This report of the state of Quakerism, it seems, was occasioned by a request from the Government that the magistrates should inquire into the subject, and furnish the names of the Quakers then in prison, and whether they were ringleaders or had been seduced into the commission of offence by others. In the chapter on the records of St. Helen's church, Worcester, in the earlier part of this work, it will be observed that the penalties paid by Quakers were converted into a charitable fund for the poor. The William Pardoe, mentioned above, was probably the individual who was said to have been the pastor of a Baptist congregation at Worcester, where he continued in jail nearly seven years, and died in this city in 1692. A MS. account of his labours, travellings, and writings, was said to have been at Leominster not many years ago. Is it still in existence? Mr. Pardoe was excommunicated, and was buried in a garden at Lowesmoor, near Worcester, where his body, with that of his wife, was discovered some forty or fifty years ago while digging for the purpose of building. The bodies were not disturbed, and a stone was erected to their memory. I am not aware that this still remains. We now arrive at something more stirring, and may have an interesting peep at a conventicle of "Fifth Monarchy Men" at Oldbury. This sect of religionists had for their distinguishing tenet a belief in the establishment of a fifth universal monarchy, of which Christ was to be the head; while the "saints," under his personal sovereignty, should possess the earth. They appeared in England towards the close of the Protectorate; and in 1660, a few months after the Restoration, they broke out into a serious tumult in London under their leader Venner; many of them lost their lives, some killed by the military, and others executed. In the country the sect continued for some years later. At the concluding Worcestershire Sessions of 1667, one William Cardale deposed that on the 1st of September in that year he took his wife to Oldbury to see her sister, Edward Nightingale's wife, who was lying-in; and after dinner, he being inclined to fall asleep, his brother-in-law asked him to go for a walk; they accordingly went to Oldbury chapel, which they found full of people. After a psalm had been led, the preacher, who was a stranger to him, "made a very strange prayer, praying neither for king, queen, royal familie, nor clergie," and a still stranger sermon followed, from the text "Thy kingdom come," "his doctrine beinge, that Christ hath a kingdome of rewarde for his sufferinge and workinge servants, which in his good time he would possess them, and we ought to pray for;" and he attempted to prove, from the Revelations, Daniel, and other mystical writings, that the aforesaid kingdom was to be on earth. "On the preacher proposing to show _when_ this kingdom was to come, an alarm of soldiers was given, a horse was soon got ready for him, and throwing off his gown and