remind ourselves of the heritage we possess in the fight they fought for tolerance and free opinion. The real issues, however, of their sacrifice, will be missed, if the standards, the traditions, practices and ideas of the times are not steadily borne in mind.

In 1636, the year of Parnell's birth, the religious life of the people of England was full of contrasting phases. A rising wave of Puritanism had followed the Reformation; but Catholicism, the religion of the Queen, still maintained a strong hold upon the people, and converts were daily made; in Scotland, a sturdy Presbyterianism was gathering strength against the inroads of Laudian innovations. Charles I. had carried on a feeble Government for eight years without a Parliament. Laud had instituted the Star Chamber proceedings which, in that very year, had condemned an Essex man, Henry Burton-the writer of a new Litany, "from bishops, priests and deacons, good Lord, deliver us "-with two other pamphleteers, Prynne and Bastwick, to stand mutilated in a pillory for hours, and to be imprisoned for life. Inside the Church, men like William Chillingworth and John

Hales were pleading for unity, tolerance and harmony of worship. Outside, sects were multiplying with extraordinary rapidity, in spite of what Dr. Gardiner has called the rooted traditional belief of the average Englishman, that all religious liberty was anarchy, and that it was the duty of the State to allow no man to worship as it seemed right in his own eyes, but only as the State itself prescribed. The Church itself seemed to have lost sight of the hidden meaning and soul of worship, and to be wholly occupied with minor disputes: whether the sacrament should be administered as heretofore to each person in his own seat in the church, or only at the communion rails; whether and where there should be any rails; or in punishing any private person who attempted to teach or preach, women who appeared to give thanks for child-birth without a veil on their heads, and men who worked in the fields on Saints' days, including the 5th of November.

Laud's revised Prayer-book and new canons had been issued, and received with a storm of opposition, especially in Scotland. All men, everywhere, were occupied firstly and lastly with shades of religious beliefs; almost their sole

literature was religious books and pamphlets, which issued from the press by thousands; and consequently the use of Biblical language, of prophetic utterances and terms of stern invective, was universal.

Political and ecclesiastical

dissatisfaction

rankled together in almost every man's heart, fostered by the infamy of Laud's pillories as well as incensed by the grinding tyranny of Charles's unjust taxes. Milton, the poet of Puritanism, was twenty-eight years old when Parnell was born. George Fox, a lad of twelve, was minding his sheep or plying his shoemaker's awl, "Righteous Christer," his father, still having under consideration the project for bringing the boy up to enter the Church. Oliver Cromwell, a country squire of thirtyseven, had succeeded as heir to his uncle's estate, and was living at Ely, farming the cathedral tithes, undergoing spiritual and mental conflicts, and preparing to enter Parliament and become a people's leader.

Such, in outline, was the condition of England when the child of this narrative was born.

His birthplace, the borough of East RetfordRedeford in Domesday, from the turbid red

colour of the ford over the river Idle in rainy weather-has been a place of considerable importance since before Edward I. From 1315 to 1330, and from 1571 to 1885, it sent two members to Parliament. It has a fine marketplace, beautifully approached, and a striking church, built, in cathedral form, round a handsome central tower. For an illustration of this I am indebted to Canon Ebsworth. On the other side of the Idle is West Retford, also included within the borough.

In September, 1636, the future young minister was born at East Retford, and his baptism duly entered on the 6th of the month by John Watt, vicar, in the parish register. By the kindness of the present vicar, the Rev. Canon A. F. Ebsworth, I am able to reproduce this interesting entry, which has now been first made public.

"1636. Jeames Sonne of Thomas Parnell and Saraij his wife. September 6th."

James had an elder sister, born in March, 1634, and named after her mother, Sarah; other children there do not appear to have been.

Parnell does not anywhere mention his parents by name, and indeed seems, after he became a Friend, to have completely cut himself adrift from all his early associations. The only allusion to either of them is when he says he followed his father's trade. This, without any very definite foundation, has been variously stated to have been shoemaking and farming. The family circumstances were apparently easy enough to permit him a good education, and, after he had espoused his father's calling, whatever it was, occasional absences from home and daily occupation. In the list of Aldermen for the borough of East Retford for the year 1607, thirty years before he was born, are the names of Henry and Richard Parnell, both being described as "gentlemen." This seems to establish young Parnell's claim to more or less gentle birth and breeding. His friends were good church people, and he was baptised in the beautiful sixteenth century font of St. Swithun's church, East Retford, decorated by a figure of that pious, humble-minded, natureloving bishop himself, who, when he came to die near his own minster in royal Winchester, bade his followers bury him where his grave might