The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 6.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

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[111] priest who, during the latter part of the seventeenth century, was noted as a theologian, or who possessed a respectable library. Roberts refused to pay the vicar his tithes, and the vicar sent him to prison. It was the priest's ‘Short Method with Dissenters.’ While the sturdy Non-conformist lay in prison, he was visited by the great woman of the neighborhood, Lady Dunch, of Down Amney. ‘What do you lie in jail for?’ inquired the lady. Roberts replied that it was because he could not put bread into the mouth of a hireling priest. The lady suggested that he might let somebody else satisfy the demands of the priest; and that she had a mind to do this herself, as she wished to talk with him on religious subjects. To this Roberts objected; there were poor people who needed her charities, which would be wasted on such devourers as the priests, who, like Pharaoh's lean kine, were eating up the fat and the goodly, without looking a whit the better. But the lady, who seems to have been pleased and amused by the obstinate prisoner, paid the tithe and the jail fees, and set him at liberty, making him fix a day when he would visit her. At the time appointed he went to Down Amney, and was overtaken on the way by the priest of Cirencester, who had been sent for to meet the Quaker. They found the lady ill in bed; but she had them brought to her chamber, being determined not to lose the amusement of hearing a theological discussion, to which she at once urged them, declaring that it would divert her and do her good. The parson began by accusing the Quakers of holding Popish doctrines. The Quaker retorted