ment of families, produced untold sufferings, but cemented the Society in a strong family feeling. They volunteered to serve out each other's sentences in jail,* they aided whenever

example of all. But if after all we have said, sufferings should be the present lot of our inheritance from this gen. eration, be it known to them all-That meet we must and meet we can not but encourage all to do (whatever we sustain) in God's name and authority, who is Lord of Hosts and King of Kings."-William Penn, "The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience."

we

*"In love to our brethren that lie in prisons and houses of correction and dungeons, and many in fetters and irons and have been cruelly beat by the cruel gaolers, and many have been persecuted to death and have died in prisons and on straw "do offer up our bodies and selves to you for to put us as lambs into the same dungeons and houses of correction, and their straw and nasty holes and prisons and do stand ready a sacrifice for to go into their places that they may go forth and not die in prison as many of the brethren are dead already. For we are willing to lay down our lives for our brethren and to take their sufferings upon us that you would inflict on them. .... And if you will receive our bodies which we freely tender to you for our Friends that are now in prison for speaking the truth in several places; for not paying tithes; for meeting together in the fear of God; for not swearing; for wearing their hats; for being accounted as vagrants; for visiting Friends and for things of a like nature: We whose names are hereunto subscribed, being a sufficient number are waiting in Westminster-hall for an answer from you to us, to answer our tenders and to manifest our love to our Friends and to stop the wrath and judgment from coming to our en emies." Among this noble band of men who thus offered

possible, and finally organized the Meeting for Sufferings, under which peculiar title the representative body of the Yearly Meeting still exists in London and Philadelphia.

In 1680 William Penn and two others presented to King and Parliament a compilation of their sufferings. Ten thousand had been in prison, and 243 had died there, mainly from cruel usage. Two-thirds of the estates of a large number had been confiscated under the plea that they were Papists in disguise. Exorbitant fines had been imposed in other cases. As many as 4,000 were in jail at one time a little later than this, and there seemed but little prospect of the trouble abating. Nor had there been any effect, so far as stopping Quakerism was concerned. The Society was growing rapidly, and every one of the persecuted had practically said with William Penn, "My prison shall be my grave before I will budge a jot, for I owe obedience of my conscience to no mortal man."

Such was the man to whom was given Pennsylvania as a means of extinguishing an old debt of 16,000 pounds owed him by the Crown, and

themselves to Parliament were some who were afterwards settlers in Pennsylvania.

who was accorded quite large liberty in determining the nature of its government. Such were the people upon whom he depended to form the nucleus of his settlement and give it character.

Those who emigrated were mainly but not exclusively English yeomen-tillers of the soil, who found in Pennsylvania not only a congenial political atmosphere, but fertile lands which they knew how to improve. They very largely appropriated to themselves the country along the west side of the Delaware River from Trenton to Wilmington, and founded the cities of Philadelphia and Chester. That they retained the same characteristics in the New World they had developed in the Old, and added to them the more active qualities which come from the assumption of the responsibilities of government, will be evident as we proceed.

CHAPTER III.

THE QUAKERS IN EARLY PENNSYLVANIA.

The organization of the Society of Friends existing in England was reproduced in America. It was due to the good sense and practical genius of George Fox, and was probably worked out during his cruel imprisonment of nearly three years in Lancaster and Scarboro' jails. The central authority, at first representative, ultimately became an assembly of all members of the Society, the men and women meeting as different bodies. This constituted the Yearly Meeting. The Quarterly Meetings reported to this, and were in turn divided into Monthly Meetings, the real working bodies of the organization, in matters relating to the individual members. The Monthly Meeting undertook to see that justice was done between man and man, that disputes were settled, that the poor were supported, that delinquents, whether as to the Society's own rules or those of the State, were reformed, or if reformation seemed impossible, were "disowned" by the Society, that applicants for membership were tested and