For Faith and Freedom

he year 1685, Kin

whither he had gone, as was his wont, to the weekly ordinary

am Eykin. Will your husband leave his books and

ich I worked for him; his cheek was wasted; but his eye was keen. He was lean and tall

said Sir Christophe

For five-and-twenty years hath he persecuted the saints. Also he hath burnt in

me. His brother the Duke of Y

ugh Manasseh should succeed to

pray for the King; and wise men, frien

t the time is at hand when a godly man must stretch forth his hand

will my son-in-law ring out the bells for the new King, and we shall pray for him, as we prayed for his brother. It is our duty to

a King who is a Papist. Rather wi

. Yet it is worse that the King should be an open than a secre

shed as joyously, echoing around the Corton Hills, as if the accession of King Jame

as falling, and his cassock was thin, but he remained there motionless, until my mother went out

r to be a merry-maker, or to suffer his country to fall from a high place among the nations, he was to be displaced, and be forced to retire. As for the man Charles, now dead, he would become, my father said, an example to all future ages, and a warning of what may happen when the doctrine of Divine Right is generally accepted and acted upon; the King himself being not so much blamed by him as the practice of hereditary rule which caused him to be seated upon the throne, when his true plac

ience. One would have thought that the people were rejoiced at the succession of a Roman Catholic; it was said that the King ha

ir Christopher, who spoke his mind at all times too fiercely for his safe

r ever scheme and intrigue for more power. Religious liberty? It means to them the eternal damnation of those who hold themselves free to think for themselves. They would be less than human if they did not try to save the souls of the people by docking their freedom. They must make this country even as Spain or Italy.

in the hall of the Manor House with no other persons

ir Christopher, 'what becomes of Right Di

, is manifestly untenable, because the Lord granted a King to the people only because they clamoured for one. Also, had the instituti

spoken so plainly,'

tly set aside. I say not that this is one, as yet. But if there were danger of the ancient superstitions being thrust upon us to the destruction of our souls, I say not that we shou

out for the cause of liberty prove to

indeed. It is laid upon the Protestants, even upon us, who hold that we are a true branch of the ancient Apostolic Church, to defend ourselves continually against an enemy who is always at unity, always guided by one man, always knows what he wants, and is always working to get it

ts and innocent men and poor, ignorant rustics-before the country roused herself once more to seize her liberties. Then as

uld have been made to rise as one man-the gentry remained

her nourish the hope that they are honestly meant; and let us wait. England will not become another Spain in a single d

st the rule of the priests. Nor did he doubt that the King would be pushed on by his advisers to one pretension after another for the advancement of his own prerogative and the displacement of the Protestant Church. Nay, he openly predicted that there would be such attempts; and he maintained-such was his wisdom!-that,

the end, his death truly helped, with others, to bring a Protestant King to the Throne of these isles. And since we knew him to be so deep a scholar, always reading and learning, and in no sense a man of activity, the thing which he presently did amazed us all. Yet we ought to have known that one who is under the Divine command to preach the Word of God, and hath been silenced by man for more than twenty years, so that the strength of his manhood hath run to waste and is lost-it is a mo

after the accession of King James. It drove him from his books and out into the fields and lanes, where he walked to and fro waving his long a

land. The Duke of Monmouth was there with the Earl of Argyle, and with th

Dutch gardening:-'The gardeners,' he says, 'take infinite pains that their secrets shall not be learned or disclosed. I know, however, that a certain blue tulip much desired by many gardeners in England, will be taken across the water this year, and I hope that by next year the precious bulb may be fully planted in English soil. The preparation of the soil necessary for the favourable reception of the bulb is well known to you, and you will unders

m H.

ers were the Scotch and English exiles then in Holland, and the Engl

f England, conversing long and earnestly, and making notes in a book. These notes he made in the Arabic character, which no one but himself could read. I there

about this time saying that something was expected, nobody knew what; b

e people were everywhere resolved to banish the accursed thing from their midst. Alas! I was but a simple country maid and I was deceived! The accursed thing was to be driven forth, but not yet. The country party hated the Pope, but they dreaded civil war; and, indeed, there is hardly any excuse for that most dreadful scourge except the salvation of