Act." This act set forth a certain oath, declaring the conviction of the person taking it that it is unlawful to take up arms against the sovereign, and promising not to attempt an alteration of the government either in church or state; and it provided that those who refused to take such an oath should not come within five miles of any corporate city, or within five miles of any town or place in which they had been heretofore settled, or in which they had preached, under enormous penalties. By this act the nonconformists were a second time driven from their homes.

In the following year another tremendous visitation occurred. September 2, 1666, began," says Baxter, as quoted by Calamy, "that dreadful fire, whereby the best and one of the fairest cities in the world was turned into ashes and ruins in three days' space. The season had been exceeding dry before, and the wind in the east when the fire began. The people, having none to conduct them aright, could do nothing to resist it, but stood and saw their houses burnt without remedy, the engines being presently out of order and useless. The streets were crowded with people and carts, to carry away what goods they could get; and they that were most active and befriended got carts and saved much, while the rest lost almost all they had. The loss in houses and goods could scarce be valued. Among the rest, the loss of books was a very great detriment to the interest of piety and learning. * * To see the fields filled with heaps of goods, and sumptuous buildings, curious rooms, costly furniture, and household stuff, - yea, warehouses and furnished shops and libraries, &c., all on a flame, whilst none durst come near to receive anything; to see the king and nobles ride about the streets, beholding all these desolations, while none could afford the least relief; to see the air, as far as it could be beheld, so filled with smoke that the sun shined through it with a color like blood, &c. But the dolefullest sight of all was, afterwards, to see what a ruinous confused place the city was, by chimneys and steeples only standing in the midst of cellars and heaps of rubbish; so that it was hard to know where the streets

had been, and dangerous of a long time to pass through the ruins, because of vaults and fires in them."*

True to their function, the nonconformist ministers availed themselves of the occasion to open houses for divine service, which were crowded with worshippers.

Some of these churches were built of boards, and were called tabernacles. Most of the leading dissenting churches of London originated about this period.

In the following year, Clarendon, then lord chancellor, was impeached and discarded. His retirement was the consequence of intrigues disgraceful to the court and revolting to the nation. The Duke of Buckingham, the most abandoned of debauchees, succeeded him in the favor of the monarch, and the nonconformists gained some respite by the change. The king, influenced by Buckingham, and intent on gaining a popish ascendency, endeavored to moderate the stringency of preceding enactments. But the parliament refused to be won. The attempt made about this time to effect another scheme of comprehension irritated Sheldon, who addressed a circular letter to the bishops, demanding from them an account of the nonconformist ministers in their several dioceses. Under this proceeding Baxter was seized and imprisoned. He demanded a writ of habeas corpus, which, because he was favored by the court, was granted. Many friends at this conjuncture offered to assist him with their purses, but he refused all aid except for his law and prison charges.

Baffled in his attempts to affect a compromise with the episcopalians, Baxter next endeavored to make one with the independents. A correspondence on the subject took place between him and Dr. Owen, but it reached no issue, partly from a want of agreement between the two correspondents regarding the power of the civil magistrate.

*Calamy's Baxter. Calamy had reason to be interested in this event. His grandfather, Mr. E. Calamy, who refused a bishopric under Charles II., was so affected by the sight of the ruins, that it ought on his death. He had been mprisoned for nonconformity.

In the year 1766 Baxter's friends built him a new meetinghouse, in Oxenden-street. He had not preached more than once in this building when new persecutions awaited him. Baxter was surprised in his own house, and served with a warrant under the corporation act, and five more warrants claiming one hundred and ninety-five pounds for four sermons. His extreme illness rescued him from prison, but the warrant was executed upon his books and goods. Fearing new seizures, he was compelled to go into private lodgings. Again he tells us, "While I lay in pain and languishing, the justices of the session sent warrants to apprehend me, about a thousand more being in catalogue to be bound to their good behavior. I refused to open my chamber-door to them, their warrant not being to break it open; but they set six officers at my study door, who watched all night, and kept me from my bed and food; so that the next day I yielded to them, who carried me, scarce able to stand, to the sessions, and bound me in four hundred pounds."

Other parts of the reign of Charles II. are full of incidents illustrative of the principles set forth in this volume; but these must be briefly told. England became, under the pressure of the king's unprincipled necessities, a mere appanage of France. Charles endeavored to prepare the way for Roman Catholic ascendency. The parliament, jealous of his intentions, labored for the passing of penal enactments. Nonconformists, who would have rejoiced at even indulgence, hesitated to accept it when offered by the king "in virtue of his supreme power in matters ecclesiastical." The contest between the king and his parliament gave birth to the Test Act, which provided that all persons holding office, civil or military, should take the oath of supremacy, declare against transubstantiation, and receive the sacrament according to the forms of the Church of England. Then came the rumors of a popish plot, which all feared, some believed, but none understood. The nation was hastening to ruin. The exchequer was bankrupt. Public morality was destroyed. The court was dissolute to a degree which, in the present day, seems incredible. The church, de

prived of its most faithful ministers, was left a prey to clergymen who, though not without bright exceptions, were mostly careless, whilst many were dissolute, and some abandoned. The nonconformists were indulged or persecuted, according to the policy or the humor of the moment. The metropolis was a scene of constant agitation. The office of jailer alone was profitable. The Roman Catholics were dispossessed of their seats in parliament. The Duke of York, avowing himself a Romanist, was excluded from the privy council. Rumors of plots possessed men's minds. Nobleren suffered death under the suspicion of indefinable treasons. Judges and juries were alike servile and venal. The monarchy was hastening to its extinction. At length, jaded, sated, disgraced, contemned, Charles II. died in the arms of his mistress, comforted in his last moments by the thought that he should reach "Aeaven's gates" by means of the rites of the Roman Catholic

urch, leaving a name characterized by no good quality, but asy address and careless facility; a saunterer, a reveller, a lampooner, a liar, a profligate; reckless of the nation's honor, and indifferent to his own; a bad husband, an untrusted friend, a merciless judge, a despotic king; pilloried, till the latest day of England's history, as one by whom its liberties were betrayed, its honor humiliated, its greatness prostituted and destroyed. Such was the penalty paid by a nation for its undiscerning enthusiasm ; by a religious party for its tenacity after uniformity, and its struggles for the covenant; by an establishment for "its most religious and gracious king."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PRICE OF RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS.

If we come to prohibiting, there is nothing so likely to be prohibited as trut itself."- MILTON.

F all the scenes which the sun shines upon in the north of England, there is surely none more lovely than that which encircles the famous castle of Lancaster. The Roman poet tells us that in his day it was not the good fortune of every one to go to Corinth. Neither is a visit to the lakes within the compass of every tourist. Should the reader lack the reality, he must be contented with the pictorial, which, however, we may assure him, is a very inferior affair. The name Lancashire" indicates its origin, - the JOHN OF GAUNT'S GATEWAY, Chester (or Castle) of the Lune, which river flashes its rapid waters in a full mountain-stream above the town, where it abates its haste, and flows on more gently till it yields to the tides of the ocean beneath its walls. The castle itself stands on a considerable eminence, not, like Windsor Castle, the highest point of the landscape, but reposing on an altitude surmounted by the greater eminences of an amphitheatre of hills. The present building is not the first strong-hold by which the town has been distinguished; it is the successor of one much older, but now entirely demolished, dating back from Saxon, if not from Roman, times. From the now.

LANCASTER.