private houses, and then meetings were held in a large room in the Bull and Mouth Tavern. Quakerism numbered, thus early, upwards of sixty ministers, and included in its ranks magistrates and men of station. It had spread from Yorkshire to Edinburgh, from the miners of Cornwall to the shrewd burghers of Aberdeen. In 1688 it began in Bedfordshire its yearly meetings, formally convened, regularly attended, as if they enjoyed the protection of the law. There was no place or authority that the Quakers did not reach or face. Magistrates and officers, who were employed to apprehend them, became their converts. Their gaolers were turned into their captives. The Inquisition of Malta, from whose gripe few escaped, was compelled to release its Quaker prisoners; but no instance of their patience is more touching, than that which is presented in the

* The case of Thomas Sherman, Gaoler of Derby, who was converted

annals of America, for, (to their shame be it spoken) the fangs of the American Puritans were sharper than those of the Jesuits.

Anne Burden went to the Brownists of Massachusetts, to warn them against persecution. She was whipped with twenty stripes.* This punishment only excited offenders, and the penalties were raised. Banishment and mutilation now became the punishment of Quakerism. Mary Dyer, not deterred, appeared at Boston with two Quaker friends, to warn the Puritans of their guilt in persecuting. They were imprisoned and tried. Their sentence was death. The two male Quakers were executed: Mary Dyer, unmoved and calm, at the gallows as in the court, received her reprieve without emotion. She was banished, but she came back to Boston, under what she believed to be a Divine call. We give the remainder in the words of Mr. Marsden, “Once more she was sentenced to be hanged. The trial was short, and not wanting in simplicity. Governor Endecot again presided. He asked her whether she were the same Mary Dyer who had been previously before the Court. "I am the same Mary Dyer." "Then yon own yourself a Quaker." "I own myself to be reproachfully called so." "Then I must repeat the sentence once before pronounced upon you," and

by his prisoner Fox, in 1650, is remarkable, and the narrative breathes the truth and spirit of Apostolic times.

* See Marsden's History of the Early Puritans, p. 314.

he repeated the sentence. "That is no more than thou saidst before." 66 But now it is to be executed, therefore prepare yourself for nine o'clock to-morrow." Her husband, for though young and beautiful, Mary Dyer was a wife and a mother, interceded for her life. He had been separated from her, while she was in Rhode Island, and was not privy to her return. With the deep pathetic eloquence with which nature alone pleads, he wrote to her iron-hearted judges, and concluded thus, after first acknowledging her inconsiderate madness," I only say this: yourselves are, and have been, and may be, husbands of wives: so am I, yea to one most dearly beloved. Oh! do not deprive me of her, but I pray, give her to me once again. Pity me, I beg it in tears." But his tears flowed in vain. The next day the scaffold was again erected upon Boston Common, a mile away from her prison. She was strongly guarded, and before her and behind drums were continually beaten, for the eloquence of the dying is known to be imperishable. When she had ascended the scaffold, Wilson, the fanatic minister, was again at his post. "O Mary Dyer," he cried, "repent, repent;""Nay, man," she answered calmly, in words in which a Puritan must have felt a keen rebuke, "I am not now to repent." She was again reproached with her pretended visions. She replied, and her peaceful demeanour seemed almost to explain her meaning, "I have been in Paradise many days." The

executioner performed his office,-Mary Dyer was no more."

It was in this state of matters, and in the face of this persecution, that Fox carried on his mission. He had warned his sect not to mix in the intrigues which preceded the Restoration, admonishing them that Christ's kingdom was not of this world; but bidding them "mind the Lord, His power and His service; live in peace, and in Christ the way of peace, and therein seek the peace of all men." He now resumed his work. In Norfolk, he was threatened with arrest by the mayor of Norwich; at Dorchester, his meetings were broken in upon by the constables; at Bristol, by drunken soldiers and a lawless mob, set on by the mayor. Fox's only revenge was to request the mayor to let to him the Town Hall, and he would give him twenty pounds yearly for the poor. Then he repaired to Yorkshire, where the meeting was assailed by the soldiery; but the strange influence of Fox's calmness prevailed, and, after many threats, the soldiery were withdrawn. In Cumberland he was arrested, and lodged in Lancaster Gaol. In that grim castle, crowds resorted to him, and to these he preached through his prison bars. From this he was removed, on a writ of Habeas Corpus, to London-sent there, such was the confidence felt in his word, without a guard. It was a new thing to see a prisoner walk into the King's Bench, and offer to the Chief Justice his