We'll drive the doctors out of doors, And parts whate'er they be, We'll cry all parts and learning down, I hope it is not necessary for me to explode this and similar jingling nonsense. If any are still of a like opinion-and I have good reason to believe a great many are--I would suggest to them that they should read their Bibles a little more attentively, and try to discover, what it is evident they do not yet know, WHO it is that created man and gave him his wonderful faculties, using them as the means of the revelation of His own nature, will, and love, and the manifestation of all that is noble, beautiful, truthful, and inspiring in this wide universe of created being. But Cromwell was a man, like even Moses, and must die. A short sickness of fourteen days, and all was over. He lay in state, and various ceremonies, duly recorded in the current newspapers,* testified of the * See, particularly, "The Commonwealth Mercury," Sept. 2, to Sept. 9, and Nov. 18, to Nov. 25, deep affection in which he was held by the nation. A short administration of a few months on the part of his son Richard, and Charles II. was proclaimed, and impudently considered himself to have been virtually reigning ever since the death of his father, so that the year of his accession or restoration was called the twelfth of his reign! 144 CHAPTER IX. 66 FOUND IN A CONVENTICLE," AND PUNISHED ACCORDINGLY. A NEW king once established on the throne, old measures are re-enacted. Persecution grows rampant. There is plenty of work for lawyers, magistrates, and jailors. There is hailing to prison, indictments at sessions, fines, writs, &c. Old cobwebby statutes are dragged from their happy limbos to frighten Dissenters, like so many toothless skeletons and ghastly gibbets. But very wisely men will not be scared into church and scowled into episcopacy, but pay their fines, submit to impositions, and go joyfully to prison for conscience' sake. Baptists had so wonderfully increased as now to number about twenty thousand, so that there was plenty of room to persecute, and breadth enough upon which every wiseacre on a magistrate's bench could employ his punitive powers and practice his diabolical principles. Lincolnshire was harassed beyond mea sure. Preachers and hearers were served alike, fined, imprisoned, and otherwise maltreated. The household at Carlton Grange had several times been pounced upon for levies, and paid £20 a month for staying away from church sooner than do despite to their consciences. It had fallen very hard upon them many times, but Elijah was stern and immovable. "You'll be ruined," whispered wise neighbours as he passed. "It's a great pity such a fine young man as you should be so foolish as to be an Anabaptist." "Shall I be ruined?" thought Elijah, growing in manliness with his dangers and responsibilities-"then I will. I am but a blunt farmer, but I can face a worse thing than that. Ruined, yes, in estate, but not in health, peace of mind, or love of truth. I believe in God, and not in chance, or such a puny thing as kingship. Lay up for yourself treasures in heaven! Ah, that is the grand duty, and I'll do it-I'll try at any rate. It seems to me that there is a reality now about the future, since father died. Treasure, indeed, if I can but get to him." And so he thought and strove. Old Midge, the Armourer, was rendered completely houseless, by continued fines and the like, and although always welcome at the Grange he very much preferred to go about preaching in his homely rugged way rather than be an idler anywhere. The famous petition of the Lincolnshire Baptists, which we should transcribe had we space, had also been very recently drawn up by Mr. Grantham, of Boston, and Elijah Newbury, with others, presented it to the king, who, as usual, made a plausible reply and a beautifully indefinite promise, and thought no more about the matter. The absurd insurrection, if it can be called so, of Venner and his Fifth-Monarchy-men, who expected a veritable descent and reign of Christ upon earth for a period of a thousand years, had formed a good pretext for hunting down, harassing, and scattering Anabaptists, |