UCSB UBRA No. 173. SHORT ACCOUNT OF SPRINGETT PENK WRITTEN BY HIS FATHER, WILLIAM PENN. PHILADELPHIA : PUBLISHED BY THE TRACT ASSOCIATION OF FRIENDS, No. :i()4 ARCH STUKET. 1889. A SHORT ACCOUNT SPRINGETT PENN. MY very dear child, and eldest son, Springett Penn, did from his childhood manifest a disposition to good- ness, and gave me hope of a more than ordinary capac- ity; and time satisfied me in both respects. For, besides a good share of learning and mathematical knowledge, he showed a judgment in the use and application of it much above his years. He had the seeds of many good qualities rising in him, that made him beloved and consequently lamented : but especially his humility, plainness, and truth, with a tenderness and softness of nature, which if I may say it, were an im- provement upon his other good qualities. But, though these were no security against sickness and death, yet they went a good way to facilitate a due preparation for them. And indeed the good ground that was in him showed itself very plainly some time before his illness. For more than half a year before it pleased the Lord to visit him with weakness, he grew more retired, and much disengaged from youthful delights, showing a remarkable tenderness in meetings, even when they were silent; but when he saw himself doubtful as to his recovery, he turned his mind and meditations more apparently towards the Lord secretly, as also, when his attendants were in the room, praying often with great fervency to Him, and uttering very A SHORT ACCOUNT OF SPRIXGETT PENN. 6 many thankful expressions and praises to Him, in a very deep and sensible manner. One day he said to us, " I am resigned to what God pleaseth. He knows what is best. I would live, if it pleased Him, that I might serve Him ; but, O Lord, not my will, but thine be done !" A person speaking to him of the things of this world, and what might please him when recovered, he answer- ed, " My eyes look another way, where the truest pleas- ure is." When he told me he had rested well, and I said it was a mercy to him, he quickly replied upon me with a serious, yet sweet look, " All is mercy dear father; every thing is mercy." Another time, when I went to meeting, at parting he said, " Remember me my dear father, before the Lord. Though I cannot go to meetings, yet I have many good meetings. The Lord comes in upon my spirit. I have heavenly meetings with Him by myself." Not many days before he died, the Lord appearing by his holy power upon his spirit, when alone, at my return, asking him how he did, he told me, " Oh, I have had a sweet time, a blessed time ! great enjoy- ments! The power of the Lord overcame my soul; a .s\veet time indeed !" And telling him how some of the gentry, who had been to visit him, were gone to their games, and sports, and pleasures, and how little consideration the children of men had of God and vtheir latter end, and how much happier he was in this weakness to have been otherwise educated and preserved from those temptations to vanity, he answered, " It is all stuff", my dear father ; it is sad stuff. Oh that I might live to tell them, so !' : "Well, my dear child," I replied, "let this be the time of thy entering into secret covenant with God, that if He raise thee, thou wilt dedicate thy youth, 4 A SHORT ACCOUNT OF strength, and life to Him and his people and service." He returned, " Father, that is not now to do, it is not now to do," with great tenderness upon his spirit. Being ever almost near him, and doing any thing for him he wanted or desired, he broke out with much sense and love, " My dear father, if I live, I will make thee amends :" and speaking to him of Divine enjoy- ments, that the eye of man saw not, but the soul made alive by the Spirit of Christ plainly felt, he in a lively remembrance, cried out, " Oh, I had a sweet time yesterday by myself ! The Lord hath preserved me to this day. Blessed be his name ! My soul praises Him for his mercy. Oh, father, it is of the goodness of the Lord that I am so well as I am." Fixing his eyes upon his sister, he took her by the hand, saying, " Poor Tishe look to good things ! Poor child, there is no comfort without it! One drop of the love of God is worth more than all the world. I know it, I have tasted it. I have felt as much or more of the love of God in this weak- ness than in all my life before." At another time, as I stood by him he looked up upon me and said, " Dear father, sit by me ! I love thy company, and I know thou lovest mine ; and if it be the Lord's will that we must part, be not troubled, for that will trouble me." Taking something one night in bed, just before his going to rest, he sat up and fervently prayed thus : "O Lord God ! Thou whose Son said to his disciples, what- ever ye ask in my name ye shall receive, I pray thee in his name bless this to me this night, and give me rest, if it be thy blessed will !" And accordingly he had a very comfortable night, of which he took a thank- ful notice before us the next day. And when he at one time more than ordinarily ex- pressed a desire to live, and entreated me to pray for him, he added, "And dear father, if the Lord should SPRINGETT PENN. 5 raise me and enable me to serve Him and his people, then I might travel with thee sometimes, and we might ease one another," (meaning the ministry.) He spoke this with great modesty; upon which I said to him, " My dear child, if it please the Lord to raise thee, I am satisfied it will he so, and if not, then, inasmuch as it is thy fervent desire in the Lord, he will look upon thee just as if thou didst live to serve Him, and thy comfort will be the same. So either way it will be well ; for, if thou shouldst not live, I do verily belieVe thou wilt have the recompense of thy good desires, without the temptations and troubles that would attend if long life were granted to thee." Saying one day thus, " I arn resolved I will have such a thing done," he immediately corrected himself, and fell into this reflection with much contrition, "Did I say, I will ? O Lord, forgive me that irreverent and hasty expression ! I am a poor, weak creature, arid live by Thee, and therefore I should have -said, if it pleaseth Thee that I live, I intend to do so. Lord, for- give my rash expression !" Seeing my present wife ready to be helpful and to do any thing for him, he turned to her and said, " Do not thou do so. Let them do it. Don't trouble thy- self so much for such a poor creature as I am." And biking leave of him a few nights before his end, he said to her, " pray for me, dear mother ! Thou art good and innocent. It may be the Lord may hear thy prayers for me ; for I desire my strength again, that I may live and employ it more in his service." Two or three days before his departure, he called his brother to him, and looking awfully upon him said, " Be a good boy, and know that there is a God, a great and mighty God, who is a rewarder of the righteous, and so he ifi of the wicked, but their rewards are not 6 A SHORT ACCOUNT OF the same. Have a care of idle people and idle company, and love good company and good Friends, and the Lord will bless thee. I have seen good things for thee since my sickness, if thou dost but fear the Lord ; and if I should not live, (though the Lord is all-sufficient,) re- member what I say to thee, when I am dead and gone. Poor child, the Lord bless thee ! Come and kiss me!" which melted us all into great tenderness, but his brother more particularly. *Many good exhortations he gave to some of the ser- vants and others that came to see him, who were not of our communion, as well as to those who were, which drew tears from their eyes. The day but one before he died he went to take the air in a coach, but said on his return, " Really father, I am exceeding weak. Thou canst not think how weak I am." " My dear child," I replied, " thou art weak, but God is strong, who is the strength of thy life." "Ay, that is it," said he, " which upholdeth me." And the day before he departed, being alone with him, he desired me to fasten the door, and looking earnestly upon me, said, " Dear father ! thou art a dear father ; and I know thy Father. Come, let us two have a little meeting, a private ejaculation together, now nobody else is here. Oh, my soul is sensible of the love of God !" And, indeed, a sweet time we had. It was like to precious ointment for his burial. He desired, if he were not to live, that he might go home to die there, and we made preparations for it, being twenty miles from my house ; for so much stronger was his spirit than his body, that he spoke of going next day, which was the morning he departed, and a symptom it was of his greater journey to his longer home. The morning he left us, growing more and more sensi- ble of his extreme weakness, he asked me, as doubtful SPHINUETT PENX. 7 of himself, " How shall I go home ?" I told him in a coach. He answered, "I am best in a coach;" but, observing his decay, I said, " Why, child, thou art at home everywhere." "Ay," said he, "so I am in the Lord." I took that opportunity to ask him if I should remember his love to his friends at Bristol and London. " Yes, yes," said he, " my love in the Lord, my love to all friends in the Lord, and relations too." He said, "Ay, to be sure." Being asked if he would have his ass's milk or eat anything, he answered, " No more outward food, but heavenly food is provided for me." His time drawing on apace, he said to me, "My dear father, kiss me ! Thou art a dear father. I desire to prize it. How can I make thee amends ?" He also called his sister, and said to her, " Poor child, come and kiss me !" between whom seemed a tender and long parting. I sent for his brother, that he might kiss him too, which he did. All were in tears about him. Turning his head to me, he said softly, " Dear father ! hast thou no hope for me !" I answered, " My dear child ! I am afraid to hope, and I dare not despair, but am and have been resigned, though one of the hardest lessons I ever learned." He paused awhile, and with a composed frame of mind, he said, " Come life, come death, I am resigned. Oh, the love of God overcomes my soul !" Feeling himself decline apace, and seeing him not able to bring up the matter that was in his throat, somebody fetched the doctor ; but as soon as he came in, he said, " Let my father speak to the doctor, and I'll go to sleep;" which he did, and waked no more ; breathing his last on my breast the 10th day of the Second Month, between the hours of nine and ten in the morning, 1696, in his one-and-twentieth year. So ended the life of my dear child and eldest son, 8 A SHORT ACCOUNT OF SPRINGETT PENN. much of my comfort and hope, and one of the most tender and dutiful, as well as ingenious and virtuous youths I knew, if I may say so of my own dear child, in whom I lose all that any father could lose in a child, since he was capable of anything that became a sober young man, my friend and companion, as well as most affectionate and dutiful child. May this loss and end have its due weight and im- pression upon all his dear relations and friends, and upon those to whose hands this account may come, for their remembrance, and preparation for their great and last change, and I have my end in making my dear child's thus far public.