A NONCONFORMIST
MINISTER.
John Wesley was born in Anne's reign, and Matthew Henry died in it, whilst Calamy lived during the whole of it; but the most prominent nonconformist in London was Daniel Burgess, whose Theatre, or meeting-house, in Carey Street was gutted by the Sacheverell mob, and had to be repaired at the expense of Government. Of this meeting-house Brown says: 'For as it is not properly call'd the House of God, but Mr. Burgess's, so Mr. Burgess, not God, is there worshipped. Prayer and Praise is the proper Worship of God, but here they meet to hear Daniel lay about him, with his merry Stories and Theatrical Actions, which is at least an Amusement they think worth their while.'
And this is one of Daniel's 'merry Stories.' Preaching one day on 'the Robe of Righteousness,' he said: 'If any of you would have a good and cheap suit, you will go to Monmouth Street; if you want a suit for life, you will go to the Court of Chancery; but, if you wish for a suit that will last to eternity, you must go to the Lord Jesus Christ, and put on his Robe of Righteousness.'
Swift speaks of him in Tatler 66. 'There is my friend and merry Companion Daniel. He knows a great deal better than he speaks, and can form a proper discourse as well as any orthodox neighbour.' And this, probably, is a true estimate of his character. Anyhow, he drew, and his meeting-house was the most popular in London.
A QUAKER'S MEETING.
There was an insane dislike to Quakers in Queen Anne's reign, and I have not met with one kindly or sympathetic remark about them in all my varied reading of these times. On the contrary, they were represented as thoroughpaced hypocrites, cheats, liars, immoral livers. The generic term applied to a Quaker was Aminadab (why?), and Aminadab was everything that was sly and repulsive. We, who know the quiet, simple folk, whose sect is fast dying out, because they have obtained all the points they strove for, can never for an instant imagine that their forefathers were the sly hypocrites they were painted. Nor were they only lampooned verbally—a Quaker could not be drawn without being caricatured into an unctuous rogue; their very plainness of apparel, the men's plain hats and absence of wigs, and the women wearing the old country steeple-crowned hat and simply made gowns, were made the vehicles of sarcasm; the poverty of their meeting-houses was typified by their preaching and sitting on tubs.
A QUAKER'S MEETING.