Chapter 15

[69]This was the beginning of the movement in Wales. In 1657, George Fox travelled and laboured extensively in Wales, where many followers were gathered.

[70]Nothing caused Friends so much trouble as their absolute refusal to take any kind of an oath.

[AB]Ranters.

[71]At the end of six years of ministry these sixty ministers had been gathered to the work which now absorbed George Fox. It was a remarkable group of men,—young, vigorous, ready speakers, eager for the hard service, welcoming persecution and undaunted by any dangers or difficulties. They so completely caught the idea of Fox that they practically all spoke the same religious language.To them George Fox addressed a quaint, but strikingly spiritual, epistle of advice as they went out to begin their labours. Here are a few sentences from it:"All Friends everywhere, Know the Seed of God, which bruiseth the seed of the serpent, and is atop of the seed of the serpent: which Seed sins not, but bruiseth the serpent's head that doth sin, and that tempts to sin: to which Seed is God's promise and blessing; and which Seed is one in the male and in the female...."This is the Word of the Lord to you all: Every one in the measure of life wait, that with it all your minds may be guided up to the Father of life, the Father of spirits: to receive power from Him, and wisdom, that with it you may be ordered to His glory: to whom be all glory forever! All keep in the Light and Life, that judgeth down that which is contrary to the Light and Life. So the Lord God Almighty be with you all...."All Friends that speak in public, see that it be in the life of God; for that begets to God; the fruits of that shall never wither. This sows to the Spirit which is in prison, and of the Spirit reaps life; and the other sows to the flesh, and of the flesh reaps corruption. This you may see all the world over amongst these seeds-men,—that which may be reaped in the field, that is the world. Therefore wait in the Spirit of the Lord, which cuts down and casts out all this, the root and branches of it. So in that wait to receive power, and the Lord God Almighty preserve you in it; whereby you may come to feel the Light, that comprehends time and the world, and fathoms it: which, believed in, gives you victory over the world. Here the power of the Lord is received, which subdues all the contrary, and puts off the garments that will stain and pollute."

To them George Fox addressed a quaint, but strikingly spiritual, epistle of advice as they went out to begin their labours. Here are a few sentences from it:

"All Friends everywhere, Know the Seed of God, which bruiseth the seed of the serpent, and is atop of the seed of the serpent: which Seed sins not, but bruiseth the serpent's head that doth sin, and that tempts to sin: to which Seed is God's promise and blessing; and which Seed is one in the male and in the female....

"This is the Word of the Lord to you all: Every one in the measure of life wait, that with it all your minds may be guided up to the Father of life, the Father of spirits: to receive power from Him, and wisdom, that with it you may be ordered to His glory: to whom be all glory forever! All keep in the Light and Life, that judgeth down that which is contrary to the Light and Life. So the Lord God Almighty be with you all....

"All Friends that speak in public, see that it be in the life of God; for that begets to God; the fruits of that shall never wither. This sows to the Spirit which is in prison, and of the Spirit reaps life; and the other sows to the flesh, and of the flesh reaps corruption. This you may see all the world over amongst these seeds-men,—that which may be reaped in the field, that is the world. Therefore wait in the Spirit of the Lord, which cuts down and casts out all this, the root and branches of it. So in that wait to receive power, and the Lord God Almighty preserve you in it; whereby you may come to feel the Light, that comprehends time and the world, and fathoms it: which, believed in, gives you victory over the world. Here the power of the Lord is received, which subdues all the contrary, and puts off the garments that will stain and pollute."

[72]This is the only indication of the extent of "Righteous Christer's" sympathy with his son's somewhat revolutionary message.

[73]Colonel Hacker and his regiment superintended the execution of Charles I., and held back the threatening crowd of London citizens. He apparently now suspected that Fox and the Quakers were in a plot to bring in Charles II. Cromwell had for about six months been Lord Protector. Gerard and Vowel's plot was discovered about this time.

[74]This is the minister of Drayton, who said "there was never such a plant bred in England" as George Fox.

[AC]This was not the famous "Mermaid" of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.

[75]Cromwell and Fox were at this period the two most striking men in England. Cromwell's greatest work was already done; Fox, now thirty years old, was only getting well under way with his earthly mission. He never comprehended the greatness of Cromwell's work, nor did he appreciate the complex tangle which the Protector had to unravel. He was so sun-clear and ingenuous himself that he could not fathom a man who skillfully zigzagged toward the ends which he could not reach by perfectly direct steps. Carlyle gives a happy paraphrase of this passage in the Journal: "'I exhorted him,' writes George, 'to keep in the fear of God,' whereby he might 'receive Wisdom from God,' which would be a useful guidance for any sovereign person. In fact, I had 'much discourse' with him; explaining what I and Friends had been led to think 'Concerning Christ and His Apostles' of old time, and His Priests and Ministers of new; concerning Life and concerning Death; concerning the Unfathomable Universe in general, and the Light in it from Above and the Darkness in it that is from Below: to all which the Protector 'carried himself with much moderation.' Yes, George; this Protector has a sympathy with the Perennial; and feels it across the Temporary: no hulls, leathern or other, can entirely hide it from the sense of him." Carlyle's "Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches." (Centenary Edition.) Vol. III., p. 225.

[76]This implies that the nickname was given because the Friends trembled when they spoke.

[77]During this same year, 1654, a remarkable work was done in London by Edward Burrough and Francis Howgill. It is estimated that not less than 10,000 adherents were gathered in the city during these early years of Friends' ministry.

[78]A cheap metal made to imitate gold.

[79]This paper to the Protector was published in 1656. The paper mentioned just before was "A Warning from the Lord to the Pope and to all his Train of Idolatries." Published "at the Black-Spread Eagle" in 1656. He wrote many more letters at this period. Among them was a long letter to all professors of Christianity. Here is a characteristic passage from it:"Let us be glad, and rejoice for ever! Singleness of heart is come; pureness of heart is come; joy and gladness is come. The glorious God is exalting Himself; Truth hath been talked of, but now it is possessed. Christ hath been talked of; but now He is come and possessed. The glory hath been talked of; but now it is possessed, and the glory of man is defacing. The Son of God hath been talked of; but now He is come, and hath given us an understanding. Unity hath been talked of; but now it is come. Virgins have been talked of; but now they are come with oil in their lamps."

"Let us be glad, and rejoice for ever! Singleness of heart is come; pureness of heart is come; joy and gladness is come. The glorious God is exalting Himself; Truth hath been talked of, but now it is possessed. Christ hath been talked of; but now He is come and possessed. The glory hath been talked of; but now it is possessed, and the glory of man is defacing. The Son of God hath been talked of; but now He is come, and hath given us an understanding. Unity hath been talked of; but now it is come. Virgins have been talked of; but now they are come with oil in their lamps."

[80]John Crook was Justice of the Peace in Bedford County. He became an eminent minister among the Friends and suffered many imprisonments.

[81]The wife of this mayor of Cambridge had been to a great meeting which Fox held the day before near the Isle of Ely. James Parnell had already labored in Cambridge before this visit of George Fox. One gets here an interesting glimpse at the students of two hundred and fifty years ago. It is an interesting fact that they failed to unhorse Fox. The struggle between Fox and the students is the subject of one of Robert Spence's etchings.

[82]This William Edmundson was one of the first persons to espouse and proclaim the principles of the Quakers in Ireland. He had been a soldier in Cromwell's army, and he carried the spirit and courage of an Ironside into the new service. He had strange and unspeakably difficult experiences to endure in those trying days of unsettlement in Ireland, but he was enabled to do a great work for the cause which he served. He also had large and valuable service in America.

[83]These cases are further illustration of Fox's power to deal with sickness and with desperate persons. He alwaysfelthimself equal to any emergency which confronted him.

[84]James Nayler's fall, which is here felt in dim forecast, became very soon only too sadly real.

[AD]A paper which George Fox had written to the seven parishes of Land's End.

[85]Major-General Desborough was one of Cromwell's favorite generals, who received many places of honour from the Protector. In 1655 he received his commission as major-general, in charge of Wiltshire, Somersetshire, Devonshire and Cornwall, and in the main he proved an able administrator in this office.

[AE]Provender for their horses.

[86]This was Puritan England, and an appeal to Old Testament precedents was not out of place.

[87]This description of Doomsdale is far from pleasant reading, but it is a true and faithful picture of a dungeon in the seventeenth century, and because of its historic importance it is left exactly as it was written. It is no wonder the Quakers became prison reformers.

[88]This has the ring of one of Luther's utterances.

[89]The 14th of May, 1656, Edward Pyot, Fox's fellow prisoner, wrote a long letter to John Glyn, Chief Justice of England, in which he showed that they were suffering contrary to law. George Fox himself, as his custom was, spent much of his time of imprisonment writing letters and religious epistles. Here is a sound word of advice from his Epistle to "Friends": "Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come, that your life and conduct may preach among all sorts of people and to them."

[90]It will be found interesting to compare this brief comment on the views of the "Fifth-monarchy men" with Cromwell's treatment of them. See Speech II., in First Parliament. Carlyle's "Oliver Cromwell," Centenary Edition, Vol. III., p. 113. The modern reader will also find it interesting to compare this passage with the present-day teachings of the "Second Coming."

[91]This Thomas Lower married Judge Fell's daughter, Mary.

[92]This, however, was not the last of the cheese. After their release they revisited Launceston, as this extract will show:"From Thomas Mounce's we passed to Launceston again, and visited that little remnant of Friends that had been raised up there while we were in prison. The Lord's plants grew finely, and were established on Christ, their rock and foundation. As we were going out of town again, the constable of Launceston came running to us with the cheese that had been taken from Edward Pyot; which they had kept from us all this while, and were tormented with it. But being now set at liberty, we would not receive it."

[92]This, however, was not the last of the cheese. After their release they revisited Launceston, as this extract will show:

"From Thomas Mounce's we passed to Launceston again, and visited that little remnant of Friends that had been raised up there while we were in prison. The Lord's plants grew finely, and were established on Christ, their rock and foundation. As we were going out of town again, the constable of Launceston came running to us with the cheese that had been taken from Edward Pyot; which they had kept from us all this while, and were tormented with it. But being now set at liberty, we would not receive it."

[93]Both Edward Pyot and George Fox had written letters to Major-General Desborough, showing that they were innocent, law-abiding men, doing the Lord's work in the world, and that they could not promise to go home, it being the free right of an Englishman to go where his duty or his business carried him.

[94]Poor James Nayler proved unable to stand the strain of this strenuous work. A fanatical group got about him and in a period of evident aberration he allowed these flattering followers to give him a Triumphal Entry into Bristol, as Christ, returned in the flesh. Here is Carlyle's account: "In the month of October, 1655, there was seen a strange sight at Bristol in the West. A procession of eight persons: one a man on horseback, riding single; the others, men and women, partly riding double, partly on foot, in the muddiest highway, in the wettest weather; singing, all but the single-rider, at whose bridle splash and walk two women: 'Hosannah! Holy, holy! Lord God of Sabaoth!'... The single-rider is a raw-boned male figure, 'with lank hair reaching below his cheeks'; hat drawn close over his brows; of abstruse 'down look' and large, dangerous jaws, strictly closed; he sings not; sits there covered, and is sung to by the others, bare. Amid pouring deluges and mud knee-deep: 'so that the rain ran in at their necks, and they vented it at their hose and breeches,' a spectacle to the west of England and posterity! Singing as above; answering no questions except in song. At the High Cross, they are laid hold of by the Authorities; turn out to be James Nayler and Company." (Carlyle's "Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches." Vol. III., pp. 223, 224.) What he needed was mental treatment. What he received was the harshest punishment Parliament could devise. He missed the death penalty by a vote of 82 to 96. His sentence, passed by Parliament December 16th, 1656, was to be pilloried for two hours, to be whipped by the hangman through the streets from Westminster to the Old Exchange in the city, to be pilloried again after two days for two hours more, to have his tongue bored through with a red-hot iron, and to be branded in the forehead with the letter B, to be again flogged through the streets of Bristol, and then to be committed to prison with solitary confinement and hard labor during the pleasure of Parliament. Poor James Nayler! His fall did the Quakers almost irreparable injury in public estimation. Fox had already had an intimation of this trouble. As he left James Nayler in London he wrote: "As I passed him I cast my eye upon him and a fear struck me concerning him."

[95]His death came not long after his awful punishment, and just before the end of life he wrote these words:"There is a spirit which I feel, which delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong; but delights to endure all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations; as it bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other. If it be betrayed, it bears it; for its ground and spring is the mercy and forgiveness of God. Its crown is meekness; its life is everlasting love unfeigned. It takes its kingdom with entreaty, and not with contention, and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can rejoice, though none else regard it, or can own its life. It is conceived in sorrow, and brought forth without any to pity it; nor doth it murmur at grief and oppression. It never rejoiceth, but through sufferings; for with the world's joy it is murdered. I found it alone; being forsaken. I have fellowship therein, with those who lived in dens and desolate places in the earth; who through death obtained this resurrection, and eternal, holy life!"See also "James Nayler's answer to the Fanatick History as far as it relates to him."The wild extreme to which Nayler went had a very sobering effect on the Friends themselves.

[95]His death came not long after his awful punishment, and just before the end of life he wrote these words:

"There is a spirit which I feel, which delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong; but delights to endure all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations; as it bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thought to any other. If it be betrayed, it bears it; for its ground and spring is the mercy and forgiveness of God. Its crown is meekness; its life is everlasting love unfeigned. It takes its kingdom with entreaty, and not with contention, and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can rejoice, though none else regard it, or can own its life. It is conceived in sorrow, and brought forth without any to pity it; nor doth it murmur at grief and oppression. It never rejoiceth, but through sufferings; for with the world's joy it is murdered. I found it alone; being forsaken. I have fellowship therein, with those who lived in dens and desolate places in the earth; who through death obtained this resurrection, and eternal, holy life!"

See also "James Nayler's answer to the Fanatick History as far as it relates to him."

The wild extreme to which Nayler went had a very sobering effect on the Friends themselves.

[AF]In Wales.

[AG]A besieging army.

[96]Great numbers of these Welsh Friends migrated to Pennsylvania and settled Montgomery County. Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Merion and Radnor are some of the historic townships whose names were transferred to the new world by these followers of Fox.

[AH]Counties.

[97]This was very characteristic of the man.

[98]Beaumaris is in Anglesey, so that they were to cross Beaumaris Bay to the mainland.

[99]This "curl" is two or three times mentioned. He always wore his hair long and apparently had a long curling lock behind.

[100]While waiting at Swarthmore, between the labors in Wales and the visit to Scotland, George Fox wrote several epistles. Here is a beautiful little Postscript to his epistle "to Friends":"Postscript—And, Friends, be careful how ye set your feet among the tender plants, that are springing up out of God's earth; lest ye tread upon them, hurt, bruise, or crush them in God's vineyard."

[100]While waiting at Swarthmore, between the labors in Wales and the visit to Scotland, George Fox wrote several epistles. Here is a beautiful little Postscript to his epistle "to Friends":

"Postscript—And, Friends, be careful how ye set your feet among the tender plants, that are springing up out of God's earth; lest ye tread upon them, hurt, bruise, or crush them in God's vineyard."

[101]This was a great general meeting at Langlands, in Cumberland.

[102]In this discussion the Scripture arguments were gone over, and George Fox offset the proof-texts on election with passages showing man's responsibility.

[103]The Friends always refused to keep the First Day as though it were a continuation of the Jewish Sabbath. For them it was a day set apart for man's high spiritual use.

[104]The reference is to the logical definition of man as "an unfeathered biped," which is as old as Plato.

[105]Here is more of the Luther spirit. He is reported to have said: "I would go to Leipsic if it rained Duke Georges nine days running."

[106]This passage has suggested the idea which finds beautiful expression in the closing stanzas of Whittier's "Barclay of Ury":"Knowing this, that never yetShare of truth was vainly setIn the world's wide fallow;After hands shall sow the seed,After hands from mill and meadReap the harvests yellow."Thus with somewhat of the seerMust the moral pioneerFrom the future borrow;Clothe the waste with dreams of grain,And, on midnight's sky of rainPaint the golden morrow."[107]There were few novel experiences on the way from Scotland to Bedfordshire. At Nottingham he had a controversy with Rice Jones, an opposer of the earlier visit. He pointed out that many of Rice Jones's followers "were become the greatest foot-ball players and wrestlers in the whole country," which is an interesting comment on the ministry of Rice Jones![108]"John Crook's House" was at Luton, in Bedfordshire. This is among the first of the great national general meetings out of which came in course of development the present London Yearly Meeting of Friends. The first general meeting was held at Swannington in Leicestershire in 1654. Isaac Penington was convinced at this meeting. He tells us that he "felt the healings drop upon his soul from under His wings."[AI]The sentence means: "I felt called to set forth the significance of various religious states and the things to which they lead."[109]Here is a long extract from the letter to Lady Claypole, Cromwell's daughter, who died soon after this time:"Keep in the fear of the Lord God; that is the Word of the Lord unto thee. For all these things happen to thee for thy good, and for the good of those concerned for thee, to make you know yourselves and your own weakness, that ye may know the Lord's strength and power, and may trust in Him. Let the time past be sufficient to every one, who in any thing hath been lifted up in transgression out of the power of the Lord; for He can bring down and abase the mighty, and lay them in the dust of the earth. Therefore, all keep low in His fear, that thereby ye may receive the secrets of God and His wisdom, may know the shadow of the Almighty, and sit under it in all tempests, storms, and heats. For God is a God at hand, and the Most High rules in the children of men. This is the word of the Lord God unto you all; what the Light doth make manifest and discover, as temptations, distractions, confusions; do not look at these temptations, confusions, corruptions, but at the Light which discovers them and makes them manifest; and with the same Light you may feel over them, to receive power to stand against them. The same Light which lets you see sin and transgression, will let you see the covenant of God, which blots out your sin and transgression, which gives victory and dominion over it, and brings into covenant with God. For looking down at sin, corruption, and distraction, ye are swallowed up in it; but looking at the Light, which discovers them, ye will see over them. That will give victory, and ye will find grace and strength; there is the first step to peace. That will bring salvation; by it ye may see to the beginning, and the 'Glory that was with the Father before the world began'; and come to know the Seed of God, which is the heir of the promise of God, and of the world which hath no end; and which bruises the head of the serpent, who stops people from coming to God. That ye may feel the power of an endless life, the power of God which is immortal, which brings the immortal soul up to the immortal God, in whom it doth rejoice. So in the name and power of the Lord Jesus Christ, God Almighty strengthen thee."G. F."This note follows the letter:"When the foregoing paper was read to Lady Claypole, she said, it stayed her mind for the present. Afterwards many Friends got copies of it, both in England and Ireland, and read it to people that were troubled in mind; and it was made useful for the settling of the minds of several."[110]This was the persecution which called forth Milton's great sonnet:"Avenge, O Lord! thy slaughtered saints whose bonesLie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold."[111]This was Cromwell'sSecond Parliament.[AJ]Harvey was "groom of the bed chamber."[112]This visit of Fox to Cromwell is treated in Carlyle's Oliver Cromwell, Vol IV., pp. 199, 200. Oliver Cromwell died September 3d, 1658. This "waft" or whiff of death which Fox felt was not the only forewarning of his end which came to Friends. A letter was delivered into Cromwell's hand a month before his death, which contained these words: "If thou continueth in thy oppression, the Lord will suddenly smite thee." See Burrough's "Good Counsel and Advice Rejected by Disobedient Men."[113]Isaac Penington was one of the finest, richest spirits that came under the influence of Fox. He was highest in social rank of all the early Friends, and after Fox himself the best exponent of the fundamental Quaker idea.[114]This "Church-faith (so-called)" was a "Declaration of the Faith and Order owned and practiced in the Congregational Churches in England: Agreed upon and consented unto by their Elders and messengers in their meeting at the Savoy, October 12th, 1658." Fox's reply has the following title: "Something in Answer to that Book called, The Church-Faith: Set forth by Independants (sic) and others; agreed upon by Divine messengers at the Savoy in London."[115]From being Cromwell's most intimate friend Sir Harry Vane had become his most fearless opposer, and an advocate of extreme republicanism. After the downfall of Richard Cromwell, Vane had a brief return to influence and power. In September, 1659, he was made President of the Council, and was in this position the executive head of the nation in civil affairs. This episode must, therefore, be dated in the autumn of 1659.[116]This epistle begins: "All Friends everywhere keep out of plots and bustling and the arm of flesh." A little later he writes again:"Stand in the fear and dread of the Lord God; His power, life, light, seed and wisdom, by which ye may take away the occasion of wars, and so know a kingdom which hath no end, and fight for that with spiritual weapons, which takes away the occasion of the carnal; and there gather men to war, as many as ye can, and set up as many as ye can with these weapons. G. F."[117]After leaving London, he had travelled extensively through the eastern and southern counties, revisiting Cornwall, where he had had such a long experience in Launceston jail in 1656.[118]These great meetings were at this period held out of doors, in fields or orchards, or on some high hill.[119]This meeting for the affairs of the Church, held at Skipton, in Yorkshire, in 1659, is generally considered to be the original yearly meeting.[120]"Naked" means naked to the waist. There are a few other instances of similar actions in England and America.[121]This is the beginning of what was later known as the "Meeting for Sufferings," which has been throughout its history a remarkable body. The minutes of the Meeting for Sufferings date from Fifth month 22d, 1675.[122]This is the second time the striking character of his eyes has been commented on.[123]This was just at the troublous time when Charles II. was coming to the throne, and the kingdom was being reorganized. Every traveller was suspected, and every gathering of people was watched.[124]George Fox never admitted that the Quakers were a sect, nor did any Friend of the first fifty years. There was but one Church, composed of those who obeyed the Light and in whom Christ dwelt, and of this Church Fox and his followers claimed to be members. This position has been ably put in Thomas Hancock's "Peculium"—a Prize Essay.[125]Margaret Fell was now the head of Swarthmore Hall, Judge Fell having died in 1658. As the arrest was made from her house she felt herself implicated in the false charge. She wrote a vigorous letter about the case to the proper magistrates.[AK]Nuneaton was only two miles from his home at Drayton, but he seems not to have stopped for a visit.[126]In 1658 Fox had written: "I went to Reading, where I was under great exercises and sufferings, and in great travail of spirit for about ten weeks." This was apparently over the disturbed political situation, and he tells us that at this time he "had a sight and sense of the king's return."[127]Poor George little realized how futile this promise was to prove, or how soon the whips of Oliver were to become scorpions under the new order of affairs.[128]In this instance Fifth-monarchy men, whose insurrection brought on the new persecution.[129]Fox wrote a tender letter to the sufferers in prison, and "a Declaration from the harmless, innocent people of God called Quakers" was sent to the King.[130]These Friends, in their use of signs and striking symbolisms, were undoubtedly following in the steps of the Hebrew prophets. Both William Sympson and Richard Sale were squeezed in Little Ease, the latter, being very stout, came to his death as a result. "Little Ease" was a hole hewed out of a rock; the breadth across seventeen inches; from the back to the inside of the great door at the top seven inches; at the shoulders, eight inches; at the breast, nine and a half inches; from the top to the bottom, one yard and a half, with a device to lessen the height for purposes of torture.[131]We have already seen how frequently George Fox had what nowadays are called telepathic experiences.[132]Whittier has beautifully told the story of Samuel Shattuck's mission in his poem, "The King's Missive." Longfellow has made the sufferings of the Quakers the subject of his dramatic poem, "New England Tragedies." The story of Quaker sufferings is told in George Bishop's "New England Judged." The best modern book on the subject is Hallowell's "Quaker Invasion of Massachusetts." Four Friends were executed—William Robinson, Marmaduke Stevenson, William Ledra and Mary Dyer.[133]Here is the title page to this curious old book which is now very rare, and is much valued by collectors:"A Battle-Door for Teachers & Professors to learn Singular and Plural; You to Many, and Thou to One: Singular One, Thou; Plural Many, You, Wherein is shewed forth by Grammar, or Scripture Examples, how several Nations and People have made a distinction between Singular and Plural, And First. In the former part of this Book, Called the English Battle-Door, may be seen how several People have spoken Singular and Plural, As the Apharsathkites, The Tarpelites, The Apharsites, The Archevites, The Babylonians, The Susanchites, The Dehavites, The Elamites, The Temanites, The Naomites, The Shuites, The Buzites, The Moabites, The Hevites, The Edomites, The Philistines, The Amalekites, The Sodomites, The Hittites, The Midianites, &c. Also, in this Book is set forth Examples of the Singular and Plural About Thou, and You in several Languages divided into distinct Battle-Doors, or Forms, or Examples; English, Latine, Italian, Greek, Hebrew, Caldec, Syriack, Arabick, Persiack, Ethiopick, Samaritan, Coptick or Egyptick, Armenian, Saxon, Welch, Mence, Cornish, French, Spanish, Portugal, High-Dutch, Low Dutch, Danish, Bohemian, Slavonian, and how Emperors and others have used the Singular Word to One; and how the Word You (to one) came first from the Pope. Likewise some examples, in the Polonian, Lithvanian, Irish and East-Indian, Together with the Singular and Plural Words thou and you, in Swedish, Turkish, Muscovian and Curlandian tongues,—In the latter part of this Book are contained several bad unsavoury words gathered first for certain School Books, which have been taught Boyes in England, which is a Rod and a Whip to the School Masters in England and elsewhere who teach such Books. Geo. Fox, Jno. Stubbs, Benjamin Furley."London: Printed for Robt. Wilson, and are to be sold at his Shop at the Signe of the Black-Spread-Eagle and Wind-Mil in Martins le Grand 1660."[134]These Friends undoubtedly believed that the principles of truth which they had discovered would ultimately prevail over the entire globe."Prester John's Country" was Abyssinia. Prester John was a legendary Christian priest, who was believed in the early Middle Ages to reign over this Eastern country. About this time Catherine Evans and Sarah Chevers, in their travels, were put in the inquisition-prison at Malta, from which Fox secured their release, through the influence of Lord D'Aubeny, a Roman Catholic.[135]Friends are married without clergyman or magistrate. The bridal couple stand up in a religious assembly, and, taking each other by the hand, promise to be husband and wife till death.[136]It is estimated that at this time there were not less than 4,500 Friends in the prisons of England and Wales. This letter to the King is strikingly direct and straightforward.[137]This was an act passed in 1662, "for preventing mischiefs and dangers that may arise by certain persons called Quakers, and others refusing to take oaths." The act declared it "altogether unlawful and contrary to the word of God" to refuse to take an oath, or to persuade another person to refuse to do so. It further made it an offense for more than five persons, "commonly called Quakers," "to assemble in any place under pretense of joining in a religious worship not authorized by the laws of this realm."[138]This letter well illustrates the difficulties of George Fox's style. The letter manifests a profound and beautiful spirit, but the phraseology is none too clear. He means: "Dear Edward is living in God, who is invisible and unchangeable; settle your own lives down into that same living God whose divine presence manifested in Edward Burrough has begotten a spiritual life in you, and you will feel yourselves united in spirit and life with the dear departed one."[AL]Truro.[AM]"Truth" is used here and often in Friends' writings for theCAUSEwhich Friends represented.[139]Most of the Quakers who suffered in prison during the reign of Charles were imprisoned for refusing to take the oath.[140]This would be August of our calendar. Again the pen was busy during these weeks in jail, and many epistles and documents were written. A Baptist preacher, named Wiggan, who had been a great opponent of Fox, was brought into straits over the oath which he finally took. The episode furnishes this interesting entry:"This Wiggan was poor, and while he was prisoner at Lancaster he sent into the country, and got money gathered for relief of the poor people of God in prison; and many people gave freely, thinking it had been for us, when indeed it was for himself. But when we heard of it, we laid it upon him, and wrote into the country, that Friends might let the people know the truth of the matter, that it was not our manner to have collections made for us, and that those collections were only for Wiggan and another, a drunken preacher of his society, who was so drunk, that once he lost his breeches."[141]"A præmunired person" is one who has incurred the penalty of being put out of the protection of the crown, of having his lands, goods, and chattels forfeited to the crown and of remaining in prison during the sovereign's pleasure.[142]These "four chief religions which have been got up since the apostles' days" are respectively the Roman Catholic, the Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Independent, i. e., Congregational.[143]Scarborough Castle is so nearly demolished that it is now impossible to locate the rooms in which Fox was confined. The room in which he was finally quartered was on the extreme seaside of the castle and has been entirely destroyed. This year of fearful imprisonment following the severe confinement at Lancaster nearly broke down his wonderful constitution. He never again had the same physical vigor and power. Note his healthy humor in the little joke with the Papist.[144]George Fox had a very keen eye for "judgments" which came upon persons who abused him or hindered his work. It accords completely with the ideas of the time, and is one of the things which he had not transcended.[145]This "sickness" was the London "plague" of 1665.[146]This was Thomas Ibbett, of Huntingdonshire. He went distracted a little later, and, standing in Cheapside during the great fire, he tried to stop its progress with his outspread arms, so that he nearly perished in the flames. For a remarkable prophecy of the "great plague" see "Writings of George Fox the Younger," 1662, pages 219-221.[AN]The days of Oliver Cromwell.[147]In nothing did Fox show his originality and insight more clearly than in his work of organizing the Society which his ministry had drawn together. During his long imprisonment many internal difficulties had arisen, which showed that the Society was too loosely organized for a permanent work in the world. The rest of his life—twenty-four years—was mainly devoted to this work of perfecting the system of meetings and government, though hisministrymeantime in no way slackened. The first system of Discipline, printed in 1669 by his opponents, under the title, "Canons and Institutions," was drawn up soon after the release from Scarborough Castle.[148]On this broad principle, ofteaching everything useful and civil in creation, the work of Friends began in the cause of education. The subsequent history of their educational work is notable.[AO]1669.[149]The "Bristol Register of Friends" shows the date of the marriage of George Fox to Margaret Fell to have been "Eighth month" 27th, 1669.[150]During the next four years George Fox and his wife were almost continually separated from each other. About three months after their marriage Margaret Fox was thrown into Lancaster prison, where she was kept until a few weeks before her husband sailed on his memorable trip to the West Indies and the American colonies.[151]In a very keen letter Fox told the magistrates that this act would have prevented the twelve apostles and the seventy disciples from meeting![152]This trial at the Old Bailey is reported in full in the Preface to the Works of William Penn. It is one of the most interesting episodes in his life, and, from a legal point of view, it is one of the most important jury trials of that century. William Penn had thrown in his lot with the Quakers definitely in 1666, though he had been influenced by the preaching of Thomas Loe while he was a student in Oxford University in 1659.[AP]Near Rochester.[153]This is another of the times in Fox's life when he underwent serious physical changes as a result of psychical disturbance.[154]This was in 1669, about three months after their marriage. The sentence ofpræmunirewas passed against Margaret Fell in 1663, so that for about seven (Fox says ten) years she was the King's prisoner, and her estate was in jeopardy.[155]He speaks of "the yearly meeting" as though it were a well-established institution. Norman Penney has sent me an interesting extract from Barclay's "Letters of the Early Friends," which traces the development of the yearly meeting:"There was a yearly meeting settled at Skipton in Yorkshire for all the northern and southern countries, ... and then the yearly meeting was removed to John Crooks, ... and afterwards the yearly meeting was kept at Bailey, in Yorkshire, and likewise at Skipton, in the year 1660. And from thence it was moved to London the next year, where it hath been kept ever since," p. 312 from a document said to have been by George Fox, but only since 1672 has it been held in London without intermission. The series of yearly meeting minutes commences 23d of Third month, 1671.[156]Which would be August by the unreformed calendar.[157]A Moorish pirate ship, named from Sallee, a seaport of Morocco. This incident not only indicates Fox's simple faith in God, but it also is a good illustration of the way in which he inspired confidence in others. The captain believes in him.[158]As George Fox was too ill to travel, the meetings for worship and for business were held at the house where he was staying. At these meetings he gave much valuable counsel. Here he first met with slavery and dealt with it. "I desired them also that they would cause their overseers to deal mildly and gently with their negroes, and not use cruelty towards them, as the manner of some hath been and is; and that after certain years of servitude, they would make them free."[159]In order that it might be positively clear that he "exalted Christ in all His offices," he wrote an extended Letter to the Governor of Barbadoes. The Letter takes the form of a declaration of faith and is often referred to as an authoritative statement of the belief of Friends. It was, however, not written for that purpose, and it is not by any means a full statement of their belief. It does not even mention the principle which held the leading place in all Fox's teaching and preaching. The Letter to the Governor was written to clear Friends from false charges, and it dwells solely on the points on which Fox is rumored to be unsound, or charged with dangerous teaching. The earliest "declaration of faith" of the Quakers was issued by Christopher Holder, John Copeland and Richard Doudney, from Boston prison in 1657. The earliest statement issued in England was Richard Farnsworth's "Confession and Profession of Faith in God," London, 1658.[AQ]March 8th, 1672.[160]John Burnyeat travelled extensively and did much valuable work in America. See the Journal of John Burnyeat, reprinted in Volume II. of Friends' Library.[AR]Eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay.[161]Local word for Indian chief or headman.[AS]In Delaware.[AT]That is, kindly-spirited.[162]George Bishop, in "New England Judged," p. 351, says that New England Yearly Meeting was set up in 1661. John Burnyeat, who had attended it in 1671, says in his Journal, "It begins in the ninth of the Fourth monthevery year; and continues for much of a week, and is a general meeting once a year for all Friends in New England." The records for several years after its origin were destroyed by fire. They are, however, complete from 1683 to date.[163]For an account of Fox's relations with Roger Williams see note in next chapter.[164]"Shelter Island" lies at the Eastern end of Long Island, between Gardiner's Bay and Little Peconic Bay. Nathaniel Sylvester was the sole proprietor of the island, and he made it a shelter for persecuted Friends from New England.[AU]Point Judith.[165]Rye is now in New York State. The boundary between New York and Connecticut was long in dispute. At this time it seems Rye was in Governor Winthrop's territory.[AV]Now Governor's Island.[AW]In New Jersey.[166]This narrative has sometimes been questioned and sometimes been taken to prove that Fox was an instrument in working miracles. Neither solution is satisfactory, or necessary. Recent medical annals give similar cases. A dislocated neck is not necessarily fatal. The incident shows again Fox's readiness in dealing coolly and skillfully with hard situations. He endeavors to do whatcanbe done.[167]It is not easy to follow Fox's scanty itinerary. There are two Tinicum islands in the Delaware (it is called "Dinidock" in the first edition of the Journal). The crossing was probably made at the upper island, which is just in front of what is now the city of Burlington, though this would be hardly ninety miles from Middletown Harbour, as he estimates. He then travels down across the very country which Friends afterwards settled under the leadership of William Penn. There is evidence to show that the idea of forming in America a colony of Friends originated with George Fox. We learn from a letter of Josiah Coale, a Friend who had travelled extensively among the Indians, that George Fox had commissioned him to treat with the Susquehanna Indians for the purchase of a strip of territory. Fox's letter is not preserved, but Josiah Coale's answer is among the Swarthmore MSS., and is as follows: "Dear George,—As concerning Friends buying a piece of land of the Susquehanna Indians, I have spoken of it to them and told them whatthou saidconcerning it, but their answer was that there is no land that is habitable or fit for situation beyond Baltimore's liberty [i. e., beyond the domain of Lord Baltimore,] till they come to or near the Susquehanna fort, and besides William Fuller, who was the chief man amongst Friends with the Indians ... is withdrawn at present, ... so that without him little can be done at present with the Indians; and besides, these Indians are at war with another nation of Indians, who are very numerous, and it is doubted by some that in a little space they will be so destroyed that they will not be a people. Thine in the truth,Josiah Coale."This letter was written in 1660, twelve years before this American visit. About the same time William Penn's thoughts were turning in the same direction. Writing about Pennsylvania in 1681, he says: "This I can say, that I had anopening of joyas to these parts in the year 1661, at Oxford twenty years since." By a purchase made through John Fenwick and Edward Byllynge, Friends obtained possession of a great section of New Jersey in 1674, the year after George Fox arrived in England. There can be no doubt that his thoughts were on future settlements here as he travelled through what is now Pennsylvania and New Jersey.[168]The "desperate river" was probably the Brandywine, and the Christiana "River" is Christiana Creek, formed from a junction of Red Clay and White Clay Creeks. It finds the Delaware about two miles below Wilmington. The Bohemia and Sassafras Rivers are two of the many arms of Chesapeake Bay. The "Kentish Shore" is the shore of Kent County, Maryland. Tredhaven (or Thirdhaven) is farther down the Bay, where the boats were so thick it seemed like the Thames! A meeting was established here which remains until the present time.[AX]In Delaware.[AY]Now St. Michael's.[169]What is now called Baltimore Yearly Meeting was established in 1672.[AZ]Now Somerton.[BA]Now Chowan.[BB]Now Roanoke.[170]The letter began as follows:"Dear heart,"This day we came into Bristol, near night, from the sea; glory to the Lord God over all for ever, who was our convoy, and steered our course! who is the God of the whole earth, of the seas and winds, and made the clouds His chariots, beyond all words, blessed be His name for ever! He is over all in His great power and wisdom. Amen."[171]When George Fox married Margaret Fell she had one son, George, and seven daughters, as follows: Margaret, who married John Rous; Bridget, who married John Draper; Isabel, twice married, first to William Yeomans, and then to Abraham Morrice; Sarah, who married William Mead (Penn's companion in the famous trial), Mary, who married Thomas Lower; Susanna, who married William Ingram, and Rachel, who married Daniel Abraham.[172]This is the beginning of a serious opposition to Fox's system of government, which finally grew to an open schism. It was headed by John Wilkinson and John Story. It was one of the most trying struggles of Fox's life.[BC]That is, in reclaiming those who have gone astray.[173]Margaret Fox and her daughter were sent on under the escort of a Friend, a merchant from Bristol, who, Fox says, "seemed to have met us providentially to assist my wife and her daughter in their journey homewards, when by our imprisonment they were deprived of our company and help." Fox had just received a message that his mother was in her last illness, and it had been his intention to part from his wife in Warwickshire and have a last visit with his aged mother. This privilege never came, for Mary Fox, of Fenny Drayton, died while her son was in Worcester prison.[174]This is Chief Justice Sir Matthew Hale.[175]It will be noticed that Fox is set at liberty on the errors in his indictment, and not on a judicial decision that it is illegal to imprison on apræmunire.[176]George Fox was now only fifty-one years old, but he was prematurely broken by the sufferings and exposures which only such an iron constitution as he possessed could have endured for thirty years. He still had fourteen years to live, but from now on a decided change appears. There is no cessation of activity, but it is activity of a quieter sort. Only one important mission journey falls in these years—the visit to Holyland and Germany. Henceforth he makes his pen speak for him. Epistles and books are the main results of these fourteen years. The Journal grows dry and devoid of dramatic interest, and our gleanings from it will be few. He is much at Swarthmore or at Kingston, near London, where Margaret Rous, a daughter of his wife, lived.[BD]1677.[BE]Worminghurst.[177]Fox did not see Roger Williams in Providence, though the latter had a personal tilt with John Burnyeat at Newport in 1671. After George Fox had left Providence and had gone back down the Bay with his companion, Nicholas Easton, governor of Rhode Island, Roger Williams rowed to Newport with a challenge to a debate. Fox, however, had already left the island, and was well on his way toward Long Island. Williams then wrote, what Fox elsewhere calls "Roger Williams's 'Book of Lyes,'" a book bearing the grimly humorous title, "George Fox digged out of his Burrows," Boston, 1676. (See Publications of the Narragansett Club, Vol. V., pp. xx.-xlv., Providence, 1872.) Fox and Burnyeat reply to this "slanderous book" in a sixty-five-page pamphlet entitled, "A New England Fire Brand Quenched." Fox seemed not to know just where the famous "apostle of soul liberty" lived, as he says, "a priest of New England (or some colony thereabouts!)"[BF]Whither they had gone for some religious service.[178]This Galenus Abrahams was a Mennonite and a man of considerable note. Sewell, the Quaker historian, who had himself been a disciple of Abrahams, tells us that in this discussion, which lasted five hours, the latter maintained the position that "nobody nowadays could be accepted as a messenger of God unless he confirmed the same by miracle." (See Sewell's "History of Friends," Vol. II., page 368, edition of 1823. See, also, Barclay's "Religious Societies of the Commonwealth," pages 174, 251.) During his second visit to Holland, Fox had another interview with the famous Mennonite which gives an interesting side light on the penetrating power of Fox's eyes, already noticed. "Before I left I went to visit one Galenus Abrahams, a teacher of chief note among the Mennonites, or Baptists. I had been with him when I was in Holland about seven years before and William Penn and George Keith had disputes with him. He was then very high and shy, so that he would not let me touch him, nor look upon him (by his good will), but bid me 'Keep my eyes off him, for,' he said, 'they pierced him.' But now he was very loving and tender, and confessed in some measure to truth; his wife also and daughter were tender and kind, and we parted from them very lovingly."[179]He had previously had a trying time with opponents who were "very unruly and troublesome" in some meetings held at the home of his friend Thomas Ellwood, at Hunger Hill, near London.[180]This is an interesting letter to John III. of Poland, in which are given many passages from the words of sovereigns, both ancient and modern, in behalf of liberty of conscience. The letter is an able and valuable document, written, as the writer says, "in love to thy immortal soul and for thy eternal good." It closes with this postscript:"Postscript.—'Blessed be the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' And remember, O king, Justin Martyr's two Apologies to the Roman emperors, in the defence of the persecuted Christians; and that notable Apology, which was written by Tertullian, upon the same subject; which are not only for the Christian religion, but against all persecution for religion."[BG]1680.[BH]1682.[181]Here is a beautiful letter to those who are suffering:"Dear, suffering lambs, for the name and command of Jesus; be valiant for His truth, and faithful, and ye will feel the presence of Christ with you. Look at Him who suffered for you, who hath bought you, and will feed you; who saith, 'Be of good comfort, I have overcome the world'; who destroys the devil and his works, and bruises the serpent's head. I say, look to Christ, your sanctuary, in whom ye have rest and peace. To you it is given not only to believe, but to suffer for His name's sake. They that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution by the ungodly professors of Christ Jesus, who live out of Him. Therefore be valiant for God's truth upon the earth, and look above that spirit that makes you suffer, up to Christ, who was before it was, and will be when it is gone."[BI]In 1683.[BJ]On First-day at the Savoy.[BK]Spring of 1684.[182]The journal of the second visit to Holland gives little matter of fresh interest. The visit lasted from the 31st of May to the 16th of July, 1684.[183]This letter to the Duke of Holstein ends as follows:"I entreat the duke to consider these things. I entreat him to mind God's grace and truth in his heart that is come by Jesus; that by his Spirit of Grace and truth he may come to serve and worship God in his Spirit and truth; so that he may serve the living eternal God that made him, in his generation, and have his peace in Christ, that the world cannot take away. And I do desire his good, peace, and prosperity in this world, and his eternal comfort and happiness in the world that is everlasting. Amen.G. F."London, 26th of the 8th Month, 1684."[184]The Duke of Monmouth, illegitimate son of Charles II., landed in Lyme, in Devonshire, hoping to secure the throne, but he was defeated at Sedgemoor and captured July 6th, 1685.[185]On the 16th of May James II. issued a warrant commanding that all Quakers who had been convicted on charges ofpræmunire, or for not swearing, or for not going to church, should be released. By the execution of this warrant about fifteen hundred Quakers were set free. Naturally the yearly meeting which followed was a happy time. This "Order of Release" is preserved in the Archives in Devonshire House in London. It is written on eleven skins of vellum, with the king's portrait at the top. In the list is the name of John Bunyan, who got included in this Royal Pardon.[BL]September, 1688.[186]This letter was written October 17th, 1688. William landed in England November 5th, 1688.[BM]March, 1689.[BN]November, 1690.[187]This epistle, the last he ever wrote, closes with a triumphant note and an optimistic outlook on the world:"Christ the Seed reigns; and His power is over all, who bruises the serpent's head, and destroys the devil and his works, and was before he was. So all of you live and walk in Christ Jesus; that nothing may be between you and God, but Christ, in whom ye have salvation, life, rest and peace with God."As for the affairs of truth in this land and abroad, I hear that in Holland and Germany, and thereaway, Friends are in love, unity, and peace: and in Jamaica, Barbadoes, Nevis, Antigua, Maryland, and New-England, I hear nothing, but Friends are in unity and peace. The Lord preserve them all out of the world (in which there is trouble) in Christ Jesus, in whom there is peace, life, love, and unity. Amen. My love in the Lord Jesus Christ to all Friends everywhere in your land, as though I named them.G. F."London, the 10th of the 11th month, 1690" (January 10th, 1691).

[106]This passage has suggested the idea which finds beautiful expression in the closing stanzas of Whittier's "Barclay of Ury":

"Knowing this, that never yetShare of truth was vainly setIn the world's wide fallow;After hands shall sow the seed,After hands from mill and meadReap the harvests yellow."Thus with somewhat of the seerMust the moral pioneerFrom the future borrow;Clothe the waste with dreams of grain,And, on midnight's sky of rainPaint the golden morrow."

"Knowing this, that never yetShare of truth was vainly setIn the world's wide fallow;After hands shall sow the seed,After hands from mill and meadReap the harvests yellow.

"Knowing this, that never yet

Share of truth was vainly set

In the world's wide fallow;

After hands shall sow the seed,

After hands from mill and mead

Reap the harvests yellow.

"Thus with somewhat of the seerMust the moral pioneerFrom the future borrow;Clothe the waste with dreams of grain,And, on midnight's sky of rainPaint the golden morrow."

"Thus with somewhat of the seer

Must the moral pioneer

From the future borrow;

Clothe the waste with dreams of grain,

And, on midnight's sky of rain

Paint the golden morrow."

[107]There were few novel experiences on the way from Scotland to Bedfordshire. At Nottingham he had a controversy with Rice Jones, an opposer of the earlier visit. He pointed out that many of Rice Jones's followers "were become the greatest foot-ball players and wrestlers in the whole country," which is an interesting comment on the ministry of Rice Jones!

[108]"John Crook's House" was at Luton, in Bedfordshire. This is among the first of the great national general meetings out of which came in course of development the present London Yearly Meeting of Friends. The first general meeting was held at Swannington in Leicestershire in 1654. Isaac Penington was convinced at this meeting. He tells us that he "felt the healings drop upon his soul from under His wings."

[AI]The sentence means: "I felt called to set forth the significance of various religious states and the things to which they lead."

[109]Here is a long extract from the letter to Lady Claypole, Cromwell's daughter, who died soon after this time:"Keep in the fear of the Lord God; that is the Word of the Lord unto thee. For all these things happen to thee for thy good, and for the good of those concerned for thee, to make you know yourselves and your own weakness, that ye may know the Lord's strength and power, and may trust in Him. Let the time past be sufficient to every one, who in any thing hath been lifted up in transgression out of the power of the Lord; for He can bring down and abase the mighty, and lay them in the dust of the earth. Therefore, all keep low in His fear, that thereby ye may receive the secrets of God and His wisdom, may know the shadow of the Almighty, and sit under it in all tempests, storms, and heats. For God is a God at hand, and the Most High rules in the children of men. This is the word of the Lord God unto you all; what the Light doth make manifest and discover, as temptations, distractions, confusions; do not look at these temptations, confusions, corruptions, but at the Light which discovers them and makes them manifest; and with the same Light you may feel over them, to receive power to stand against them. The same Light which lets you see sin and transgression, will let you see the covenant of God, which blots out your sin and transgression, which gives victory and dominion over it, and brings into covenant with God. For looking down at sin, corruption, and distraction, ye are swallowed up in it; but looking at the Light, which discovers them, ye will see over them. That will give victory, and ye will find grace and strength; there is the first step to peace. That will bring salvation; by it ye may see to the beginning, and the 'Glory that was with the Father before the world began'; and come to know the Seed of God, which is the heir of the promise of God, and of the world which hath no end; and which bruises the head of the serpent, who stops people from coming to God. That ye may feel the power of an endless life, the power of God which is immortal, which brings the immortal soul up to the immortal God, in whom it doth rejoice. So in the name and power of the Lord Jesus Christ, God Almighty strengthen thee."G. F."This note follows the letter:"When the foregoing paper was read to Lady Claypole, she said, it stayed her mind for the present. Afterwards many Friends got copies of it, both in England and Ireland, and read it to people that were troubled in mind; and it was made useful for the settling of the minds of several."

[109]Here is a long extract from the letter to Lady Claypole, Cromwell's daughter, who died soon after this time:

"Keep in the fear of the Lord God; that is the Word of the Lord unto thee. For all these things happen to thee for thy good, and for the good of those concerned for thee, to make you know yourselves and your own weakness, that ye may know the Lord's strength and power, and may trust in Him. Let the time past be sufficient to every one, who in any thing hath been lifted up in transgression out of the power of the Lord; for He can bring down and abase the mighty, and lay them in the dust of the earth. Therefore, all keep low in His fear, that thereby ye may receive the secrets of God and His wisdom, may know the shadow of the Almighty, and sit under it in all tempests, storms, and heats. For God is a God at hand, and the Most High rules in the children of men. This is the word of the Lord God unto you all; what the Light doth make manifest and discover, as temptations, distractions, confusions; do not look at these temptations, confusions, corruptions, but at the Light which discovers them and makes them manifest; and with the same Light you may feel over them, to receive power to stand against them. The same Light which lets you see sin and transgression, will let you see the covenant of God, which blots out your sin and transgression, which gives victory and dominion over it, and brings into covenant with God. For looking down at sin, corruption, and distraction, ye are swallowed up in it; but looking at the Light, which discovers them, ye will see over them. That will give victory, and ye will find grace and strength; there is the first step to peace. That will bring salvation; by it ye may see to the beginning, and the 'Glory that was with the Father before the world began'; and come to know the Seed of God, which is the heir of the promise of God, and of the world which hath no end; and which bruises the head of the serpent, who stops people from coming to God. That ye may feel the power of an endless life, the power of God which is immortal, which brings the immortal soul up to the immortal God, in whom it doth rejoice. So in the name and power of the Lord Jesus Christ, God Almighty strengthen thee."G. F."

"G. F."

This note follows the letter:

"When the foregoing paper was read to Lady Claypole, she said, it stayed her mind for the present. Afterwards many Friends got copies of it, both in England and Ireland, and read it to people that were troubled in mind; and it was made useful for the settling of the minds of several."

[110]This was the persecution which called forth Milton's great sonnet:"Avenge, O Lord! thy slaughtered saints whose bonesLie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold."

[110]This was the persecution which called forth Milton's great sonnet:

"Avenge, O Lord! thy slaughtered saints whose bonesLie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold."

"Avenge, O Lord! thy slaughtered saints whose bones

Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold."

[111]This was Cromwell'sSecond Parliament.

[AJ]Harvey was "groom of the bed chamber."

[112]This visit of Fox to Cromwell is treated in Carlyle's Oliver Cromwell, Vol IV., pp. 199, 200. Oliver Cromwell died September 3d, 1658. This "waft" or whiff of death which Fox felt was not the only forewarning of his end which came to Friends. A letter was delivered into Cromwell's hand a month before his death, which contained these words: "If thou continueth in thy oppression, the Lord will suddenly smite thee." See Burrough's "Good Counsel and Advice Rejected by Disobedient Men."

[113]Isaac Penington was one of the finest, richest spirits that came under the influence of Fox. He was highest in social rank of all the early Friends, and after Fox himself the best exponent of the fundamental Quaker idea.

[114]This "Church-faith (so-called)" was a "Declaration of the Faith and Order owned and practiced in the Congregational Churches in England: Agreed upon and consented unto by their Elders and messengers in their meeting at the Savoy, October 12th, 1658." Fox's reply has the following title: "Something in Answer to that Book called, The Church-Faith: Set forth by Independants (sic) and others; agreed upon by Divine messengers at the Savoy in London."

[115]From being Cromwell's most intimate friend Sir Harry Vane had become his most fearless opposer, and an advocate of extreme republicanism. After the downfall of Richard Cromwell, Vane had a brief return to influence and power. In September, 1659, he was made President of the Council, and was in this position the executive head of the nation in civil affairs. This episode must, therefore, be dated in the autumn of 1659.

[116]This epistle begins: "All Friends everywhere keep out of plots and bustling and the arm of flesh." A little later he writes again:"Stand in the fear and dread of the Lord God; His power, life, light, seed and wisdom, by which ye may take away the occasion of wars, and so know a kingdom which hath no end, and fight for that with spiritual weapons, which takes away the occasion of the carnal; and there gather men to war, as many as ye can, and set up as many as ye can with these weapons. G. F."

[116]This epistle begins: "All Friends everywhere keep out of plots and bustling and the arm of flesh." A little later he writes again:

"Stand in the fear and dread of the Lord God; His power, life, light, seed and wisdom, by which ye may take away the occasion of wars, and so know a kingdom which hath no end, and fight for that with spiritual weapons, which takes away the occasion of the carnal; and there gather men to war, as many as ye can, and set up as many as ye can with these weapons. G. F."

[117]After leaving London, he had travelled extensively through the eastern and southern counties, revisiting Cornwall, where he had had such a long experience in Launceston jail in 1656.

[118]These great meetings were at this period held out of doors, in fields or orchards, or on some high hill.

[119]This meeting for the affairs of the Church, held at Skipton, in Yorkshire, in 1659, is generally considered to be the original yearly meeting.

[120]"Naked" means naked to the waist. There are a few other instances of similar actions in England and America.

[121]This is the beginning of what was later known as the "Meeting for Sufferings," which has been throughout its history a remarkable body. The minutes of the Meeting for Sufferings date from Fifth month 22d, 1675.

[122]This is the second time the striking character of his eyes has been commented on.

[123]This was just at the troublous time when Charles II. was coming to the throne, and the kingdom was being reorganized. Every traveller was suspected, and every gathering of people was watched.

[124]George Fox never admitted that the Quakers were a sect, nor did any Friend of the first fifty years. There was but one Church, composed of those who obeyed the Light and in whom Christ dwelt, and of this Church Fox and his followers claimed to be members. This position has been ably put in Thomas Hancock's "Peculium"—a Prize Essay.

[125]Margaret Fell was now the head of Swarthmore Hall, Judge Fell having died in 1658. As the arrest was made from her house she felt herself implicated in the false charge. She wrote a vigorous letter about the case to the proper magistrates.

[AK]Nuneaton was only two miles from his home at Drayton, but he seems not to have stopped for a visit.

[126]In 1658 Fox had written: "I went to Reading, where I was under great exercises and sufferings, and in great travail of spirit for about ten weeks." This was apparently over the disturbed political situation, and he tells us that at this time he "had a sight and sense of the king's return."

[127]Poor George little realized how futile this promise was to prove, or how soon the whips of Oliver were to become scorpions under the new order of affairs.

[128]In this instance Fifth-monarchy men, whose insurrection brought on the new persecution.

[129]Fox wrote a tender letter to the sufferers in prison, and "a Declaration from the harmless, innocent people of God called Quakers" was sent to the King.

[130]These Friends, in their use of signs and striking symbolisms, were undoubtedly following in the steps of the Hebrew prophets. Both William Sympson and Richard Sale were squeezed in Little Ease, the latter, being very stout, came to his death as a result. "Little Ease" was a hole hewed out of a rock; the breadth across seventeen inches; from the back to the inside of the great door at the top seven inches; at the shoulders, eight inches; at the breast, nine and a half inches; from the top to the bottom, one yard and a half, with a device to lessen the height for purposes of torture.

[131]We have already seen how frequently George Fox had what nowadays are called telepathic experiences.

[132]Whittier has beautifully told the story of Samuel Shattuck's mission in his poem, "The King's Missive." Longfellow has made the sufferings of the Quakers the subject of his dramatic poem, "New England Tragedies." The story of Quaker sufferings is told in George Bishop's "New England Judged." The best modern book on the subject is Hallowell's "Quaker Invasion of Massachusetts." Four Friends were executed—William Robinson, Marmaduke Stevenson, William Ledra and Mary Dyer.

[133]Here is the title page to this curious old book which is now very rare, and is much valued by collectors:"A Battle-Door for Teachers & Professors to learn Singular and Plural; You to Many, and Thou to One: Singular One, Thou; Plural Many, You, Wherein is shewed forth by Grammar, or Scripture Examples, how several Nations and People have made a distinction between Singular and Plural, And First. In the former part of this Book, Called the English Battle-Door, may be seen how several People have spoken Singular and Plural, As the Apharsathkites, The Tarpelites, The Apharsites, The Archevites, The Babylonians, The Susanchites, The Dehavites, The Elamites, The Temanites, The Naomites, The Shuites, The Buzites, The Moabites, The Hevites, The Edomites, The Philistines, The Amalekites, The Sodomites, The Hittites, The Midianites, &c. Also, in this Book is set forth Examples of the Singular and Plural About Thou, and You in several Languages divided into distinct Battle-Doors, or Forms, or Examples; English, Latine, Italian, Greek, Hebrew, Caldec, Syriack, Arabick, Persiack, Ethiopick, Samaritan, Coptick or Egyptick, Armenian, Saxon, Welch, Mence, Cornish, French, Spanish, Portugal, High-Dutch, Low Dutch, Danish, Bohemian, Slavonian, and how Emperors and others have used the Singular Word to One; and how the Word You (to one) came first from the Pope. Likewise some examples, in the Polonian, Lithvanian, Irish and East-Indian, Together with the Singular and Plural Words thou and you, in Swedish, Turkish, Muscovian and Curlandian tongues,—In the latter part of this Book are contained several bad unsavoury words gathered first for certain School Books, which have been taught Boyes in England, which is a Rod and a Whip to the School Masters in England and elsewhere who teach such Books. Geo. Fox, Jno. Stubbs, Benjamin Furley."London: Printed for Robt. Wilson, and are to be sold at his Shop at the Signe of the Black-Spread-Eagle and Wind-Mil in Martins le Grand 1660."

[133]Here is the title page to this curious old book which is now very rare, and is much valued by collectors:

"A Battle-Door for Teachers & Professors to learn Singular and Plural; You to Many, and Thou to One: Singular One, Thou; Plural Many, You, Wherein is shewed forth by Grammar, or Scripture Examples, how several Nations and People have made a distinction between Singular and Plural, And First. In the former part of this Book, Called the English Battle-Door, may be seen how several People have spoken Singular and Plural, As the Apharsathkites, The Tarpelites, The Apharsites, The Archevites, The Babylonians, The Susanchites, The Dehavites, The Elamites, The Temanites, The Naomites, The Shuites, The Buzites, The Moabites, The Hevites, The Edomites, The Philistines, The Amalekites, The Sodomites, The Hittites, The Midianites, &c. Also, in this Book is set forth Examples of the Singular and Plural About Thou, and You in several Languages divided into distinct Battle-Doors, or Forms, or Examples; English, Latine, Italian, Greek, Hebrew, Caldec, Syriack, Arabick, Persiack, Ethiopick, Samaritan, Coptick or Egyptick, Armenian, Saxon, Welch, Mence, Cornish, French, Spanish, Portugal, High-Dutch, Low Dutch, Danish, Bohemian, Slavonian, and how Emperors and others have used the Singular Word to One; and how the Word You (to one) came first from the Pope. Likewise some examples, in the Polonian, Lithvanian, Irish and East-Indian, Together with the Singular and Plural Words thou and you, in Swedish, Turkish, Muscovian and Curlandian tongues,—In the latter part of this Book are contained several bad unsavoury words gathered first for certain School Books, which have been taught Boyes in England, which is a Rod and a Whip to the School Masters in England and elsewhere who teach such Books. Geo. Fox, Jno. Stubbs, Benjamin Furley.

"London: Printed for Robt. Wilson, and are to be sold at his Shop at the Signe of the Black-Spread-Eagle and Wind-Mil in Martins le Grand 1660."

[134]These Friends undoubtedly believed that the principles of truth which they had discovered would ultimately prevail over the entire globe."Prester John's Country" was Abyssinia. Prester John was a legendary Christian priest, who was believed in the early Middle Ages to reign over this Eastern country. About this time Catherine Evans and Sarah Chevers, in their travels, were put in the inquisition-prison at Malta, from which Fox secured their release, through the influence of Lord D'Aubeny, a Roman Catholic.

[134]These Friends undoubtedly believed that the principles of truth which they had discovered would ultimately prevail over the entire globe.

"Prester John's Country" was Abyssinia. Prester John was a legendary Christian priest, who was believed in the early Middle Ages to reign over this Eastern country. About this time Catherine Evans and Sarah Chevers, in their travels, were put in the inquisition-prison at Malta, from which Fox secured their release, through the influence of Lord D'Aubeny, a Roman Catholic.

[135]Friends are married without clergyman or magistrate. The bridal couple stand up in a religious assembly, and, taking each other by the hand, promise to be husband and wife till death.

[136]It is estimated that at this time there were not less than 4,500 Friends in the prisons of England and Wales. This letter to the King is strikingly direct and straightforward.

[137]This was an act passed in 1662, "for preventing mischiefs and dangers that may arise by certain persons called Quakers, and others refusing to take oaths." The act declared it "altogether unlawful and contrary to the word of God" to refuse to take an oath, or to persuade another person to refuse to do so. It further made it an offense for more than five persons, "commonly called Quakers," "to assemble in any place under pretense of joining in a religious worship not authorized by the laws of this realm."

[138]This letter well illustrates the difficulties of George Fox's style. The letter manifests a profound and beautiful spirit, but the phraseology is none too clear. He means: "Dear Edward is living in God, who is invisible and unchangeable; settle your own lives down into that same living God whose divine presence manifested in Edward Burrough has begotten a spiritual life in you, and you will feel yourselves united in spirit and life with the dear departed one."

[AL]Truro.

[AM]"Truth" is used here and often in Friends' writings for theCAUSEwhich Friends represented.

[139]Most of the Quakers who suffered in prison during the reign of Charles were imprisoned for refusing to take the oath.

[140]This would be August of our calendar. Again the pen was busy during these weeks in jail, and many epistles and documents were written. A Baptist preacher, named Wiggan, who had been a great opponent of Fox, was brought into straits over the oath which he finally took. The episode furnishes this interesting entry:"This Wiggan was poor, and while he was prisoner at Lancaster he sent into the country, and got money gathered for relief of the poor people of God in prison; and many people gave freely, thinking it had been for us, when indeed it was for himself. But when we heard of it, we laid it upon him, and wrote into the country, that Friends might let the people know the truth of the matter, that it was not our manner to have collections made for us, and that those collections were only for Wiggan and another, a drunken preacher of his society, who was so drunk, that once he lost his breeches."

"This Wiggan was poor, and while he was prisoner at Lancaster he sent into the country, and got money gathered for relief of the poor people of God in prison; and many people gave freely, thinking it had been for us, when indeed it was for himself. But when we heard of it, we laid it upon him, and wrote into the country, that Friends might let the people know the truth of the matter, that it was not our manner to have collections made for us, and that those collections were only for Wiggan and another, a drunken preacher of his society, who was so drunk, that once he lost his breeches."

[141]"A præmunired person" is one who has incurred the penalty of being put out of the protection of the crown, of having his lands, goods, and chattels forfeited to the crown and of remaining in prison during the sovereign's pleasure.

[142]These "four chief religions which have been got up since the apostles' days" are respectively the Roman Catholic, the Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Independent, i. e., Congregational.

[143]Scarborough Castle is so nearly demolished that it is now impossible to locate the rooms in which Fox was confined. The room in which he was finally quartered was on the extreme seaside of the castle and has been entirely destroyed. This year of fearful imprisonment following the severe confinement at Lancaster nearly broke down his wonderful constitution. He never again had the same physical vigor and power. Note his healthy humor in the little joke with the Papist.

[144]George Fox had a very keen eye for "judgments" which came upon persons who abused him or hindered his work. It accords completely with the ideas of the time, and is one of the things which he had not transcended.

[145]This "sickness" was the London "plague" of 1665.

[146]This was Thomas Ibbett, of Huntingdonshire. He went distracted a little later, and, standing in Cheapside during the great fire, he tried to stop its progress with his outspread arms, so that he nearly perished in the flames. For a remarkable prophecy of the "great plague" see "Writings of George Fox the Younger," 1662, pages 219-221.

[AN]The days of Oliver Cromwell.

[147]In nothing did Fox show his originality and insight more clearly than in his work of organizing the Society which his ministry had drawn together. During his long imprisonment many internal difficulties had arisen, which showed that the Society was too loosely organized for a permanent work in the world. The rest of his life—twenty-four years—was mainly devoted to this work of perfecting the system of meetings and government, though hisministrymeantime in no way slackened. The first system of Discipline, printed in 1669 by his opponents, under the title, "Canons and Institutions," was drawn up soon after the release from Scarborough Castle.

[148]On this broad principle, ofteaching everything useful and civil in creation, the work of Friends began in the cause of education. The subsequent history of their educational work is notable.

[AO]1669.

[149]The "Bristol Register of Friends" shows the date of the marriage of George Fox to Margaret Fell to have been "Eighth month" 27th, 1669.

[150]During the next four years George Fox and his wife were almost continually separated from each other. About three months after their marriage Margaret Fox was thrown into Lancaster prison, where she was kept until a few weeks before her husband sailed on his memorable trip to the West Indies and the American colonies.

[151]In a very keen letter Fox told the magistrates that this act would have prevented the twelve apostles and the seventy disciples from meeting!

[152]This trial at the Old Bailey is reported in full in the Preface to the Works of William Penn. It is one of the most interesting episodes in his life, and, from a legal point of view, it is one of the most important jury trials of that century. William Penn had thrown in his lot with the Quakers definitely in 1666, though he had been influenced by the preaching of Thomas Loe while he was a student in Oxford University in 1659.

[AP]Near Rochester.

[153]This is another of the times in Fox's life when he underwent serious physical changes as a result of psychical disturbance.

[154]This was in 1669, about three months after their marriage. The sentence ofpræmunirewas passed against Margaret Fell in 1663, so that for about seven (Fox says ten) years she was the King's prisoner, and her estate was in jeopardy.

[155]He speaks of "the yearly meeting" as though it were a well-established institution. Norman Penney has sent me an interesting extract from Barclay's "Letters of the Early Friends," which traces the development of the yearly meeting:"There was a yearly meeting settled at Skipton in Yorkshire for all the northern and southern countries, ... and then the yearly meeting was removed to John Crooks, ... and afterwards the yearly meeting was kept at Bailey, in Yorkshire, and likewise at Skipton, in the year 1660. And from thence it was moved to London the next year, where it hath been kept ever since," p. 312 from a document said to have been by George Fox, but only since 1672 has it been held in London without intermission. The series of yearly meeting minutes commences 23d of Third month, 1671.

"There was a yearly meeting settled at Skipton in Yorkshire for all the northern and southern countries, ... and then the yearly meeting was removed to John Crooks, ... and afterwards the yearly meeting was kept at Bailey, in Yorkshire, and likewise at Skipton, in the year 1660. And from thence it was moved to London the next year, where it hath been kept ever since," p. 312 from a document said to have been by George Fox, but only since 1672 has it been held in London without intermission. The series of yearly meeting minutes commences 23d of Third month, 1671.

[156]Which would be August by the unreformed calendar.

[157]A Moorish pirate ship, named from Sallee, a seaport of Morocco. This incident not only indicates Fox's simple faith in God, but it also is a good illustration of the way in which he inspired confidence in others. The captain believes in him.

[158]As George Fox was too ill to travel, the meetings for worship and for business were held at the house where he was staying. At these meetings he gave much valuable counsel. Here he first met with slavery and dealt with it. "I desired them also that they would cause their overseers to deal mildly and gently with their negroes, and not use cruelty towards them, as the manner of some hath been and is; and that after certain years of servitude, they would make them free."

[159]In order that it might be positively clear that he "exalted Christ in all His offices," he wrote an extended Letter to the Governor of Barbadoes. The Letter takes the form of a declaration of faith and is often referred to as an authoritative statement of the belief of Friends. It was, however, not written for that purpose, and it is not by any means a full statement of their belief. It does not even mention the principle which held the leading place in all Fox's teaching and preaching. The Letter to the Governor was written to clear Friends from false charges, and it dwells solely on the points on which Fox is rumored to be unsound, or charged with dangerous teaching. The earliest "declaration of faith" of the Quakers was issued by Christopher Holder, John Copeland and Richard Doudney, from Boston prison in 1657. The earliest statement issued in England was Richard Farnsworth's "Confession and Profession of Faith in God," London, 1658.

[AQ]March 8th, 1672.

[160]John Burnyeat travelled extensively and did much valuable work in America. See the Journal of John Burnyeat, reprinted in Volume II. of Friends' Library.

[AR]Eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay.

[161]Local word for Indian chief or headman.

[AS]In Delaware.

[AT]That is, kindly-spirited.

[162]George Bishop, in "New England Judged," p. 351, says that New England Yearly Meeting was set up in 1661. John Burnyeat, who had attended it in 1671, says in his Journal, "It begins in the ninth of the Fourth monthevery year; and continues for much of a week, and is a general meeting once a year for all Friends in New England." The records for several years after its origin were destroyed by fire. They are, however, complete from 1683 to date.

[163]For an account of Fox's relations with Roger Williams see note in next chapter.

[164]"Shelter Island" lies at the Eastern end of Long Island, between Gardiner's Bay and Little Peconic Bay. Nathaniel Sylvester was the sole proprietor of the island, and he made it a shelter for persecuted Friends from New England.

[AU]Point Judith.

[165]Rye is now in New York State. The boundary between New York and Connecticut was long in dispute. At this time it seems Rye was in Governor Winthrop's territory.

[AV]Now Governor's Island.

[AW]In New Jersey.

[166]This narrative has sometimes been questioned and sometimes been taken to prove that Fox was an instrument in working miracles. Neither solution is satisfactory, or necessary. Recent medical annals give similar cases. A dislocated neck is not necessarily fatal. The incident shows again Fox's readiness in dealing coolly and skillfully with hard situations. He endeavors to do whatcanbe done.

[167]It is not easy to follow Fox's scanty itinerary. There are two Tinicum islands in the Delaware (it is called "Dinidock" in the first edition of the Journal). The crossing was probably made at the upper island, which is just in front of what is now the city of Burlington, though this would be hardly ninety miles from Middletown Harbour, as he estimates. He then travels down across the very country which Friends afterwards settled under the leadership of William Penn. There is evidence to show that the idea of forming in America a colony of Friends originated with George Fox. We learn from a letter of Josiah Coale, a Friend who had travelled extensively among the Indians, that George Fox had commissioned him to treat with the Susquehanna Indians for the purchase of a strip of territory. Fox's letter is not preserved, but Josiah Coale's answer is among the Swarthmore MSS., and is as follows: "Dear George,—As concerning Friends buying a piece of land of the Susquehanna Indians, I have spoken of it to them and told them whatthou saidconcerning it, but their answer was that there is no land that is habitable or fit for situation beyond Baltimore's liberty [i. e., beyond the domain of Lord Baltimore,] till they come to or near the Susquehanna fort, and besides William Fuller, who was the chief man amongst Friends with the Indians ... is withdrawn at present, ... so that without him little can be done at present with the Indians; and besides, these Indians are at war with another nation of Indians, who are very numerous, and it is doubted by some that in a little space they will be so destroyed that they will not be a people. Thine in the truth,Josiah Coale."This letter was written in 1660, twelve years before this American visit. About the same time William Penn's thoughts were turning in the same direction. Writing about Pennsylvania in 1681, he says: "This I can say, that I had anopening of joyas to these parts in the year 1661, at Oxford twenty years since." By a purchase made through John Fenwick and Edward Byllynge, Friends obtained possession of a great section of New Jersey in 1674, the year after George Fox arrived in England. There can be no doubt that his thoughts were on future settlements here as he travelled through what is now Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Josiah Coale."

This letter was written in 1660, twelve years before this American visit. About the same time William Penn's thoughts were turning in the same direction. Writing about Pennsylvania in 1681, he says: "This I can say, that I had anopening of joyas to these parts in the year 1661, at Oxford twenty years since." By a purchase made through John Fenwick and Edward Byllynge, Friends obtained possession of a great section of New Jersey in 1674, the year after George Fox arrived in England. There can be no doubt that his thoughts were on future settlements here as he travelled through what is now Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

[168]The "desperate river" was probably the Brandywine, and the Christiana "River" is Christiana Creek, formed from a junction of Red Clay and White Clay Creeks. It finds the Delaware about two miles below Wilmington. The Bohemia and Sassafras Rivers are two of the many arms of Chesapeake Bay. The "Kentish Shore" is the shore of Kent County, Maryland. Tredhaven (or Thirdhaven) is farther down the Bay, where the boats were so thick it seemed like the Thames! A meeting was established here which remains until the present time.

[AX]In Delaware.

[AY]Now St. Michael's.

[169]What is now called Baltimore Yearly Meeting was established in 1672.

[AZ]Now Somerton.

[BA]Now Chowan.

[BB]Now Roanoke.

[170]The letter began as follows:"Dear heart,"This day we came into Bristol, near night, from the sea; glory to the Lord God over all for ever, who was our convoy, and steered our course! who is the God of the whole earth, of the seas and winds, and made the clouds His chariots, beyond all words, blessed be His name for ever! He is over all in His great power and wisdom. Amen."

[170]The letter began as follows:

"Dear heart,"This day we came into Bristol, near night, from the sea; glory to the Lord God over all for ever, who was our convoy, and steered our course! who is the God of the whole earth, of the seas and winds, and made the clouds His chariots, beyond all words, blessed be His name for ever! He is over all in His great power and wisdom. Amen."

"Dear heart,

"This day we came into Bristol, near night, from the sea; glory to the Lord God over all for ever, who was our convoy, and steered our course! who is the God of the whole earth, of the seas and winds, and made the clouds His chariots, beyond all words, blessed be His name for ever! He is over all in His great power and wisdom. Amen."

[171]When George Fox married Margaret Fell she had one son, George, and seven daughters, as follows: Margaret, who married John Rous; Bridget, who married John Draper; Isabel, twice married, first to William Yeomans, and then to Abraham Morrice; Sarah, who married William Mead (Penn's companion in the famous trial), Mary, who married Thomas Lower; Susanna, who married William Ingram, and Rachel, who married Daniel Abraham.

[172]This is the beginning of a serious opposition to Fox's system of government, which finally grew to an open schism. It was headed by John Wilkinson and John Story. It was one of the most trying struggles of Fox's life.

[BC]That is, in reclaiming those who have gone astray.

[173]Margaret Fox and her daughter were sent on under the escort of a Friend, a merchant from Bristol, who, Fox says, "seemed to have met us providentially to assist my wife and her daughter in their journey homewards, when by our imprisonment they were deprived of our company and help." Fox had just received a message that his mother was in her last illness, and it had been his intention to part from his wife in Warwickshire and have a last visit with his aged mother. This privilege never came, for Mary Fox, of Fenny Drayton, died while her son was in Worcester prison.

[174]This is Chief Justice Sir Matthew Hale.

[175]It will be noticed that Fox is set at liberty on the errors in his indictment, and not on a judicial decision that it is illegal to imprison on apræmunire.

[176]George Fox was now only fifty-one years old, but he was prematurely broken by the sufferings and exposures which only such an iron constitution as he possessed could have endured for thirty years. He still had fourteen years to live, but from now on a decided change appears. There is no cessation of activity, but it is activity of a quieter sort. Only one important mission journey falls in these years—the visit to Holyland and Germany. Henceforth he makes his pen speak for him. Epistles and books are the main results of these fourteen years. The Journal grows dry and devoid of dramatic interest, and our gleanings from it will be few. He is much at Swarthmore or at Kingston, near London, where Margaret Rous, a daughter of his wife, lived.

[BD]1677.

[BE]Worminghurst.

[177]Fox did not see Roger Williams in Providence, though the latter had a personal tilt with John Burnyeat at Newport in 1671. After George Fox had left Providence and had gone back down the Bay with his companion, Nicholas Easton, governor of Rhode Island, Roger Williams rowed to Newport with a challenge to a debate. Fox, however, had already left the island, and was well on his way toward Long Island. Williams then wrote, what Fox elsewhere calls "Roger Williams's 'Book of Lyes,'" a book bearing the grimly humorous title, "George Fox digged out of his Burrows," Boston, 1676. (See Publications of the Narragansett Club, Vol. V., pp. xx.-xlv., Providence, 1872.) Fox and Burnyeat reply to this "slanderous book" in a sixty-five-page pamphlet entitled, "A New England Fire Brand Quenched." Fox seemed not to know just where the famous "apostle of soul liberty" lived, as he says, "a priest of New England (or some colony thereabouts!)"

[BF]Whither they had gone for some religious service.

[178]This Galenus Abrahams was a Mennonite and a man of considerable note. Sewell, the Quaker historian, who had himself been a disciple of Abrahams, tells us that in this discussion, which lasted five hours, the latter maintained the position that "nobody nowadays could be accepted as a messenger of God unless he confirmed the same by miracle." (See Sewell's "History of Friends," Vol. II., page 368, edition of 1823. See, also, Barclay's "Religious Societies of the Commonwealth," pages 174, 251.) During his second visit to Holland, Fox had another interview with the famous Mennonite which gives an interesting side light on the penetrating power of Fox's eyes, already noticed. "Before I left I went to visit one Galenus Abrahams, a teacher of chief note among the Mennonites, or Baptists. I had been with him when I was in Holland about seven years before and William Penn and George Keith had disputes with him. He was then very high and shy, so that he would not let me touch him, nor look upon him (by his good will), but bid me 'Keep my eyes off him, for,' he said, 'they pierced him.' But now he was very loving and tender, and confessed in some measure to truth; his wife also and daughter were tender and kind, and we parted from them very lovingly."

[179]He had previously had a trying time with opponents who were "very unruly and troublesome" in some meetings held at the home of his friend Thomas Ellwood, at Hunger Hill, near London.

[180]This is an interesting letter to John III. of Poland, in which are given many passages from the words of sovereigns, both ancient and modern, in behalf of liberty of conscience. The letter is an able and valuable document, written, as the writer says, "in love to thy immortal soul and for thy eternal good." It closes with this postscript:"Postscript.—'Blessed be the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' And remember, O king, Justin Martyr's two Apologies to the Roman emperors, in the defence of the persecuted Christians; and that notable Apology, which was written by Tertullian, upon the same subject; which are not only for the Christian religion, but against all persecution for religion."

"Postscript.—'Blessed be the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' And remember, O king, Justin Martyr's two Apologies to the Roman emperors, in the defence of the persecuted Christians; and that notable Apology, which was written by Tertullian, upon the same subject; which are not only for the Christian religion, but against all persecution for religion."

[BG]1680.

[BH]1682.

[181]Here is a beautiful letter to those who are suffering:"Dear, suffering lambs, for the name and command of Jesus; be valiant for His truth, and faithful, and ye will feel the presence of Christ with you. Look at Him who suffered for you, who hath bought you, and will feed you; who saith, 'Be of good comfort, I have overcome the world'; who destroys the devil and his works, and bruises the serpent's head. I say, look to Christ, your sanctuary, in whom ye have rest and peace. To you it is given not only to believe, but to suffer for His name's sake. They that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution by the ungodly professors of Christ Jesus, who live out of Him. Therefore be valiant for God's truth upon the earth, and look above that spirit that makes you suffer, up to Christ, who was before it was, and will be when it is gone."

[181]Here is a beautiful letter to those who are suffering:

"Dear, suffering lambs, for the name and command of Jesus; be valiant for His truth, and faithful, and ye will feel the presence of Christ with you. Look at Him who suffered for you, who hath bought you, and will feed you; who saith, 'Be of good comfort, I have overcome the world'; who destroys the devil and his works, and bruises the serpent's head. I say, look to Christ, your sanctuary, in whom ye have rest and peace. To you it is given not only to believe, but to suffer for His name's sake. They that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution by the ungodly professors of Christ Jesus, who live out of Him. Therefore be valiant for God's truth upon the earth, and look above that spirit that makes you suffer, up to Christ, who was before it was, and will be when it is gone."

[BI]In 1683.

[BJ]On First-day at the Savoy.

[BK]Spring of 1684.

[182]The journal of the second visit to Holland gives little matter of fresh interest. The visit lasted from the 31st of May to the 16th of July, 1684.

[183]This letter to the Duke of Holstein ends as follows:"I entreat the duke to consider these things. I entreat him to mind God's grace and truth in his heart that is come by Jesus; that by his Spirit of Grace and truth he may come to serve and worship God in his Spirit and truth; so that he may serve the living eternal God that made him, in his generation, and have his peace in Christ, that the world cannot take away. And I do desire his good, peace, and prosperity in this world, and his eternal comfort and happiness in the world that is everlasting. Amen.G. F."London, 26th of the 8th Month, 1684."

[183]This letter to the Duke of Holstein ends as follows:

"I entreat the duke to consider these things. I entreat him to mind God's grace and truth in his heart that is come by Jesus; that by his Spirit of Grace and truth he may come to serve and worship God in his Spirit and truth; so that he may serve the living eternal God that made him, in his generation, and have his peace in Christ, that the world cannot take away. And I do desire his good, peace, and prosperity in this world, and his eternal comfort and happiness in the world that is everlasting. Amen.

G. F.

"London, 26th of the 8th Month, 1684."

[184]The Duke of Monmouth, illegitimate son of Charles II., landed in Lyme, in Devonshire, hoping to secure the throne, but he was defeated at Sedgemoor and captured July 6th, 1685.

[185]On the 16th of May James II. issued a warrant commanding that all Quakers who had been convicted on charges ofpræmunire, or for not swearing, or for not going to church, should be released. By the execution of this warrant about fifteen hundred Quakers were set free. Naturally the yearly meeting which followed was a happy time. This "Order of Release" is preserved in the Archives in Devonshire House in London. It is written on eleven skins of vellum, with the king's portrait at the top. In the list is the name of John Bunyan, who got included in this Royal Pardon.

[BL]September, 1688.

[186]This letter was written October 17th, 1688. William landed in England November 5th, 1688.

[BM]March, 1689.

[BN]November, 1690.

[187]This epistle, the last he ever wrote, closes with a triumphant note and an optimistic outlook on the world:"Christ the Seed reigns; and His power is over all, who bruises the serpent's head, and destroys the devil and his works, and was before he was. So all of you live and walk in Christ Jesus; that nothing may be between you and God, but Christ, in whom ye have salvation, life, rest and peace with God."As for the affairs of truth in this land and abroad, I hear that in Holland and Germany, and thereaway, Friends are in love, unity, and peace: and in Jamaica, Barbadoes, Nevis, Antigua, Maryland, and New-England, I hear nothing, but Friends are in unity and peace. The Lord preserve them all out of the world (in which there is trouble) in Christ Jesus, in whom there is peace, life, love, and unity. Amen. My love in the Lord Jesus Christ to all Friends everywhere in your land, as though I named them.G. F."London, the 10th of the 11th month, 1690" (January 10th, 1691).

[187]This epistle, the last he ever wrote, closes with a triumphant note and an optimistic outlook on the world:

"Christ the Seed reigns; and His power is over all, who bruises the serpent's head, and destroys the devil and his works, and was before he was. So all of you live and walk in Christ Jesus; that nothing may be between you and God, but Christ, in whom ye have salvation, life, rest and peace with God.

"As for the affairs of truth in this land and abroad, I hear that in Holland and Germany, and thereaway, Friends are in love, unity, and peace: and in Jamaica, Barbadoes, Nevis, Antigua, Maryland, and New-England, I hear nothing, but Friends are in unity and peace. The Lord preserve them all out of the world (in which there is trouble) in Christ Jesus, in whom there is peace, life, love, and unity. Amen. My love in the Lord Jesus Christ to all Friends everywhere in your land, as though I named them.G. F."London, the 10th of the 11th month, 1690" (January 10th, 1691).

G. F.

"London, the 10th of the 11th month, 1690" (January 10th, 1691).

Back to Index Next