XVI. "the hellish darkness and debauchery," of the univer- CHAP. sity of Oxford; he exposed the errors of the Roman Catholic church and in the same breath pleaded for a XVI. 1671. "the hellish darkness and debauchery," of the univer- CHAP. sity of Oxford; he exposed the errors of the Roman Catholic church, and in the same breath pleaded for a toleration of their worship; and never fearing openly to address a Quaker meeting, he was soon on the road to Newgate, to suffer for his honesty by a six months' 1670. imprisonment. "You are an ingenious gentleman,” said the magistrate at the trial; "you have a plentiful estate; why should you render yourself unhappy by associating with such a simple people ?"-" I prefer," said Penn, “the honestly simple to the ingeniously wicked." The magistrate rejoined by charging Penn with previous immoralities. The young man, with passionate vehemence, vindicated the spotlessness of his life. "I speak this," he adds, "to God's glory, who has ever preserved me from the power of these pollutions, and who, from a child, begot a hatred in me towards them." "Thy words shall be thy burden 1; I trample thy slander as dirt under my feet." From Newgate Penn addressed parliament and the nation in the noblest plea for liberty of conscience-a liberty which he defended by arguments drawn from experience, from religion, and from reason. If the efforts of the Quakers cannot obtain "the olive branch of toleration, we bless the providence of God, resolving by patience to outweary persecution, and by our constant sufferings to obtain a victory more glorious than our adversaries can achieve by their cruelties." to On his release from imprisonment, a calmer season 1671 followed. Penn travelled in Holland and Germany; 1673 then returning to England, he married a woman of extraordinary beauty and sweetness of temper, whose noble spirit "chose him before many suitors," and honored him with "a deep and upright love." As 374 XVI. PREVIOUS LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. CHAP. persecution in England was suspended, he enjoyed for two years the delights of rural life, and the animating pursuit of letters; till the storm was renewed, and the imprisonment of George Fox, on his return from America, demanded intercession. What need of narrating the severities, which, like a slow poison, brought the prisoner to the borders of the grave? Why enumerate the atrocities of petty tyrants, invested with village magistracies, the ferocious passions of irresponsible jailers? The Statute Book of England contains the clearest impress of the bigotry which a national church could foster, and a parliament avow; and Penn, 1675. in considering England's present interest, far from resting his appeal on the sentiment of mercy, merited the highest honors of a statesman by the profound sagacity and unbiased judgment with which he unfolded the question of the rights of conscience in its connection with the peace and happiness of the state. It was this love of freedom of conscience which gave interest to his exertions for New Jersey. The summer 1677. and autumn after the first considerable Quaker emigration to the eastern bank of the Delaware, George Fox, and William Penn, and Robert Barclay, with others, embarked for Holland, to evangelize the continent; and Barclay and Penn went to and fro in Germany, from the Weser to the Mayne, the Rhine, and the Neckar, distributing tracts, discoursing with men of every sect and every rank, preaching in palaces and among the peasants, rebuking every attempt to inthrall the mind, and sending reproofs to kings and magistrates, to the princes and lawyers of all Christendom. The soul of William Penn was transported into fervors of devotion; and, in the ecstasies of enthusiasm, he explained "the universal principle" at Herford, in the |