question Shall I destroy England?' And so some answer after this manner, and some after that: Great cry of injustice, of oppression, of wrong, of injury!' 'Blood toucheth blood; courts of justice and committees are courts of robbery and spoil; the poor sheep flies to the bush for shelter, and loses his fleece ! ' Papists and malignants compound, and they oppress their poor tenants that have engaged themselves in the public cause for the Lord against their lords!' A fourth confirms, and concludes with the other three: England must be destroyed. They have falsified the oath of God. Oaths and covenants are like Sampson's cords; every one makes use of them to his own interests!' To these agreed many more, so that there was a great cry heard in the house: 'Down with it, down with it, even to the ground!' God looked from His throne, and wondered there was not one found-not one to stand in the gap to make an atonement to speak in the behalf of England. After a short silence, one arose from his seat, and said: 'Lord, wilt Thou destroy England-England, for whom Thou hast done so great things? Wilt Thou destroy what Thine hand hath done? What will the Atheists, the Papists, the malignants say? Surely God was not able to save them. Save them, then, for Thy great name's sake!' A second ariseth, and saith: England must not be destroyed! Lord, wilt Thou destroy a righteous nation, if there be fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, ten righteous there? Shall not the judge of all the earth do that which is right? There are seven thousand at least that have not bowed their knees to Baal! There are sixty thousand, and more, yea, than sixty hundred thousand, that cannot discern betwixt the right hand and the left! Thou never didst destroy a praying, a reforming people! Wilt Thou now do what was never in Thy thoughts before?' A third

ariseth after the second, and pleads the same cause: 'England must not be destroyed! There is a Parliament in the midst of them-physicians of great value! God hath been amongst them, and in the midst of them; and they are still acting for God and the kingdom's safety! Did ever Parliament perish before?' After all these, the fourth ariseth, that there might not appear fewer to speak for than there was to speak against England: England must not be destroyed! They cannot die alone; the three kingdoms must die with them—yea, the Protestants' churches throughout the world! Hast Thou not said that hell gates shall not prevail against Thy people?' To these many more joined in heart and vote, so that there was a considerable party of both sides; nor could it be determined whether had more voices, those that spake for the destruction, or they that spake for the salvation of England. And having said, they were silent.

"And behold, as we read in the Revelation, there was in heaven great silence for half an hour, both sides waiting for God's determination. At last, God in His glorious majesty raised Himself from His throne, and effectually cried out: How shall I give thee up, England? how shall I give thee up?' And so, without conclusion and final determination, He dissolved the session, to the admiration and astonishment of both parties."1

Adam Martindale, with whom we become intimately acquainted through the medium of his autobiography— had been a tutor, and had kept school in very strange places-even in public-houses, where he had been compelled to share in both bed and board with such companions

1 Hist. of Manchester, i. 238.

as Papists, and soldiers, and drunkards. His employment as a schoolmaster had been adopted in order to avoid enlistment as a soldier; yet he was taken prisoner by Prince Rupert in the town of Liverpool, and made to walk without any shoes-the troopers, as he hobbled along, snapping his ears with their pistol-locks. Having been converted under a kind of preaching which he compares to "a sharp needle drawing after it a silken thread of comfort," he wished to enter one of the Universities, and to take holy orders; but, during a visitation of the plague, he was persuaded to preach in Manchester, an incident which led to his immediate entrance upon the sacred office. He became minister of Gorton,-a chapelry in the parish of Manchester, where his relation to the Manchester Presbytery was somewhat peculiar; for he would not avow himself either a Presbyterian or a Congregationalist, and, although he signed the rules of the Classical Assembly, he would never attend any of the meetings of that body. On leaving Gorton, he accepted the vicarage of Rosthern, in the county of Chester; the parishioners there uniting in an engagement to pay him the sum of £10 quarterly. Not having been ordained, he now sought ordination from the Manchester ministers; and, upon being refused the rite at their hands, he proceeded to London to obtain it there. After much perplexity respecting the Engagement, he at last subscribed, but the subscription seems to have troubled his conscience; and in his new Cheshire incumbency, where he laboured with singular diligence, he met with additional trials from certain "gifted" brethren belonging to a Congregational Church in the neighbourhood who were exceedingly fond of preaching. Nevertheless, he maintained fellowship with Pastors of that denomination, and promoted the establishment of a voluntary union, as

distinguished from the Manchester classis, with which institution he ever scrupled to identify himself.

Henry Newcome, another Lancashire minister-more of a Presbyterian than was Martindale-had been educated at Cambridge, and had acquired the art of extempore utterance with much volubility, even before his ordination, which took place in the year 1648. There can be no doubt of the godliness and zeal of this eccentric person; but his eccentricities were so striking, as recorded by himself, that they impart a peculiar interest to his amusing narrative. In his earlier days, whilst Rector of Gawsworth, in the county of Chester, he led an active life, and spent a good deal of time on horseback -like an Arab of the desert, but with more mischances. than ever befel any one of those skilful riders-since, for being run away with, for tumbling off his steed, and for being nearly drowned, he had scarcely his fellow; whilst in all such misfortunes, as well as in the deliverances which accompanied them, he traced the hand of a special Providence. In one of his merry moods, when certain gentlewomen from a neighbouring Hall came to call upon him, he frightened the fair visitors by charging and firing off a pistol in fun; and throughout life, games at billiards and at shuffle-board formed the favourite amusement of this lively Divine, for which purpose he frequented an ale-house hard by his residence; although often checking his inclination in that respect, and maintaining in reference to all his recreations a large amount of self-discipline. He would keep close to serious business the whole day, and then, in the evening, he would go out for a little coveted enjoyment. "And for mirth," he says, "which I was afraid of too great a latitude in, I thought it was my duty to let some savoury thing fall where I had spoken merrily, or to count my

self truly in debt for as much serious discourse for every jest I had told." There occurs in his diary a case of conscience, as to whether it was right to go and see a "horse in the town of Manchester that was taught to do strange things for such a creature to do." He finds seven reasons against going, and thus concludes: "To go might be a sin, not to go I know was no sin, and therefore this was the safer way.' '1

Next to the county of Lancaster, the Metropolis proved the most favourable soil for Presbyterian piety. There stands in London Wall a quaintly-fashioned edifice-like an old world with a few inhabitants left in it to keep watch and ward-its courts almost as silent and desolate as the Alhambra. Few people now see Sion College, with its almshouses, founded by Dr. Thomas White, Vicar of St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, and its library, the gift of John Simson, Rector of St. Olave's, Hart Street; but it was a place of great resort during the Commonwealth, when its architectural appearance differed from what it is at present; for then a building erected in the time of James I., and consumed afterwards in the London Fire, covered the spot; and in the little rooms of that monasticlike establishment, young London clergymen found lodgings until they could be provided with houses within the parishes which they served. The snug almshouses accommodated ten poor men and ten poor women. library, even at that time, was extensive, and could boast of some curious old books and MSS., which have since been burnt or lost; and the whole establishment was governed by a President, two Deans, and four Assistants, who were all furnished with a residence within the spacious precincts.

The

'The Diary and the Autobiography of Newcome, and the Life of Adam Martindale, have been published by the Cheetham Society.