So thoroughly had Giles Newbury's politic movement, recorded in the last chapter, ingratiated the Carlton Dissenters to the rector's good favour, that his kindly feelings towards them continued for several years after the notable event which evoked them. very fair amount of religious freedom was accorded them by his connivance at their meetings and visitings, and the mildness with which even fines were extorted by the legal authorities was something wonderful and exceptional.

A

The chief changes, indeed, as far as the Newburys were concerned, were not religious but domestic. Deborah and Mrs. Hazzlehurst had departed this life, and doubtless enjoyed that happy reunion for which both had so long wished, waited, and

prayed. Keturah had a brace of rosy, dimpled boys, one three years' old, and the other five, who added much cheer to the household, and what with Giles's growing family added thereto, Elijah was so thoroughly happy and father-like amongst them all, that he waived or forgot any inclinations he might have had for entering upon the marriage state himself, and settled down to a cosy and genial bachelorhood, disturbed by few match-making mammas and pretty faces in so secluded a place as a Lincolnshire village.

But political changes soon brought religious ones, and once more the Nonconformists were hunted down. James II. had ascended the throne with unmistakable determinations in favour of Roman Catholicism. The Monmouth rebellion followed, and then were enacted some of the bloodiest scenes in our religious or even constitutional history, brightened only by the undaunted faith of heroic men and women, and not a few remarkable deliverences. The Mansion House in London, was built by fines levied upon Dissenters in this and the previous reign, and

Elijah's bold, rapid execution, the little flock not only kept together, but actually increased. As the pastor elected by them upon their first formation was now infirm and bedridden, it generally fell upon Giles to conduct these, mostly midnight meetings; and his eyesight failing him greatly, partly in consequence of his long imprisonment and the ill-health it engendered, and partly as the result of that blinding search in the smoke and flame for his lost daughter, he drew chiefly upon his memory for their exercises -his prison studies having amply stored it with narrative, psalm, and epistle—and was by this means the more easily enabled to escape the letter of the law, by turning the preaching and exposition into a prayer meeting upon a prearranged signal.

Once, when they were holding a midnight preachment, as they called it, in a gravel pit, some two miles away from the village, and a little more than that from a neighbouring market town, they were pounced upon so hurriedly as that either the signalmen were surprised, or the signal was not heard, and a constable, and half a dozen men were in their midst before they could help them.

selves. Giles was immediately seized and borne off, the captors getting a few yards away before any one knew what to do. But Stephen did not seem at all disconcerted. He let the men proceed, hushing the people by his uplifted hands, and whispering to them to rush down along the open ground after him when he should give the alarm. Pulling his cap over his eyes, he then crept stealthily down the nearest dyke until he came close behind the men, when he rushed out, flung up his arms, and yelled out an Indian war-whoop. The effect was magical. The constable and his men loosened their captive, who had very wisely refused to speak, though kicked and cuffed for his silence, and looked around them in amazement. Down rushed the people from the top of the field with a sounding echoing tramp as of a mighty host, but otherwise in perfect silence, when taking Stephen, who still danced and gesticulated wildly, either for a wizard or a fiend, evoking his legions to his aid, the men ran as if possessed, over dyke and fence, through slush and bramble, away, away to the town, never looking be

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hind them or halting for a moment until they were safe whence they had started. Breathless, speechless, and horror-stricken, they could answer no questions, and glared and panted like so many madmen, until their friends believed they had encountered Satan himself. Ever afterwards the gravel pit was called by the persecuted the Pit of Deliverance, and by the persecutors the Place of Devils.

The

I need not linger upon such scenes. blasphemy and cursings, the butcheries and martyrdoms, the huntings and imprisonments, the cryings of the persecuted, the torments of the patient, the wrongs of the pure, the agonies of the weak, and the heroisms of the strong, are matters that can never be known upon earth. The king

himself knew them not, even the good Christians themselves were happily in ignorance of many of them. But they were known, seen, and registered. Many a tender woman and loving child perished in secret, and yet not in secret, and many a wrestle in prayer that seemed useless, unheard, and unanswered, was not so. The smoke of their torment went heavenward, and although retribution seemed tardy, and its very processes