night by headless bears, of a young witch
pulling the hooks out of Mr. Emlen's breeches and swallowing them, of Mr.
Beacham's locomotive tobacco-pipe, and the Rev. Mr. Munn's jumping Bible,
and of a drunken man punished for his intemperance by being lifted off
his legs by an invisible hand! Cotton Mather's marvellous account of his
witch experiments in New England delighted him. He had it republished,
declaring that "he must be an obstinate Sadducee who doubted it."

The married life of Baxter, as might be inferred from the state of the
times, was an unsettled one. He first took a house at Moorfields, then
removed to Acton, where he enjoyed the conversation of his neighbor, Sir
Matthew Hale; from thence he found refuge in Rickmansworth, and after
that in divers other places. "The women have most of this trouble," he
remarks, "but my wife easily bore it all." When unable to preach, his
rapid pen was always busy. Huge folios of controversial and doctrinal
lore followed each other in quick succession. He assailed Popery and the
Establishment, Anabaptists, ultra Calvinists, Antinomians, Fifth Monarchy
men, and Quakers. His hatred of the latter was only modified by his
contempt. He railed rather than argued against the "miserable
creatures," as he styled them. They in turn answered him in like manner.
"The Quakers," he says, "in their shops, when I go along London streets,
say, 'Alas' poor man, thou art yet in darkness.' They have oft come to
the congregation, when I had liberty to preach Christ's Gospel, and cried
out against me as a deceiver of the people. They have followed me home,
crying out in the streets, 'The day of the Lord is coming, and thou shalt
perish as a deceiver.' They have stood in the market-place, and under my
window, year after year, crying to the people, 'Take heed of your
priests, they deceive your souls;' and if any one wore a lace or neat
clothing, they cried out to me, 'These are the fruits of your ministry.'"

At Rickmansworth, he found himself a neighbor of William Penn, whom he
calls "the captain of the Quakers." Ever ready for battle, Baxter
encountered him in a public discussion, with such fierceness and
bitterness as to force from that mild and amiable civilian the remark,
that he would rather be Socrates at the final judgment than Richard
Baxter. Both lived to know each other better, and to entertain
sentiments of mutual esteem. Baxter himself admits that the Quakers, by
their