azier," he said, "shoemaker at Cambridge, was
fined by John Hunt, mayor, and John Spenser, vice-chancellor, twenty
pounds for holding a peaceable religious meeting in his own house. The
officer who distrained for this sum took his leather last, the seat he
worked upon, wearing clothes, bed, and bedding." "In Cheshire, Justice
Daniel of Danesbury took from Briggs and others the value of one hundred
and sixteen pounds, fifteen shillings and tenpence in coin, kine, and
horses. The latter he had the audacity to retain and work for his own
use," and so on, instance after instance. Penn's acquaintance at court
and his friendships with persons of position never made him an
aristocrat. He was fraternally interested in farmers and cobblers, and
cared for the plain people. Quakerism, as he held it, was indeed a
system of theology which he studiously taught, but it was also, and
quite as much, a social and intellectual democracy. What he mightily
liked about it was that abandonment of artificial distinctions, whereby
all Quakers addressed their neighbors by their Christian names, and that
refusal to be held by formulas of faith, whereby they were left free to
accept such beliefs, and such only, as appealed to their own reason.

About this time he engaged in controversy with Mr. Richard Baxter.
Baxter is chiefly remembered as the author of "The Saints' Everlasting
Rest," but he was a most militant person, who rejoiced greatly in a
theological fight. Passing by Rickmansworth, and finding many Quakers
there,--to him a sad spectacle,--he sought to reclaim them, and thus
fell speedily into debate with Penn. The two argued from ten in the
morning until five in the afternoon, a great crowd listening all the
time with breathless interest. Neither could get the other to surrender;
but so much did William enjoy the exercise that he offered Baxter a room
in his house, that they might argue every day.

In 1677, having now removed to an estate of his wife's at Worminghurst,
in Sussex, Penn, in company with Fox, Barclay, and other Quakers, made a
"religious voyage" into Holland and Germany, preaching the gospel. His
journal of these travels is printed in his works. "At Osnaburg," he
writes, "we had a little time with the man of the inn where we lay; and
left him several good books of Friends, in the High and Low Dutch
tongues, to read and dispose of." Then, in the next sentence, he
continues, "the next morning, being the fifth day of the week,