endents
and Quakers, and the terror of penal laws, broke the strength of
Presbyterianism.

Baxter's whole conduct, on this occasion, bears testimony to his honesty
and sincerity, while it shows him to have been too intolerant to secure
his own religious freedom at the price of toleration for Catholics,
Quakers, and Anabaptists; and too blind in his loyalty to perceive that
pure and undefiled Christianity had nothing to hope for from a scandalous
and depraved King, surrounded by scoffing, licentious courtiers and a
haughty, revengeful prelacy. To secure his influence, the Court offered
him the bishopric of Hereford. Superior to personal considerations, he
declined the honor; but somewhat inconsistently, in his zeal for the
interests of his party, he urged the elevation of at least three of his
Presbyterian friends to the Episcopal bench, to enforce that very liturgy
which they condemned. He was the chief speaker for the Presbyterians at
the famous Savoy Conference, summoned to advise and consult upon the Book
of Common Prayer. His antagonist was Dr. Gunning, ready, fluent, and
impassioned. "They spent," as Gilbert Burnet says, "several days in
logical arguing, to the diversion of the town, who looked upon them as a
couple of fencers, engaged in a discussion which could not be brought to
an end." In themselves considered, many of the points at issue seem
altogether too trivial for the zeal with which Baxter contested them,--
the form of a surplice, the wording of a prayer, kneeling at sacrament,
the sign of the cross, etc. With him, however, they were of momentous
interest and importance, as things unlawful in the worship of God. He
struggled desperately, but unavailingly. Presbyterianism, in its
eagerness for peace and union and a due share of State support, had
already made fatal concessions, and it was too late to stand upon non-
essentials. Baxter retired from the conference baffled and defeated,
amidst murmurs and jests. "If you had only been as fat as Dr. Manton,"
said Clarendon to him, "you would have done well."

The Act of Conformity, in which Charles II. and his counsellors gave the
lie to the liberal declarations of Breda and Whitehall, drove Baxter from
his sorrowing parishioners of Kidderminster, and added the evils of
poverty and persecution to the painful bodily infirmities under which he
was already bowed down. Yet his cup was not one of unalloyed bitterness,
and loving lips were prepared to d