own views of Baptism and the Supper, and
added to them the ordinance of the Washing of Feet. These communities
were to be found throughout Protestant Europe, from the Alps to the
North Sea, but were best known in Holland and Lower Germany, where they
were called Mennonites, from the priest, Menno Simons, who, a hundred
years before George Fox, had enunciated the same principles of duty
founded on the strict interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount.

The combination of circumstances to promote the "Holy Experiment" of
William Penn is something prodigious. How he could be a petted favorite
at the shameful court of the last two Stuarts, while his brethren
throughout the realm were languishing under persecution, is a fact not
in itself honorable, but capable of being honorably explained; and both
the persecution and the court favor helped on his enterprise. The time
was opportune; the period of tragical uncertainty in colonization was
past; emigration had come to be a richly promising enterprise. For
leader of the enterprise what endowment was lacking in the elegantly
accomplished young courtier, holding as his own the richest domain that
could be carved out of a continent, who was at the same time brother, in
unaffected humility and unbounded generosity, in a great fraternity
bound together by principles of ascetic self-denial and devotion to the
kingdom of God?

Penn's address inviting colonists to his new domain announced the
outlines of his scheme. His great powers of jurisdiction were held by
him only to be transferred to the future inhabitants in a free and
righteous government. "I purpose," said he, conscious of the magnanimity
of the intention, "for the matters of liberty, I purpose that which is
extraordinary--to leave myself and successors no power of doing
mischief, that the will of one man may not hinder the good of a whole
country;" and added, in language which might have fallen from his
intimate friend, Algernon Sidney, but was fully expressive of his own
views, "It is the great end of government to support power in reverence
with the people, and to secure the people from the abuse of power; for
liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is
slavery."[116:1] With assurances of universal civil and religious
liberty in conformity with these principles, he offered land at forty
shillings for a hundred acres, subject to a small quit-rent.

Through the correspondence of the Friends' me