our Established Church, and in the prayers of our Liturgy. Strange, then, to tell how all these acts of devotion, and all the religious professors of the above times, were afterwards, in the succeeding reign of King Charles the 2nd, held up to ridicule and contempt, as the vilest of canting, enthusiastical hypocrites and knaves, and as masking their political, ambitious designs, under the show and pretence of religion. And in this light, it is to be lamented, that the more than common strict religious professor in succeeding times, hath been too often viewed by the less religious part of the community; nothing appearing to afford them more pleasure, than the real or imagined detection of any of those professors in any sin or folly.—————In this unfavourable light do Lord Clarendon, and all other the writers for the royal cause represent the Parliament and its adherents; allowing them no good motive for any of their proceedings, but attributing them wholly to concealed ambition, and sinister views; and thus stigmatized, they have been handed down to the present day."-Memoirs of Oliver Cromwell, by Oliver Cromwell; vol. ii. p. 400-405.

On the subject of the religious qualities of this fragment of auto-biography, it will be readily perceived, there prevails throughout the Diary, every symptom of a salutary and genuine exercise of mind, uniformly directed, in the first place, for the well-being of the Writer's own soul, next for that of his family, then on account of "the godly," but in its full scope reaching towards all of every class. Those great duties and attainments so mainly pressed upon us by our Divine Saviour while personally on earth, and which it was one main end of His appearing to enforce, are here every where upheld and sought after; such as self-denial, humility, charity, and watchfulness unto prayer. One feature, not common in productions of this kind, but which forms in the present instance a chief attraction, is the gradual and continued enlargement in spiritual growth. We here trace, in the unaffected outline of Jaffray's views and feelings, the intimate workings and movements of a mind, superior to those temporizing compliances with systems and parties, which

has ever proved a vast impediment to the pious and the dedicated, in their heavenly race. We see, in his narrative, to what conclusions the pure dictates of the Holy Spirit brought him, to what they tended, and how they operated on an honest, and humbled soul,-even to break down the strongest bias; as it were, to remould the man, reducing all things "to the obedience of Christ." I cannot but desire for my readers, whatever be their standing in the universal church, that they may be enabled profitably to reflect upon this feature of his case, that thus they may be favoured to arrive at just conclusions with regard to it. This individual was truly led, as "the blind by a way" that he had not hitherto "known," into paths--the good old paths, indeed, but which were then newly "cast up," and "every where spoken against.”

While dwelling upon the important changes, which the mind of Jaffray successively underwent, until, from the Presbyterian and Independent persuasions, he became at length wholly assimilated with the Society of Friends; I cannot but introduce the valuable and very apposite remarks of the biographer of Owen. "Every change of religious sentiment is important to the person who makes it, and ought to be gone into with caution and deliberation. To be given to change is a great evil, and indicates a weak and unsettled mind. On the other hand, to be afraid of change is frequently the result of indifference or sinful apprehension of consequences. It is the duty of every Christian, to follow the teaching of the Spirit in the word of revelation, and to recollect, that for his convictions he must be accountable at last. The attempt to smother them is always improper; and when successful, must injure the religious feelings of their subject. To allow hopes or fears of a worldly nature to conquer our persuasion of what the [Scripture] requires, is to forget the important intimation of our Lord,-that, if any thing is loved more than Him, it is impossible to be his disciple. By such conduct, the tribulations of the kingdom may often be avoided, but the consolations and rewards of it will also be lost. If any man serve me, let

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him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if, any man serve me, him will my Father honour.' John xii. 26."-Orme's Memoirs of the Life of Owen, p. 60.

Some slight observations are yet to be subjoined, before we pass on to the subject of the second division of this volume.-It cannot be said, that the whole of what came to my hands, of the Diary of Alexander Jaffray, is now presented to the public. Some passages are omitted, as being almost repetitions of what elsewhere is better expressed; others did not seem of sufficient moment to be retained. Very small and unimportant transpositions or substitutions of words, are likewise here and there made use of, merely so far as to render the sense more plain and intelligible; it is possible, however, from the state of the MS., that I myself may have failed, though but rarely, in rendering his actual meaning. The Scripture texts are quoted as they were found; they are, I believe, strictly correct in substance, though not always after the words of our present version. Proper names of persons and places in Scotland are so variously spelt, even in some modern publications, that it was sometimes difficult to decide upon the most correct mode; the ancient spelling is, however, preserved in the Diary, and explained where needful in brackets; and, in the Appendix, the quotations from Scottish authorities are given with a close adherence even to the spelling of the dialect.

My design of a second part to the present publication, had its origin in the following circumstances.-The Diary breaks off abruptly, and only a short time before Alexander Jaffray, together with a number of his intimate associates settled in the profession of the Friends. It was to be regretted, that the narrator had not carried forward his account as far as this interesting period in his experience, or rather perhaps that such account had not been spared to us. On examining, however, more closely into the MS. Chronicle, which has been before mentioned as being discovered at Ury, and which treats of the Rise and Progress of the people called Quakers in the north of

Scotland, this loss appeared to be in some measure compensated, by a regular and connected detail of their history, expressly collected for the use of posterity. For although, in the course of it, no large portion has allusion to our worthy Diarist himself; yet I found, that, not only in these parts but in every other, is held up to view, a glowing exemplification of many of those very themes of meditation and of sentiment, upon which he had so largely dwelt. And besides this, on looking into the Records kept by the Monthly Meeting of Friends at Aberdeen, a remarkable fact appeared, namely, that the Author of the Diary himself, only a year before his own decease, was the first to set his hand to the work of preparing this ancient document; and that, after that event, his son Andrew in particular, together with "the Apologist" and others, became a chief contributor.

These things thus coming to my knowledge and to my charge, perhaps it was not very unnatural for me to conclude, such memorials of the just were not designed to be buried in oblivion; but were equally calculated for the service of the present, as for generations that had gone before. Neither could I, in reference to them, divest myself of the feeling of a trust consigned to me, (however unworthy,) for this end,namely, to bear them forth, as a testimony, to the church and to the world. The religious Society of Friends has ever had a high sense of the obligation there is, to treasure up and to proclaim such evidences of the faithfulness of the Most High in his dealings with his children; and they have ever considered themselves as subjects and witnesses of his redeeming mercy and all-sufficient grace in Jesus Christ. In confirmation of this position, may be brought forward the language of William Penn at the beginning of his Preface to Robert Barclay's Works. "Our blessed Lord having effectually gathered and fed his people by his disciples in this generation, it is a duty we owe to God and ourselves, as well as to them, that we gather up the remainder of their testimonies of love and service, that so nothing be lost."

The foregoing being the acknowledged ground-work of the ensuing Memoirs, it may be added, that various original and other sources have been consulted in the present compilation. Besse, in forming his "Collection of the Sufferings of Friends," 1753, evidently had access to a copy of the above Record; and Gough, in his History, 1790, takes his chief authority from Besse; but both these accounts of the affairs of the Society in Scotland are defective and incorrect. In the arrangement of the materials for the present division of this volume, very little liberty of composition has been indulged in; so that the reader is here furnished with a faithful, and in many places almost a literal transcript of events, oftentimes expressed in nearly the words of the eye-witnesses. So far, then, as applies to the correctness of the details themselves, and even the mode of stating them, I consider myself divested of responsibility; at the same time, the Society of Friends, as a body, are not committed by the reflections interspersed among those details. Some of the accounts, of rather an extraordinary nature, are here represented in the light of direct Providential interpositions and it may possibly be thought, that matters of this kind, as well as the comments upon them, had better have been wholly excluded, or at least not turned to so high an account. But, let it be observed, how much more chargeable an author would have been, himself a member of this religious community, had he been disposed to expunge from their History, a feature so well known and so fully sanctioned, not only in all their recorded annals, but in most of their standard publications.

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There may also be those, who, in perusing these recollections of earlier days, would incline to think, that the unchristian conduct and principles, which appear at one time to have governed any individuals or set of men, had better not be thus revived, lest it should seem too much like aggravating occasions of repulsion among the followers of the same Lord. This objection, however, must apply with equal weight to all other subjects of history, and would have its parallel in every age of the church.