A Handful of Stars: Texts That Have Moved Great Minds

their paths were always crossing. A subtle and inexplicable magnetism drew them together. Penn's father--Sir William Penn--was an admiral, owning an estate in Ireland. When William was but a smal

eks of the admiral. The incident filled him with wonder and perplexity. He never forgot it. It left upon his mind an indelible impression of the intense reality of all things spiritual. As a schoolboy, he would wander in the forests that so richly surrounded his Essex home, and give himself to rapt and sil

re the good man had already suffered imprisonment for conscience sake. The personality of the Quaker appealed to the reflective temperament of the young student, whilst the good man's sufferings for his convictions awoke

was whilst he was thus engaged that Thomas Loe re-visited Cork. Penn, of course, attended the meetings. 'It was in this way,' he tells us, 'that God, in His everlasting kindness, guided my feet in the flower of my youth, when about two and twenty years of age. He visited me with a certain te

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one record declares. 'He was exceedingly reached and wept much,' the Quaker chronicle assures us. He renounced every hope that he

ot be regarded simply as a change of opinion. It penetrated his moral nature. It ma

blessed of God for our awakening and conversion has always a place of his own in our hearts. Thomas Lo

ul for God! There is no other way! This is the way in which the holy men of old all walked. Walk in it and tho

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