During the first three centuries of the history of Christianity, and the more than ten persecutions which annalists have numbered, the professors of the Divine faith had to suffer, far beyond what the laws in their utmost severity could inflict. Imperial rescripts carried out to the letter, or magisterial commands going further, were terrible beyond description; and popular fury shouting, “The Christians to the lions,” became more cruel still. But another source of suffering, to minds of sensibility exceeding the rest in the bitterness of anguish which it produced, was when the husband persecuted the wife, and the father the child. Tertullian tells us that there were many such cases. The annals of the Church of the Restoration afford parallels in this last, as in other respects, to the records of older times. [Sidenote: FAMILY LIFE.] Agnes Beaumont, the daughter of a Bedfordshire yeoman, lost her mother when very young. Her father sometimes went to hear the preaching of John Bunyan, but he afterwards conceived a strong antipathy to that famous minister. The girl manifested religious feeling, and joined Bunyan’s Church, when a lawyer, who had wished to marry her for the sake of her father’s property, became her inveterate foe. But the daughter remained faithful to her convictions; and this circumstance so provoked her father’s irritable temper, that he opposed her going to hear the favourite preacher any more. On a particular occasion, however, she extorted his consent to attend once. It was the depth of winter. Weary of wading through the mud, and overtaken by Bunyan riding on his way to the place of worship, she was reluctantly permitted by him to sit, pillion-fashion, behind him on horseback, when the two were met by a clergyman, who immediately invented a scandalous report respecting the minister and the maid. Agnes, after attending the meeting, found the door of her house barred against her admission. “Who is there?” asked Beaumont, as she knocked. “’Tis I, father, come home wet and dirty: pray let me in.” “Where you have been all day, you may go at night,” was the answer from the other side of the bolted entrance. She went and sought shelter in a barn. The morning brought no relenting to the heart of her unnatural parent; and he declared that she should not enter the house, unless she promised never to go to a meeting again so long as he lived. “Father,” she answered, “my soul is of too much worth to do this. Can you stand in my stead, and answer for me at the great day? If so, I will obey you in this demand, as I do in all other things.” Much painful excitement followed. At last, fearful of being disobedient, the young woman promised never to go to a conventicle as long as he lived, without his consent. This softened him a little, and they were reconciled; but as she reflected upon her promise, it struck her that she had been unfaithful to her conscience, and she passed through great spiritual distress. Soon afterwards