III

MEMORIALS OF WILLIAM PENN

"It should be sufficient for the glory of William Penn, that he stands upon record as the most humane, the most moderate, and the most pacific of all rulers." LORD JEFFREY.

DEEP in a shady dell, about a mile and a half from that village of Chalfont St. Giles in which Milton took refuge when the plague was raging in London, stands the Quaker meeting-house of Jordans. Living or dead, no member of the Society of Friends could wish to find himself in a spot more in harmony with the simple tenets of his creed. As the meeting-house breaks upon the vision through the stately trees by which it is surrounded, it seems as if one had been vouchsafed a glimpse of New England in Old England; it is just such a building as was common in the New World what time the religious refugees of Britain, late in the seventeenth century, crossed the seas in search of that liberty of conscience denied them in the old home. On such rude wooden benches as still

remain under that red-tiled roof, no rule of life and faith would be more seemly than that preached by George Fox; and than that simple God's acre which fronts the meeting-house there could be no fitter resting-place in which to await in quiet confidence that Day which will prove how far that creed was in harmony with absolute truth.

For several miles around, this district is rich in memories of the early Quakers. Near by was the peaceful home of the Penningtons, in which Thomas Ellwood was living as tutor, and from which William Penn was to take his first and most beloved wife. General Fleetwood, too, had his residence in the neighbourhood. The reason for this focussing of so many Friends within a small area was probably the same as that which drove the Covenanters of Scotland to seek refuge on the lonely moors; to-day Jordans is sufficiently inaccessible, and two centuries ago it must have been an ideal haven for suspected sectaries.

More than two hundred years have elapsed since Jordans passed into the possession of the Society of Friends. It owes its name probably to a forgotten owner of the property; for it was not from a Jordan, but from one William Rus

sell, that, in 1671, Thomas Ellwood and several others acquired the land in behalf of the Society. The idea of a meeting-house seems to have been an after-thought; it was as a burial-place simply that Jordans was originally purchased. But the

meeting-house was not long in following, for seventeen years later there is authentic record of its existence. Probably some generations have passed since regular meetings were held in this rude temple; but twice every year— on the fourth Sunday in May and the first Thursday in June-set gatherings are held to

keep alive the continuity of Quaker teaching within these walls.

But it is because of its graves, and not on account of its meeting-house, that Jordans attracts so many pilgrims year by year. For a century and a half there was nothing to distinguish one mouldering heap from another. Here, for example, is the account which Mr. William Hepworth Dixon, one of Penn's most competent biographers, wrote of his visit to the place in 1851: "Nothing could be less imposing than the graveyard at Jordans: the meeting-house is like an old barn in appearance, and the field in which the illustrious dead repose is not even decently smoothed. There are no gravel walks, no monuments, no mournful yews, no cheerful flowers; there is not even a stone to mark a spot or to record a name. When I visited it with my friend Granville Penn, Esq., great-grandson of the State-Founder, on the 11th of January this year, we had some difficulty in determining the heap under which the great man's ashes lie. Mistakes have occurred before now; and for many years pilgrims were shown the wrong grave!"

With the laudable desire of helping pilgrims to pay their devotions at the right shrine, Mr.

Dixon prepared a simple ground-plan of the graveyard, and the positions of the small headstones which mark the graves to-day correspond with that plan to a large extent. But there is one important exception. It will be seen from

one of the pictures that the stone nearest to the fence in the second row bears the name of "John Penn," whereas in Mr. Dixon's plan that position marks the grave of "John Pennington." It is not easy to throw any light on this mistake. For instance, it is difficult to see what John Penn could be buried under the date given,