d
of wandering among caves and deserts, was to "enter into Kings'
palaces." "If," said he, "you maintain that the overthrow of episcopacy
is to involve the ruin of every thing rich, venerable, and beautiful,
you furnish its defenders with the best of arguments. How are curious
craftsmen to flourish, if there are no purchasers of their handy-works;
and if we admit these into our houses, why not into the places where we
hold our religious assemblies? Are paintings and carvings less likely to
carnalize our hearts in our halls and banqueting-rooms than in our
chapels? Is a golden cup on the Lord's table the accursed spoil of
Achan; and doth it become purified by being removed to the buttery and
used in a private carousal?"

On one occasion, by an ingenious device, Barton preserved a splendid
representation of the twelve apostles in a chancel window. He arrived
just at the moment that a drunken glazier had convinced the mob that
they were made saints by the Babylonish harlot, and that therefore their
similitudes, as popish rags, ought to be destroyed. After in vain
endeavouring to persuade the populace that the Pope had no hand in their
canonization, he at length prevailed upon them to have only the heads
taken off, remarking that since the decapitated bodies could not provoke
the gazer to commit the idolatry forbidden in the second commandment,
they might remain without wounding tender consciences. The proposal was
executed under his own superintendance; and at a period of less
irritation, Mr. Barton, having preserved the heads, had the pleasure of
restoring the mutilated figures to their original perfection.

But Barton shewed his conciliatory character in many ways besides
protecting the inanimate appendages of the persecuted church. The
journey afforded him frequent opportunities of assisting its living
members, either by rescuing them from the requisitions of the troopers
who escorted the prisoners, or by shielding them from the virulence of
their infuriated neighbours. Often in the towns they passed through, was
a degraded pastor dragged from the lowly cottage in which he sought to
shelter his misfortunes, and compelled (with barbarous exaltation) to
behold the rebel colours flying over his captive friends. Wherever this
happened, Barton uniformly pressed forward, assured the dejected
confessor that every possible attention was paid to the comfort of the
prisoners; inquired into his own situation, not with impertinent