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wife, goes on to tell us who it was that comforted and consoled him," And poor distressed I, left alone, and no one to go and speak to, save only Mr. De Foe, who hath acted a noble and generous part towards me and my poor children." Forster's De Foe, page 146.

JOSEPH ALLEIN.

The name conspicuous above all others connected with Devizes at that era, is undoubtedly that of Joseph Allein the Divine, traditionally reported to have been born in the house next to the Poultry Market (now 1859, occupied by Mrs. Earle,) A.D. 1633. His father Toby Allein, already mentioned at p. 277, see also p. 258, a most worthy man, died about 1670, it is believed, in his son's house, the family having long previously left Devizes, where they seem to have sunk in their circumstances. Sundry letters addressed by Joseph Allein to two of his nieces who went to Barbadoes suggests further that the family became scattered in the world. They were undoubtedly to a great extent dependant on Joseph's liberality. Of Mr. Toby Allein's children, Edward an elder son became a clergyman, but dying early, seemed to leave open to his brother Joseph a field to which the latter was not long in aspiring and worthily occupying. At sixteen he went to Lincoln College Oxford, but soon after removed to Corpus Christi to occupy a Wiltshire scholarship then recently become void; and in his twenty-first year became curate to George Newton the minister of St. Margaret's Church Taunton. This was in 1655. Here he continued till his principal and himself were both ejected by the Act of Uniformity in 1662; but though ejected he was not silenced, and continuing to labour incessantly in the work of preaching he was cast into prison in May 1663. This was his fate on two occasions, and the atmosphere of the gaols, combined with his extraodinary labours, soon destroyed a constitution which at one time seemed incapable of fatigue. In the summer of 1665 he came to

Devizes to try the Seend waters, and seemed to be somewhat revived, but a second use of them in 1666 produced, it was thought, a contrary effect, see page 307. Recourse was then had to the Bath waters, but he rapidly sank, and died at the early age of 35, in November 1668, and was buried in St. Margaret's Church, where the following inscription marks his tomb.

"HIC JACET DOMINUS JOSEPHUS ALLEINE HOLOCAUSTUM

TAUNTONIENSES ET DEO ET VOBIS.

His devoted wife, who was also his principal biographer, bore the name of Theodosia, and it is conjectured, was the daughter of Richard Allein the minister of Bridgewater.' Joseph Allein's published works were not numerous; the only one now popularly known, being his "Alarm to the Unconverted." We conclude the account of his character by an extract from Dr. James Hamilton's Christian Classics.

"Joseph Allein with his excellent constitution and amazing activity, with his clear and comprehensive views of the Gospel, and with an address remarkably tender, endearing, and subduing with a love to the Saviour which often kindled to rapture, and with a longing after the souls of his people which was offended by no rebuffs and which renewed its endeavours after every refusal :-It was a wonderful change which the seven years of this young evangelist's labours effected on the society of Taunton. And it is a wonderful amount of good which has been accomplished since his death by the solemn and pathetic appeals contained in his Alarm to the Unconverted. As one example it may be mentioned that towards the close

1 A clock belonging to the Allein family is still in the hands of supposed descendants, (not descendants from the Divine for he had none.) For many years this clock was the property of the Rev. John Bailey vicar of Chilthorne in Somerset and St. Meryn's in Cornwall, who died in 1857 at the age of 89. Mr.

Bailey's great grandmother was a Miss Allein: such at least is the belief of the family; there is no doubt his grandfather Jesser often said to him," John, never part with that clock unless you want bread." [In the Herald's Wilts Visitations it is said that the Alleins came out of Suffolk and dwelt in Calne.]

of the last century, a minister more eminent for scholarship than for fervour, repeated the substance of its successive chapters to his Highland congregation, as he was engaged in translating the work for some society, and the result was a wide-spread awakening which long prevailed in the district of Nether Lorn.”

HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE CALLED QUAKERS OR FRIENDS

IN DEVIZES.

But of all the Nonconformists, none suffered so severely as the Quakers. This arose from their objection to the use of an oath; whereby it came to pass that the taking of Tests and the Oath of Supremacy, an agency ostensibly levelled against Romanism, though palatable enough to a Presbyterian, was impossible to a Quaker; and could at any time therefore be wielded as an instrument to call in question his allegiance, when no other charge lay against him. [The authorities for the following statements are the Lives of Penn, Fox, Storey, and others-Sewell's History of the Friends-Bisse's Sufferings-and records preserved at Melksham.]

As these pages are designed to be the repository of historical facts rather than of theories, the story of the Friends must be limited to the outward manifestations of their civic life; such as their passive resistance to tythes and their active spirit of proselytism; their faultless lives and their baptism of suffering. Their's was at least the most innocent of all innovations; nor is it possible for Englishmen to review without a sentiment of affectionate respect an exhibition of truth which, in that age of stern thought, could find embodiment, not in the night-mared visions of Dutch mysticism, nor in the scandalous presumptions of Muggletonians, nor in the usurping demands of the false prophet, but in the life of "the holy, tender-hearted, much-enduring George Fox."

Fox's peregrinations through this county generally led him to Slaughterford, Marlborough, and to Oare near Pew

sey, but he rarely if ever passes through Devizes or Salisbury. Much interest attaches to the Quaker history of Marlborough where they had the countenance of William Hitchcock and Isaac Burgess the Sheriff. Mr. Burgess, it is true, never could bring himself openly to profess their doctrines; and when at last it became his duty to proclaim King Charles II., he must have felt that his own power of protection had passed away for ever. William Penn the other Apostle of Quakerism, who comes next to George Fox, may almost be said to belong to this county, the Penns having been seated in and about Braden Forest in North Wilts from time immemorial, though William Penn himself was born in the parish of St. Katharine near the Tower of London.

The earliest instance of oppression connected with the Hundred of Potterne and Cannings belongs to the year 1656, being the second year of Cromwell's Protectorate, when Thomas Withers of Bishops Cannings was apprehended by a constable at Market Lavington (probably for holding a meeting there) dragged into an ale-house where he was kept till the next morning, and then committed by a justice of the peace to the county gaol. Two neighbours becoming bail for his appearance at the Assizes, he was released, but at his trial was sentenced to further imprisonment. (Six months?) During his incarceration, an estreat came out against his two bailers, a process which cost them more than £18. In 1657 another member of this family, viz., Ralph Withers, also of Bishops Cannings, was taken up in Marlborough for attending a meeting there, and committed to prison by the Mayor on the charge of being "a vagabond," though his habitat was well known. During the same year, John Paker of the Lea, for addressing the parish priest during service hours, had three months in the House of Correction at Devizes. In 1658 Samuel Noyes for a similar offence committed in Erchfont Church, where Mr. Christopher Hindley was preaching, was committed by William Yorke a neighbouring Justice, and

refusing to pay the required fine of £5, had in like manner three months in Devizes Gaol. William Moxon of Marden, resisting a demand of £4 for tythe, suffered the loss of £15 worth of goods taken from him. But the story of Moxon's controversy with the Vicar of Marden, William Gunn, is far too long for insertion here. It extends over the whole period from Oliver's time till the arrival of William of Orange.

It may strike some with surprise that these instances (to which others of far greater enormity might be added) should belong to the reign of the Protector, but it arose from the fact that the early Friends in their headlong crusade against corruption, were attacking the usages of past ages, and found the main object of their hostility, viz. the tythe system, in a principle which continued to flourish in Oliver's time for the simple reason that there was no other recognised form of ministerial support. To the Iconoclasts of material forms, it mattered not whether the incumbents of the parish pulpits were of the (so called) "scandalous and insufficient" order, or whether they had creditably passed the ordeal of the "Triers;" the system of emolument was in both the same, and alliance with the local magistracy gave to both the aspect of oppressors. But though the Quakers found plenty to war with and to suffer for, even during the Commonwealth, it was after all the brightest period of their history. Their societies budded in every corner of the land; and it is a question whether alarm at the rapid spread of their opinions aided by the writings of John Milton, was not at last the principal impulse which gave to a majority of the ministers so remarkable a unanimity in calling home the King. To the events of that reign we must now advance.

1660. On the 3rd of August Isaac Self, sen. of Market Lavington was arrested at the suit of John Merewether the lay impropriator, for £40 tythes, and lay in prison more than

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