ler. The pantheon of history should not be lightly
disturbed. A good man's character is the world's common legacy; and
humanity is not so rich in models of purity and goodness as to be able to
sacrifice such a reputation as that of William Penn to the point of an
antithesis or the effect of a paradox.

Gilbert Burnet, in liberality as a politician and tolerance as a
Churchman, was far in advance of his order and time. It is true
that he shut out the Catholics from the pale of his charity and
barely tolerated the Dissenters. The idea of entire religious
liberty and equality shocked even his moderate degree of
sensitiveness. He met Penn at the court of the Prince of Orange,
and, after a long and fruitless effort to convince the Dissenter
that the penal laws against the Catholics should be enforced, and
allegiance to the Established Church continue the condition of
qualification for offices of trust and honor, and that he and his
friends should rest contented with simple toleration, he became
irritated by the inflexible adherence of Penn to the principle of
entire religious freedom. One of the most worthy sons of the
Episcopal Church, Thomas Clarkson, alluding to this discussion, says
"Burnet never mentioned him (Penn) afterwards but coldly or
sneeringly, or in a way to lower him in the estimation of the
reader, whenever he had occasion to speak of him in his History of
his Own Times."

He was a man of strong prejudices; he lived in the midst of
revolutions, plots, and intrigues; he saw much of the worst side of
human nature; and he candidly admits, in the preface to his great
work, that he was inclined to think generally the worst of men and
parties, and that the reader should make allowance for this
inclination, although he had honestly tried to give the truth. Dr.
King, of Oxford, in his Anecdotes of his Own Times, p. 185, says:
"I knew Burnet: he was a furious party-man, and easily imposed upon
by any lying spirit of his faction; but he was a better pastor than
any man who is now seated on the bishops' bench." The Tory writers
--Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, and others--have undoubtedly exaggerated
the defects of Burnet's narrative; while, on the other hand, his
Whig commentators have excused them on the ground of his avowed and
fierce partisanship. Dr. John