lainly impossible to be on
any terms of intimacy with one who could be welcomed back into the
company of the faithful only as 'a true penitent for the sin of
schism.'[59] There were some, on the other hand, who were fully aware of
the difficulties that beset the question, and had not a word or thought
of condemnation for those who did not share in the scruples they
themselves felt. They could not take the oath, but neither did they make
it any cause of severance, or discontinue their attendance at the public
prayers. But for the most part even those Nonjurors who held no extreme
views fell gradually into a set of their own, with its own ideas, hopes,
prejudices, and sympathies. They could scarcely help making a great
principle of right or wrong of that for which most of them had
sacrificed so much. It was intolerable, after loss of home and property
in the cause, as they believed, of truth and duty, to be called factious
separatists, authors of needless schism. Hence, in very self-defence,
they were driven to attach all possible weight to the reasons which had
placed them, loyal Churchmen as they were, in a Nonconformist position,
to rally round their own standard, and to strive to the utmost of their
power to show that it was they, and not their opponents, not the Jurors
but the Nonjurors, who were the truest and most faithful sons of the
Anglican Church. Under such circumstances, the gap grew ever wider which
had sprung up between themselves and those who had not scrupled at the
oath. Even between such friends as Ken and Bull, Nelson and Tillotson, a
temporary estrangement was occasioned. But Robert Nelson was not of a
nature to allow minor differences, however much exaggerated in
importance, to stand long in the way of friendship or works of Christian
usefulness. He lived chiefly in a nonjuring circle; but even during the
years when he wholly absented himself from parochial worship, he was on
friendly and even intimate terms with many leading members of the
establishment, and their active co-operator in every scheme for
extending its beneficial influences.

First in honour among his conforming friends stood Bishop Bull, his old
tutor and warm friend, to whom he always acknowledged a deep debt of
gratitude. Three years after his death Nelson published his life and
works, shortening, it is said, his own days by the too assiduous labour
which he bestowed upon the task. But it was a work of love which he was
exceedingly