William Penn

rchy men was so enforced as to affect Quakers. A meeting at which Penn was present was broken in upon by constables, backed with soldiers, who "rudely and arbitrarily" required every man's appea

y requisite to preserve the peace." He reminded his lordship that he himself had not long since "concluded no way so effectual

ions; some are given to counsels and conclusions drawn from experience and dealing with human life in general; but there is one idea which continually recurs,-sometimes made the subject of a thesis, sometimes entering

that Penn was the son of his father the admiral, and the protégé of Ormond. His father called him home. It was on the 3d of September that William was arrested; on the 29th of December, being the Lord's day, Mrs. Turner calls upon Mr. and Mrs. Pe

said "thee" and "thou," and wore his hat. Especially upon these points of manners, the young man and his father held long discussions. The admiral insisted that William should refrain from making himself socially ridiculou

ers received him. He was thenceforth accounted among them as a teacher, a leader: in

go, but by certain laws which limited free speech and free action. The young preacher speedily made himself obnoxious to both these kinds of laws. Of the

is rough give-and-take, and Penn entered at once into this vigorous exercise. He began a long series of like documents with a tract entitled "Truth Exalted." The intent of it was to show that Roman Catholics, Churchmen, and Puritans alike were all shamefully in error, wand

t are called Protestants, and first those who are called Episcopalians, where do the Scriptures own such persecutors, false prophets, tithemongers, deniers of revelations, opposers of pe

and, this not giving the Quaker champion an opportunity to say all that was in his mind, he wrote a pamphlet, called "The Sandy Foundation Shaken." The full title was much longer than this, in the manner of the time, and announced the author's purpose to refute three "generall

, accordingly, the being and unity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, he so refused all the conventional phrases of the theologians as to seem to them to reject the doctrine of the Trinity itself. He did deny "the trinity of distinct and separate persons in the unity of essence." If the word "person" has one meaning, Penn was right; if it has another meaning, he was wrong. If a "person" i

t he must either recant or die a prisoner. "I told him," says Penn, "that the Tower was the worst argument in the world to convince me; for whoever was in the wrong,

ce." At the same time he addressed a letter to Lord Arlington, principal secretary of state. In the letter he maintained that he had "subverted no faith, obedience or good life," and he insisted on the natural right of liberty of conscience: "To conceit," he said, "that men must form their faith of thi

ng self-sacrifice, and urging men to simpler and more spiritual living. Thus the months of his imprisonment had been of value both to him and to the religious movement with which he had identified himself. The Quakers, when Penn joine

to endure it. Indeed, the world into which he had desired his son to enter was not at that moment treating the admiral well. He was suffering impeachment and the gout at the same time. He s

he reigns of Mary and of Cromwell were so recent an experience, the Papists and the Presbyterians were so many and so hostile, that it seemed unsafe to permit the assembling of persons concerning whose intentions there could be any doubt. Any company might undertake a conspiracy. The result of this feeling on the part of both the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities was a series of ordinances, reasonable enough under th

until some one should be moved to speak. It was not long before the spirit moved Penn. He was immediately arrested, and William Mead, a linen draper, with him, and the two were brought before the mayor. The charge was that they "unlawfully and tumultuously did ass

ly, after an absurd and unjust hearing, the jury, who appreciated the situation, brought in a verdict of "guilty of speaking in Gracious Street." The judges refused to accept the verdict, and kept the jury without food or drink for two days, trying to make them say, "guilty of speaking in Gracious Street to an unlawful assembly." At last the jury brought in a formal verdict of "not gui

t the friendship of the world was a valuable possession; and he had therefore requested his patron, the Duke of York, to be his son's friend. Both the duke and the king had promised their good counsel and protection. Thus "with a gent

fifteen hundred pounds. This wealth, however, made no stay in hi

w you, and do allow you, that; and you have a plentiful estate; why should you render yourself unhappy by associating with such a simple people?" That was the suspicious fact. Men in Robinson's position could not understand why Penn should join his fortunes with those of people so different from himself, poor, ignorant, and obscure, unless there were some hidden motive. He must be either a political conspirator, or, as many said, a Jesuit in disguise, which amounted to the same thing. "You do nothing," said Sir John, "but stir up th

g jail." Even here, however, he managed, as before, to write; and he must have had access to books, for what he wrote could not have been composed without sight of the authors from whom he qu

in Germany and Holland, holding meetings as opportunity offered, and regaini

se of Commons. Her mother, thus bereft, had married Isaac Pennington, a quiet country gentleman, in whose company, after some search for satisfaction in religion, she had become a Quaker. Pennington's Quakerism, together with the sufferings which it brought upon him, had made him known to Penn. It was to him that Penn had written, three years befor

a manuscript for him to read. "He asked me how I liked it, and what I thought of it, which I modestly but freely told him; and after some further discourse about

speaks of her "innocent, open, free conversation," and of the "abundant affability, courtesy, and sweetness of her natural temper." Her portrait fits with this description, showing a bright face in a small, dark hood, with a white kerchief over her shoulders. Both her ancestry and her breeding w

love of my youth, and much the joy of my life; the most beloved, as well as the most worthy of all

nce at Rickmansworth, in Hertfordshire. In the autumn, William set out again upon his missionary journeys, preaching in twenty-one towns in twenty-one days. "The Lord sealed up our labors and travels," he wr

f peace, "which," as he said, "is a