cially ridiculous; though even here he was
willing to make a reasonable compromise. "You may 'thee' and 'thou' whom
you please," he said, "except the king, the Duke of York, and myself."
But the young convert declined to make any exceptions.

Thereupon, for the second time, the admiral thrust his son out of the
house. The Quakers received him. He was thenceforth accounted among them
as a teacher, a leader: in their phrase, a "public Friend." This was in
1668, when he was twenty-four years old.

The work of a Quaker minister, at that time, was made interesting and
difficult not only by the social and ecclesiastical prejudices against
which he must go, but by certain laws which limited free speech and free
action. The young preacher speedily made himself obnoxious to both these
kinds of laws. Of the three years which followed, he spent more than a
third of the time in prison, being once confined for saying, and twice
for doing, what the laws forbade.

The religious world was filled with controversy. There were discussions
in the meeting-houses; and a constant stream of pamphlets came from the
press, part argument and part abuse. Even mild-mannered men called each
other names. The Quakers found it necessary to join in this rough
give-and-take, and Penn entered at once into this vigorous exercise. He
began a long series of like documents with a tract entitled "Truth
Exalted." The intent of it was to show that Roman Catholics, Churchmen,
and Puritans alike were all shamefully in error, wandering in the
blackness of darkness, given over to idle superstition, and being of a
character to correspond with their fond beliefs; meanwhile, the Quakers
were the only people then resident in Christendom whose creed was
absolutely true and their lives consistent with it.

"Come," he says, "answer me first, you Papists, where did the Scriptures
enjoin baby-baptism, churching of women, marrying by priests, holy water
to frighten the devil? Come now, you that are called Protestants, and
first those who are called Episcopalians, where do the Scriptures own
such persecutors, false prophets, tithemongers, deniers of revelations,
opposers of perfection, men-pleasers, time-servers, unprofitable
teachers?" The Separatists are similarly cudgeled: they are "groveling
in beggarly elements, imitations, and shadows of heavenly things."

Presently, a Presbyterian minister named Vincent attacked Quakerism.
Joseph Besse, Penn's earliest biographer, s