The thoughts with which Penn's mind was occupied during the years of hiding appear in his book, "Some Fruits of Solitude." Robert Louis Stevenson found a copy of it in a book-shop in San Francisco, and carried it in his pocket many days, reading it in street-cars and ferry-boats. He found it, he says, "in all places a peaceful and sweet companion;" and he adds, "there is not a man living, no, nor recently dead, that could put, with so lovely a spirit, so much honest, kind wisdom into words." "The author blesseth God for his retirement," so the book begins, "and kisses the gentle hand which led him into it; for though it should prove barren to the world, it can never do so to him. He has now had some time he can call his own; a property he was never so much master of before; in which he has taken a view of himself and the world, and observed wherein he hath hit and missed the mark. And he verily thinks, were he to live his life over again, he could not only, with God's grace, serve him, but his neighbor and himself, better than he hath done, and have seven years of his life to spare." Government and Religion have the longest chapters in this volume of reflections, as being the matters in which William was most interested. "Happy that king," he says, "who is great by justice, and that people who are free by obedience." "Where example keeps pace with authority, power hardly fails to be obeyed, and magistrates to be honoured." "Let the people think they govern, and they will be governed." "Religion is the fear of God, and its demonstration good works; and faith is the root of both." "To be like Christ, then, is to be a Christian." "Some folk think they may scold, rail, hate, rob, and kill too: so it be but for God's sake. But nothing in us, unlike him, can please him." So the book goes, page after page, always serious and sensible, full of simplicity and kindliness, cheerful and brotherly and unfailingly religious. It is the work of one who is trying his best to live for his brethren and in Christ's spirit.