We met by appointment at Stoken Church, with our staves in our hands, like a couple of pilgrims, intending to walk on foot; and having taken some refreshment and rest at Wycombe, went on cheerfully in the afternoon, entertaining each other with grave and religious discourse, which made the walk the easier, and so reached thither in good time, on the seventh day of the week. I gave my friends an account who this person was whom I had brought to visit them, and the ground of his visit. He had been a professor of religion from his childhood to his old age (for he was now both grey-headed and elderly), and was a teacher at this time, and had long been so amongst a people, whether Independents or Baptists I do not well remember. And so well thought of he was, for his zeal and honesty, that in those late professing times he was thrust into the Commission of the Peace, and thereby lifted up on the Bench; which neither became him nor he it, for he wanted indeed most of the qualifications requisite for a Justice of the Peace: an estate to defray the charge of the office and to bear him up in a course of living above contempt; a competent knowledge in the laws, and a presence of mind or body, or both, to keep offenders in some awe; in all which he was deficient; for he was but a fellmonger by trade, accustomed to ride upon his pack of skins, and had very little estate, as little knowledge of the law, and of but a mean presence and appearance to look on. But as my father, I suppose, was the means of getting him put into the Commission, so he, I know, did what he could to countenance him in it, and help him through it at every turn, till that turn came (at the King’s return) which turned them both out together. My friends received me in affectionate kindness, and my companion with courteous civility. The evening was spent in common but grave conversation; for it was not a proper season for private discourse, both as we were somewhat weary with our walk, and there were other companies of Friends come into the family, to be at the meeting next day. But in the morning I took John Ovy into a private walk, in a pleasant grove near the house, whither Isaac Penington came to us; and there in discourse both answered all his questions, objections, and doubts, and opened to him the principles of truth, to his both admiration and present satisfaction. Which done, we went in to take some refreshment before the meeting began. Of those Friends who were come overnight in order to be at the meeting, there was Isaac’s brother, William Penington, a merchant of London, and with him a Friend (whose name I have forgotten), a grocer of Colchester, in Essex; and there was also our friend George Whitehead, whom I had not, that I remember, seen before.