was not one who combined innocence and misery like this poor,
broken-hearted infant, so soon the victim of his own heavenly nature.

While this melancholy change had taken place in Ilbrahim, one of an
earlier origin and of different character had come to its perfection in
his adopted father. The incident with which this tale commences found
Pearson in a state of religious dulness, yet mentally disquieted, and
longing for a more fervid faith than he possessed. The first effect of
his kindness to Ilbrahim was to produce a softened feeling, and
incipient love for the child's whole sect; but joined to this, and
resulting perhaps from self-suspicion, was a proud and ostentatious
contempt of their tenets and practical extravagances. In the course of
much thought, however, for the subject struggled irresistibly into his
mind, the foolishness of the doctrine began to be less evident, and the
points which had particularly offended his reason assumed another
aspect, or vanished entirely away. The work within him appeared to go on
even while he slept, and that which had been a doubt, when he laid down
to rest, would often hold the place of a truth, confirmed by some
forgotten demonstration, when he recalled his thoughts in the morning.
But while he was thus becoming assimilated to the enthusiasts, his
contempt, in no wise decreasing toward them, grew very fierce against
himself; he imagined, also, that every face of his acquaintance wore a
sneer, and that every word addressed to him was a gibe. Such was his
state of mind at the period of Ilbrahim's misfortune; and the emotions
consequent upon that event completed the change, of which the child had
been the original instrument.

In the meantime, neither the fierceness of the persecutors, nor the
infatuation of their victims, had decreased. The dungeons were never
empty; the streets of almost every village echoed daily with a lash; the
life of a woman, whose mild and Christian spirit no cruelty could
imbitter, 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 thous