"_Reader_, I can foretell what usage I shall find among the _Quakers_ for this chapter of our _church-history_; for a worthy man that writes of them has observed, _for pride and hypocrisie, and hellish reviling against the painful ministers of Christ, I know no people can match them_. Yea, prepare, friend _Mather_, to be assaulted with such language as _Fisher_ the Quaker, in his pamphlets, does bestow upon such men as _Dr. Owen; thou fiery fighter and green-headed trumpeter; thou hedgehog and grinning dog; thou bastard that tumbled out of the mouth of the Babilonish bawd; thou mole; thou tinker; thou lizzard; thou bell of no metal, but the tone of a kettle; thou wheelbarrow; thou whirlpool; thou whirlegig. O thou firebrand; thou adder and scorpion; thou louse; thou cow-dung; thou moon-calf; thou ragged tatterdemallion; thou Judas; thou livest in philosophy and logick which are of the devil_. And then let _Penn_ the Quaker add, Thou gormandizing Priest, one of the abominable tribe; _thou bane of reason, and beast of the earth; thou best to be spared of mankind; thou mountebank priest_. These are the very words, (I wrong them not!) which they vomit out against the best men in the _English_ nation, that have been so hardy as to touch their _light within_: but let the _quills_ of these _porcupines_ fly as fast as they will, I shall not feel them! Yea, every _stone_ that these _Kildebrands_ throw at me, I will wear as a _pearl_." As an offset to this quaint and amusing tirade, and to the charges of Dr. Ellis, one may read the following words of Whittier, and, by striking a general average between all the speakers, get a tolerable approximation to the exact truth. Mr. Whittier says:-- "Nor can it be said that the persecution grew out of the 'intrusion,' 'indecency,' and 'effrontery' of the persecuted. "It owed its origin to the settled purpose of the ministers and leading men of the colony to permit no difference of opinion on religious matters. They had banished the Baptists, and whipped at least one of them. They had hunted down Gorton and his adherents; they had imprisoned Dr. Child, an Episcopalian, for petitioning the General Court for toleration. They had driven some of their best citizens out of their jurisdiction, with Ann Hutchinson, and the gifted minister, Wheelwright. Any dissent on the part of their own fellow-citizens was punished as severely as the heresy of strangers.