If  the  Presbyterian  party,  which  had  brought  to  pass  the
restoration  of  the  king,  rejoiced  in  the  condemnation  of  the
man  they  had  been  eager  to  destroy,  they  were  speedily
brought  to  a  better  mind.  Just  within  a  month  before
John  Biddle's  death,  two  thousand  of  their  ministers  made
noble  atonement  for  whatever  fault  that  party  had  been
guilty  of,  by  voluntarily  resigning  their  livings  in  the
Church  of  England  on  the  new  ''  St.  Bartholomew's  Day  "
(August  24,  1662),  expelled  by  the  Act  of  Uniformity  lately
passed.  Charles's  pledge  had  been  ''  that  no  man  shall
be  disquieted  or  called  in  question  for  differences  of  opin-
ion on  matters  of  religion,  which  do  not  disturb  the  peace
of  the  kingdom."     Under  this  heavy  blow,  the  Puritan  theo-

1  This  rare  and  indispensable  record  exists,  complete,  in  the  Harvard
University  library.
WILLIAM  PENN.
137


logians — Nonconformists  now,  and  presently  to  fie  known
as  Dissenters — lost  their  stomach  for  speculative  debate,
which  went  henceforth  into  other  hands.
An  occasion  for  renewing  the  debate  was  found  in  1688.
A  Presbyterian  preacher,  TJiomas  Vincent,  had  sharply
rebuked  some  members  of  his  congregation  who  had  gone
for  curiosity  to  hear  the  doctrine  declared  at  a  Quaker
meeting.  Quakerism  had  come  up  twenty-one  years  be-
fore, in  1647,  through  the  testimony  of  George  Fox,  in  a
time  when  there  was  great  laxity  in  belief  and  disorder  of
morals,  after  the  crushing  defeat  of  monarchy  in  the  field ;
and  had  just  gained,  in  i^^'] ,  its  most  distinguished  ad-
vocate in  Robert  Barclay.  Among  others,  it  was  early
embraced  by  that  warm-hearted,  brilliant,  opinionated
youth,  William  Penn,  who  was  at  this  time  closely  intimate
with  one  of  its  most  noted  preachers,  George  Whitehead.
