The force of this Act was directed against the _Quakers_, by inserting, in the latter part of it, three sections, which brought _their refusal to take an oath_ under its full penalties; and they suffered dreadfully through it! In the streets, or where they met to assert their religious rights, they were dragooned; in court they had oaths tendered, and were convicted under this Act upon their refusal. “This Act,” says Besse, “was forthwith put into a rigorous execution, and many hungry informers [for the sake of their _third_ of the penalties] _made it their business_ to live upon the spoil and ruin of conscientious people.” Friends were great sufferers thereby, of the nature of which the reader may have some idea by reference to “Sufferings under the Conventicle Act;” _Select Miscellanies_, vol. iii., pp. 220-245. Footnote 21: The celebrated trial of Penn and Mead at the Old Bailey, above alluded to, may be seen at full length in Clarkson’s _Life of Penn_—“a trial which, for the good it has done to posterity, ought to be engraved on tablets of the most durable marble.” It was certainly one of those events which, in conjunction with others of a similar sort, by showing the inadequacy of punishment for religion to its supposed end, not only corrected and improved the notions of succeeding ages in this respect, but, by so doing, lessened the ravages of persecution, and the enmity between man and man. Nor ought posterity to be less grateful for it as a monument of the ferocity and corrupt usages of former times; for, contrasting these with the notions and customs of our own age, we see the improvement of our social and moral condition. Newgate is no longer the receptacle of innocent individuals suffering for conscience’ sake. In our courts of law we see an order, a decorum, and an administration of justice, unknown at the period of this memorable trial. Nor will the prospect be less grateful, if we quit the present for a moment, and direct our eyes to the future. We have the best reason to hope, on contemplating the signs of the times, that the day is approaching when the Christian religion, which is capable of cementing men in the strongest possible union, and for the noblest purposes, will be restored to its primitive purity, and made a blessing to all the dwellers upon the earth. Footnote 22: