he was now named a Commissioner of Appeals, an office with small emolument and not much work, which he appears to have retained during the remainder of his life. This office seems to have been given to him partly as a compensation for the arrears of salary due under the late Government; for, with an exhausted exchequer, it was impossible to satisfy such claims by immediate payment. Locke's health suffered considerably by his return to London. Writing to Limborch shortly after his arrival, and complaining of the worry caused him by the pressure of private affairs and public business, the climax of all his grievances, we are hardly surprised to find, is the injury to his health "from the pestilent smoke of this city" (_Malignus hujus urbis fumus_). Amongst the public affairs which claimed his attention, the foremost, doubtless, was the attempt then being made to widen the basis of the National Church by a measure of comprehension, as well as to relieve of civil disabilities the more extreme or scrupulous of the sectaries by what was called a measure of indulgence or toleration. Locke, of course, with his friend Lord Mordaunt, took the most liberal side open to him as respects these measures; but he complains that the episcopal clergy were unfavourable to these as well as to other reforms, whether to their own advantage and that of the State it was for them to consider. Unfortunately both for the Church and nation, the issue of the religious struggles which were carried on at the beginning of William's reign was, on the whole, in favor of the less tolerant party. The Comprehension Bill, after being violently attacked and languidly defended, was dropped altogether. The Toleration Bill, though passed by pretty general consent, and affording a considerable measure of relief on the existing law, was entirely of the nature of a compromise, and what we should now note as most remarkable in it is the number of its provisos and exceptions. No relief was granted to the believer in transubstantiation or the disbeliever in the Trinity. No dissenting minister, moreover, was allowed to exercise his vocation unless he subscribed thirty-four out of the Thirty-nine Articles, together with the greater part of two others. The Quakers had to make a special declaration of belief in the Holy Trinity and in the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures. The measure of toleration which Locke would have been prepared to grant, it need hardly be said, far exceeded that which was accorded by the Act. Speaking of the law recently passed in a letter to Limborch on the 6th of June, he uses apologetic language. "Toleration has indeed been granted, but not with that latitude which you and men like you, true Christians without ambition or envy, would desire. But it is something to have got thus far. On these beginnings I hope are laid the foundations of liberty and peace on which the Church of Christ will hereafter be