As to the inner life of persecuted Episcopalianism, "Evelyn's Diary" affords information beyond, perhaps, any other contemporary production. A sequestered and learned minister preached in Evelyn's parlour and administered the blessed sacrament, when, according to Episcopal usage, it was "wholly out of use in the parish churches." He heard once the Common Prayer read[354] ("a rare thing in those days") in St. Peter's, at Paul's Wharf, London; and in the morning of the same day he listened to the preaching of "the Archbishop of Armagh--that pious person and learned man, Ussher--in Lincoln's Inn Chapel." On a Christmas day there was no sermon anywhere, no church being permitted to be open, so the diarist observed it at home. The next day he went to Lewisham, where "an honest Divine delivered a discourse."[355]
Now and then an "honest orthodox man" ascended the pulpit of Evelyn's parish church, and although the Incumbent was "somewhat of the Independent," yet "he ordinarily preached sound doctrine and was a peaceable man, which was an extraordinary felicity in that age." Once Evelyn heard a person who "had been both chaplain and lieutenant to Admiral Penn, and who thus, as he says, used "both swords."[356]
Repeatedly notices occur in the "Diary" of neglected festivals, and of private preachings and communions; and he indicates his caution no less than his zeal, by stating that his only reason for going to church whilst these "usurpers" possessed the pulpits was, that he might not be suspected of being a Papist. He felt the wholesome uses of adversity, and states--after alluding to Dr. Wild as preaching in a private house in Fleet Street--that the zealous Christians who gathered together there were much more religious and devout than they had ever been in times of prosperity. He notes down the circumstance, that on Christmas day, 1657, at the conclusion of a sermon by Mr. Gunning, in Exeter Chapel, the building was surrounded by soldiers, and the communicants were kept inside as prisoners. Evelyn himself had his place of confinement in the mansion to which the chapel belonged; but was allowed to dine with the noble master of it, the Countess of Dorset, Lady Hatton, and others. Some of Oliver's colonels came in the afternoon to enquire into the matter, and they asked the Royalist churchman why he durst offend against the ordinances of Parliament. It appears from his answer that the name of "King Charles" had been omitted from the service, and that supplications of a general kind were offered on behalf of kings and princes. At the conclusion of the account, however, the diarist acknowledges that the soldiers after all, did not really interrupt the worship, but only held up their muskets "_as if_" he says, "_they_ would have shot us at the altar, but yet suffering _us to finish_ the office of communion."[357]