Penn then proceeded up the Rhine in his travels until he came to the Palatinate. There he tried to see the Elector of the Palatinate, the brother to Elizabeth. The Elector, too, had taken his stand for religious freedom, and had given an asylum to those of other faiths. When the Quaker Ames was compelled to flee from Neugier, the elector gave him an asylum. Indeed, Elizabeth had first learned to know about the Quakers from Ames, when at her brother's court in 1659. But Penn failed to meet the Elector.
After his return from England he again visited Princess Elizabeth at her home at Herford. He was again gladly received, and held meetings as before. But he now found there the Count of Dohna, one of the prominent nobles of the Brandenburg house. Dohna and he had soon got into a debate about the nature of Christianity and of conversion. They finally, however, agreed that self-denial was necessary. Penn then gave an account of his withdrawal from the world, when he became a Quaker. Dohna then attacked the peculiar custom of the Quakers in never lifting their hats, no, not even to kings. Penn tried to show him that such an act was "a weed of degeneracy, a mere fleshly honor," that it often covered insincerity, and that the hat should be lifted to no one but to God alone, when taken off in God's house. But Penn, notwithstanding the debate, held his services before the princess, and when he left, they invoked blessings on each other. After his departure she still continued to correspond with him. Her letters reveal her beautiful piety. She said: "My house and my heart are always open to those who love God." This correspondence between Penn and her was only broken by her death in 1680. Penn was greatly affected by it. He had a true regard for her. And two years after her death, when he published his second edition of his book, "No Cross, No Crown" (which he had written when imprisoned in the tower of London), he perpetuated her memory by inserting her name there among the ancient and modern benefactors of mankind. He thus closes his eulogy on her: "She lived her single life till about 60 years of age, and then departed at her own house at Herwarden (Herford) as much lamented as she had lived - beloved by her people, to whose real worth I do with religious gratitude dedicate this memorial." This eulogy was written in the same year in which he sailed for America to administer his affairs here: so that it is evident that his first meeting with her was coincident with his first interest in America, and his last remarks about her were coincident with his going there. His relations to her were coincident with his relations to America, and prepared him to show special interest as he did later in our German Reformed forefathers who came to Pennsylvania in the eighteenth century. He felt he was returning a debt of gratitude to her by allowing her Church to be founded here. Our German Reformed Church here may be thus said to be a lasting memorial to Princess Elizabeth.
Penn visited her, hoping to make her a convert to the Quaker religion, but she ever remained an adherent to the Reformed faith of her childhood, although the inhabitants of her land were Lutherans. Her pietism offset the dangerous tendency of Descartes' philosophy toward rationalism. During her later years she still continued in correspondence with the leading thinkers of her age, such as Malebranche and Leibnitz. She seems to have exerted a remarkable influence in the progress of human thought. We have seen how Descartes' association with her and her family aided him to gain his influence in the world. Now again it was she who introduced Leibnitz to Malebranche's book in which he ventilates his views of correspondences, and tries to prove that his philosophy was in harmony with Christianity. Leibintz carried this one step farther in his views of pre-existent harmony. She was always busy in aiding literature and science. She enriched the library of her abbey with many books. Her last days, however, were saddened as she saw her family was dying out, and there was danger of a Romish prince becoming ruler of the Palatinate. She died at Herford, February 11, 1680, aged sixty-two years. She was buried in the choir of the cathedral church at Herford, where the following epitaph is over her:
She bore a mind so truly royal, that amid the reverses of fortune it seemed unconquered. But her constancy and greatness of soul, by her singular prudence int the conduct of life, by her uncommon attainments in knowledge, by learning far above her sex, by the respect of kings and the friendship of the illustrious, by the correspondence and admiring tributes of the learned, by the united regard and applause of the whole Christian world, but chiefly by her own admirable virtue, she attached undying honor to her name.
THE END
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