The Coming of the Friars Part 11

The battle within him went on fiercely for some time, and it ended as we should have expected. "I was so well satisfied in my mind as to my eternal happiness, that I was resolved now to be quiet and to get as good a living as I could in this world and live as comfortably as I could here, thinking that this revelation should have been beneficial to n.o.body but myself." The "motional voices," and visions, and questionings, continued from April 1651 to January 1652; and it was during this time that the intimacy between Muggleton and Reeve became more closely cemented, for "John Reeve was so taken with my language that his desires were _extreme earnest_ that he might have the same revelation as I had. His desires were so great that he was troublesome unto me, for if I went into one room, into another, he would follow me to talk to me." His persistence was rewarded, and just when Muggleton's visions ceased "in the month of January 1652, about the middle of the month, John Reeve came to me very joyful and said, Cousin Lodowick, now said he, I know what revelation of Scripture is as well as thee." Reeve's revelations increased, and never ceased for two weeks. "First visions, then by voice of words to the hearing of the ear three mornings together the third, fourth, and fifth days of February, 1652, and the year of John Reeve's life forty-two, and the year of my life forty-one."

Two men in this curious ecstatic condition obviously could not stop at this point. It was a critical moment--would they enter into rivalry or spiritual partnership? If the latter, then who was to be the leader, who would make the first move? It was soon settled.

"The first evening G.o.d _spake_ to John Reeve he came to my house and said, Cousin Lodowick, G.o.d hath given thee unto me for ever, and the tears ran down both sides his cheeks amain. So I asked him what was the matter, for he looked like one that had been risen out of the grave, he being a fresh-coloured man the day before, but the tears ran down his cheeks apace." John Reeve was not yet prepared to deliver his commission with authority; it was coming, but not yet.

Meanwhile he turned to Muggleton's children and p.r.o.nounced them blessed, "but especially thy daughter Sarah, she shall be the teacher of all the women in London." Sarah was hiding on the stairs and was not a little afraid; she was a girl of fourteen, but she accepted her mission there and then.

She proved to be a valuable helper, "and several persons came afterwards to my house more to discourse with her than us, and they marvelled that one so young should have such knowledge and wisdom."

Next day John Reeve came again, and Muggleton was p.r.o.nounced to be the _mouth_ of the new revelation, "as Aaron was given to be Moses' mouth."

The first thing to be done was to depose the other two prophets, Robins and Tannye, and to hoise them on their own petard. It had to be seen who could d.a.m.n hardest. For one moment even Muggleton's stout heart failed, he would take another with him to be present at the great trial of strength. He called upon a certain Thomas Turner to accompany him, "else you must be cursed to all eternity. But his wife was exceeding wroth and fearful, and she said, if John Reeve came again to her husband that she would run a spit in his guts, so John Reeve cursed her to eternity." Whereupon Turner, appalled by the sentence, complied with the order and went. The three presented themselves before the other madman, and John Reeve uttered his testimony, denouncing him as a false prophet and gave him a month to repent of his misdeeds. When the month had elapsed Reeve wrote the sentence of eternal d.a.m.nation upon him "and left it at his lodging, and after a while he and his great matters perished in the sea. For he made a little boat to carry him to Jerusalem, and going to Holland to call the Jews there, he and one Captain James was cast away and drowned, so all his powers came to nothing."

The day after the interview with Tannye, the prophets proceeded to deal with John Robins. He had been thrown into Bridewell by Cromwell, and there he lay, his worshippers still resorting to him for any one with money could visit a prisoner in gaol as often as he pleased.

When the prophets appeared at the gate empty handed, the keeper as a matter of course refused them admittance. Then said John Reeve to the keeper, "Thou shall never be at peace." By and by they were shown where Robins's cell was; they summoned him to the window, and a strange interview took place, which is minutely described. It ended by Reeve delivering his charge and p.r.o.nouncing his sentence. Many had been the crimes of John Robins. He had ruined and deceived men in a mult.i.tude of ways; among others "thou givest them leave to abstain by degrees from all kinds of food, thou didst feed them with windy things, as apples and other fruit that was windy, and they drank nothing but water; therefore look what measure thou hast measured to others we will measure again to thee."

John Robins was utterly mastered; "he pulled his hands off the grates and laid them together and said, It is finished; the Lord's will be done." In two months he had written a letter of recantation, was released from durance, and is heard of no more.

"Thus the reader may see that these two powers were brought down in these two days' messages from the Lord."

The world was all before them now. It remained that the new prophets should have some distinctive dogma, and that the printing press should be called in as an accessory to spread their fame. Again John Reeve took the lead, and in 1652 he wrote an account of his divine commission and published his first work, _A Transcendant Spiritual Treatise_, which told of his last revelation of the message to Tannye and Robins.

While the book was pa.s.sing through the press the prophets lived by their trade, and made no attempt to preach before any a.s.sembly. They _talked_ incessantly, and they cursed liberally. At last the children in the streets began to follow Reeve and pelt him, crying after him, "There goes the prophet that d.a.m.ns people!" Muggleton, meanwhile, was always ready to meet an inquirer, and to eat and drink with him. "On one occasion an old acquaintance would needs have me drink with him, that he might have some talk with me, and there followed a neighbour of his, a gentleman, as we call them; his name was Penson, and he sat down in our company." Soon Penson began to deride and abuse the prophet; whereupon Muggleton calmly "did p.r.o.nounce this Penson cursed to eternity." Penson did not like being d.a.m.ned under the circ.u.mstances. "Then he rose up, and with both his fists smote upon my head... But it came to pa.s.s that this Penson was sick immediately after, and in a week or ten days after he died, much troubled in his mind, and tormented insomuch that his friends and relations sought to apprehend me for a witch, he being a rich man, but they couldn't tell how to state the matter, so they let it fall."

It is pretty clear that John Reeve was from the first disposed to go beyond his brother prophet; and shortly after the incident of Penson's death Reeve made a grand _coup_, which produced a profound impression. Muggleton had d.a.m.ned a _gentleman_. Reeve tried his power upon the same cla.s.s, and succeeded in actually converting two of them, who were influential men among the Ranters.

The Ranters were startled and puzzled. "And it came to pa.s.s that one of these Ranters kept a victualling house and sold drink in the Minories, and they would spend their money there. So John Reeve and myself came there, and many of them despised our declaration. So John Reeve gave sentence of eternal d.a.m.nation upon many of them, and one of them, being more offended than all the rest, was moved with such wrath and fury that five or six men could hardly keep him off, his fury was so hot. Then John Reeve said unto the people standing by, 'Friends,' said he, 'I pray you stand still on both sides of the room, and let there be a s.p.a.ce in the middle, and I will lay down my head upon the ground and let this furious man tread upon my head and do what he will unto me....' So John Reeve pulled off his hat and laid his face flat to the ground, and the people stood still. So the man came running with great fury, and when he came near him, lifting up his foot to tread on his neck, the man started back again and said, 'No, I scorn to tread upon a man that lieth down to me.' And the people all marvelled at this thing."

Though Muggleton does not make much of this incident, it appears to have been a very important one in the early history of the sect, for from this moment the numbers of Muggletonians began to increase, and they began to absorb a small army of wandering monomaniacs who were roaming about London and talking about _religion_, and visions, and revelations, and attaching themselves first to one body and then to another, according as they could get admission to the meeting- houses and be allowed to preach and harangue. Astrologers too, came and conferred with the prophets, and drunken scoffers laid bets that they would get the prophet's blessing; and on one occasion a company of "Atheistical Ranters" made a plot to turn the tables upon Muggleton, and d.a.m.n him and Reeve. Three of "the most desperatest"

agreed to do it. "So the time appointed came, and there was prepared a good dinner of pork, and the three came ready prepared to curse us." Part of the agreement was that the dinner should follow upon the cursing. But whether it was that the rogues could do nothing until they were fortified with drink, or that a sudden spasm of conscientiousness came upon them, or that they were like superst.i.tious people who with blanched lips loudly protest that they do not believe in ghosts, but decline on principle to walk through a churchyard after dark, these three fellows all ran away from their engagements at the eleventh hour. "So they departed without their dinner of pork."

The prophets were becoming notorious. The Ranters and John Robins had been vanquished; their first book was published and was selling; they were advertising themselves widely, and being advertised by friends and foes; but as yet they had not been persecuted, and as yet they had not put very prominently forward any distinctive or special theology. They claimed to be prophets, but their mission, What was it? What were they charged to proclaim?

It was just about this time that the works of Jacob Boehm had begun to exercise a very great influence upon the visionaries in England.

The _Mercurius Teutonicus_ was first published in an English translation in 1649, and the _Signatura_ _Rerum_ had appeared in 1651. Muggleton had certainly read these books, and as certainly turned them to account. The jargon of the German mystic was exactly what he wanted in his present state of mind, and there was that in the new philosophy which commended itself vastly to him. Not that he, as an inspired prophet, could for one moment admit that he had received any light from man or was under any obligation to anything but the divine illumination enlightening him directly and immediately; but the obligation was there all the same, and to Jacob Boehm's influence we must attribute the evolution of the distinctive doctrine of the Muggletonians, which just about this time comes into obtrusive prominence.

It was at the beginning of the year 1653 that the prophets made their first important convert. Up to this time they had been heard of only in the back streets of London. But now a New England merchant named Leader, who had made a fortune in America, and had come back in disgust at the intolerance and persecution that prevailed among the colonists, made advances to Muggleton. Leader was in a despondent state of mind, and on the lookout for a religion with some novelty in it. He too had, it seems, been a student of Jacob Boehm, and the _Signatura Rerum_ had opened out a new line of speculation to him. "His first question was concerning G.o.d--whether G.o.d, that created all things, could admit of being any form of Himself?"

Prophets are never at a nonplus, and never surprised by a question; the more transcendental the problem, the more need for the prophetic gift to solve it. In fact, the prophet comes in to help when all human cunning is at fault.

Accordingly Mr. Leader's question led to a discussion which is all set down at full for those who choose to read it, and as the result of that discussion comes out into clearness the astounding declaration which henceforth appears as the main article of the Muggletonian theology.

"G.o.d hath a body of His own, as man hath a body of his own; only G.o.d's body is spiritual and heavenly, clear as _christial_, brighter than the sun, swifter than thought, yet a body."

Hitherto the prophets had been groping after a formula which might be their strength, but they had not been able to put it into shape.

Jacob Boehm's mysticism, pa.s.sing through the alembic of such a mind as Leader's, and subjected to that occult atmosphere which Muggleton lived in, came forth in the shape of a new theology, transcendental, unintelligible, but therefore celestial and sublime. The prophets from this moment made a new departure.

Meanwhile, the unhesitating and authoritative d.a.m.ning of opponents exercised a strange fascination over the mult.i.tude. Reeve and Muggleton lived among the blackguards at their first start, and they d.a.m.ned the blackguards pretty freely. In numberless instances the blackguards were to all intents and purposes d.a.m.ned before Muggleton's sentence was p.r.o.nounced. They were fellows given over to drink and debauchery, sots who had not much life in them, scoundrels who were in hiding, skulking in the vilest holes of the city, whom the plague or famine would be likely to rid the world of any day.

They died frequently enough after the sentence was p.r.o.nounced, and it is quite conceivable that the sentence may have hastened the end of many a poor wretch who had nothing to live for. Nay, in more cases than one a timid man, when the sentence was pa.s.sed, was so terrified that he took to his bed there and then, and never rose from it, or became insane, neglected his business, and so was ruined; and as the number of the d.a.m.ned was always increasing, the chances of strange accidents and misfortunes would go on increasing also. People heard of these, and of these only.

What the prophets themselves did, it was only natural that their followers would try to do also; indeed, it is wonderful that the d.a.m.ning prerogative was not invaded much oftener than it was. It was very rarely intruded upon, however. Once, indeed, a misguided and too venturous believer named Cooper took upon him to usurp authority, and p.r.o.nounced the sentence of d.a.m.nation upon a small batch of fifteen scoffers who had jeered at him and the prophet's mission. The precedent was a dangerous one, there was no telling what it would lead to if such random and promiscuous d.a.m.ning was to go on. Next day Cooper fell grievously sick, and conscience smote him; he could not be at peace till he had confessed his fault and been forgiven. He was forgiven accordingly, but he was admonished to lay to heart the warning, and to presume no more. "Not but that I do believe," says Muggleton, "they will all be d.a.m.ned," all the whole fifteen!

The movement was becoming a nuisance by this time, and Reeve got a hint, and no obscure one, that a warrant would be issued against him, "either from General Cromwell, or the Council of State, or from the Parliament." So far from being deterred by the prospect--was there ever a prophet who was frightened into silence?--he declared that if Cromwell or the Parliament should despise him and his mission, "I would p.r.o.nounce them d.a.m.ned as I do you!" Though no warrant came from the Council or Cromwell--a matter much to be regretted--yet a warrant was taken out by five of the opponents, and the prophets were brought before the Lord Mayor. As usual, a detailed account is given of the proceedings, which are valuable as ill.u.s.trating the method pursued in those days in the examination of an accused person, and the procedure of the court--so very different from our modern practice. The prophets were committed for trial; they refused to give bail, and were thrown into Newgate. It was the 15th of September, 1653, one of the great festivals among the believers. The hideous picture of prison life in Newgate deserves to be read even by those who have some acquaintance with the horrors of our prisons at this time. The prophets were well supplied with money, and so were spared some of the worst sufferings of the place; but it was bad enough, in all conscience, and one night the two narrowly escaped being hanged in their own room, and were only saved by five condemned men, who came to the rescue. Muggleton says the highwaymen and _the boys_ were most set against him; one of the highwaymen, whenever he saw him in the Hall, "would come and deride at me, and say, 'You rogue, you d.a.m.n'd folks.' And so it was with the boys that were prisoners; they would s.n.a.t.c.h off my hat, and p.a.w.n it for half-a-dozen of drink. So the boys did, and I gave them sixpence every time they did it, to please them." Highly gratifying to the boys!

While the two were in Newgate John Reeve wrote a letter to the Lord Mayor and another to the Recorder, mildly d.a.m.ning them both. If we are to believe Muggleton, the Recorder was somewhat disturbed and alarmed by the sentence. When the day of trial came, Reeve bade the Lord Mayor hold his peace and be silent, as became a d.a.m.ned man in the presence of the prophets, and we are told the Mayor obeyed and said nothing more. The two were condemned, nevertheless, and thrown into Bridewell for seven months. Under the horrors of that dreadful imprisonment Reeve's const.i.tution broke down. He was never the same man again. He languished on, indeed, for four years more, but he was a dying man, and he spent his time in writing books, his followers kindly ministering to him in his broken health and feebleness. The end came to him while visiting some convents at Maidstone--good women, of course. "The one was Mrs. Frances, the eldest; the second, Mrs. Roberts; the third, Mrs. b.o.n.e.r. This Mrs. Frances closed up his eyes, for he said unto her, 'Frances, close up mine eyes, lest my enemies say I died a staring prophet.'"

While Reeve and Muggleton were lying in Newgate, another mystic--are we to call him a prophet too?--was lying in Carlisle gaol. George Fox, the Quaker, had fallen into the hands of Wilfrid Lawson, then High Sheriff for the county, who had not spared him. Just about the time that the London prophets were discharged, Fox arrived in London under the custody of Captain Drury, and had that memorable interview with Cromwell which readers of Fox's Journal are not likely to forget, though Carlyle has gone far to spoil the story by slurring it over.

It was a great event to the Quakers to have their leader in London.

He had only once before been in the Metropolis--that was nine years ago--and then he had been "fearful," had done nothing, was tongue- tied, and had gladly escaped to itinerate among the _steeple houses_ in the north. This time he had gained acceptance with the Protector. No man would meddle with him from henceforth or let them look to it! The Quakers were, of course, elated; they were going to carry all before them; they met to organize a grand campaign for proselytizing all England. The two _commissionated prophets_ were by no means dismayed, by no means inclined to be outdone by the Quakers; they invited them to a disputation--a trial of the spirits, in fact. It came off, accordingly, in Eastcheap, and George Fox was there, and with him two or three of his "ministers whom the Lord raised up." It is not a little significant that Fox makes no mention of this meeting in his Journal-significant because he never omits to speak of his successes, and never tells us anything of his failures.

Nay, he studiously omits all mention of Muggleton's name throughout the Journal, and in his books against him indulges in really violent language. Muggleton, on the other hand, speaks of this discussion at Eastcheap as if it had been a serious check to the Quakers, and from this time to his death he never ceased to a.s.sail them with a resolute aggressiveness which indicates no sort of misgiving in his power to deal with his antagonists. The discussion, however, ended in Fox and his supporters-five in all-receiving the sentence of d.a.m.nation from the two prophets, and from this moment there was internecine war between the Quakers and the Muggletonians; each denouncing the other fiercely, and issuing books against the other by the score-works which have happily been long ago forgotten, to the great advantage of mankind. If, however, any one, curious in such lore, is desirous of finding out what cursing and swearing, regarded as one of the Fine Arts, may achieve when skilfully managed by adepts, let him by all means turn to the pamphlets of Pennington, Richard Farnsworth, and others of the Quaker body, while delivering their souls against Muggleton, and the counterblasts of Muggleton, Claxton, and their friends in reply. One of the choicest diatribes of these _esprits forts_, as we may well call them, was hurled at the prophet by William Penn.

Muggleton had some very zealous converts at Cork--for there were believers everywhere by this time--and as they were people of substance and much in favour, they were making some way. Of course they came into collision with the Quakers, and not without success.

Penn had early fallen under the influence of Richard Farnsworth, whom Muggleton had d.a.m.ned in 1654, and Penn's father had sent him over to manage his Irish estates, in the hope of getting the new notions out of the young man's head. The experiment failed, and young Penn, now only twenty-four years old, had returned to England in 1668 as staunch a Quaker as ever. There was a leading man among the Quakers, Josiah Cole by name, whom Muggleton had solemnly d.a.m.ned; he was in failing health, and he died a few days after the sentence was p.r.o.nounced. The Muggletonians were jubilant, and some of the Quakers were disturbed and alarmed. Penn's heart was moved within him, and with all the fervid indignation of youth he stepped forward to draw the sword of the Lord. He printed a letter to Muggleton which should rea.s.sure the waverers. It thundered out defiance. "Boast not," he says, "thou enemy of G.o.d, thou son of perdition and confederate with the unclean croaking spirits reserved under chains to eternal darkness.... I boldly challenge thee with thy six-foot G.o.d and all the host of Luciferian spirits, with all your commissions, curses, and sentences, to touch and hurt me. And this know, O Muggleton: on you I trample, and to the bottomless pit are you sentenced, from whence you came, and where the endless worm shall gnaw and torture your imaginary soul."

Muggleton replied with his usual coolness, and p.r.o.nounced his sentence upon the young enthusiast. Neither was a man easily to be put down; but whereas the prophet's followers were wholly unmoved by all the attacks upon them, the Quakers found the Muggletonians extremely troublesome, and it is impossible to resist the conviction that large numbers of the Quakers were won over to join the opposite camp. Nay, it looks as if Muggleton had really some strange power over the weaker vessels among the Quakers, and had actually _frightened_ some of them. Writing in 1670, he says: "You are not like the people you were sixteen years ago; there were few Quakers then, but they had witchcraft fits, but now of late I do not hear of any Quaker that hath any fits, no, not so much as to buz and hum before the fit comes. But if you, Fox, doth know of any of you Quakers that have any of those witchcraft fits as formerly, bring them to me, and I shall cast out that devil which causeth those fits." The Quakers could hardly have been as angry as they were, nor their books have been so many and their writers so voluble during twenty years and longer, if Muggleton had not been a disputant to be dreaded, and a prophet with the faculty of drawing others after him.

In the whole course of his career, which extended over nearly half a century, Muggleton never found any difficulty in maintaining his authority over his followers. There were indeed two attempts at mutiny, but they were promptly suppressed, and they collapsed before they had made any head. The first was in 1660, shortly after the death of John Reeve. Lawrence Claxton, a "great writer" among the Muggletonians, had during Reeve's long illness come very much to the fore as an opponent of the Quakers, and his success had a little turned his head. In one pa.s.sage of his writings he had taken rank as Reeve's equal and representative, and had put himself on a level with "the Commissionated." It was an awful act of impiety. "For," says Muggleton, "as John Reeve was like unto Elijah, so am I as Elisha, and his place was but as Gehazi, and could stand no longer than my will and pleasure was." Claxton had been formally blessed, therefore he could never be d.a.m.ned, but excommunicated he could be and was. He at once dropt out and we hear of him no more.

The second revolt was much more serious. "There were four conspirators in the rebellion... for which I d.a.m.ned two of them, and the other two I did excommunicate." This time the fomenter of discord was a busy Scotchman. Muggleton calls him Walter Bohenan, which appears to be only a _bhonetic_ representation of Walter _Buchanan_. That so sagacious a seer as Muggleton should have been betrayed into a.s.sociating himself intimately with a canny Scot is truly wonderful, and ill.u.s.trates the eternal verity that "we are all of us weak at times," even the prophets. _Bohenan's_ self- a.s.sertion led him on to dizzy heights of towering presumption, until at last "he acted the highest act of rebellion that ever was acted."

It was all in vain; he was cut off for ever--perished from the congregation; utterly d.a.m.ned, and thereupon disappears, swallowed up of darkness and silence.

Muggleton lived twenty-six years after this last revolt, exercising unquestioned authority; an autocratic prophet to whom something like worship was offered even to the last. He was far advanced in his eighty-ninth year when he died. He was far on towards seventy when he was brought before Jeffreys, then Common Serjeant, and other justices, on a charge of blasphemy. Jeffreys was as yet a novice in those arts of which he became the acknowledged master a few years after, but already he quite equalled his future self in his savage brutality to the poor monomaniac. "He was a man," says Muggleton, "whose voice was very loud; but he is one of the worst devils in nature." The jury hesitated to bring in their verdict, knowing well enough what would follow, but Jeffrey's look and manner cowed them.

The prophet was condemned to pay a fine of L 500, to stand in the pillory three times for two hours _without the usual protection to his head_, which those condemned to such a barbarous punishment were allowed. He was to have his books burned by the common hangman, and to remain in Newgate till his fine was paid. Only a man of an iron const.i.tution could have come out of the ordeal with his life.

Muggleton bore it all; remained in Newgate for a year, compounded for his fine in the sum of L 100, which his friends advanced, and was a free man on the 19th of July, 1677, a day which the Muggletonians observed as the prophet's Hegira.

As early as 1666 he had many followers on the Continent, and in that year the _Transcendant Spiritual Treatise_ was translated into German by a convert who came over to London to confer with the sage.

Except on very rare occasions he never left London, nor indeed the parish in which he was born. He pursued the trade of a tailor till late in life, but his books had sold largely, and he managed to get together a competence, and was at one time worried by his neighbours and fined for refusing to serve in some parish offices. There was a fund of sagacity about the man which appears frequently in his later letters, but an utter absence of all sentiment and all sympathy. He had no _nerves_. Staid, stern, and curiously insensible to physical pain, he was absolutely fearless, with a const.i.tution that could defy any hardships and bear any strain upon it.

When we come to the _teaching_ of Muggleton, we find ourselves in a tangled maze of nonsense far too inconsequential to allow of any intelligible account being given of it. Jacob Boehm's mistiest dreams are clearness itself compared with the English prophet's utterances.

Others might talk of the divine cause or the divine power or the divine person, "fumbling exceedingly" and falling back in an intellectual swoon upon the stony bosom of the Unknowable. Muggleton grimly told you that there was a personal Trinity in the universe-- G.o.d, man, and devil--and each had his body. If you pressed him for further particulars he poured forth words that might mean anything, a metallic jargon which you were ordered to receive and ponder. Such as it was, however, you had to accept or reject it at your peril. Why should an inspired prophet argue?

Something must be set down to the circ.u.mstances in which he found himself, and to the dreadfully chaotic condition which the moral sentiments and religious beliefs of the mult.i.tude had been reduced to during the wild anarchy of the seventeenth century. There were two men in England who were _quite certain_--George Fox was one, Muggleton was the other. Everybody else was doubting, hesitating, groping for the light, moaning at the darkness. These two men _knew_, other people were seeking to know. George Fox went forth to win the world over from darkness to light. Muggleton stayed at home, he _was_ the light. They that wanted it must come to him to find it. All through England there was clamour and hubbub of many voices, men going to and fro, always on the move, trying experiments of all kinds. Here was one man, "a still strong man in a blatant land," who was calm, steadfast, unmovable, and always at home. He did not want you, whoever you were; he was perfectly indifferent to you and your concerns. Preach? No! he never preached, he never cared to speak till he was spoken to. If you went to him as an oracle, then he spake as a G.o.d.

Moreover, when the Restoration came and the high pressure that had been kept up in some states of society was suddenly taken off, there was a frantic rage for pleasure, which included the wildest debauchery and the most idiotic attempts at amus.e.m.e.nt. Then, too, the haste to be rich agitated the minds of all cla.s.ses; Westward ho! was the cry not only of Pilgrim Fathers but of reckless adventurers of all kinds. From across the sea came the ships of Tarshish bringing gold, and silver, and ivory, and apes, and peac.o.c.ks, and a thousand tales of El Dorado. Muggleton the prophet, with that lank brown hair of his and the dreamy eye and the resolute lips, waited unmoved.

Pleasure? If he wondered at anything it was to know what meaning there could be in the word. Riches? What purpose could they serve? To him it seemed that the Decalogue contained one wholly superfluous enactment; why should men covet? There would have been some reason in limiting the number of the commandments to nine; nine is the product of three times three. Think of that! This man in that wicked age must have appeared to many a standing miracle, if only for this reason, that he was the one man in London who was content, pa.s.sing his days in a stubborn rapture, as little inclined for play or laughter as the sphinx in the desert, which the sand storms can beat against but never stir.

So far from Muggleton's influence and authority growing less as he grew older, it went on steadily increasing; there was a mystery and an awe that gathered round him, and latterly he was regarded rather as an inspired oracle than as a seer. The voice of prophecy ceased; he had left his words on record for all future ages, but from day to day his advice was asked, and people soon found it was worth listening to. In the latter years of his life his letters dealt with the ordinary affairs of men. People wrote to inquire about their matrimonial affairs, their quarrels, their business difficulties, whether they must conform to this or that enactment of the State, how they might outwit the persecutors and skulk behind the law. Muggleton replies with surprising shrewdness and good sense, and now and then exhibits a familiarity with the quips and quirks of the law that he can only have acquired by the necessity which suffering had laid upon him. His language is always rugged, for he had received little or no education; he is very unsafe in his grammar, but he has a plain, homely vocabulary, forcible and copious, which, like most mystics, he was compelled to enrich on occasion, and which he does not scruple to enrich in his own way. His style certainly improves as he gets older, and in these letters one meets now and then with pa.s.sages that are almost melodious, the sentences following one another in a kind of plaintive rhythm, and sounding as you read them aloud, like a Gregorian chant. He died of natural decay, the machine worn out. His last words were, "Now hath G.o.d sent death unto me." They laid him on his bed, and he slept and woke not. Nearly 250 of the faithful followed him to his grave. It is clear that the sect had not lost ground as time moved on.

Not the least feature in this curious chapter of religious history is that the Muggletonians should have survived as a sect to our own days. As late as 1846 an elaborate index to the Muggletonian writings was issued, and the _Divine Songs of the Muggletonians_, written exclusively by believers, show that there has been a strange continuity of composition among them, and that, too, such composition as ordinary mortals have never known the like of. Yet Muggleton never broke forth into verse. Joanna Southcott could not keep down her impulse to pour forth her soul in metre; Muggleton is never excited, the emotional had no charm for him. So, too, he never cared for music, he makes no allusion to it. Nay, he speaks slightingly of worship, of prayer and praise, especially of congregational worship.

It was allowable to the little men, a concession to the weak which the strong in the faith might be expected to dispense with sooner or later. For himself, isolated and self-contained, he could do without the aids to faith which the mult.i.tude ask for and find support in. He held himself aloof; he had no sympathy to offer, he asked for none; nay, he did not even need his followers, he could do without them.

The question for them was, Could they do without him? For more than two centuries they have kept on vehemently answering No!

Of late years a cla.s.s of specialists has risen up among us who have treated us to quite a new philosophy--to wit, the philosophy of religion. To these thinkers I leave the construction of theories on Muggleton's place in the history of religion or philosophy; to them, too, I leave the question of what was the secret of his success and power. Much more interesting to me is the problem how the sect has gone on retaining its vitality. Perhaps the great secret of that permanence has been that Muggleton did not give his followers too much to believe or too much to do. He disdained details, he was never precise and meddlesome. If the Muggletonians wished to pray, let them; to sing, there was no objection; to meet together in their conventicles, it was a harmless diversion. But they must manage these things themselves, and provide for difficulties as they arose. It was no part of the prophet's office to make bye-laws which might require to be altered any day. Thus it came about that the sect was left at Muggleton's death absolutely unfettered by any petty restraints upon its freedom of development. The believers must manage their own affairs. There is one G.o.d and Muggleton is His prophet--that was really the sum and substance of their creed. That followed on a small scale which is observable on a large scale among the Moslems, the prophet's followers found themselves more and more thrown back upon their prophet till he became almost an object of adoration. The creed of Islam without Mahomet would be to millions almost inconceivable; the Muggletonian G.o.d without Muggleton would not be known.

Says her Royal Highness, looking over my shoulder, "You have written quite enough about those crazy, vulgar people. It's all old world talk. There are no prophets now; there never will be any more."

No more prophets! The _prophetical succession_ never stops, never will stop. When Muggleton died Emanuel Swedenborg was a boy of ten; twenty years afterwards the new prophet was walking about London just as the old one had done, living the same lonely life, conversing with the angels and writing of heaven and h.e.l.l and conjugal love, and--well, a great deal else besides; and, odd coincidence, it was in that same Eastcheap where Muggleton had d.a.m.ned the Quakers in 1653 that the Swedenborgians held their first a.s.sembly in 1788, just about the same time that Joanna Southcott came to London, and before Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were born or thought of. No, no. The prophets are not improved off the face of the earth. They never will be. They will turn up again and again. You can no more hope to exterminate them by culture than you can hope to produce them by machinery.

_Propheta nascitur non fit_. For once her Royal Highness was wrong.