t,'[45] freethinkers were 'the first-born sons of Satan,' the
Established Church was 'fallen into mortal schism,'[46] Ken, for
thinking of reunion, was 'a half-hearted wheedler,'[47] Roman Catholics
were 'as gross idolaters as Egyptian worshippers of leeks,'[48]
Nonconformists were 'fanatics,' Quakers were 'blasphemers.'[49] From the
peaceful researches, on which he built a lasting name, in Anglo-Saxon
and Scandinavian antiquities, he returned each time with renewed zest to
polemical disputes, and found relaxation in the strife of words. It was
no promising omen for the future of the nonjuring party, that the Court
of St. Germains should have appointed him and Wagstaffe first bishops of
that Communion. The consecration was kept for several years a close
secret, and Robert Nelson himself may probably have been ignorant[50] of
the high dignity to which 'my neighbour the Dean' had attained.

One other of Nelson's nonjuring friends must be mentioned. Francis Lee,
a physician, had been a Fellow of St. John's, Oxford, but was deprived
for declining the oaths. At the end of the seventeenth century, after
travelling abroad, he joined[51] one of those societies of mystics which
at that time abounded throughout Europe. A long correspondence with
Dodwell ensued, and convinced at last that he had been in error, he not
only left the brotherhood and its presiding 'prophetess' (it appears to
have been a society of a somewhat fanatical order), but published in
1709, under the title of 'A History of Montanism, by a Lay Gentleman,' a
work directed against fanaticism in general. He writes it in the tone of
one who has lately recovered from a sort of mental fever which may break
out in anyone, and sometimes becomes epidemic, inflaming and throwing
into disorder certain obscure impulses which are common to all human
nature.[52] He became intimate with Nelson, and subscribes one of his
letters to him, 'To the best of friends, from the most affectionate of
friends.'[53] He helped him in his devotional publications; took in
hand, at his instigation, and from materials which Nelson and Hickes had
collected, the life of Kettlewell; and took an active part in furthering
the benevolent schemes in which his friend was so deeply interested. It
was he who suggested[54] to him the founding of charity schools after
the model of the far-famed orphanage and other educational institutions
lately established by Francke and Spener at Halle, the centre of Germ