He was a true and ardent disciple of Fox, counting nothing dear so that he might proclaim the truth, the whole truth—as he thought—for in the tenacity with which he held to the little bit he had been able to grasp, he failed to see that he could not grasp the whole. That those whom he denounced so unsparingly also held the truth as they perceived it, or at least another facet of the precious gem, casting its inspiring light upon them, was dark to him.
This had not been heeded by the authorities at first, and Westland, like many another earnest man, was allowed to preach and teach sinners the error of their ways, and warn them of the wrath to come. For to make men tremble and quake, and cry to God for mercy through the Lord Jesus Christ, was the object of all the Quakers' preaching, and the term "Quaker" had been given them in derision on account of this.
For a time these people had been allowed to follow their own way without much interference from the authorities; but their unsparing denunciation of vice and wickedness, whether practised by rich or poor, doubtless raised the resentment of the king, though a political reason was the one put forward for their persecution. The safety of the throne, it was pretended, called for the suppression of these illegal meetings, as sedition was being taught under cover of religion.
So Westland was an early victim, and suffered the loss of his goods, for everything he possessed had to be sold to pay the fine inflicted upon him. But so far from deterring him from doing what he conceived to be his duty, this did but make him the more determined to teach and preach upon every occasion possible.
The next time, a short term of imprisonment, and one ear was cut off by way of punishment. But almost before the place was healed he was preaching again, and denouncing steeple-houses, and those who put their trust in them.
This time the authorities were determined to silence him, and so he had been condemned to lose his other ear, and then be sent as a slave to one of His Majesty's plantations in America, and all London was ringing with the name of Westland, and the punishment that had been dealt out to him as an incorrigible Quaker.
