These were the nonconformists of their day. Ignominy and torture were, in their estimation, preferable to the reproaches of an enslaved and guilty soul. But it is not for the purpose of indulging an acrimonious feeling towards the immediate or remote perpetrators of a legalized murder that this account has been introduced. The severity of the punishment is of minor importance, except as it places in a strong light the fallacious and mischievous principle from which it originated. The question is not, whether these men ought in justice to have suffered less than they did; whether, instead of being roasted amidst the scoffs of a depraved and deluded rabble, they should have been burnt in the hand, or branded on the forehead, or scourged and suffered to depart; or whether there should have been substituted for the pangs of martyrdom, only the deprivation of some civil rights, or the exaction of “a peppercorn rent” in testimony that they had “an interest in the services” {44} of the national church, and in acknowledgment of their spiritual allegiance to a blood thirsty and despotic woman. It is not whether on their submission to such terms they should have been pitied on account of their errors, and tolerated on the score of their sincerity and their peaceableness. No. The inquiry which presents itself is, whether the exaction of the very smallest possible penalty, with whatsoever name it might have been gilded over, would not have involved the violation of a principle of incalculable moment to the interests of religion, of justice, and of freedom. The queen would still, if the grounds of modern nonconformity be tenable, have outstepped her province, and have interfered with rights derived from a source paramount to her own. The charge brought against the Beccles martyrs was, in substance, that their religious creed and observances differed from those of the Roman Catholic church, which had been set forth, by public authority, for the adoption of all. It is deserving of notice, that of the seven articles which constitute their accusation, four relate exclusively to an erroneous _belief_. Thus the very recesses of the heart were invaded. The faith of the unfortunate man, who could not find the doctrines of popery in his Bible, was extracted from him by interrogatories, and he was compelled to expiate in the flames the crime of preserving “a conscience void of offence towards God.” The remaining allegations relate to outward ceremonies which these individuals regarded as unscriptural and even idolatrous; and the observance of which, by them, must therefore have been an abomination to the Searcher of hearts. {45} Him they refused to mock with a worse than formal service. And for these offences their fellow-creatures proceeded to “rid them out of the way.”