daily with the lash; the life of a woman, whose mild and
Christian spirit no cruelty could embitter, had been sacrificed;
and more innocent blood was yet to pollute the hands that were so
often raised in prayer. Early after the Restoration, the English
Quakers represented to Charles II that a "vein of blood was open
in his dominions;" but though the displeasure of the voluptuous
king was roused, his interference was not prompt. And now the
tale must stride forward over many months, leaving Pearson to
encounter ignominy and misfortune; his wife to a firm endurance
of a thousand sorrows; poor Ilbrahim to pine and droop like a
cankered rosebud; his mother to wander on a mistaken errand,
neglectful of the holiest trust which can be committed to a
woman.

. . . . . . . . .

A winter evening, a night of storm, had darkened over Pearson's
habitation, and there were no cheerful faces to drive the gloom
from his broad hearth. The fire, it is true, sent forth a glowing
heat and a ruddy light, and large logs, dripping with half-melted
snow, lay ready to be cast upon the embers. But the apartment was
saddened in its aspect by the absence of much of the homely
wealth which had once adorned it; for the exaction of repeated
fines, and his own neglect of temporal affairs, had greatly
impoverished the owner. And with the furniture of peace, the
implements of war had likewise disappeared; the sword was broken,
the helm and cuirass were cast away forever; the soldier had done
with battles, and might not lift so much as his naked hand to
guard his head. But the Holy Book remained, and the table on
which it rested was drawn before the fire, while two of the