homesteads of the English country-side. In this picturesque retreat had gathered a little coterie of remarkable people. At one end of the village in a little, old, oak-panelled cottage that looked out upon a garden full of sweet-smelling flowers, the poet Milton had installed himself, and close by, his chosen confidant, Thomas Ellwood, a Quaker. Isaac Pennington, the son of Alderman Pennington, who had sat at the trial of Charles I, had found Chalfont a quiet resting-place from prying eyes and critical tongues, and thither came the young and appealing widow of Sir William Springett, with her daughter Gulielma, exquisite as a poet's dream, and as good and gentle as she was lovely. Lady Springett married Isaac Pennington, and she and Gulie embraced the Quaker faith.

It is in this romantic village of mellow brick and weatherworn tiles, of projecting gables and old rafters, surrounded by the hedges and pasturage of this most peaceful of English counties, that we have the setting of the real story of Longfellow's Courtship of Miles Standish. For we strongly surmise that it was Gulielma Springett who was the real Priscilla of romance. Thomas Ellwood, her senior by many years, had been her tutor and protector from babyhood, and, as she grew to maidenhood, had become her hopelessly devoted lover. And who could blame him? for Gulie flitted up and down the village and in and out of the houses and gardens like some spiritual dove, dressed always in the soft, delicate shades so dear to the Quaker heart, and enhancing their tender beauty by richness of silk and satin which her gentle birth would naturally lead her to adopt. Can we wonder that Thomas Ellwood suggested to Milton that since the world had been given Paradise Lost, he should now turn his thoughts towards inditing Paradise regained? Can we marvel

either that when Penn came into this circle of friends, with his handsome looks and his spiritual ardour, his high breeding, and magnificent courage, it was he who won Gulie's heart? Indeed they seemed created each for the other, and we can hardly imagine a scene more fraught with tender emotion and historic drama than the day when in the little meeting house of the Friends—an old farmhouse called King's Weir at Charleswood-they rose without any special dress or ostentatious preparation, and with the assembly as witness took each other for man and wife, February 4th, 1672.

"When I think, O my Lady fair, that thou
Art painted in it by the hands of Love;

So should'st thou much more prove

For him thy care in greater measure now,

Since He, from whom all good must needs appear,

For His own image in us holds us dear."

So wrote Dante concerning Beatrice, learning from the vision which love brought to his soul that God held man as an image of His supreme and perfect love.

"Judge before friendship, then confide till death," counsels the poet, and Gulie and William Penn fulfilled the solemn requirement. Faithful and loving were they to each other throughout the epoch-making years that followed this simple wedding, and through all the long enforced separations caused by his journeyings back and forth to the New World overseas.

In 1676 Penn had been called upon to undertake the management of colonial affairs in New Jersey, so many Quakers having migrated to North America, and from this first association with New England arose the scheme that in lieu of the £16,000 which Charles II owed the old Admiral's estate, he should grant Penn land three degrees

northward from Maryland, where a fresh colony might be planted. In 1681 the patent was ready, and when it came to christening the new territory, Charles insisted on calling it Pennsylvania! Penn, who wished the colony to be named New Wales, protested, but Charles would not be deprived of his little bit of fun with his formidable debtor.

"No! No! Friend Penn,” he replied, "the thing is passed, and I cannot alter it!"

In this manner, opportunity gave into Penn's hands the means of working out in actual practice a scheme for an ideal community, such as Thomas More had had to content himself with building only in dreams. No dream, but actual fact was Philadelphia, so tenderly described by Whittier as:

"The young city, round whose virgin zone

The rivers like two mighty arms were thrown.
Marked by the smoke of evening fires alone.
... Lovely even then

With its fair women and its stately men

Gracing the forest court of William Penn."

Faced, as time went on, with the task of governing wisely and well varying types of humanity, from the Red Indian and the German colonist, to the latest arrival from the old home shores, Penn's philosophy deepened and mellowed with his religious experience. He had from the first taken a wise and reasonable attitude towards the agitated subject of class distinctions.

"I must grant," he wrote early in life, "that the condition of our great men is much to be preferred to the ranks of Inferior People. For First, they have more Power to do good, and if their Hearts be equal to their Ability they are Blessings to the People of any Country. Secondly,

the eyes of the People are usually directed to them; and if they will be kind, just, and helpful, they shall have their affections and services. Thirdly, they are not under equal straits with the inferior sort, and consequently they have more help, leisure, and occasion to polish their passions and tempers with Books and Conversation. Fourthly, they have more time to observe the actions of other nations; to travel, and view the Laws, Customs, and Interests of other Countries, and bring home whatsoever is worthy or imitable. . . . I must allow that among people of this Rank, there have been some of them of more than ordinary virtue, whose examples have given Light to their Families. And it has been something natural for some of their descendants to endeavour to keep up the credit of their Houses in proportion to the merit of their Founder. And to say true, if there be any advantage in such descent, 'tis not from Blood, but Education: for Blood has no intelligence in it, and is often spurious and uncertain; but Education has a mighty influence and strong bias upon the affections and actions of men. In this the ancient nobles and gentry of this kingdom did excel. And it were much to be wished that our great people would set about to recover the ancient economy of their Houses, the strict and virtuous Discipline of their ancestors, when men were Honoured for their achievements and when nothing more exposed a man to shame than his being born to a nobility that he had not a virtue to support."

In all these opinions, Penn places character first and foremost, and this is just the standard to which Mrs. Eddy adhered. In Science and Health she expresses this same spirit and desire for universal betterment:

"Take away wealth, fame, and social organizations, which weigh not one jot in the balance of God, and we

get clearer views of Principle. Break up cliques, level wealth with honesty, let worth be judged according to wisdom, and we get better views of humanity." (p. 239.)

Penn possessed a trait rare in social reformers. He did not exclude the nobility from entering the Kingdom of Heaven, and for the reason that he was willing that all men should enter therein. Because of his splendid concept of the qualities of real kingship, and his appreciation of the opportunities for right living already bestowed on men of rank, he was perhaps the one true friend upon whom the Stuarts could rely for wise advice. His friendship with Charles II extended to his son James II, and while the world made this an occasion to dub Penn the Quaker "A Papist in disguise!" he really so influenced the king in the direction of religious toleration that one thousand two hundred Quakers were released from prison at the time that James also set his Catholic subjects at liberty.

But let no man imagine that by these acts of mercy Penn inclined in later years towards the ancient superstitions. He remained consistently free and pure in his noble Puritanism.

"The less Form in Religion the better," he declares, in his Reflections and Maxims, "Since God is a Spirit: For the more mental our worship, the more adequate to the nature of God; the more silent, the more suitable to the language of a Spirit. Words are for others, not for ourselves: nor for God who hears not as Bodies do, but as spirits should. If we would know this Dialect, we must learn of the Divine Principle in us. As we hear the dictates of that, so God hears us."