mation may be traced back into old Lollardism, and thence back into the personal resolve of the solitary protester of earlier days still. A firm grasp of the foundation truth of individual trust in the promise and work of God for the human soul, leads to the assertion of the paramount right that this same conviction should be respected at all cost, and maintained against all comers.

This re-introduces us into the painful portion of our history, that which deals with the oppressions exercised towards the advanced reformers, by those who accepted as final, the system of doctrine and discipline patronized by the Court and endowed by the State. John Canne, the laborious author of the reference Bible which bears his name, whilst in banishment for Nonconformity in 1634, thus describes the new difficulties which beset the path of conscientious godly men who chose in religious matters to think for themselves :-" Notwithstanding those called Puritans, which will not observe their traditions and beggarly ceremonies, shall be hurried up and down to their spiritual courts upon every occasion, and there be scorned, derided, taunted, and reviled with odious and contumelious speeches, eyed with big and stern looks, have proctors procured to make personal invectives. against them; made to dance attendance from court to court, and from term to term, frowning at them in presence, and laughing at them behind their backs, never leaving molesting of them till they have emptied their purses, or caused them to make shipwreck of their consciences, or driven them out of the land; or, lastly,

by imprisonment, starved, stifled, and pined them to death." *

Its

The original Nonconformists were clergymen within the Church of England, who simply objected to the prelatical and other ceremonies with which it was re-established by Queen Elizabeth. The term never indicated any dissent from its doctrines or State position. historical sense is quite different from the popular modern meaning which it conveniently expresses. This is very apparent in the biographies of good Mr. Clarke. He thus writes of John Carter, vicar of Bramhall, who sustained a holy life and useful evangelical ministry through the troubles of his day, and died before the Act of Uniformity: "He was sound and orthodox in his judgment; an able and resolute champion against all manner of Popery and Arminianism; as also against Anabaptism and Brownism, which did then begin to peep up, and infest the Church, to tear and rent the seamless coat of Christ. He was always a Nonconformist-one of the good old Puritans of England. He never swallowed any of the prelatical ceremonies against his conscience; so that he was often troubled with the bishops. But God raised him up friends that always brought him off and maintained his liberty." +

But religion is happily ever independent of all names and sects. There were at this time several persons of wealth and station who were occupied in promoting the work of evangelization. Such was Lady Bowes, the

* Canne's Necessity of Separation, p. 160.

+ Clarke's Ten Lives, p. 4.

widow of Sir Benjamin Bowes, of Barnard Castle, who spent a thousand pounds annually in maintaining preachers whom she selected and sent into districts devoid of gospel-teaching.

In 1627, a scheme was originated, and a common fund raised by subscription in London, to maintain lecturers in populous places similarly bereft. This was well supported, and extended to the buying-up of advowsons for the same object; but Archbishop Laud considered the scheme as too favourable to the growth of Puritanism, and got an information filed and decree pronounced by the Court of Exchequer, cancelling the association, confiscating by forfeiture to the Crown the impropriations already purchased, and fining the trustees personally.

We get a beautiful sketch of Herbert at Bemerton :his service twice a day in the chapel of his parsonage ; his congregation made up of gentlemen from the neighbourhood, as well as his own parishioners; the husbandmen in the fields around letting their ploughs rest when they heard Mr. Herbert's bell ring to prayers, that they might offer their devotions with him, aud then return to the plough.

Scarcely less beautiful is the picture of the poet-priest on his deathbed, delivering to his friend the MS. of his volume, now called "The Temple, "-saying,-" Sir, pray deliver this little book to my brother Farrer; and tell him he shall find in it a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed betwixt God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus, my Master, in whose service I have now found perfect freedom. Desire

him to read it; and then if he think it may turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul, let it be made public : if not, let him burn it, for I and it are less than the least of God's mercies." On the day of his death, he said to another friend,-"My dear friend, I am sorry I have nothing to present to my merciful God but sin and misery: but the first is pardoned, and a few hours will put a period to the latter." His friend took occasion to remind him of his many acts of mercy; to which he made answer, "They be good works if they be sprinkled with the blood of Christ, and not otherwise." He died realizing his own sweet utterance,—

“Who goeth in the way which Christ has gone,
Is much more sure to meet with Him, than one
That travelleth by-ways.

Perhaps my God, though He be far before,

May turn, and take me by the hand,—and, more,
May strengthen my decays." *

The most outlandish parts of England were now being penetrated by evangelical labour. What Bernard Gilpin and Rothwell had done in the North of England, Bagshaw did for the Peak of Derbyshire, Vavasour Powel and Hugh Owen for Wales, Machin in the moorlands of Staffordshire, Tregoss in Cornwall.

In 1625 was the commencement of a revival in the West of Scotland, which illuminated a large district, and originated piety in some who conferred signal benefit on the Church in years long afterwards. †

In the early part of King Charles's reign, there was at Wotton, in Gloucestershire, a gathering of young persons,

*The Temple, lxii. † See Gillies, vol. i., p. 306.

who used to meet for religious instruction. Joseph Woodward, a graduate of Oxford, master of the free school at Wotton, joined the society, and became eminent at Dursley for his evangelical labours. As he went to church, the people would be waiting at the streetdoors of their houses, and fell into procession, so as to accompany the good man, whom they had begun with reviling, and ended with loving. He died before the Act of Uniformity.

To this period, too, belongs the nursing of John Eliot, that great apostolic spirit who was to become the admiration of future ages as the pioneer of mission-work among the heathen. In 1628, Thomas Hooker, a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and lecturer at Chelmsford, had been worried out of the ministry by Laud, and was keeping a school at Little Baddow, in Essex. He was joined by a young Essex man, also a Cambridge scholar, named Eliot, who came to be his assistant, and who writes" To this place was I called through the infinite riches of God's mercy in Christ Jesus to my poor soul; for here the Lord said unto my dead soul, Live! live! and through the grace of God I do live, and I shall live for ever!" Eliot followed his master to North America, where, moved by the lamentable condition of the Indian tribes, he wrote a tractate entitled "The Daybreaking of the Gospel," and took other effective means of drawing public attention to the subject of their evangelization, acquired their language, and thenceforward devoted all his long life to the work of preaching the Gospel as an itinerant missionary of the Cross. He