character of which would try the spirit even of a full-grown and seasoned man. But Parnell, we must remember, was a beardless youth, and, moreover, deficient in physical strength. He was at an age when a lad of our own time, would be only preparing for the serious work of life.

Yet we see how his very weakness and undevelopment had become instruments for the better unravelling of the divine purpose, and his single-hearted idealism, his simple dependence on revelation, bore witness to the power of the Holy Spirit that animated him.

The morning of that Sunday was passed by young Parnell at his lodgings at Thomas Shortland's house, where all who would, might come to confer with and hear him. Then he passed down the High Street to St. Nicholas Church, where, when the sermon was ended, he was suffered to speak to the congregation. In the afternoon, he addressed a very great meeting, of about a thousand people, in John Furly's yard, he being mounted above the crowd, and speaking out of a hay-chamber window. Can we not picture the lad, his dale and somewhat sickly appearance heightened by his sober attire;

insignificant and youthful in figure, so that he had already earned the derisive name of the quaking boy," yet with a soul of fire and a burning courage which carried him through every obstacle, and made even persecution welcome for the Truth's sake. In the crowd would be many by no means sympathetic listeners, noisy and rough interruptions would try his temper and nerve; and he who could meekly take a blow, jeeringly inflicted, "for Christ's sake," could, as we know, flame into righteous anger and fierce invective, when he was defending the divine right of conscience, or pointing out the hypocrisy of his opponents. But he never lost courage; he looked for strength outside himself; and even after these exhausting experiences, he was fit to appear in the evening at a previously advertised meeting held in the schoolroom for the children of the French and Flemish weavers, to which John Furly's house then hospitably afforded an asylum.

Colchester had long been a principal seat of the bay and say-making industry of the Flemish and French weavers, who had been driven by the Duke of Alva's persecutions from Flanders. The town had been torn by rival factions

during the Civil War, and was only now recovering from the terrible siege of seven years before. It was strongly Protestant and, under the Parliamentry ordinance, had appointed a town lecturer to supplement the religious efforts of the incumbents of its churches. William Archer, who held the post, and Thomas Tillam, a Seventh-day Baptist, who had come into the county from Northumberland, were arraigned against Parnell in the French School, and no doubt put him unsparingly through an inquisitorial ordeal.

This was no light day's work for a young man of eighteen, utterly untrained for public speaking. However, his spiritual experience was fast out-running his youth. Among those who went to hear him was Steven Crisp, a wealthy and worthy Colchester citizen, a bay maker, who had married a Dutch wife from Amsterdam, and was much respected in the town. He was effectually reached" by the young man's preaching that he at once became one of the Friends, and, indeed, to Parnell himself, a most faithful and very necessary friend, as events will show. Not all the people heard him gladly by any means, and Crisp, from whom

we have the account of his doings, relates how as he came out of St. Nicholas Church, a Colcestrian struck Parnell with a great staff, and bade him "take that for Jesus Christ's sake." If the smiter thought to rouse the young man to anger, he was mistaken, for Crisp tells us he was "a pattern of patience and meekness," and only replied gently, "Friend, I do receive it for Jesus Christ's sake."

Ten days were spent in Colchester, and on the 12th of July, Parnell went back to Coggeshall, to his final appearance as a gospel preacher, and to his last days of liberty.

CHAPTER VI.

THE END OF ACTIVE SERVICE.

THE picturesque little town of Coggeshall,

twenty miles north of the county town, upon one of the main high roads from thence to Colchester, has as distinctive a character as any in the county of Essex. Still nearly three miles from a railway station, it has long fallen behind in the race of modern life, and has yet kept many of its most interesting features. But in the seventeenth century it was a busy manufacturing place, resounding with the hum of weavers' looms, and redolent of the tanners' dyes. Its seventeenth century house-fronts, with finely carved gables and barge-boards, betoken a number of wealthy inhabitants, and its magnificent church of St. Peter-ad-Vincula is a relic of far earlier times.

Of the ancient abbey church little now remains; but the echoes of the Reformation still