It is not strange, therefore, that wise men, weary of investigation, tormented by uncertainty, longing to believe something, and yet seeing objections to every thing, should submit themselves absolutely to teachers who, with firm and undoubting faith, lay claim to a supernatural commission.  Thus we frequently see inquisitive and restless spirits take refuge from their own scepticism in the bosom of a church which pretends to infallibility, and, after questioning the existence of a Deity, bring themselves to worship a wafer.  And thus it was that Fox made some converts to whom he was immeasurably inferior in every thing except the energy of his convictions.  By these converts his rude doctrines were polished into a form somewhat less shocking to good sense and good taste.  No proposition which he had laid down was retracted.  No indecent or ridiculous act which he had done or approved was condemned; but what was most grossly absurd in his theories and practices was softened down, or at least not obtruded on the public; whatever could be made to appear specious was set in the fairest light; his gibberish was translated into English; meanings which he would have been quite unable to comprehend were put on his phrases; and his system, so much improved that he would not have known it again, was defended by numerous citations from Pagan philosophers and Christian fathers whose names he had never heard.37 Still, however, those who had remodelled his theology continued to profess, and doubtless to feel, profound reverence for him; and his crazy epistles were to the last received and read with respect in Quaker meetings all over the country.  His death produced a sensation which was not confined to his own disciples.  On the morning of the funeral a great multitude assembled round the meeting house in Gracechurch Street.  Thence the corpse was borne to the burial ground of the sect near Bunhill Fields.  Several orators addressed the crowd which filled the cemetery.  Penn was conspicuous among those disciples who committed the venerable corpse to the earth.  The ceremony had scarcely been finished when he learned that warrants were out against him.  He instantly took flight, and remained many months concealed from the public eye.38

A short time after his disappearance, Sidney received from him a strange communication.  Penn begged for an interview, but insisted on a promise that he should be suffered to return unmolested to his hiding place.  Sidney obtained the royal permission to make an appointment on these terms.  Penn came to the rendezvous, and spoke at length in his own defence.  He declared that he was a faithful subject of King William and Queen Mary, and that, if he knew of any design against them, he would discover it.  Departing from his Yea and Nay, he protested, as in the presence of God, that he knew of no plot, and that he did not believe that there was any plot, unless the ambitious projects of the French government might be called plots.  Sidney, amazed probably by hearing