There was a man named George Keith, a native of Aberdeen, and a fellow-student with Gilbert Burnet at the University of that city. He went over to America, and there pursued a distinguished course as a preacher amongst the Quakers; but disputes arose between him and the Pennsylvanian Friends, which ended in their disowning him, and in his resisting them. They could not retain a person who openly declared that he “trampled their judgments under his feet as dirt;” who charged those who opposed him, with apostacy from Quakers’ principles; and who established a separate meeting for such as sympathized in his views. Strange to say, after protesting against American Friends as untrue to the doctrine of their Society, this energetic person became a member of the Church of England, and, on his return to this country, entered into holy orders. He now became a zealous opponent of the people with whom he had been identified, and being brought into intimate connection with Dr. Bray, that gentleman considered him a suitable agent for the new Society. Whether the Society originally designed him for the purpose or not, certainly Keith deemed it his vocation to do all in his power to bring Quakers within the pale of the English Church, and the records of the Society endorse his efforts in this respect. They “report about the Quakers, and give a satisfactory account of Keith’s designs,” bestowing upon him a certificate or recommendation, to protect him in his travels and procure him encouragement from the justices of the peace, at the same time resolving to circulate his narrative and catechism. A little later a resolution was adopted “respecting Keith’s progress into the country to convert the Quakers,” and the sum of £10 12s. was voted for the purchase of publications, which he was to distribute in his tour. Reports were sent in by him stating the result of his mission in Bristol and elsewhere; and it seems that, as the Quakers at an earlier period had been in the habit of entering parish churches, to bear witness there against what they considered a departure from the spirit of the Gospel, so now their former friend, George Keith, carried on his labours against them in a strictly retaliative form. It is stated in the Society’s minutes, that the Quakers opposed his attempts to preach in their meeting-houses; and one is surprised to find, after the Act of Toleration had passed, the following entry:--“Resolved, that Mr. Keith attempts again, and, if opposed, that he pursue his remedy according to law.” Quakers are not the only persons whose conversion was specially contemplated; particular attention was paid to Roman Catholics, and it was agreed that the members of the Society should endeavour to inform themselves of the practices of priests to pervert His Majesty’s subjects. I do not find any mention made of special endeavours to bring back to the Church any other section of Nonconformists than the people called Quakers.[451]