make good his position, Charles | upon the King, and presented an endeavoured to conciliate them. Ten address of thanks. Gentlemen,' of the leading Presbyterian ministers were placed on the list of the King's chaplains. Several prominent members of the party were nominated members of the privy council. An act was passed confirming_and restoring ministers, by which Presbyterians, and Independents, in the first instance irregularly appointed, obtained legal recognition as ministers of the Church of England, and by which the ejected Episcopalians were re-admitted to their benefices. Baptists only, and clergymen who had declared in favour of the trial and execution of the late King, and who refused the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, or the like, were disqualified from holding livings in the Church. But in the course of a few months it was perceived that Presbyterianism was by no means popular in the nation, that the tide of public feeling was setting in strong against the Puritans, and that the newly-restored King might safely break faith with the party, to which above all others he was indebted for his return. The Presbyterians, calling to mind perhaps, in the calm moments of reflection that succeeded their joy at the restoration, how the father had given the cold shoulder to his friends when it suited him, began to be uneasy at the son's delay in 'settling' religious observances in the Church. Charles was once more pressed, and with great courtesy he replied that something must be given up by each party that so they might meet in the middle and effect a settlement. Old Mr. Ash wept tears of joy when he heard these gracious words. The healing declaration' appeared, which repeated the promises of the declaration of Breda, and added also the assurance that as the Prayer Book contained several things to which the Presbyterians objected, it should be reviewed. Baxter cried in the street when he heard of this new manifesto, and stepped into a coffee house to read it. The Presbyterian ministers of London, with Matthew Poole at their head, waited said Charles, 'I will endeavour to give you all satisfaction, and to make you as happy as myself.' Meanwhile premonitions are given that treachery and deception are at work. About a month after the publication of the King's gracious declaration, the Bill in which it is embodied is thrown out of the Commons, after a long and adverse speech from a Secretary of State. It begins to be suspected, nay it is now plain, that the King's advisers, the Earl of Clarendon and his friends, disapprove the promised concessions, and are determined they shall not become law. But the projected conference of bishops and Presbyterians for the revision of the Book of Common Prayer is held. On the part of the bishops, Sheldon and Morley were the leaders; on the part of the Presbyterians, Baxter and Calamy. The Conference was to last four months, and they were to meet at the lodgings of the Bishop of London (Sheldon), in the Savoy; hence this is called the Savoy Conference. It proved a miserable failure. Sheldon acted throughout with the grossest unfairness. He showed on the first day of the meeting that he meant to make no concessions to his opponents, and no effort to promote union in the church. Moreover, Baxter and his friends were imprudent. They asked for too much, and allowed themselves to be caught in the trap which Sheldon laid for them. In the outset they agreed, after persuasion from their leader, to put down in writing all their objections to the Prayer Book, as well as the addition and alterations which they desired. The paper was completed in three weeks; the bishops were frightened at its length; but eventually drew up a reply, making no concessions. Papers go backwards and forwards; angry words are used on both sides; the Presbyterians urge the bishops to consider the words of the commission which appointed the Conference, and in obedience thereto to go over the some points in dispute and make such | mounted the throne can be kicked reasonable and necessary alterations, away. The fate of the Presbyterians corrections, and amendments as shall is already sealed. Before the Savoy be agreed upon for the giving satis- Conference met, the Convention faction to tender consciences, and Parliament which restored the King, the restoring and continuance of and in which the Presbyterians prepeace and unity in the the churches dominated, is dissolved. Before the under his majesty's protection and Savoy Conference closed, a new government.' The bishops are im- Parliament, packed by Lord Clarenmovable; the time for the Conference don with hirelings, and purged of expires, and nothing is done. The the Presbyterians, has assembled. commission directed that This Parliament is known as the additional forms should be drawn Pensioned Parliament, and it proved up. Baxter, it is thought, seriously itself the most bigoted, intolerant, damaged the cause of the Pres- and servile body that ever met for byterians by drawing up instead an legislation in our land. Eight days entirely new Prayer Book, which he after the opening, the Commons called the 'Reformed Liturgy,' and resolved that all members should presented to the bishops for their take the sacrament according to the adoption. Of course they rejected it rites of the Church of England, on without examination, and were in- pain of expulsion. In a few months dignant at the presumption and was passed the famous Corporation insolence of the composer, who set Act, expelling all Nonconformists up his judgment and ability against from the magisterial bench, and from the wisdom and piety of many gener- all civic employments and trusts-ations. clean contrary to the King's promise that no man should be molested on account of his religion. Another attempt is made by the Presbyterians to influence the King in their favour. Clarendon consents to present an address from them to his majesty. An account is given, in the address, of the proceedings of the Conference. The baffled ministers declare they took his majesty at his word in the issuing of the commission to the bishops and Presbyterians. 'When you comforted us,' so runs the address, 'with your resolution to draw us together, by yielding on both sides what we could, you meant not that we should be the boat, and they the bank that must not stir. And when your majesty commanded us by your letters patent to treat about such alterations as are needful or expedient for giving satisfaction to tender consciences, and the restoring and continuance of peace and unity, we rest assured that it was not your sense that those tender consciences were to be forced to practice all which they judged unlawful, and not so much as a ceremony abated them.' Their representations are of no avail. The time is now come when the ladder by which the King The zeal of the Pensioned Parliament was well matched by the zeal of Convocation. At the com. mand of the King, the Upper House proceeded to revise the Book of Common Prayer, and make such additions and alterations as they thought necessary. The revision was completed in a month, and subscribed by the bishops and clergy of both Houses. Six hundred alterations were made, not a single concession was granted, and every care was taken to multiply everything that might prove distasteful to the Puritans. The only use that Sheldon seems to have made of the exceptions committed to writing at the Savoy Conference was as a help in giving to this new Prayer Book an offensive and anti-puritanic character. 'Now we know their minds,' said he to Lord Manchester, 'we will make them all knaves if they conform.' Everything that the Presbyterians objected to was deliberately imposed, matters conceded twenty years before were re-imposed, and the slight concessions of the The Act of Uniformity. 209 No bishops at the Savoy revoked. Their | who had been ordained by presbymode of dealing with the Apocrypha ters, could not consent to reis a fair specimen of the spirit ordination. Further, it required all of Convocation. The Presbyterians ministers and schoolmasters to urged by petition that lessons declare that it is not lawful under from the Canonical books should any pretence whatever to take up arms be substituted for the lessons against the King, and to renounce from the Apocryphal books. This and abjure the Solemn League and request was not only denied, Covenant, as an unlawful oath. but additional Apocryphal lessons sturdy old Puritan of the Revowere inserted, such as the history of lutionary period, who believed in the 'Bel and the Dragon,' 'Susannah right of self-defence, and in the and the Elders.' Andrew Marvell chartered liberties of Englishmen says, that after a long tug about the could make this declaration, and matter in Convocation, a jolly doctor renounce the League and Covenant to came out, his face radiant with which he had solemnly pledged joy, and with exultation cried, 'We himself. What was still more unhave carried it for "Bel and the reasonable, the Act required that all Dragon. clergymen should declare their unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything contained in the Book of Common Prayer, and should publicly read a formula to that effect on, or before the 24th of August, 1662, which in ecclesiastical calendars is the feast of St. Bartholomew. If any of these provisions were not complied with by any minister, ejection from his benefice was to follow; and heavy penalties were to be exacted from all who resisted the operation of the Act. Two things about this Act were especially cruel. The day when it should take effect was chosen for the malignant purpose of depriving the ministers who seceded of the year's income, as the tithes were due at Michaelmas, a month after St. Bartholomew's day. And again, the time was so short after the passing of the Act, short as things went in those days, that when the 24th of August came, the revised Prayer Book was not in the hands of the greater part of the officiating clergy. Few, except those in or near London, had seen the book with its six hundred alterations, to which they were required to declare their_unfeigned assent and consent. long being printed that it was not published until August the 6th, and the slow modes of conveyance of those days could not secure its distribution over the land in a fortnight. The design of the Parliament re-assembled in the January of 1662. The revised Prayer Book was recommend to their adoption by a royal message. Several measures were meditated against the Puritans. To prepare the nation to acquiesce in their adoption, rumours were circulated, and sham plots were got up to give colour to the charges of Puritan conspiracies and treason now brought forward. The King told his faithful Commons to watch carefully those wicked people who labour day and night to disturb the public peace.' Country squires inflamed the House with accounts of sedition in Worcestershire, and elswhere. So effective was this policy that soon the common talk amongst the leading churchmen was, 'We will have an Act that shall reach every Puritan in the kingdom, and if any of the rogues stretch their consciences and try to remain in the church, we will insert other conditions and subscriptions.' That Act was found in the famous Act of Uniformity, passed in the spring of 1662. To it was annexed the newly-revised Book of Common Prayer, and the provisions of the Act were of such a nature as to make conformity impossible to every honest Puritan. First of all, it made Episcopal ordination indispensible for all officiating ministers in the church. This was a new feature in ecclesiastical law, and the Puritans, It was SO allowing one fifth of the income of their benefices to the clergymen who could not conscientiously conform, and by empowering the King to dispense at will with the wearing of the surplice, and the use of the cross in baptism. Had these concessions been firmly insisted upon we might almost have joined in the famous ejaculation, ‘Thank God, we have a House of Lords.' But their claims upon our gratitude are but small. The Commons were highly displeased with the alterations of the Bill; a conference between the two Houses followed; the Commons stood out stoutly against any mitigations or modifications of the measure; and after a brief resistance, the Lords gave way, allowing the original Bill to pass by a small majority. Within twelve days after, it received the royal assent; and this Act of Uniformity, inspired by the malice of a godless bishop, passed by the servility of a packed and pensioned Parliament, and made law by the sign manual of a profligate king, has determined for two hundred years the constitution and principles of the Anglican Church. Act was apparent. It was a measure | schoolmasters from its operation, by of cruel retaliation and bitter revenge, and was intended to make the Puritans Nonconformists or knaves. When its provisions were being discussed, the Earl of Manchester said, I am afraid the terms are so hard that many of the ministers will not comply.' Sheldon, bishop of London, replied, I am afraid they will.' On another occasion, when Dr. Allen said, 'It is a pity the door of the church is so strait.' 'No pity at all,' answered Sheldon; if we had thought so many of them would have conformed we would have made it straiter still.' So severe a measure as this could scarcely pass both Houses of Parliament without opposition. To their honour be it recorded, the Lords showed some slight concern for tender consciences, and some little sympathy with religious liberty. One nobleman said, I confess I could scarcely do so much for the Bible as they require for the Common Prayer.' Another lamented that the design of the Act was either to make the Puritans dishonest, or force them to leave their cures. The House agreed to mitigate the severity of the Act by exempting THE NEWBURYS: THEIR OPINIONS AND FORTUNES. A GLIMPSE OF BAPTISTS IN ENGLAND TWO CENTURIES AGO. CHAPTER VI.-MEETING AND PARTING. PATIENCE is one of those virtues that every one feels called upon to praise, but very few ever think of cultivating for themselves. If in the golden age plenty begot pleasure, and pleasure singing, and singing poetry, and poetry pleasure again, surely in the Christian one patience should beget peace, and peace love, and love faith, and faith patience again. Little difficulties are magnified into great ones when we are impatient, and great ones round off into small matters when we are sublimely patient, and as a consequence calm and cheerful. Yet it is sometimes very hard to be patient, to suffer in silence, work in silence, and wait in silence. And so Giles found it. A battlefield was nothing to the solitude of an anxious expectancy in which there seemed so little that he could do that appeared to bear on the matter uppermost in his mind. Still he worked hard with his new com Zachariah Lathwell's inconsistencies. panion at his new duties, and fell into the round of business with singular ease and aptitude. a Mr. Lathwell, as we have seen, was a severe man. His great aim in life appeared to be exactness. He was a very planet for punctuality. There he was always wheeling round in the right place and at the right moment, as if heaven and earth would come together were he the least bit out, or behind time. He was a man who environed himself with as definite a body of law as any solar system. He always rose at the same hour in the morning, coming down stairs as the clock struck seven, and there was tradition current at his death, and one I should not like to disturb, to the effect, that he was often known to stand with his watch in one hand and the other on the latch of his bedroom door for at least five minutes, in order not to be before his hour, which with him was as great a sin as to be behind it. There was reading and prayer, breakfast, business, and everything in like stately and solemn precision. At a quarter to ten at night, out came the old black letter Bible again, which looked as though it had borne the smoke of past centuries and the thumbings of patriarchal generations, a few verses were read, a benediction was pronounced, and when the huge clock swung out the first stroke of ten, the stairs creaked, the door latch clinked, and the daily revolution of the Lathwell solariola were complete. a But this exactness received singular perversion in his religious life and thought. He believed in predestination, but acted contrary to his belief continually, first girding himself with laws his own will had made, and then endeavouring to persuade himself that he was not free. He found it comforting to believe in election, and yet the solemn teachings of Christ were always combating such a special theory of salvation, and he had to fight many a sore spiritual battle with little foes in the shape of small words of uni 211 no versal significance. He admitted that the God of nature was respecter of persons, and yet he could not carry out the same idea to indicate that all men were objects of his loving compassion. He firmly held to the doctrine of total depravity, and yet in his business he was continually meeting with unregenerate men whose honest disinterestedness, singular truthfulness, and moral insight were ever nibbling pieces out of the round of black totality, when they did not put even the elect to open shame. He clung like a limpet to the old curse of a broken law, whilst he was mindful that Christ had not only been a power unto salvation, but a power in all human life, thought, and history, since he walked our earth with love and blessings in His hands. He had in fact received his creed ready-made, and it was too tight for him. He had tried all sorts of letting out, patching, and piecing, but it would not do. It stifled his very soul and froze him into a religious automaton. It was like the poisoned garment Deianeiria gave to Hercules ever the more he strove to rend it, the more it clung to him, until it had made him a very Christian ghost, a four-limbed and truncated creed, a mummy with eyes and tongue dried up, limbs swathed, and nothing but a few hieroglyphic figures to tell who he was, what he was, and what business he had in the world. Nay, we might almost call him a huge religious placard, or a walking advertisement. I know some will say that this is pure fiction, but I would have them look round their own circle of vision and see if men are not to be found nowa-days, when, if a Puritan is almost a byeword a Calvinist is considered by many to be the highest flowering of Christian perfection, who have ceased to be men in becoming Christians, and whose godliness consists of little short of a softened Buddhistic Nirvana. These things puzzled young Newbury, as well they might. He had seen but few Christian men, |