THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
mond, in Dublin. Forming a warm friendship for the duke's son, the earl of Arran, he joined him in an expedition to put down a mutiny at Carrickfergus, acquitting himself in the action with great courage. He wished to accept a commission now offered him in the army, but his father was unwilling. The only certainly authentic portrait of Penn is one taken at this time, representing him in a full suit of armor. Placed in charge of the family estates in Ireland, he showed great capacity for business. Being at Cork one day, he heard the preaching of his old friend, Thomas Loe, who began his discourse with these words: " There is a faith which overcomes the world, and there is a faith which is overcome by the world." Penn was so deeply moved that he renounced the world at once and forever, and spent the rest of his life as a devoted servant of Christ. Attaching himself to the Society of Friends, he suffered much from persecution. Imprisoned in 1667, for attending a religious meeting of his fellow worshipers in Cork, he'wrote a letter to the Earl of Orrery, lord-president of Munster, in which he said: " Though to dissent from a national system imposed by authority renders men heretics, yet I dare believe your lordship is better read in reason and theology than to subscribe a maxim so vulgar and untrue." The earl ordered his release; but his father, hearing that he had turned Quaker, sent for him, and he returned home. Observing that his son did not uncover his head when he came into his presence, the admiral demanded an explanation. William answered that he could uncover only to God, and not in homage to any man. " Not even to the king? " asked the father. The son asked an hour for consideration, and, after meditation and prayer, returned with the answer, " Not even to the king." His father was very angry, disowned him, and turned him out of doors.
However excessive his scruples may have been, the servility of that age made greater demands for such a protest than our franker and more manly times. At all events William Penn gave the fullest proof of his sincerity and Christian heroism. Never did a young man sacrifice more when he renounced the world. Enjoying the intimacy and the favor of the king, admired at court, handsome in person, graceful in manners, adorned with every manly accomplishment, expectant heir of a title of nobility (that of Lord Weymouth), which the king was ready to confer upon his father, he was entering upon life with the most brilliant promise of distinction and success. All this he gave up to meet persecution and scorn. Hardest of all, he was forced to disappoint the fond and ambitious hopes of his father. But he never wavered. His father, the admiral, was before his death (1670) reconciled to him, and advised him to keep his " plain way " of life and of preaching.
Penn holds a high place as a champion of English liberty and of universal toleration. Imprisoned in the Tower of London from Dec. 12, 1668, to the end of July, 1669, at the instance of the bishop of London, for publishing without license a tract entitled The Sandy Foundation Shaken, he sent word to his father, " My prison shall be my grave before I
will budge a jot; for I owe my conscience to no mortal man." In the Tower he wrote, No Cross, No Crown, the most widely read of all his works. He said, in a letter to the secretary of state, " What if I differ from some religious apprehensions? Am I therefore incompatible with human societies? I know not any unfit for political society, but those who maintain principles subversive of industry, justice, fidelity, and obedience." " It ought to satisfy the most rabid sectarian that he can forbid his rival a share of heaven, without also banishing him from the earth." These views he maintained in his after-life, before kings and people, and defended them in speeches before the House of Commons and by his pen. He told Dr. Stillingfleet, sent by the king to endeavor to change his judgment, " whoever was in the wrong, those who used force for religion never could be in the right." He was released from the Tower by the king, through the intercession of the duke of York.
On Aug. 14, 1670, on going to the meeting at Grace-church Street, London, he found the house guarded by a band of soldiers. Not permitted to enter, the Friends gathered about the door in silence, and held their meeting in the street. Penn preached, but was soon arrested by the constables, together with William Mead. Penn's bold assertion of the liberties of an Englishman, and the noble constancy of his jury in acquitting him against all the threats of the court, have made this trial ever memorable. Within three months he was again imprisoned for preaching. He traveled in Holland and Germany, preaching fidelity to the light of Christ in the soul; and with his courtly breeding (speaking also Dutch, German, French, and Italian) he mingled with the highest orders of society as well as with the lowly. The princess-palatine of the Rhine, granddaughter of James I., sought his society, and confided to him the story of her religious conflicts and experiences.
From early years Penn had nourished dreams of a home for the oppressed in the wilds of America. Becoming connected with New Jersey, and one of the proprietors of East Jersey, he drew up liberal laws for the province, and many Friends migrated thither. In 1681 he obtained from Charles II. a grant of the lands now constituting the states of Pennsylvania and Delaware, in satisfaction of a claim of his father's against the crown for sixteen thousand pounds, and became the greatest landowner in the world. The king insisted on prefixing " Penn " to the name of the principality, against Penn's protest. Here he had opportunity for his " holy experiment." He granted perfect toleration and the fullest liberty consistent with order; he treated the Indians with justice and generosity; and under his government the province grew rapidly, and flourished. He spent a great part of his large estates in England and Ireland for the aid of the settlers — in fact, thirty thousand pounds more, he says, than he ever got from the province; and yet, with an excess of liberality, he refused to accept an impost on exports and imports which the Assembly voted him. He found it difficult to collect the moderate annual quit-rents, which as feudal proprietor he was obliged to exact, and through the