titles of honor, all distinctions which arose in pride and egotism. Hypocrisy he abhorred with his whole soul. It was the vice of the Pharisees, on whom Christ denounced the severest judgments. He, too, would denounce it with the most unsparing severity, whenever he fancied he detected it in rulers, or in venerated dignitaries of the church, or in the customs of conventional life. He sought simplicity and sincerity in all their forms. Truth alone should be his polar star, and this would be revealed by the "inner light," the peculiar genius of his whole system, which, if it led to many new views of duty and holiness, yet was the cause of many delusions, and the parent of conceit and spiritual pride--the grand peculiarity of fanaticism in all ages and countries. What so fruitful a source of error as the notion of special divine illumination? No wonder that Fox and his followers were persecuted, for they set at nought the wisdom of the world and the customs and laws of ages. They shocked all conservative minds; all rulers and dignitaries; all men attached to systems; all syllogistic reasoners and dialectical theologians; all fashionable and worldly people; all sects and parties attached to creeds and forms. Neither their inoffensive lives, nor their doctrine of non-resistance, nor their elevated spiritualism could screen them from the wrath of judges, bishops, and legislators. They were imprisoned, fined, whipped, and lacerated without mercy. But they endured their afflictions with patience, and never lost their faith in truth, or their trust in God. Generally, they belonged to the humbler classes, although some men illustrious for birth and wealth joined their persecuted ranks, the most influential of whom was William Penn, who lived to be their intercessor and protector, and the glorious founder and legislator of one of the most flourishing and virtuous colonies that, in those days of tribulation, settled in the wilderness of North America; a colony of men who were true to their enlightened principles, and who were saved from the murderous tomahawk of the Indian, when all other settlements were scenes of cruelty and vengeance. James had now suppressed rebellion; he had filled the Dissenters with fear; and he met with no resistance from his parliaments. The judges and the bishops were ready to cooeperate with his ministers in imposing a despotic yoke. All officers of the crown were dismissed the moment they dissented from his policy, or protested against his acts. Even judges were removed to make way for the most unscrupulous of tools. [Sidenote: Despotic Power of James.]