Penn was a _conscientious man_. I mean by this that he followed his inner convictions, without regard to consequences. What he wanted to know was, whether a given thing was _right_ and according to his way of determining what the right was; and he did it if it were a duty, without flinching. No personal inconvenience, no consideration for the views or wishes of other people, was allowed to stand in the way of his duty, as he understood it. It was the custom of that time for gentlemen to wear swords, as some gentlemen now carry canes, and with no purpose except as an ornament or part of the dress. Some time after he joined the Society of Friends, and while still wearing his sword, he said to his friend George Fox, “Is it consistent with our principles and our testimonies against war for me to wear my sword?” When Fox replied, “Wear thy sword as usual, so long as thy conscience will permit it.” This friendly rebuke led him to lay aside his sword never to resume it. William Penn was a _religious man_. He was called by the Holy Spirit at the early age of twelve years, as I have already said. He resisted that call and many others, until under faithful preaching he could resist no longer, when he yielded himself to the divine call and became an open professor of the principles of the Society of Friends. This was a very different thing, so far as personal comfort was concerned, from professing religion in the ordinary forms; for this was to join a hated sect, and bear all the contempt and persecution that belonged to a profession of religion in the early days of Christianity, when men, women and children perilled their lives in the service of the great Master. But Penn cared not for the cost; he was ready to go to prison, and to death if necessary, for his opinions. He _did_ go to prison over and over again, and bore right manfully all that was put upon him. He was not idle, however, in the prison. He preached to his fellow-prisoners; he wrote pamphlets; he did everything in his power to make known to others the good tidings of salvation that had come to him. He wrote a great many letters, and they were all full of the spirit of religion. He wrote treatises on religious truth, that might have been written by a systematic theologian; but among the most practical things he wrote was the address to his children, that it would be well if all people would read, and which, with a few exceptions, is as appropriate for the people of to-day as it was for those who lived two hundred years ago. If Penn had not been a religious man, his life had not been worth recording. He would have lived the life that was lived by almost all men of his class at that time, a life of unrestrained worldliness and luxury. The Almighty, who had great purposes in store for the New World, to be wrought out by the instrumentality of man, could have chosen another man, but he chose Penn.