d fixedly at the King, burst into tears,
and made answer, "Sir, I am worn out: I am unfit to serve your Majesty
or the City. And, sir, the death of my poor boys broke my heart. That
wound is as fresh as ever. I shall carry it to my grave." The King stood
silent for a minute in some confusion, and then said, "Mr. Kiffin, I
will find a balsam for that sore." Assuredly James did not mean to say
anything cruel or insolent: on the contrary, he seems to have been in
an unusually gentle mood. Yet no speech that is recorded of him gives so
unfavourable a notion of his character as these few words. They are
the words of a hardhearted and lowminded man, unable to conceive any
laceration of the affections for which a place or a pension would not be
a full compensation. [257]

That section of the dissenting body which was favourable to the King's
new policy had from the first been a minority, and soon began to
diminish. For the Nonconformists perceived in no long time that their
spiritual privileges had been abridged rather than extended by the
Indulgence. The chief characteristic of the Puritan was abhorrence of
the peculiarities of the Church of Rome. He had quitted the Church of
England only because he conceived that she too much resembled her
superb and voluptuous sister, the sorceress of the golden cup and of the
scarlet robe. He now found that one of the implied conditions of that
alliance which some of his pastors had formed with the Court was that
the religion of the Court should be respectfully and tenderly treated.
He soon began to regret the days of persecution. While the penal laws
were enforced, he had heard the words of life in secret and at his
peril: but still he had heard them. When the brethren were assembled in
the inner chamber, when the sentinels had been posted, when the doors
had been locked, when the preacher, in the garb of a butcher or a
drayman, had come in over the tiles, then at least God was truly
worshipped. No portion of divine truth was suppressed or softened down
for any worldly object. All the distinctive doctrines of the Puritan
theology were fully, and even coarsely, set forth. To the Church of Rome
no quarter was given. The Beast, the Antichrist, the Man of Sin, the
mystical Jezebel, the mystical Babylon, were the phrases ordinarily
employed to describe that august and fascinating superstition. Such
had been once the style of Alsop, of Lobb, of Rosewell, and of other
ministers who had of late b