OF THE University of California. GIFT OF^ ^ccesiwn 8.6.71.6 Class ... ^ Hic GLIMPSES OF GEORGE FOX AND HIS FRIENDS. GLIMPSES OF GEORGE FOX AND HIS FRIENDS BY JANE BUDGE I) S. W. Partridge & Co., 9, Paternoster Row, E.C. The Orphans' Printing Press, 10 & 12, Broad Street. CONTENTS. Chapter. I. GEORGE FOX AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN II. GEORGE FOX AND HIS PRISONS III. GEORGE FOX AS A FOREIGN MISSIONARY IV. THE PENNINGTONS , V. PERSECUTION AND MARTYRDOM VI. THOMAS ELLWOOD VII. EARLY LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN VIII. WILLIAM PENN AND HIS HOLY EXPERIMENT IX. WILLIAM PENN's LAST DAYS X. A FEW MORE WORTHIES XI. WILLIAM EDMUNDSON AND FRIENDS IN IRELAND XII. ROBERT BARCLAY AND FRIENDS IN SCOTLAND XIII. WHAT THE EARLY FRIENDS TAUGHT Page. I 27 56 76 lOI 117 140 162 214 221 247 283 303 CHAPTER I. GEORGE FOX AND THE TIMES HE LIVED IN. " In one sense it is not difficult to sum up the character of George Fox. ... It is the character of a man entirely master of himself, because entirely servant of his God." — A. C. Bickley. T is not easy for us to go back in imagina- tion to the England of the seventeenth century. One advantage it had over the England of to-day in that there were much fewer people in it, so that they did not crowd together in large towns as they are apt to do in these times, but were widely scattered over the pleasant, beautiful country; and having more room to live in, they were not in so great a hurry as men are now. When we have said this, we have, perhaps, mentioned the only thing in which they were better off than we are. If the towns were smaller, they were often far dirtier and more un- wholesome than at present. It was so even in 2 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. London ; and though one sighs to recall a time when the citizens could walk out of an evening and listen to singing-birds, and start partridges in Whitechapel ; when the New River ran, or went (as Charles Lamb said) at "a moderate walking-pace" through hay-fields at Islington — yet let us remember that these charming places were infested after nightfall by highwaymen, a fact which must have somewhat marred the plea- sure of a moonlight stroll. And within the walls of the little London of our forefathers the open sewers wandered to the Thames, the tall, many- storied houses were packed together as if space were an object, while the summer heat was stifling in the narrow, rugged alleys which did duty for streets, and which were far more picturesque than healthy or agreeable. Then in the middle of the seventeenth century the political and religious life of England was in a turmoil. When George Fox began his ministry, many a green plain and heathery moor still bore traces of the stern Civil War which had steeped English soil in kindred blood. The best men on each side had been terribly in earnest. For the George Fox and the Times he Lived in. 3 sake of his King, many a gallant gentleman flung behind him all the pleasures and the luxuries in which he had been wont to share, and gave his means, himself, often his very life, to the cause which he held to be sacred. With a devotion as intense, and more grimly set, men both of high and low degree rallied to the side of the Parlia- nient. Cromwell's Ironsides seemed to be invin- cible, for they believed that they were fighting under the Lord of Hosts. We have to bear in mind that the conflict was almost as much religious as it was political. From the time of the English ] Reformation there had been two parties in the Protestant Church. They were united in rejecting the supremacy of the Pope, but in scarcely any- thing else ; for there were those who still clung to most of the Roman Catholic ritual, and were but little changed in the view with which they regarded priest, altar, and sacrament. The Puritans, on the other hand, longed to make a clean sweep of every form connected with the old faith. It has been said of them that their creed was the most " mas- culine " ever known in England. Their weakness lay in their want of breadth ; and many other evils 4 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. are bound up with mental narrowness. Forgetting that they were prone to err like other men, they looked upon themselves as commissioned to wield the sword of the Lord, and to execute His judg- r ments. The dividing line was sharply drawn be- i tween them and the Cavaliers who held with Archbishop Laud and the High Church party, yet when the struggle began the Puritans raised their standard in the name of the King and Par- liament, for they had no thought then of casting down the throne with its long tradition of historic splendour. But when Englishmen had once met face to face on the field of battle, events came quickly to pass one after another which might well have seemed impossible only a little while before. The whole country was soon like a troubled sea, and shaken to its very heart. King, Crown, the '^ House of Lords, the Established Church, went down in that great storm ; and through all the tumult, religious questions were discussed with fiery zeal, in hall and cottage, by the wayside, and by 'the camp fire, and the land swarmed with sects besides the two main Puritan divisions of Inde- pendent and Presbyterian. The Puritans had a George Fox and the Times he Lived in. 5 wonderful capacity for listening to sermons. On a fast-day their chief ministers would begin their service at nine in the morning, and preach, pray, and expound until four in the afternoon, only stopping for about a quarter of an hour to take some food. Whatever were the faults of those times, luke- warmness Wcls not among the number. Merr con- tended fiercely and passionately for their own belief, too often ready and eager to trample piti- lessly upon those who disagreed with them, as though difference in doctrine were a crime that it was a duty to punish. It was in a world thus seething with excitement that George Fox sorrow- fully looked forth in his troubled youth and found no place of spiritual rest. He was born at Drayton-in-the-Clay, Leicester- shire, in the year 1624. His father's name was Christopher, a weaver by trade, and a man so up- right in his life and conversation, that he was known among his neighbours as " Righteous Christen" His rnother was a good intelligent woman, of more cultivation than was usual in her station, and had the blood of martyrs in her veins. Both parents 6 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. were staunch Presbyterians ; and the grave silent boy was trained in a strictly religious home, where he sought from childhood to be faithful to such light as he had. He was early a diligent student of the Bible, but his education hardly went beyond reading and writing. When he grew older there was talk of making him a minister. At last, how- ever, it was decided to apprentice hirti to a shoe- maker, who was likewise a grazier, and also dealt in wool. Fox was principally engaged in keeping sheep, no doubt a congenial occupation to his thoughtful, meditative mind ; and his conscientious- ness must have soon made itself felt, for his master trusted him largely, and in after-life he was able to say, " I never wronged man or woman in all that time." He was often laughed at for his seriousness, yet he saw that he was respected for his unswerving honesty and steadfastness. People used to say : " If George says verily^ there is no altering him." He appears to have had a little property, suffi- cient for his simple needs ; and hence no hindrance seems to have been put in his way, when in his mental perplexity, at the age of nineteen, he thought himself called to leave for a time his home George Fox and the Times he Lived in. 7 and friends. He speaks of " a strong temptation to despair," and of being " under great misery and trouble ; " also of different " professors " to whom he went, but without receiving any help or comfort. At last, finding that his parents and relations were grieved at his absence, he returned from his wanderings to Drayton-in-the-Clay, with as burdened a heart as he had taken thence. Many remedies were prescribed for his relief Some advised him to marry ; others to enter an auxiliary band of soldiers ; while, somewhat later, an "ancient priest " counselled him to take tobacco and to sing psalms. But *' tobacco was a thing I did not love, and psalms I was not in a state to sing ; I could not sing." Year after year passed, and no aid came to him from priest or preacher, until, in 1647, he says : " I saw there was none among them all that could speak to my condition. When all my hopes in them, and in all men, were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could I tell what to do ; then, oh, then I heard a voice which said, ' There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition ; ' and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy. Then the Lord let me see why there 8 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. was none upon the earth that could speak to my condition, namely, that I might give Him all the glory ; for all are concluded under sin, and shut up in unbelief, as I had been, that Jesus Christ might have the pre-eminence, who enlightens, and gives grace, and faith, and power. . . . For though I read the Scriptures that spoke of Christ and of God, yet I knew Him not, but by revelation, as He who hath the key did open, and as the Father of Life drew me to His Son by His Spirit. Then the Lord gently led me along, and let me see His love, which was endless and eternal, surpassing all the knowledge that men have in the natural state, or can get by history or books ; and that love let me see myself, as I was without Him." Before this it had been " opened " to him " that being bred at Oxford or Cambridge was not enough to fit and qualify men to be ministers of Christ." Now, in the year 1647, when he felt his own bonds to be broken, he believed himself called to declare "truth" to professors, and began his mission at Duckingfield and Manchester, meeting with accept- ance from some, and with opposition from others. He says : " On a certain time, as I was walking in George Fox and the Times he Lived in. g the fields, the Lord said unto me, *Thy name is written in the Lamb's book of life, which was be- fore the foundation of the world,' and as the Lord spoke it I believed, and saw it in the new birth. "Then, some time after, the Lord commanded me to go abroad into the world, which was like a briery, thorny wilderness. . . . Priests and professors, magistrates and people, were all like a sea, when I came to proclaim the day of the Lord amongst them, and to preach repentance to them. ... I saw that Christ died for all men, and was a propitiation for all ; and enlight- ened all men and women with His divine and saving light ; and that none could be a true be- liever, but who believed in it. . . . Now when the Lord God and His Son Jesus Christ sent me forth into the world, to preach His everlasting Gospel and kingdom, I was glad that I was com- manded to turn people to that inward light. Spirit, and grace, by which all might know their salvation and their way to God ; even that divine Spirit which would lead them into all truth, and which I .i infallibly knew would never deceive any. But with \ and by this divine power and Spirit of God, and j) lO Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. the light of Jesus, I was to bring people off from all their own ways, to Christ the new and living way." He goes on to say how he was to call them from " the world's teachers," and from " the world's religions," and from " the world's fellowships, and prayings, and singings, which stood in forms with- out power ; " and from " Jewish ceremonies," and from " vain traditions." It needs not to be said that George Fox did not think that he had any new Gospel to proclaim ; that could not be if it were true. But he longed to strip off everything of man's device by which it was encumbered ; and he yearned to lift up all from teachings about Christ, to Christ Himself History shows that the early Friends had been anticipated at one time or another in almost all of their pecu- liar testimonies, and in the seventeenth century they held many of these in common with the early Baptists. But not from them nor from any others had George Fox learnt his faith. He had gone direct to Christ. And he lived his religion. He taught that the commandments of God were holy, and just, and true, and that when He demanded man's obedience to them He asked for no impos- George Fox and the Times he Lived in. 1 1 sible thing, but would give power to those who humbly sought it to walk worthy of their high calling. The hesitation of religious professors to re- ceive this doctrine often troubled him, finding them, as he expressed it, " pleading for sin." Once when he was at Derby he found that a colonel in the Parliamentary army was going to preach that day, and that officers and priests would be present. He felt " moved of the Lord " to go to them, and after their own service was over he spoke to them "what the Lord commanded." They heard him quietly ; but when he had finished took him before the magistrates, where he had a most lengthy examina- tion. He told them, "All their preaching, baptism, and sacrifices would never sanctify them, and bid them look unto Christ in them, and not unto men ; for it is Christ that sanctifies. Then they ran into many words, but I told them they were not to dispute of God and Christ, but to obey Him. The power of God thundered amongst them, and they did fly like chaff before it. They put me in and out of the room often, hurrying me backward and forward ; for they were from the first hour till the ninth at night in examining me. Sometimes they 12 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. would tell me in a deriding manner that I was taken up in raptures. At last they asked me whether I was sanctified. I answered, yes ; for I was in the paradise of God. Then they asked me if I had no sin. I answered, * Christ, my Saviour, has taken away my sin, and in Him there is no sin.' They asked how we knew that Christ did abide in us. I said, * By His Spirit that He has given us.' They temptingly asked if any of us were Christ. I answered, * Nay, we were nothing, Christ was ally A glorious confession of faith, whose grand sim- plicity could hardly be exceeded. Yet he was sent to the House of Correction for blasphemy ! He was detained for nearly a year, part of the time in the common prison ; and one shudders at the thought, recalling what prisons were in those days, their unspeakable loathsomeness and misery. Then he resumed his labours among people of every degree : " I directed them to the light of Christ, by which they might see their sins, and their Saviour Christ Jesus, the way to God and their Mediator, to make peace between God and them ; their Shepherd to feed them, and their Prophet to teach them. I directed them also to George Fox and the Times he L ived in. 1 3 the Spirit of God in themselves, by which they might know the Scriptures, and be led into all truth ; by which they might know God, and in it have unity one with another." Sometimes he was warmly welcomed, and his message received; and at other times he was treated very cruelly. Thus in a little town of Yorkshire, after he had "declared the word of life" in the street, when the dark night came on, he tried, first at the inn, and then at two private houses, to get "a little meat, and drink, and lodging for my money ; but they denied me." So, slaking his thirst with some water from a ditch, he sat down wearily among furze-bushes until the break of day. Then when he would have passed away from this inhospitable town before the sun was up, he was pursued by armed constables and brought back, the place being in an uproar about him. He availed himself of this forced return, again to warn the people to repent. It is a relief to hear that one kind "professor" took him into his house and gave him milk and bread, before he was taken nine miles to the nearest justice who was commonly drunk, even at that early hour of the day. He 14 Glimpses of George Fox and his Fi^iends. must have been sober on this occasion, for, to the amazement of those who stood by, he listened patiently while Fox, laying his hand on him, bade him repent and return to Christ, coming to that light which would make manifest his evil words and deeds. Presently he took Fox into a little parlour, and required to see whether he had any political papers. Fox at once opened the small package he carried with him, showing that he had only the clean and delicate linen, about which he was very particular; and the magistrate, remarking that such linen did not belong to a vagrant, set him at liberty. Then a man who had shown himself friendly from the time of Fox's capture, took him home with him, " exceedingly grieved " that he had not done so before, and desired him to have a meeting. But first, on the Sunday, Fox went to the " steeple-house " (this epithet was not pe- culiar to " Friends " ) and preached to priest and people, no man forbidding him. Then he had " a great meeting " at his entertainer's house, at which " many were convinced of the Lord's everlasting truth." But he met with very different usage when, a George Fox and the Times he Lived in. 15 little later, he essayed to give his message in the church at Tickhill ; for "the clerk up with his Bible, as I was speaking, and struck me on the face with it, so that my face gushed out with blood, and I bled exceedingly in the steeple-house, . . . and when they had got me out they beat me exceed- ingly, and threw me down, and over a hedge, and afterwards they dragged me through a house into the street, stoning and beating me as they dragged me along, so that I was all over besmeared with blood and dirt. They got my hat from me which I never got again. Yet when I was got upon my legs again I declared to them the word of life, and showed them the fruits of their teacher, and how they dishonoured Christianity." Then he went upon his way. That his preaching must sometimes have made a deep impression is plain, for we find him at Firbank Chapel sitting on the top of a rock with over a thousand people around him, to whom he " declared God's everlasting truth and word of life freely and largely for about the space of three hours, directing all to the Spirit of God in them- selves, that they might be turned from the darkness 1 6 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. to the light," etc. It was at this remarkable meet- ing that Francis Howgill, an accomplished clergy- man, and several others, who all became afterwards eminent ministers among the Friends, were con- vinced of their principles. It was in the same year, 1652, that Fox's journey ings brought him to Swarthmore Hall, an ancient manor house which was the home of a distinguished judge and estim- able man — Thomas Fell — who was then absent on circuit. His wife, the distinguished and gracious lady, Margaret Fell, extended her hospitality to Fox, as was the custom in her home to those who came as ministers of God. She was rather troubled to hear that he had great discussions with a minister who was also there. But the next day, being a fast-day, he came into Ulverstone Church where she and her household attended, and after the singing was ended asked and obtained leave to speak ; and standing on a form he preach- ed to the people. How it affected the congrega- tion generally we do not know, but Margaret Fell tells us that she sat down in her pew and " cried bitterly," so deeply was she impressed with the truth of what he said. Nor was she alone in this George Fox and the Times he Lived in. 17 feeling ; and we can hardly be surprised that Judge Fell returned home greatly displeased at the rumour which had reached him that all his family were becoming Quakers, and much prejudiced against the author of this change by hostile accounts with which he had been carefully sup- plied. Margaret Fell was a wise woman and a good wife. She does not seem to have argued with her husband, but simply desired that he would have an interview with Fox and form his own opinion ; and the judge was too just a man to refuse her reasonable request. The result was that — though he never united himself to the Friends as his wife and daughters did — from that day forward he gave them his powerful protection, and allowed them to hold their meetings in his house. He never attended these, but tradition says he would sit in another room with the door open so that he might hear what passed. Though Swarthmore Hall thus became a haven of rest to George Fox, he met with very different treatment in the town of Ulverstone. No doubt he had given great offence to many by his dis- courses in the " steeple-house ; " still, even there c 1 8 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. the people heard him quietly, until a certain justice of the peace incited them to violence, and the congregation was suddenly turned into a mob as brutal as mobs are wont to be. Fox was knocked down, kicked, trampled on, and then delivered over to constables, who, after dragging him some distance from the church, thrust him back into the midst of the furious crowd. By them he was beaten with stones, hedge-stakes, and holly-bushes, until he fell insensible to the ground. When he recovered he found himself lying on the wet common, and his assailants, who had thus vindi- cated their orthodoxy, standing around him. He lay still for a little space, then " stood up again in the strengthening power of the eternal God, and, stretching out my arms amongst them, I said with a loud voice, * Strike again, here are my arms, my head, and my cheeks."* The offer was accepted, and such a terrible blow given him on the back of his hand, that the onlookers thought that his arm was paralysed for ever, but in a few minutes he was able to use it again. " I was in the love of God to them all that had persecuted me," he says ; and when he was somewhat restored he went into the George Fox and the Times he Lived in. 19 market-place and preached to them there. An indignant soldier drew his sword to protect him, but it is needless to add that he declined the well- meant championship. When at last he reached the friendly shelter of Swarthmore Hall he found its household engaged in binding up the wounds which his friends had received in the riot, which we may be sure would never have taken place if Judge Fell had not been absent on circuit. Two or three weeks afterwards Fox was attacked in as cowardly a manner at Walney Island. When he landed from his boat about forty men rushed at him with clubs and fishing-poles, who, at first, sought to force him back into the sea ; the cause of their fury being that he was reported to have bewitched a man named James Lancaster. As Fox lay stunned upon the shore this man's wife threw stones at him, while her husband tried to shield him with his own body, no doubt thereby confirming her belief that it was a case of witch- craft. When Fox had escaped with his life from this inhospitable island, he had a like reception on the mainland, being met by a lot of the townsfolk armed with pitchforks and flails, who were shout- 20 Glimpses of George Fox afid his Friends. ing, " Kill him, knock him on the head." After they had beaten him, they drove him out of the town. He says : " I being now left alone, went to a ditch of water, and having washed myself, for they had besmeared my face, hands, and clothes with miry dirt, I walked about three miles to Thomas Hutton's house. . . . When I came in I could hardly speak to them, I was so bruised." When Judge Fell returned home he was disposed to take action in the matter, and began to issue warrants. He would have had evidence from George Fox, but the latter was not inclined to give any, speaking of the outrages from which he had suffered " as a man that had not been concerned " in them. It was in 1654 that he had his first interview with Oliver Cromwell, who always received him with kindness and respect. It came about in this way. There were rumours of a plot against the Protector, which caused all unauthorised collections of people to be closely watched ; and when the Friends were assembling for a meeting at Whit- stone, some troopers sent by a Colonel Hacker appeared upon the scene. They arrested George George Fox and the Times he Lived in. 21 Fox ; and on his promising to answer for all the rest, the others were allowed to disperse quietly. He was taken before the colonel and a number of military officers, with whom he had a long theo- logical discussion. At its close the colonel told him that he might go home, but must not have any more meetings. He refused his liberty on these conditions, so Hacker decided to send him to Oliver ; and he travelled slowly up to London in charge of a Captain Drury, who took lodgings for him at " ' The Mermaid,' over against the Mews at Charing Cross." Then Captain Drury went to the Protector, and brought back word that all he demanded of George Fox was a written engage- ment not to take up arms against him ; which, of course. Fox was very willing to give ; and after doing this he was conducted to Whitehall. He was a very personable man to go before the rulers of the earth. He seems to have had a good bearing, was above the ordinary height, his hair curling on his shoulders, and with such expressive grey eyes that we find a man whom he was reprov- ing, exclaim, " Do not pierce me so with thine eyes ; keep thy eyes off me." No doubt his 22 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. dress was very simple, but we hear of no peculiar- ity in it except the historical " leathern breeches," which were assumed only because they would better endure the wear and tear of the hard life he led. He entered Cromwell's presence-chamber with the apostolic greeting, " Peace be in this house." He then went on to give the Protector a long exhortation, and they had much religious dis- course. When at last the entrance of others caused Fox to think that it was time to withdraw, as he turned away Cromwell caught his hand and said, with tears in his eyes, " Come again to my house, for if thou and I were but an hour of a day together, we should be nearer one to the other ; " " adding that he wished me no more ill than he did to his own soul." Captain Drury followed Fox to tell him that he was free to go whither he would ; and then, by his master's order, invited him to stay and dine with the gentlemen of the Protector's household. "I bid them let the Protector know I would not eat of his bread, nor drink of his drink. When he heard this, he said, 'Now I see there is a people risen and come up that I cannot George Fox and the Times he Lived in. 23 win either with gifts, honours, offices, or places ; but all other sects and people I can.'" Fox did not stay much longer at the " Mermaid," where he had preached to priests, professors, officers of the army, etc., who came to see him ; but he went into the city, "where we had great and power- ful meetings ; so great were the throngs of people that I could hardly get to and from the meetings for the crowds of people." Before he left London he felt it right to go to Whitehall again, where he " preached truth " to the officers and the gentlemen who formed the Protector's guard ; and would have had another interview with Cromwell himself, but was prevented by attendants. It would be hard to find a more thoroughly brave spirit than was that of George Fox. The noble epitaph that was spoken over John Knox, might have been uttered with equal fitness over him : " Here lies one who never feared the face of man.'' He is near Evesham ; and hears that the magistrates there have prepared a new pair of stocks for his particular use. The very night this fact is confirmed to him, he goes to Evesham, and has "a large, precious meeting ;" the next morning 24 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. visits two prisons in the town where Friends are confined ; and as he turns his horse's head to ride away, the magistrates make a show of arresting him, but nothing is done, and he departs in safety. It needs not to be said that he did not seek luxu- rious living wherever he might be. He was re- markably abstemious ; but he does comment on the poverty of a little Welsh inn where he and his companion stopped for one night, and were charged eightpence for themselves and their two horses. He adds that the horses would not eat the oats, but does not mention how himself and his friend liked their fare. A little farther on, his righteous indignation is aroused, by catching the ostler filling his pockets with the oats which had just been measured out for Fox's horse. "A wicked thievish people," he says, "to rob the poor dumb creature of his food. I would rather they had robbed me." We began this chapter with a few words about the state of England when George Fox com- menced his ministry. We will close it with a page or two on the condition of the country after the restoration of Charles H. in 1660, when Fox was XJHIVK.KSITT rT I George Fox and the Times he Lived in. 25 thirty-six years of age, and in the midst of his career. Life under the Puritans was often a grave and serious — not to say sombre — thing. The best of them were grand men and women, cramped by their creed, but lifted above the common level by their intense sense of the reality and infinite value of eternal things. The Independent party were |; much more liberal than the Presbyterian ; though // there were few then, except the Quakers, who/ demanded absolute religious freedom as the right of all. Now it is easy to see that when men who despised and condemned many of the recreations of the day had the upper hand, they pressed some- what hardly on the tastes and amusements of a large part of the community. There were those, doubtless, who, when sobriety was in vogue, followed it like any other fashion ; there were some who conformed to advance their own inter- ests, and many more submitted to restraint because they could not help it ; but all these were longing to break their bonds. So when Charles II. came back, — careless and pleasure-loving, with scarcely any moral scruples, — it was as if a flood of license and frivolity had been let loose. The court 26 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. became a scene of riotous living, and had many imitators ; though we may be sure that there was a wide-spread life in England which remained untainted. At first the Restoration boded well for the Friends. Although Cromwell was no persecutor he had rarely interfered to protect them, and at the time of his death there were 700 in prison. These were all liberated by the King, but they had hardly begun to rejoice in this royal boon before their hopes were dashed to the ground by an outbreak of the Fifth Monarchy Men. The latter were very few in number, and probably more mad than wicked, but advantage was taken of this con- temptible rising, and the panic it occasioned, to molest the Nonconformists generally, who utterly condemned the riot and had no connection what- ever with it. It was on the Quakers, however, that the storm burst with most pitiless severity. CHAPTER II. GEORGE FOX AND HIS PRISONS. ' The great King still with grace doth fill And make a hovel bright ; Shines dungeon wall like palace hall When that He giveth light." NCE, when visiting Colchester Castle, where the boy-saint James Parnel was done to death, the writer, who was under the impression that George Fox had also been imprisoned there, inquired of the custodian if this were so. He replied that there was no record of any such event, though he thought that George Fox had seen the inside of most of the prisons in England. It was a strong way of putting it, but doubtless, Fox had a large and terrible experience of such places ; and it may not be amiss for us "who sit at home at ease" — an ease, in part, purchased for us by the sufferings of such as he — to refresh our recollections of this portion of his career. 28 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. It was at Nottingham, in the year 1649, when he was twenty-five years of age, that he passed his novitiate in prison life. It was on a Sunday morning that he drew near to the town, and from the top of a hill, he tells us, that he " espied the great steeple-house," and felt that thither he must go that day. We are apt to forget, that for a man out of the pulpit to speak in a church or chapel was not in those times indecorous, as it would be considered now. George Fox was hardly out of order in the mere fact of essaying to speak in such a place, but he interrupted the preacher in his ser- mon, and thus could be called guilty of "brawling." What he did say by way of correcting the priest's doctrine was so very unpalatable, that he was ar- rested on the spot. In the evening he was brought before the mayor, who "was in a peevish, fret- ful temper," and other officials. Finally the head sheriff sent to bring him to his house, and his wife met Fox with the words : " Salvation is come to this house." He was treated in a manner corres- ponding with this reception. " Great meetings " were held there, and were attended by many per- sons of good position in the world. The sheriff George Fox and his Prisons. 29 proved the reality of the impression made on his own mind, by at once making restitution to a per- son whom he had wronged in a business transac- tion. Afterwards he felt called upon to preach repentance to others ; and as he was not the only one of Fox's converts who engaged in this work, and who included the magistrates in their warn- ings, we are not surprised to find that the origina- tor of these changes was soon restored to his prison. He does not tell us how much longer he remained there, but when he was liberated he pur- sued his journey, and soon got into trouble again at a " steeple-house ; " and after being cruelly beaten, some of the missiles employed being Bibles, he was put in the stocks for hours. But what were all these things to a man to whom, as he went upon his way not long afterwards, the word of the Lord came, saying, ''My love was always to thee, and thou art in My love!' In a little while he was committed to the House of Correction at Derby, for a period of six months, on a charge of blasphemy. It was not a very strict imprisonment, as he not only sent forth several letters to the magistrates and others during 30 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. that time, but had discourses and arguments with " divers professors " who came to him for that pur- pose. The gaoler, who was, we are told, " a high professor," at first manifested much enmity against him ; but at last he showed a very different spirit. George Fox says : " Towards the evening he came up into my chamber and said to me, * I have been as a lion against you ; but now I come as a lamb, and like the gaoler that came to Paul and Silas trembling.' And he desired that he might lodge with me ; I told him that I was in his power, he might do what he would ; but he said, nay, he would have my leave, and he could desire to be always with me, but not to have me as a prisoner ; and he said 'he had been plagued, and his house had been plagued for my sake.' I suffered him to lodge with me, and then he .told me all his heart. . . . When the morning came he rose, and went to the justices, and told them that 'he and his house had been plagued for my sake : ' and one of the justices replied that the plagues were on them too for keeping me." After this he was given leave to walk to the distance of a mile from the prison, in the hope that George Fox and his Prisons. 31 he would avail himself of the opportunity to escape, but it is needless to say that he scorned the idea, though he rejoiced in thus being able to preach in market-place and street as he felt called to do so. Just then fresh troops were being raised at Derby, and the soldiers declared that they would have no captain but George Fox. It seems to have struck the authorities that by acceding to this request they would, in a very handsome way, get rid of an embarrassing prisoner ; and with com- plimentary words he was offered the appointment. His uncompromising refusal roused their wrath, and he was removed to the common dungeon, where, in a filthy place, without any bed, and with thirty felons for his companions, he was kept for six months longer. At the beginning of the win- ter of 165 1 he was released. He now kept clear of prisons until 1653, when he was arrested at Carlisle on the old charge of blasphemy, etc. He seemed to be considered a very dangerous person, for three musketeers were set to guard him. He hoped to be brought before the judges at the assizes, but they left him in the hands of the magistrates, who, as soon as the 32 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. judges were gone, had him placed in a loathsome dungeon among thieves, murderers, and moss- troopers. But Fox tells us, " bad as the place was, the prisoners were all made very loving and sub- ject to me." The gaoler was extremely brutal. " One time he came in a great rage, and beat me with a great cudgel. . . . While he struck me, I was made to sing in the Lord's power ; and that made him rage the more. Then he fetched a fiddler, and brought him in where I was, and set him to play, thinking to vex me thereby ; but while he played, I was moved in the everlasting power of the Lord God to sing, and my voice drowned the noise of the fiddle, and struck and confounded them, and made them give over fiddling and go their way." A few pages further on in his Journal, George Fox tells us : " Not long after this the Lord's power came over the justices, and they were made to set me at liberty." Before this, however, the governor, accompanied by Anthony Pearson, came down to see the dungeon, expressed great dis- pleasure at its condition, and sent one of the gaolers there to try it for himself George Fox and his Prisons. 33 About two years later we read of George Fox travelling with another Friend in Cornwall. They set forth one day from the little ancient town of Marazion or Market Jew, on the beautiful shores of Mount's Bay, intending to cross the narrow neck of land which separates it from the grand North coast ; and on their journey they gave away a copy of a short paper which George Fox had written for distribution in the Land's End district. It turned out that the recipient was a servant of one of the magistrates, Major Ceely, and in con- sequence the Friends were arrested at St. Ives, and sent off guarded by some mounted troops to Launceston, in the eastern part of the county, and by slow stages reached their destination, and were given in charge to a gaoler. " Now was there no friend," George Fox pathetically says, *'nor friendly people near us ; and the people of the town were a dark, hardened people." But he found more soft- ness and more openness to receive light than he had anticipated, for many persons came to see them from the town and neighbourhood, and many were " convinced." They had to wait nine weeks for the assizes, and when the time came the 34 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. greatest excitement prevailed about the trial of the Quakers. It had been popularly reported that George Fox would be hanged, and the soldiers had much difficulty in bringing the two prisoners through the crowd that lined the street. They were speedily engaged in a controversy with the judge concerning their hats ; and afterwards efforts were made to commit them on charges ludicrous in their transparent falseness. For one thing George Fox was accused by Major Ceely of having pro- posed to him to raise 40,000 troops to upset the Government, giving details on the matter, which George Fox showed would, if they were true, in- volve the major also. At last the two Friends were fined for not taking off their hats — an offence which seems very insignificant after an attempt to convict one of them of treason — and they were sent back to prison to be kept there until the fine was paid. When the gaoler found that he could get no more money out of them, " he grew," we are told, " very wicked and devilish," and put them into a horrible dungeon, called Doomsdale, so unspeak- ably noisome as generally to ruin the health of George Fox and his Prisons. 35 those who were incarcerated there ; and into this place, where it would have been grossest brutality to imprison the worst criminal, the two Quakers were thrust. They were told that the place was haunted, " But," says George Fox, " I told them that if all the spirits and devils in hell were there I was over them in the power of God, and feared no such thing ; for Christ, our Priest, would sanctify the walls and the house to us." There is some- thing sublime in this conviction that the presence of Christ could hallow even that loathsome spot. Doubtless it was not the only occasion when George Fox might have used the triumphant language : "But I, amid the torture, and the taunting, I have had Thee ! Thy hand was holding my hand fast and faster, Thy voice was close to me, And glorious eyes said, ' Follow Me, thy Master, Smile as I smile thy faithfulness to see.' " When the time came for the sessions to be held at Bodmin, the Friends sent a statement of their misery and suffering to the magistrates there assembled, which at once brought relief. They also wrote to the Protector respecting their ill- 36 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. treatment by the soldiers, and he sent an order to the governor of Pendennis Castle to inquire into the matter. George Fox says, " This was of great service in the country, for afterwards Friends might have spoken in any market or steeple-house thereabouts, and none would meddle with them." Indeed, this imprisonment at Launceston was the means of "a great convincement " in the county. They preached to the people on the pleasant Castle green where they had now liberty to walk ; and it is delightful to think how refreshing it must have been to these sorely tried men to breathe the pure sweet air again, and to feast their eyes with the far-reaching view from the height on which stands the picturesque ruin of Launceston Castle. The exact duration of their imprisonment is not made clear in George Fox's Journal ; but as it began in 1655, and did not end until July, 1656, it could not have been a short one. At last they were freely set at liberty. George Fox remained at large until the year 1660, when he was arrested at Swarthmore Hall, accused of sedition, and taken to Lancaster. The prevailing political excitement was some excuse George Fox and his Prisons. 37 for the absurd suspicion ; it was no excuse for the illegal and brutal treatment which he received. One of the gaolers was, Fox tells us, " exceedingly- rude and cruel." The high-handed manner in which he had been seized in the house of Margaret Fell, made her feel that her rights had been invaded, and she resolved to go to London and represent the case to the King. Meanwhile George Fox was, to use his own words, "an innocent sufferer in bonds, and close prisoner in Lancaster Castle." The result of Margaret Fell's mission was an order that he should be removed to London under a writ of Habeas Corpus, but the local authorities at Lancaster availed themselves of an error in the wording of the writ, and delayed obedience to it. Then they talked of sending him up with an escort of cavalry. " I told them if I were such a man as they had represented me to be, they had need send a troop or two of horse to guard me." This plan was relinquished on account of its expense, and it was suggested that the gaoler and a few bailiffs might conduct him to London in safety. But it was decided that the cost of this arrangement would be too great. 38 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. George Fox then came to their assistance : " I said, if they would let me go up with one or two of my friends to bear me company, I might go up and be in London such a day, if the Lord should permit, and if they desired it, I, or any of my friends that went with me, would carry their charge against myself" And to this proposal, grand in its beauti- ful simplicity, the sheriff assented ; thereby bear- ing the highest testimony that it was possible to bear to the spotless uprightness of the man accused of such evil deeds. Some will remember that when in due time he appeared in the Court of King's Bench, he found the judges "cool and loving." The indictment was read ; and when that part of it was reached which charged him with seeking to embroil the nation in blood and raise a new war, he stretched out his hands — those clean hands that had wrought good and not evil all the days of his life — and exclaimed, " I am as innocent as a child concerning the charge, and have never learned any war postures." They knew that he spoke the truth, and an order of release was sent by the King, so that he was set at liberty after being a prisoner for about five months. George Fox and his Prisons. 39 We have not seen the last of George Fox's prisons ; but before following him to more of them we will quote a passage from the description of a visit to Lancaster Castle in the spring of 1886, by the Rev. P. T. Forsyth.* After describing the beauty of the wide-spread view over sea and shore, he continues thus : — " We went down from the roof and visited the dungeons. When we came to one of them, our guide said, * This is where George Fox was confined.' All of a sudden I felt a kind of fear. I felt I was on holy ground, the walls were holy, and it was holy dimness that crept around. If George Fox lay days and nights here, then somebody had been here far greater and grander than he. George was a man who spoke much with Jesus, and who saw and heard Jesus as it is given to few either to hear or see. If George Fox lay here in the dark it was not dark for him. Jesus had been here. These windowless walls had shone once as the sun shines not on the sunniest hills. To George Fox there had been a light in that cell such as never was upon sea or land. He was one of the men who were * See Sunday Magazine for July, 1886. 40 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. much in prison, and who were haunted, absolutely haunted with glory, and filled with the Light of men. We are freer to-day because of George's prisons ; and his prisons were more bright and open to him than most men's liberty, because of the visitation of Jesus to his soul." We left George Fox just released from Lancaster gaol ; we will resume his companionship on his way to imprisonment at Leicester. On this occasion he, and several other Friends, had been arrested in a private house at Swannington, under a very free rendering of the Conventicle Act, as at the time they were not holding a meeting at all, though Lord Beaumont, with a company of soldiers, had rushed into the hall, crying, " Put out the candles, and make fast the doors," as if they had secured very dangerous culprits. When brought before him the next day, George Fox pointed out the illegality of the proceeding, whereupon Lord Beau- mont tendered him the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. When all other plans for ensnaring Friends failed, it was well known that this would succeed, as they steadily refused to take an oath under any circumstances whatever. Finally, in George Fox and his Prisons. 41 this case, the question of swearing was dropped, and Lord Beaumont made out a mittimus to the effect that they " were to have had a meeting^' and on this halting charge ordered them to be con- veyed to Leicester gaol. But a new difficulty arose. The people at Swannington were busy with their harvest, and said that no one could find time to escort them, probably very glad of the excuse. Then it was proposed that the Friends should go alone, carrying their mittimus, as had often been done before ; but they declined to give their help, and at last an unwilling labourer was pressed into the service, and he set off with the five Friends, who as they rode through town and country, some of them with open Bibles in their hands, told those whom they met that they " were prisoners of the Lord Jesus Christ, going to suffer bonds for His name and truth's sake." One woman Friend carried her spinning-wheel in her lap, which seems to hint pathetically at little chil- dren left at home to suffer for lack of their mother's handiwork, and we are not surprised to be told that " the people were mightily affected." At Leicester they were taken first to an inn 42 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. where the landlord was anxious to keep them, being most unwilling that they should go to prison ; but they gratefully declined his kindness, and were turned over to the gaoler of whom they had a very bad report. After a while a Friend of the town came to see them while they were still in the prison-yard where they had been left all day. Of him George Fox asked the pertinent question, whether the gaoler or his wife was master ? And being told that the wife was master, and that though she was mostly confined to her chair by lameness, yet that she kept her husband in order with her crutches, he at once saw that this ener- getic woman who so maintained her authority under difficulties, would be the right person to apply to ; and after some negotiation with her they were furnished with a room. Before this latest consignment of Friends ar- rived, when those who were previously in prison held meetings together, the gaoler had been in the habit of coming in with his staff and his mastiff- dog to attack anyone who engaged in prayer. On these occasions the mastiff instead of helping him used to take the staff out of his hand, showing that George Fox and his Prisons. 43 he had much the finer instinct of the two. But when Sunday came after George Fox's arrival, he bade one of his companions take a stool into the yard and give notice of a meeting. " So the debtors and prisoners gathered in the yard, and we went down, and had a very precious meeting, the gaoler not meddling." The sessions came on, and the Friends, twenty in all, were put on their trial. Everything seemed going against them when to their surprise they were all suddenly set at liberty. How far this result was brought about by the fact that Lord Hastings had written an order for the liberation of George Fox, was not ascertained, as Fox had not delivered the letter which was in his possession. Then for a little while George Fox walked at large, until it was time for him to turn his face towards Lancaster, where he had promised to appear at the ensuing sessions, he having been again arrested and ordered to return there. One wonders if it ever struck the persecutors how the work of magis- trate and gaoler would be simplified, if all prison- ers could be trusted to wander over the country at their own cost, sure to come up for judgment when 44 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. wanted. On this occasion he was committed to prison for refusing to take the oath of allegiance, and remained there until the assizes. When his turn came to answer the question why sentence should not be passed upon him, he replied that he was no lawyer, but had much to say if the judge had patience to hear ; and then he went on point- ing out error after error in the indictment, so glaring and fatal to its validity, that every mistake was at once admitted from the bench, and the judge told him that he was entirely free. " But then," starting up in a rage he said, " I can put the oath to any man here, and I will tender you the oath again." Of course this trick was successful, and George Fox was committed to prison until the next assizes. The directions given by Colonel Kirby to the gaoler, were to this effect : "To keep him close and suffer no flesh alive to come at him, for he was not fit to be discoursed with by men." The colonel had cause to be satisfied with the way in which his directions were carried out, for Fox was imprisoned under three locks in a tower, where he was nearly smothered with smoke, and where in stormy weather the rain poured in upon George Fox and his Prisons. 45 his bed. " In this manner," he says, " did I lie, all that cold long winter, till the next assize ; in which time I was so starved with cold and rain, that my body was greatly swelled, and my limbs much benumbed." When the assizes were held they brought to him no relief, for he was illegally re-committed. But his persecutors wished to get rid of him, and sent him to Scarborough Castle. Soon after leaving Lancaster he was put under the charge of a troop of soldiers, and they, as well as other soldiers he met with on the way, behaved very well to him. To use his own words, they were "civil and loving," and certainly these adjectives would not describe the recent bearing of civilians towards him. Arrived at Scarborough he was at first a little better lodged ; but he was soon put into a room exposed to the rain, and where again he was nearly stifled with smoke. When he had spent fifty shillings in trying to have the place made habitable, he was removed to another cell. This was on the side of the castle open to the sea and exposed to the wind, so that sometimes the rain was driven in to such an extent that it 46 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. would be running about the floor. No Friends were allowed to see him, but other persons were permitted to see and argue with him. After a time the governor grew "kinder," and when the latter went up to London, George Fox requested that his case might be mentioned to some mem- bers of Parliament to whom he was known. These showed much respect for him, one of them saying that he would be willing to go a hundred miles barefoot to obtain Fox's liberty. Ever after- wards the governor was " very loving " to him. When he had lain for more than a year in Scar- borough Castle, George Fox wrote to the King ; and intercession being made for him, a royal order was sent down for his discharge. The governor parted from him with an assurance that he would never do Friends any hurt. Fox adds, " He con- tinued loving to his dying day. The officers also and the soldiers were mightily changed, and become very respectful to me, and when they had occasion to speak of me, they would say, ' He is as stiff as a tree, and as pure as a bell, for we could never bow him.' " They were right. He was altogether beyond their power ; and we George Fox and his Prisons. 47 may believe that their hearts were touched with his noble endurance. His brethren showed a like spirit. He tells us : " Friends never feared their acts, prisons, gaols, houses of correction, banishment, nor spoiling of goods, nay, nor the loss of life itself ; nor was there any persecution that came, but we saw in the event it would be productive of good ; nor were there ever any prisons that I was in, or sufferings, but it was for the bringing multitudes out of prison ; though they who imprisoned the truth, and quenched the Spirit in themselves, would imprison and quench it without them ; so that there was a time when so many were in prison, that it became as a by-word, 'truth is scarce anywhere to be found but in gaols.' " It was in 1666 that George Fox was discharged from Scarborough Castle. He kept his freedom until 1673, when he was sent to Worcester gaol for taking part in "a very large and precious meeting" in a barn. He had to arrange, in consequence of this imprisonment, for the escort to the North of his wife and her daughter ; for in 1669, he had married the gently-born mistress of Swarthmore 48 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. Hall, after he had carefully ascertained that her children approved of the step, and that their inter- ests were in no way prejudiced thereby. When she had reached her home he wrote to her thus from Worcester gaol : " Dear Heart, thou seemedst to be a little grieved when I was speaking of prisons, and when I was taken ; be content with the will of the Lord God. For when I was at John Rous's at King- ston, I had a sight of my being taken prisoner, and when I was at Bray Doily's in Oxfordshire, as I sat at supper, I saw I was taken ; and I saw I had a suffering to undergo. But the Lord's power is over all ; blessed be His holy name for ever ! " He was brought up at the sessions, and then removed under a writ of Habeas Corpus to the King's Bench. Margaret Fox's son-in-law, Thomas Lower, who had stood by him gallantly throughout, was appointed as deputy under-sheriff to conduct him to London. They set forth in winter weather, " the ways being very deep, and the waters out." The day after his arrival he appeared before the judges. Here there was none of the bullying and George Fox and his Prisons. 49 brutality with which he had become so familiar. All was going on favourably, when some of his enemies, seeing that he was likely to escape out of their hands, moved that he should be sent back to Worcester. They had four counsellors to plead against him, who succeeded in carrying their point. He was told that he might put in bail to appear at the Worcester sessions, and to be of good be- haviour in the meantime. "I told them I never was of ill behaviour in my life." He adds, " Only this favour was granted me that I might go down my own way, and at my own leisure, provided I would be, without fail, there by the following assize." This was to begin on the second of February. He stayed in and about London till toward the latter end of January, 1674, and then went down leisurely (" for I was not able to abide hasty and hard travelling"), and came into Worcester on the last day of January, being the day before the judges came to town. Two days after, he tells us : " I was brought from the gaol to an inn near the hall, that I might be in readiness if I should be called. But not being called that day, the gaoler came to me at night and told me I might go 50 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. * home ' (meaning to the gaol). Whereupon Gerrard Roberts of London being with me, he and I walked down together to the gaol without any keeper. Next day, being brought up again, they set a little boy of about eleven years old to be my keeper." The judge asked him what he desired } To which George Fox replied : " My liberty, according to justice." It seems as if this reasonable request might have been acceded to, but again there was sinister influence at work, and the case was referred back to the sessions, with an order that the justices should settle the matter themselves. Some of these justices, George Fox tells us, "were very loving, and promised that I should have the liberty of the town, and to lodge at a Friend's house till the sessions ; which accordingly I had, and the people were very civil and respectful to me." When in court, at the next quarter sessions, he characterised his indictment as " a great bundle of lies," which doubtless accurately described its contents. The chairman managed to get him sent to prison again, but his colleagues were of a better mind ; and in two hours' time George George Fox and his Prisons. 51 Fox was given his liberty until the next sessions. With a copy of the indictment he went up to London, and tendered an affirmative declaration of the same purport as the oaths of allegiance and supremacy ; but the judges declined to interfere. " Meanwhile," he says, " the Yearly Meeting of Friends came on, at which, through the liberty granted me till the sessions, I was present, and exceedingly glorious the meetings were beyond expression ; blessed be the Lord." After they were over, he had to return to the very different atmosphere of Worcester quarter sessions. The result on this occasion was that through the malice of the chairman he was sent back to prison, where he was visited by several persons, among others by the son of the Earl of Salisbury, who was much troubled at the treatment which he had received. Margaret Fox now came from the North to be with him. He became very ill, and it seemed as though a larger freedom than man could give or withhold would soon be his. But he says : " One night, as I was lying awake upon my bed in the glory of the Lord, which was over all, it was said unto me, that the Lord had a great deal more 52 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. work for me to do for Him, before He took me to Himself" Strenuous efforts were made to obtain at least a temporary release, and this led to some favour being shown to him. Then his wife went to London and laid the case before the King in a personal interview. He was gracious, and referred her to his Lord-keeper, who told her that the King could only set her husband at liberty by a pardon, which he need not scruple to accept. But this George Fox would not do — " For I had rather have lain in prison all my days, than have come out in any way dishonourable to truth ; where- fore I chose to have the validity of my indict- ment tried before the judges." So once more he was taken up to London under a writ of Habeas Corpus, and brought before the Lord Chief Justice Hale and three other judges. Counsellor Corbet pleaded his cause. He showed first, that the im- prisonment was itself illegal, and then he so pulled to pieces that " bundle of lies " the indictment, that the judges declared it to be void, and that the prisoner ought to be discharged. An attempt was made to have the oaths tendered to him on the George Fox and his Prisons. 53 ground that he was a dangerous man ; but Sir Matthew Hale said he had indeed heard some such reports, but had also heard many more good reports of him ; and he was ordered to be re- leased. *'Thus, after I had suffered imprison- ment a year and almost two months for nothing, I was fairly set at liberty upon a trial of the errors in my indictment, without receiving any pardon, or coming under any obligation or engagement at all; and the Lord's everlasting power went over all to His glory and praise. Counsellor Corbet, who pleaded for me, got great fame by it, for many of the lawyers came to him and told him he had brought that to light which had not been known before, as to the not imprisoning upon a praemunire; and after the trial a judge said to him, 'You have attained a great deal of honour by pleading George Fox's cause so in court.'" This was in 1674. Thenceforth George Fox was a free man until his death in 1690. An allusion to the blessings of toleration would be a very trite and obvious comment here, and truly this religious freedom is such an unspeakable boon, that we, to whom it comes as naturally as 54 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. the air we breathe, have need to be reminded at how great cost our forefathers fought the battle of which we reap the victorious fruits. But too often, ** Lightly won is lightly held." We forget to number among our privileges the recognition of the inalienable right to meet to worship God when and where we will. As we see with what fervent hearts these men and women of the past gathered together under the shadow of dread penalties, to wait upon Him from whom was all their expectation, another question suggests itself. We are tempted to ask : If our assembling for divine worship now exposed us to the risk of heavy fines and cruel imprisonments, should we still have to acknowledge and deplore the miser- able attendance of our week-day meetings ? Would persecution fill them as in the days of old 1 But leaving this query for each one to answer for himself, we will close with a few words from a document endorsed, "An epistle of dear George Fox's, writ with his own hand," etc., which was not opened until after his death. The passage runs thus : " There is no schism, no division, no conten- tion, nor strife, in heavenly Jerusalem, nor in the George Fox and his Prisons. 55 body of Christ, which is made up of living stones, — a spiritual house. Christ is not divided, for in Him there is peace. Christ saith, ' In Me you have peace.' And He is from above, and not of this world ; but in the world below, in the spirit of it, there is trouble : therefore keep in Christ, and walk in Him. Amen." } CHAPTER III. GEORGE FOX AS A FOREIGN MISSIONARY. " England is as a family of prophets, which must spread over all nations, as a garden of plants, and the place where the pearl is found which must enrich all nations with the heavenly treasure, out of which shall the waters of life flow and water all the thirsty ground, and out of which nation and dominion must go the spiritually-weaponed and armed men to fight and conquer all nations, and bring them to the nation of God, that the Lord may be known to be the living God of all nations, and His son to reign, and His people to be one." — Epistle issued by Friends from Skip- ton in j66o. OME of US have seen, and some have not, the departure of a band of missionaries for a far-off field of labour in a strange land. But whether we have or have not been present on such occasion, we can picture to our- selves what the scene is like. There will be the stately well-equipped steamer in all the bustle and excitement of final preparations for the voyage ; there will be the throng of passengers bound on most varied errands, some hoping to find upon a distant shore the livelihood denied to them at home, some travelling on business, some seeking George Fox as a Foreign Missionary. 57 for health, some for pleasure, and others with exultant hearts eager to join dear ones who have gone before. And amongst them all will be the little group of missionaries, surrounded by relatives and friends, and representatives of the society which sends them forth on their untried, it may be, dangerous service ; for have not Patteson and Hannington won the martyr's palm on the mission- field in these latter days ? But the signal is given for all visitors to leave the vessel, and then there are hurried last fare- wells when a world of love and pain is told perhaps in a few parting words, or even in a silence more eloquent than speech, farewells that wring the hearts of some of the voyagers ; yet who amongst them all is to be pitied like him who has them not ? But the starting of the missionary expedition which we have in view, is very different from that described above. The only likeness is in the leave- taking which, we are told, was "in great tender- ness ; " for suffering, sorrowing human nature was the same in the seventeenth century, as it is in the nineteenth. But instead of the stately steamer there was in this case a small leaky vessel which 58 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. generally needed the use of the pumps night and day to keep her afloat ; and it was in this miserable craft that George Fox and twelve other Friends, one of them William Edmundson, and two of them women, sailed from Gravesend, whither he had come in a barge from Wapping. They were visited by a press-gang before they could clear from the Downs, and after they had been three weeks at sea (they were bound for the West Indies) they sighted a Sallee man-of-war about four leagues astern. George Fox says : " When the sun was going down, I saw the ship, out of my cabin, making towards us. When it grew dark we altered our course to miss her, but she altered also, and gained upon us. At night the master and others came into my cabin, and asked me what they should do. I told them I was no mariner, and I asked them what they thought was best to do. They said there were but two ways, either to outrun him, or tack about and hold the same course we were going before. I told them, if he were a thief, they might be sure he would tack about too ; and as for outrunning him it was to no purpose to talk of that, for they saw George Fox as a Foreign Missionary. 59 he sailed better than we. They asked me again what they should do, for (they said) if the mariners had taken Paul's counsel, they had not come to the damage they did. I answered, it was a trial of faith, and therefore the Lord was to be waited on for counsel. So retiring in spirit, the Lord showed me that His life and power was placed between us and the ship that pursued us. I told this to the master and the rest, and that the best way was to tack about and steer our right course. I wished them also to put out all their candles but that they steered by, and to speak to all the passengers to be still and quiet. About the eleventh hour in the night, the watch called and said, they were just upon us. This disquieted some of the passengers ; whereupon I sat up in my cabin, and looking through the port-hole, the moon being not quite down, I saw them very near us. I was getting up to go out of the cabin, but remembering the word of the Lord, that His life and power was placed between us and them, I lay down again. The master and some of the seamen came again, and asked me, if they might not steer such a point ; I told them they might do as they liked. By this 6o Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. time the moon was quite down, a fresh gale arose, and the Lord hid us from them ; and we sailed briskly on and saw them no more. The next day, being the first day of the week, we had a public meeting in the ship, as we usually had on that day throughout the voyage, and the Lord's presence was greatly among us. And I desired the people to mind the mercies of the Lord, who had delivered them ; for they might have all been in the Turks' hands by that time, had not the Lord's hand saved them." Whatever may be the experiences of the modern traveller in crossing the Atlantic, an unseaworthy vessel and a chase by a piratical man-of-war are not likely to be among them, nor yet will his voyage take over seven weeks, which George Fox's did before he landed at Barbadoes on the third of August, 1 67 1. By a vessel homeward bound he writes a letter to Friends in England, in which the following passages occur : " Be tender of God's glory, of His honour, and of His blessed and holy name in which ye are gathered. All who profess the truth, see that ye walk in it, in righteousness, godliness, and holiness; George Fox as a Foreign Missionary. 6i for * holiness becomes the house of God, the house- hold of faith.' And that which becomes God's house, God loves ; for He loves righteousness, the ornament which becomes His house, and all His family. Therefore see that righteousness run down in all your assemblies, that it flow to drive away all unrighteousness. This preserves your peace with God ; for in righteousness ye have all peace with the righteous God of peace, and one with another. "Every one that bears the name of the Anointed, that high title of being a Christian, named after the heavenly Man, see that ye be in the divine nature, made conformable unto His image. . . . Here translation is showed forth in life and con- versation, not in words only ; yea, and conversion and repentance, which is a change of the nature of the mind and of the heart, of the spirit and affections, which have been below, and come to be set above ; and so receive the things that are from above, and have the conversation in heaven, not that conversation which is according to the power of the prince of the air, that now rules in the disobedient. So be faithful ; this is the word of the Lord God unto you all." j 62 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. The letter ends with the following passage : " Much I could write, but am weak, and have been mostly since I left you. Burthens and travails I have been under, and gone through many ways ; but it is well. The Lord Almighty knows my work which He hath sent me forth to do by His everlasting arm and power, which is from ever- lasting to everlasting. Blessed be His holy name, which I am in, and in which my love is to you all." It was to the Governor of Barbadoes that George Fox addressed the long letter setting forth the views of Friends which is included in their book of " Doctrine and Discipline." After a stay of three months in that island they proceeded to Jamaica, where one of the party, Elizabeth Hooten, " a woman of great age, and who had travelled much in truth's service, and suffered much for it, departed this life." We must not attempt to follow the missionaries in their service here. The Southern portion of the United States was the part to which they now felt called, and on the eighth of January, 1672, they went on board a vessel bound for Maryland, but the wind being contrary, it was a week before they could get out of sight George Fox as a Foreign Missionary. 63 of Jamaica, and when at last they were able to proceed upon their voyage, they were followed by violent storms. George Fox adds : " But the great God, who is Lord of the sea and land, and who rideth upon the wings of the wind, did by His power preserve us through many and great dangers, when by extreme stress of weather our vessel was divers times like to be overset, and much of her tackling broken. And indeed we were sensible that the Lord was a God at hand, and that His ear was open to the supplication of His people." The voyage occupied between six- and seven weeks ; and a few days before reaching land they were caught in a great storm, and had to take off a number of people from a wreck, and with the in- creased demand on their already low stock of food it was soon wholly exhausted. " Whereupon George Pattison took a boat, and ventured his life to get to shore ; the hazard was so great that all but Friends concluded he would be cast away. Yet it pleased the Lord to bring him safe to land ; and in a short time after the Friends of the place came to fetch us to land also, in a seasonable time, for our provisions were quite spent." 64 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. After several large meetings, some of which were attended by persons of distinction, and one of them by Indians who " carried themselves very courteously and lovingly," it was thought better to divide into three parties "for the service of truth;" and George Fox with three other Friends, one of whom was George Pattison, set off to go to New England by land, "a tedious journey," he says, " through the woods and wilderness, over bogs and great rivers." Occasionally they rode for a whole day without seeing the face of man or woman, or any sign of human habitation. Sometimes they slept in the woods, sometimes received the hospi- tality of an Indian wigwam. After attempting to set matters straight in a meeting where " some bad spirits " had come to the front, they reached Rhode Island in time for the New England Yearly Meet- ing. George Fox speaks of both the men's and women's meetings as being very large and solemn, and adds : " Many weighty things were opened and communicated to them by way of advice, information, and instruction in the services relating thereunto, that all might be kept clean, sweet, and savoury amongst them. In these two meetings George Fox as a Foreign Missionary. 65 several men's and women's meetings for other parts were agreed and settled, to take care of the poor, and other affairs of the church, and to see that all who profess truth walk according to the glorious Gospel of God. When this great general meeting in Rhode Island was ended, it was somewhat hard for Friends to part, for the glorious power of the Lord, which was over all, and His blessed truth and life flowing amongst them had so knit and united them together that they spent two days in taking leave of one another, and of the Friends of the Island ; and then, being mightily filled with the presence and power of the Lord, they went away with joyful hearts to their several habitations in the several colonies where they lived." At one place where they stayed soon after leav- ing Rhode Island George Fox found that the magistrates had expressed a wish that they could afford to hire him as their permanent minister. "This was," he says, "where they did not well understand us, and our principles ; but when I heard of it, I said, ' it was time for me to be gone, for if their eye was so much to me, or any of us, they would not come to their own teacher.' For F 66 Glimpses of George Fox mid his Friends. this thing, hiring ministers, had spoiled many, by hindering them from improving their own talents ; whereas our labour is to bring every one to his own teacher in himself."' In the next paragraph he speaks of being troubled by what he calls " moschetos," which he explains to be "a sort of gnats or little flies." Then we have a meeting with Indians who " sat down like Friends and heard very attentively." Presently we find them on the water, bound for Long Island. First they have the tide against them, then dense fog, fierce storm, and heavy rain, and they are drenched with wet in their undecked sloop. Soon we get a description of a ride of thirty miles in New Jersey on the twenty-eighth of June, " through the woods and over very bad bogs, one worse than all the rest, the descent into which was so steep that we were fain to slide down with our horses, and then let them lie and breathe them- selves before they could go on. This place the people of the country called Purgatory." Verily there was none of the luxury of modern travelling here. While they were in New Jersey an interesting George Fox as a Foreign Missionary. 6/ episode is mentioned in which George Fox, with his calm self-possession, was the means of saving the life of a Friend from Barbadoes who had joined them. He was thrown from a horse, fell on his head, and broke his neck — so those about him said — who therefore made no attempt to restore him. George Fox tells us : " As I stood by him, pitying him and his family, I took hold of his hair, and his head turned any way, his neck was so limber. Whereupon I took his head in both my hands, and setting my knees against the tree I raised his head, and perceived there was nothing out or broken that way." Then exerting all his strength, he drew the neck back into its right position, and the man quickly began to breathe again. The next day he resumed his journey with them, through woods and bogs. In August they attended the general meeting for Maryland Friends, to which came other Protes- tants of different kinds, and some Roman Catholics. '' I went by boat every day four or five miles to the meeting," says George Fox, "and there were so many boats at that time passing upon the river that it was almost like the Thames. The people 68 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. said there were never so many boats seen there together in that country before. It was a very heavenly meeting wherein the presence of the Lord was gloriously manifested, and Friends were sweetly refreshed, the people generally satisfied, and many convinced ; for the blessed power of the Lord was over all ; everlasting praises to His holy name for ever ! " They visit Virginia in September, and presently we read : "After this our way to Carolina grew worse, being much of it plashy, and pretty full of great bogs and swamps, so that we were commonly wet to the knees, and lay abroad a-nights in the woods by a fire, saving that one of the nights we got to a poor house at Sommerton and lay by the fire. The woman of the house had a sense of God upon her." They stopped at the same place again about a fortnight later on their return to Virginia. " When we came near the house, the woman of the house seeing us, spoke to her son to keep up their dogs (for both in Virginia and Carolina they generally keep great dogs to guard their houses, living lonely in the woods), but the son George Fox as a Foreign Missionary. 69 said he need not, for the dogs did not use to meddle with these people. Whereupon, when we were come into the house she told us we were like the children of Israel, whom the dogs did not move their tongues against. Here we lay in our clothes by the fire, as we had done many a night before. Next day, before we went away, we had a meeting, for the people having heard of us had a great desire to hear us, and a very good meeting we had among them, where we never had one before ; praised be the Lord for ever ! After the meeting we hasted away. . . . We had travelled about a hundred miles from Carolina into Virginia, in which time we observed a great variety of climates, having passed in a few days from a very cold to a warm and spring-like country. But the power of the Lord is the same in all, is over all, and doth reach the good in all ; praised be the Lord for ever ! " After "having many large and precious meetings in several parts of the country " they sailed in an open sloop for Maryland, but being caught in a storm and getting very wet were glad to get to land for the night. 70 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. " We returned to our boat in the morning, and hoisted up our sail, getting forward as fast as we could ; but towards evening a storm rising, we had much ado to get to the shore ; and our boat being open, the water flashed often in, and sometimes over us, so that we were sufficiently wetted. Being got to land, we made a fire in the woods to warm and dry us, and there we lay all that night, the wolves howling about us. On the first of the Eleventh month we sailed again, but the wind being against us we made but little way, and were fain to get to shore at Point Comfort, where yet we found but small comfort ; for the weather was so cold that, though we made a good fire in the woods to lie by, our water that we had got for our use was frozen near the fire-side. We made to sea again next day ; but the wind being strong against us, we advanced but little, but were glad to get to land again, and travel about to find some house where we might buy some provisions, for our store was spent. That night also we lay in the woods ; and so extremely cold was the weather, the wind blow- ing high, and the frost and snow being great, that it was hard for some to abide it." George Fox as a Foreign Missionary. 7 1 George Fox makes a passing reference to their being " very weary ; " and following an allusion to " a very precious meeting," comes the statement : " After this the cold grew so exceedingly sharp, the frost and snow so extreme, beyond what was usual in that country, that we could hardly endure to be in it. Neither was it easy or safe to stir abroad. . . . The twenty-seventh of the Eleventh month we had a very precious meeting in a tobacco house ; and the next day we returned to James Preston's, about eighteen miles distant. When we came there we found his house was burnt down to the ground the night before, through the carelessness of a maid servant ; " (could there be a more strik- ing instance of practical Christianity than the fact that this is his only comment on that unhappy girl } ) " so we lay three nights on the ground by the fire, the weather being very cold. We made an observation which was somewhat strange, but certainly true ; that one day in the midst of this cold weather, the wind turning into the south, it grew so hot that we could hardly bear the heat ; and the next day and night, the wind chopping back into the north, we could hardly endure the J 2 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. cold." After this George Fox speaks of "a glorious meeting" on the second of December. In a little while we find them again at sea, "and travelling by night we ran our boat on ground in a creek near Manaco River. There we were fain to stay till morning when the tide came and lifted her off. In the meantime sitting in an open boat, and the weather being bitter cold, some had like to have lost the use of their hands, they were so frozen and benumbed with cold. In the morning when the tide had set our boat afloat again, we got to land and made a good fire, at which we warmed our- selves well." The latest allusion to the Indians is under date of the twenty-fourth of January, 1673, when they were present at a meeting, during which, we are told : " They sat very grave and sober, and were all very attentive, beyond many called Christians." Presently we read : ** Having trav- elled through most parts of that country, and visited most of the plantations, having alarmed people of all sorts where we came, and pro- claimed the day of God's salvation amongst them, we found our spirits began to be clear of those George Fox as a Foreign Missionary. 73 parts of the world, and draw towards Old England again." They, however, thought it best to stay over the approaching general meeting for Maryland. George Fox writes : "After this meeting we took our leave of Friends, parting in great tenderness, in the sense of the heavenly life and virtuous power of the Lord, that was livingly felt amongst us ; and went by water to the place where we were to take shipping, many Friends accompanying us thither and tarrying with us that night. Next day, the twenty-first of the Third month, 1673, we set sail for England. . . . We had foul weather and con- trary winds, which caused us to cast anchor often, so that we were till the thirty-first ere we could get past the Capes of Virginia and come out into the main sea. But after this we made good speed, and on the twenty-eighth of the Fourth month cast anchor at King's Road, which is the harbour for Bristol. . . . Many sweet and precious meetings we had on board the ship during this voyage (commonly two a week), wherein the blessed presence of the Lord did greatly refresh us, and often break in upon 74 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. and tender the company. When we came into Bristol Harbour there lay a man-of-war, and the press-master came on board us to press our men. We had a meeting at that time in the ship with the seamen before we went to shore, and the press- master sat down with us and stayed the meeting, and was very well satisfied with it. After the meeting I spoke to him to leave two of the men he had pressed in our ship (for he had pressed four), one of whom was a lame man ; and he said, at my request, he would. " We went on shore that afternoon, and got to Shirehampton, where we got horses and rode to Bristol that night, where Friends received us with great joy. In the evening I wrote a letter to my wife, to give her notice of my landing, as followeth : " 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 chariot, beyond all words, blessed be His name for ever ! He is over all in His great power and wisdom. Amen. Robert Widders and James Lancaster are George Fox as a Foreign Missionary. 75 with me, and we are all well ; glory to the Lord for ever, who hath carried us through many perils, perils by water and in storms, perils by pirates and robbers, perils in the wilderness and amongst false professors ; praises to Him whose glory is over all for ever. Amen ! " George Fox's visit to America, which occupied about two years, was not his only foreign mission journey, for he went on the same errand both to Holland and Germany. Indeed the early Friends, both men and women, were often " moved to go beyond the seas to publish truth in foreign coun- tries ; " and this at a time when travelling was dangerous and difficult to an extent which we can hardly realize now. We are told of some strange expeditions to the East where, however, they were but little molested. It was in New England that they met with the most bitter persecution. CHAPTER IV. THE PENNINGTONS. "There is a sort of God's dear servants who walk in pe?fectness ; who perfect holiness in the fear of God ; and they have a degree of charity and divine knowledge more than we can discourse of, and more certain than the demonstrations of geometry." — ^Jeremy Taylor. ** The Law requireth a tenth part to be given up to the Lord ; the Gospel requireth all — soul, body, spirit, good name, etc. ; even that the possession be sold, and laid at the Master's feet." Isaac Pennington. T first those who were attracted to the early Friends were mostly persons in a humble position of life. We have seen that George Fox himself was one to whom had been given neither poverty nor riches, but that sufficiency for his simple needs which was equally removed from both. Though he pos- sessed remarkable mental endowments, yet, like the fishermen of Galilee, he owed hardly anything to cultivation. But in a little while the Quakers reckoned among their number men, who not only had great natural gifts, but who had benefited by the highest University education, to whom lay The Penningtons. yy open all the treasures of knowledge. More than this, they were gentlemen, tried by any standard that you will ; well-born and well-bred, who asso- ciated on an equal footing with some of the first rank in the land. One of these was the saintly Isaac Pennington. He was nine years of age when Charles I. ascended the throne, so that by the time he had reached manhood, the country was on the verge of the great Civil War. His father, Alderman Penning- ton, who had been high sheriff and lord mayor, was a strenuous supporter of the Parliament, and member for the city of London in 1640. We are told that the Tower was entrusted to his care, but there were strange reverses in those days, and after the Restoration he died a prisoner in the fortress where he had once been governor. / The career of the son was very unlike what his father had wished and intended. It is easy to understand that one having such a shrinking nature as Isaac Pennington, so sensitive on its spiritual side, would feel wholly unfit to take part in the stormy politics of a stormy age, though he had in large measure that passive courage which is. yS Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. perhaps, its hardest form. Nor was he indifferent (how could he be ?) to those public affairs which so closely affected the welfare of his fellow country- men. One of his publications, in 1665, is on the nature of government with reference to the exist- ing state of things, wherein he sums up his argu- ment with the decision that " absoluteness is best in itself, but limitations are safest for the present condition of man." He did not become a Friend until after he had passed his fortieth year, and therefore it is very interesting to find him express- ing himself thus on the sacredness of religious liberty, in one of his works written before that time : " The laws of Christ were never appointed to be set up by the power of man, but by the power of His Spirit in the conscience." Another of these earlier volumes is a treatise on the pas- sage — " The heart is deceitful above all things," etc., and in the preface he points out the tendency of parties and persons to be quicksighted in detecting the faults of others, and to be blind to their own. He describes his discourse as " Drawn with a dark pencil, by a dark hand, in the midst of darkness." These books were published when he used to put The Penningtons. 79 Esquire after his name on the title-page, an affix to which he had a right, and which had a meaning in those days. From his early childhood the heart of Isaac Pennington had longed after God, feeling that he could never be satisfied with the fashion of a world that must pass away. He loved to listen to ser- mons, and to read religious books, but especially the Scriptures, " which," he says, " were very sweet and savoury to me." He prayed much, and sought to obey faithfully the commands of God as revealed in the Bible. After a while the doctrines of elec- tion and reprobation troubled him exceedingly, dreading that after all the mercy and the grace which had been shown to him, he might yet be separated from the love of God for evermore. Harassed by this abiding torment, and by a sense of his short-comings, he spent many weary years and " fell," he says, " into great weakness of body ; and often casting myself upon my bed, did wring my hands and weep bitterly ; begging earnestly of the Lord daily that I might be pitied by Him, and helped against my enemies, and be made conform- able to the image of His Son, by His own 8o Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. renewing power." At last, when he was almost in despair, deliverance came to him ; " The Lord my God owned me, and sealed His love unto me, and light sprang within me : which made not only the Scriptures but the very outward creatures glorious in my eye ; so that everything was sweet, and pleasant, and lightsome round about me." And though he felt as if the fulness of this revelation were more than he could bear, and that he must ask of the Lord that a portion of it should be taken away, yet " truly He did help me to pray, and to believe, and to love Him and His appear- ances in any ; yea, to love all the sons of men, and all His creatures, with a true love." He now engaged himself most earnestly and prayerfully in building up a congregation of Inde- pendents, but before long separated himself from them " very lovingly," because suddenly all his comfort seemed withdrawn, and a time of spiritual darkness and intense mental distress followed. Then it was that he came in contact with some of the people called Quakers, on whom he had been wont to look down with disdain. Yet it was through them that he was permitted to obtain the The Penningtons. 8i blessing for which he panted, though enduring great conflicts both within and without, before he cast in his lot with them. "What I met with outwardly from my own dear father, from my kindred, from my servants, from the people and powers of the world . . . the Lord my God knoweth." But then he speaks of the compensation : " I have met with my God ; I have met with my Saviour ; and He hath not been present with me without His salvation ; but I have felt the healings drop upon my soul from under His wings." And again in wonderful words, such as are rarely found upon I human lips, he tells us : " / am satisfied at my very heart. Truly my heart is united to Him whom I longed after, in an everlasting covenant of pure life and peace." 1 It is plain that he grieved deeply over his father's anger ; and in a long pathetic letter, couched in language as tenderly respectful as it is firm and unyielding where it concerns obedience to God, he endeavours to reason with him. Near the close he alludes to the harshness and bitterness with which he had been addressed, and adds, " I confess it is somewhat hard to one part of me, that my own 82 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. father should deal thus with me." Presently he writes, " The Lord hath seized upon my heart by the power of His truth, and I can bow to none but Him ; no, not to my most dear father." But before we pursue the history of Isaac Pen- nington, we must turn our attention for a while to one whose life was united in the closest bonds to his ; although no other pen can tell the story of [Mary Pennington as she has told it herself. She 1 was born in 1624, the daughter of Sir John Proude, and being early orphaned, the lonely little heiress spent much of her childhood and youth in the home of her guardian, Sir Edward Partridge. She was only eight years old when her mind was much impressed with the text, " Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness." She even then thought prayer a great protection, but : having no idea that she might use her own words, she was accustomed to say the Lord's prayer if she ■ were frightened. She was about ten or eleven when a zealous maid, who waited on the children, would often read sermons to them. One of these on the words ''Pray continually I' struck her greatly, and perplexed her much. As soon as the others The Penningtons. 83 had left the room she flung herself on the bed and cried in bitter distress, " Lord, what is prayer ? " She did not know that it was possible to pray- without any set form, so though she had but lately begun to learn writing, and it was very laborious work, she set herself to write out a prayer which should express what she wanted, and she continued this plan for some time. But before long she was again dissatisfied, until it flashed into her mind that to speak to God in her own words, according to her need, was truly prayer. After this she would often kneel down, though harassed by a feeling that she had nothing to say. At last, when she was still only thirteen, there came to her a day of sore necessity which unlocked her lips. She was sitting at her work when a gentleman entered the parlour, and told the terrible story of the tremen- dous sentence just passed on Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton.* Her young heart was overwhelmed with pain and horror, and hastening into a room alone she shut the door, and on her knees poured out her soul to God. She rose up comforted ; and * For writing heretical books they were sentenced by the Star Chamber to stand in the pillory, to have their ears cut off, to be fined ;[^5,ooo each, and to be imprisoned for life. 84 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. " this was prayer which I never was acquainted with afore, either in myself, or from any one." Soon afterwards she was impelled to go and hear a minister who had once been suspended ; and listening to him she felt that he prayed, and was grieved that morning after morning, and night after night she knelt but could not pray. She longed to hear this minister again, and though for awhile she attended the parish church with the rest of the family once on the Sunday, yet in the after- noon she would walk two or three miles to the place where this Puritan preached ; and finally she I went to no other service. Her conduct in this •matter called forth great displeasure, she was blamed and reproved for her persistence, and no ' help was provided for her, so that this delicately- I nurtured little maiden went on foot in all weathers, 1 and alone, unless one of the servants, out of pity, ran after her lest she should be frightened. She I now felt unable to join in the forms used by the household at family prayer, and thereby gave much offence. Nor can we wonder at this, as probably those around her attributed to childish self-will what was really the result of conscientious scruples. The Penningtons. 85 It needs not to be said that as Mary Proude grew older, there was no lack of suitors for the hand of one so fair and so well dowered. But her affections had been early given to Sir William Springett, whom she had known from his boyhood, as his widowed mother and her children lived in the same house with herself She says that her " heart cleaved to him for the Lord's sake ; " he being the only person she knew of, in her own rank of life, who was of her way of thinking on religious matters. In addition to this, he had, she says, besides " gentleness, sweetness, compassion, afifableness, and courtesy, a courage that was with- out harshness or cruelty ; and an undaunted spirit such as was rarely found with the fore-mentioned excellencies." I She was about eighteen, and he not twenty- one when they were married. Gifted, beautiful, and young, and deeply attached to each other, there seemed more than the common measure of earthly happiness in store for them ; but two short years saw the beginning and the end of their married life. Lady Springett tells us, "We pressed much after the knowledge of the Lord, and walked 86 Glimpses of Geoi'ge Fox and his Friends. I in His fear." They did not shrink from putting ( into practice those views in which they differed ifrom those with whom they associated. Thus when their first child was baptized, Sir William had it carried several miles to a Puritan preacher, held it at the font himself, and in the presence of a great assembly, received " large charge " about its [education. A little later they came to the con- / elusion that neither baptism nor the Lord's Supper was to be celebrated outwardly ; and in their youthful zeal against forms of prayer, they tore out the service bound up with their Bibles. \ Sir William was a gallant officer in the Parlia- ment army ; and it was when his regiment was stationed near Arundel, after the siege of the grand I old castle, that he was taken ill with fever. The tidings were brought to his wife, and strong in a ■ love that had cast out all fear, she undertook the I formidable journey from London, at a time when the weather had rendered the roads well-nigh jimpassable. Her own most touching narrative has jtold of the anguish of that last meeting and last parting, which were both over within a few hours. Scarcely yet twenty, Lady Springett had passed The Penningtons. . 8/ through all the previous stages of a woman's life to widowhood. Her sorrow was inexpressible. A little comfort came to her some weeks afterwards, we may be ,sure, in the birth of her only daughter Gulielma Maria, destined hereafter to be widely known as the beautiful wife of William Penn. But if baby fingers soothed, they could not cure the gnawing pain at the young mother's heart. There seemed no effectual help for her either in earth or heaven. jShe could not see that any answer came to her I vehement prayers ; and the worthlessness of a merely conventional religion was constantly brought home to her mind by witnessing the lives of some of those around her. For a time she tried " every sort of notions" that arose in the religious world of that day ; and then in despair she sought to drown her trouble in the pursuit of dancing, music, card playing, and other amusements, yet still yearning I after God and truth. It was while in this unsettled j mental state that she met with Isaac Pennington, ! who was himself still walking in darkness and per- plexity. She was drawn to him at first by seeing / that he had as little confidence as she had in merely 88 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. formal religion. She says also, "A desire was in me to be serviceable to him in this his desolate con- dition ; for he was as one alone, and felt miserable in the world." After more than ten years of widowhood, she became his wife in 1654. / Mary Pennington had heard some account of the Quakers, just enough to excite her ridicule, though she could not help wishing to attend one of their meetings, believing that if she were with them when they prayed she " would be able to feel whether they were of the Lord or not." She re- I frained, however, as she would have been ashamed 'to be seen there. " But one day as my husband 'and I were walking in a park, a man that had been a little time at a Quakers' meeting spied us as he rode by, in our gay, vain apparel, and he cried out to us of our pride and such like, at which I scoffed." This uncompromising rebuker, neverthe- less, engaged in discourse with Isaac Pennington, being much attracted by his face ; and he after- wards sent two Friends, one of them named I Thomas Curtis, to call on them. Mary Pennington says, " They came in the authority and power of the Lord to visit us, and the Lord was with them, The Penningtons. and we were all in the room sensible at that time of the Lord's power manifest in them, and Thomas Curtis repeated this Scripture, that struck me out of all inquiries or objections, " He that will know my doctrine must do my commands." She could not get rid of these words. For months she was in sore distress, often saying to herself, " It is true I am undone if I come not to Thee ; but I will not come, for I must leave that which cleaveth close unto me ; I cannot part with it." Peace was given to her only with the willing- ness " to be a fool, a scorn, and to take up the cross to my honour and reputation in the world, which things cost me many tears, and night watchings, and doleful days, . . . but I re- ceived strength, and so went to the meetings of those people I intended never to have meddled with, and found them to be truly of the Lord, and my heart owned them, and honoured them, and longed to be one of them, and minded not the cost. ... I had heard the objection against them, that they wrought not miracles ; but I said they did great miracles in that they which were of the world, or in fellowship with it, came to turn 90 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. \ from it. . , . Though infirmities beset me, yet / my heart cleaveth to the Lord in the everlasting bond that can never be broken, and in His strength do I see those infirmities and bemoan myself unto Him, and feel that faith in Him which gives the victory and keeps low." Isaac Pennington has already told us of the experience which led him to the same goal as his wife. It is beautiful to observe how in his change he " found no narrowness concerning sects and / opinions." We have seen that he parted in much I love with the Independents when it seemed to I him that his path no longer lay with theirs, and he thus expresses himself long after he had joined Friends, " I am no disdainer of Papists, or any sort of Protestants, nay, not of Turks or Jews ; but a mourner because of their several mistakes, and a breather to the God of my life for tender mercy to- wards them all." This Christ-like feeling, so far re- moved from the spirit of that age, manifests itself very touchingly in a letter concerning his brother Arthur, who had become a Roman Catholic priest, and is addressed to a mutual friend through whom he had received a message : " I entreat thy son to The Penningtons. 91 acquaint my brother Arthur that I took very kindly and was glad of his affectionate expressions towards me, having been somewhat jealous that though my religion had enlarged my love towards him, yet his religion might have diminished his to me. . . . And whereas he saith that he is like me in speech, but most unlike me in opinions, pray tell him from me that my religion doth not lie in opinions. I was weary and sick at heart of opinions, and, had not the Lord brought that to my hand which my soul wanted, I had never meddled with religion. ... I would be glad, if the Lord saw good, that I might see my brother before I die, and if I did see him I should not be quarrelling with him about his religion, but em- brace him in brotherly love. As for his being a Papist, or an arch-Papist, that doth not damp my [tender affection to him. If he be a Papist I had rather have him a serious than a loose Papist. If he hath met with anything of that which brings forth an holy conversation in him, he hath so far met with somewhat of my religion, which teacheth to order the conversation aright, in the light and by the spirit and power of the Lord Jesus. . . . 92 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. I desire my sincere, entire affection, as in God's sight, may be remembered to my dear brother." / It was about four years after their marriage that Isaac and Mary Pennington united themselves to the Friends, and it was near the same time that they went to reside on his estate, called the Grange, at Giles Chalfont, in Buckinghamshire, which had been given to him when he married, by his father. And here for some two years we may think of them as of those to whom the lines had fallen in pleasant places, and who had in every sense a goodly heritage. Their spiritual clouds dispersed, believing that they had found the path in which God called them to walk, surrounded by their little sons in early childhood, and Gulielma with them in her charming girlhood, they seemed to have anchored in still waters. But the storm soon burst. So long as Alderman Pennington retained his power, he was, doubtless, able to protect his son, but when he was himself enduring a cruel imprison- ment in the Tower, from which only death released him, Isaac Pennington was soon marked out for persecution. In 1660, after the Fifth Monarchy outbreak, we find his name among a list of those The Penningtons. 93 committed to the county gaol at Aylesbury for assembling together. From this dreary abode he sends to his wife a letter which ends thus :* "My dear Heart, my dear and tender love is to thee. I know thou dost believe that it is most just that the Lord should dispose of me, and will not desire me unless He please in the freedom of conscience that I return to thee. I am thine much, and desire to be thine even more, according to the purity and largeness of my love in the inner man. When the Lord pleaseth our innocence shall be cleared, and that which is now our reproach be our beauty and honour in the sight of all the world. My dear love to Guli, to A. H., and to all friends in the family, and to my dear little ones." There is no sound of weak complaining here. The early Friends took joyfully the loss of free- dom, and the spoiling of their goods for their Master's sake. They could say : " Rejoice with us ! The chastening rod Blossoms with love, the furnace heat Grows cool beneath His blessed feet Whose form is as the Son of God." This first imprisonment of Isaac Pennington did * See "The Penns and Penningtons." 94 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends, I not last more than seventeen weeks, but it was in ' the winter, and he was deprived of the comforts and even the necessaries of life, so that his delicate frame suffered severely. Yet in this trial he speaks of his experience of the tender mercy of the Lord, " who made my bonds pleasant to me ; and my noisome prison, enough to have destroyed my weakly and tender-educated nature, a place of pleasure and delight, where I was comforted by my God night and day, and filled with prayers for His people : as also with love to, and prayers for, those who had been the means of outwardly afflicting me and others, upon the Lord's account." One who could thus express himself, surely needed no pity. It seemed impossible to arouse any revengeful feel- ing in his heart. He exclaims : " Oh, how have I prayed for the lost world. For all the souls of mankind, how hath my soul bowed in unutterable breathings of spirit before my God, and could not be silenced ; until He quieted my spirit in the righteousness and excellency of His will ; and bid me leave it to Him." Long before he had writ- ten : " Such is the nature of God, that were it but known, it could not but be trusted. So kind is The Penningtons. 95 God that the greatest sinner who is most obnoxious to Him, did he but know Him, would not fear to , put himself into His hands." ' His second imprisonment was in 1664, and was j of about the same duration as the first. The third I followed after a short interval. On this last occa- sion he and several other Friends were arrested at Amersham under the Conventicle Act, though they were not attending a meeting at all, but walking through the streets at a Quaker funeral. It was late on Saturday, and the magistrates were at a loss how to proceed, but finally adopted the con- venient plan common in those days when Friends were the victims. They were all allowed to return to their homes, on their simple word to appear at Amersham for sentence on Monday, when they ac- cordingly came and were fined and imprisoned for one month. / Isaac Pennington had only been at liberty about four weeks when he was sent to his old quarters at Aylesbury gaol at the instance of the Earl of Bridgewater. The plague was now raging, but it was not until one of the prisoners had died of it that permission was obtained to remove Pennington 96 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. to a house in the town. At the end of nine months he was discharged through the influence of the Earl of Ancram. It seems to have been very soon after his liberation that he wrote a letter to his wife, who had gone to London for medical advice, in which there is the following reference to his children, which reads as naturally now after the passing of two centuries as if it had been just written : " Yesterday I saw thy boy Ned looking very well and fresh, if not too well — I mean too fat. Bill and all thy children are well. Bill expects thy coming home at night. I bid him write to thee to come home ; but he said no, he would go to London to thee. I said, * If thou canst not get quiet, father will get all thy love from thee,' for he was exceedingly loving to me this morning in bed. He said, ' No, no, must not get all the love from mother.' " * Isaac Pennington was at large for little more than three weeks. Then the same relentless enmity sent him back to gaol again. He writes thence : " The Lord is tender of me, and merciful to me. Though indeed I have felt much weakness * See "The Penns and Penningtons." The Penningtons. 97 both inwardly and outwardly, yet my strength doth not forsake me ; but the mercies of the Lord are renewed to me * morning by morning.' I could almost sing to His glorious name. . . ." This time his health suffered sadly. The cold damp rooms in which he lay for a year and half nearly killed him. At last, through the intervention of a rela- tion of his wife, he was removed for trial under a writ of Habeas Corpus, to the King's Bench, where he was immediately set at liberty. Hitherto he had always had a house befitting his position, to which to return when the prison doors closed behind him. But this was so no longer. ' Between religious and political confiscations, losing lawsuits because he would not take an oath, and other wrongs, his " fair inheritance " had melted away, and much of his wife's property was lost by similar means. They were unwilling to leave the Friends at Chalfont. Mary Pennington says : "We and they had suffered together, and had been comforted together. . . . We being in their sight so stripped, they expected no great things, such as would answer to our rank in the world ; but rather wondered we were able to live so decently, and to H 98 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. pay every one their own. . . . Thus it was that the temper amongst our acquaintances and countrymen here helped us to bear the meanness and the great straitness, so much more than we had ever known before, having been born to and having lived in great plenty." At last it was decided to sell a farm that still remained to her in Kent, and with the proceeds to buy a small estate called Woodside, near Amersham, and re-build the house, as the old one was in a ruinous condition. It was while this work was in progress, under the efficient oversight of Mary Pennington, that a sore affliction befell them in the death of their second son Isaac, a most promising youth, who fell overboard and was drowned on his return voyage from Barbadoes. Thomas EUwood, the former tutor of Gulielma and her brothers, says : " As for me, I thought it one of the sharpest strokes I had ever met with ; . . . and it grieved me the deeper to think how deeply it would pierce his afflicted parents. . . . Going to visit them, we sat down, and solemnly mixed our sorrows and tears together." \ In 1672, about the time that the new house was ( finished, Isaac Pennington was lodged in Reading The Penningtons. 99 gaol for refusing the oath of allegiance. He remained there for nearly two years, until Charles II. released by letters patent all Friends imprisoned on suits of the crown. One of his fellow-sufferers thus describes his bearing, when prisons were such as we can scarcely imagine now : " Being made willing by the power of God to suffer with great patience, cheerfulness, contentedness, and true no- bility of spirit, he was a good example to me and others. I do not remember that ever I saw him cast down, or dejected in his spirit, in the time of his close confinement, nor speak hardly of those that persecuted him ; for he was of that temper as to love enemies, and to do good to those that hated him ; having received a measure of that virtue from Christ his Master, that taught him so to do." The remaining five years of his life were passed in peace, but his health never recovered the effects of his cruel imprisonments. After a short, sharp illness, he died in 1679, at the age of sixty-three. His life had been a living epistle, known and read of all men, and the tributes to his memory were many. None could be so touching as those of his his son John and of his wife. Mary Pennington's 100 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. was written while watching at midnight by the sick bed of one of her children. Towards the end she expresses herself thus : " Ah me ! he is gone ; he that none exceeded in kindness, in tenderness, in love inexpressible to the relation as a wife. Next to the love of God in Christ Jesus to my soul, was his love precious and delightful to me. . . . Yet this great help and benefit is gone ; and I, a poor worm, a very little one to him, compassed about with many infirmities, through mercy let him go without an unadvised word of discontent, or in- ordinate grief. Nay, further, such was the great kindness the Lord showed to me in that hour, that my spirit ascended with him in that very moment that his spirit left his body ; and I saw him safe in his own mansion, and rejoiced with him, and was at that instant gladder of it than ever I was of enjoying him in the body." Mary Pennington survived her husband about three years, dying in 1682, at the age of fifty-eight. CHAPTER V. PERSECUTION AND MARTYRDOM. ' Well to suffer is divine ; Pass the watchword down the line, Pass the countersign : ENDURE. Not to him who rashly dares, But to him who nobly bears, Is the victor's garland sure." J. G. Whittier. UCH of the history of the early Friends reads like a chronicle of persecution. It was the fashion of the times. Catho- lic or Protestant, Churchman or Presbyterian, were too often at one in believing that it was doing God service to make men miserable for errors of opinion. The Friends who claimed toleration for all, were treated with peculiar severity. Why was this } Some will answer at once that it was be- cause the Quakers were fanatical and crotchety. As to this charge, it would be easy for an enemy to make out a true list of strange actions of theirs which, taken alone, would give an im- pression that was quite untrue. Their numbers 102 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. increased rapidly, and at the date of George Fox's death amounted to sixty thousand ; and it would have been wonderful indeed if among so many there had not been some with more zeal than knowledge. But it will be said that George Fox himself once walked barefoot through the city of Lichfield, denouncing woe against it, like one of the prophets of old. Even so. But this was in his earlier life, when he was surrounded by an atmosphere of excitement, and the wisest men cannot wholly escape from such influences any more than from the air they breathe. It was an age in which a conscientious, learned judge like Sir Matthew Hale believed in witchcraft, and sentenced thirteen persons to death for what we should call an impossible crime ; when an accom- plished, chivalrous gentleman like Sir William Springett, thrust his sword through a fine picture of the Crucifixion, and encouraged his soldiers to demolish beautiful works of art, which he looked on as savouring of superstition. Truly, when we recall the spirit of the times they lived in, the marvel may well be not that so many, but that so few extravagances can be brought home to the Persecution and Martyrdom. 103 early Quakers. For think of what they had to endure. They had nerves Hke other men ; and in the case of Fox, the incident referred to above occurred when he had been shaken by mental con- flicts, and had just come out of a cruel imprison- ment. " Mad whimseye," was his brief but telling criticism in later years, on the notion of some poor woman that she could raise the dead ; and he would probably have applied the words to some other ideas which were the result of minds overstrained and overwrought. The one striking case of fanaticism among the early Friends which has became historical is that of poor James Naylor. Uneducated and excitable, but strangely eloquent and fascinating, he could not stand the popular enthusiasm which his preach- ing called forth, and he accepted the blasphemous adulation of certain foolish admirers who treated him as if he were a visible representative of Christ. Perhaps a lunatic asylum would have been his right place for a while, but there was no such treatment thought of then. The cruelty of his punishment was fearful. He was put in the pillory ; his tongue pierced with a red-hot iron, 104 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. and his forehead branded, whilst thousands stood around and forebore to jeer, awed into pity by his patient endurance. After this he was flogged most horribly. Strange to say, he was not killed. He lived through it all ; and what was far better, he came to himself, expressed the deepest peni- tence for his fall, and died a year or two after in much humility. In the seventeenth century it was not a light thing to be a Quaker. Often with the early Friends the question seemed to be not how little, but how much they could give up for Christ. Make the most you can of their extravagances and mistakes of every kind, these will shrink into a very small compass by the side of their grand testimony to truth and righteousness. Doubtless there was something in their views which clashed somewhere with the opinions of every one of the existing sects. Hence all parties were ready to fall on them. They were the best of citizens and subjects, but we can understand that Churchman \ and Puritan might honestly believe that men who would not take oaths, and would not bear arms, would interfere with the good order of the State, Persecution and Ma^'tyrdom. 105 and must be kept in check by the harsh means which were then customary. The times being what they were, the Friends could not expect to be let alone, and they were quite ready to suffer for their principles. But they had a right to complain of the great cruelty with which they were often treated, and of the gross injustice with which the law was strained and twisted in order to punish them. Speaking of the persecution which succeeded the Fifth Monarchy outbreak, a living writer * has said : " Great troubles followed for all, or nearly all Nonconformist sects, and they fell with horrible severity upon the Friends, the most peaceful, quiet, and philanthropic of them all. No other sect of Christians, with the exception of the Waldenses, has ever been so severely persecuted ; and no other has ever borne it with such con- tinuous patience, * accounting,' as Lord Langdale said, * persecution an honour.' " This is strong language, but we believe that those who are best acquainted with the subject will tell us that it is not one whit too strong. * A. C. Bickley. io6 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. " All laws have been let loose upon us," were the wordo of William Penn. Though Charles II. was too indifferent, as well as too good-natured, to wish for persecution, yet under the Conventicle Act passed by his Government, the Quakers had to undergo what was far beyond any distress that they had heretofore experienced. More than two hundred died in filthy dungeons and crowded prisons during his reign. But this fact does not tell one half of what they had to bear. Their quiet meetings for worship were constantly broken I up with the most brutal violence, for soldiers would enter the meeting-house and lay about them with swords, muskets, and pikes, hitting at men, women, and children, until the floor was stained with blood. ' Then the Friends were ruinously fined, often their I cattle and goods being seized to a far greater value than the amount of the fine. Sometimes they j were left without a bed to lie upon, and persons in afiluence were brought down to poverty. Boys and girls below sixteen did not come under the Act, but they were, nevertheless, arrested, and we hear of one poor little maiden of fifteen who died I in prison. But even the children manifested their Persecution and Martyrdom. 107 constancy in those dark days, for at Bristol, when all the grown-up Friends had been carried off and imprisoned, the children met together and held the meetings for worship. The case of James Parnel was a very touching one. When " a little lad " of sixteen he came to see George Fox in his dungeon at Carlisle, and was so affected by his speaking, we are told, that he, " notwithstanding his youth, was by the Lord quickly made a powerful minister of the Gospel." His career was short. He had had some educa- tion, and after a while we find him at Cambridge, disputing with University men. He was once im- prisoned there, and then turned out of the town as a vagrant. He has been accused of being rash and wanting in discretion, and we can easily believe it, but surely no wise man will judge him hardly — boy as he was — for that. It was on a summer day — the last summer he would enjoy in freedom — that he came to Colchester, where his preaching made a great impression, thousands crowding to hear him, though some were very angry at what he said. Once when he was coming out of a church a man struck him a severe blow, saying, " There, take that \S Li i-t S^^TTir io8 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. for Christ's sake." He meekly answered, " Friend, I do receive it for Jesus Christ's sake." He after- wards went to Coggleshall, where a day had been appointed for fasting and prayer, that the people might be preserved from the errors of the Quakers. It was an unfortunate moment for him to appear on the scene. This was in the days of the Commonwealth, when Presbyterianism was in the ascendant, and then, as afterwards under the Monarchy, it was rarely those high in authority that the Friends had to fear most. Their worst enemies were the local mayors, justices, gaolers, and such like, who, too often backed up by minis- ters of religion, wreaked their petty malice on the Friends. On this occasion James Parnel went to the "steeple-house." The preacher was an Inde- pendent, who had fiercely attacked the Quakers. So after he had left the pulpit, Parnel rose up and sought to reply to these charges. This led to an argument, and soon afterwards he was arrested, accused of riotous behaviour in church, and of contempt of the magistracy and ministry. He was committed to the common gaol at Colchester, and thence was taken to the sessions at Chelms- PerseciUion and Martyrdom. 109 ford, passing through the country chained to felons and murderers. He was sentenced to a heavy fine, and to be imprisoned until it was paid. Little did they think who thus condemned him, that in the years to come visitors from all parts of P2ngland, and from across the seas, would stand in the courtyard of Colchester Castle and gaze with horror and indignation at the wretched abode where his young life was slowly drained away. The gaoler was ready enough to ill-use him, and the gaoler's wife was worse than her husband. Friends would have provided a bed for the poor prisoner, but she forbade them, and he had to lie on the cold, damp stones. Soon he was put into a sort of hole in the immensely thick walls of the castle. This hole being some twelve feet from the ground, and the ladder beneath it only about half that height, he had to use a rope to climb up and down when fetching his food, which he was obliged to do, as the Friends were not allowed to bring him a basket in which he might draw it up. His limbs grew benumbed in this cramped cell, and one day he missed the rope, and falling on the stones, was so injured that at first he was thought 1 10 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. to be dead. When he revived he was put into a smaller hole called the " oven," lower down, where there was scarcely any air. It was in vain that two Quakers offered their bond for the nnoney, and that a third entreated to be allowed to take his place in that dreadful cell while the poor lad might be removed to a Friend's house until he had a little recovered. He was not even permitted to walk in the yard ; and once when, the door of his " oven " being left open, he ventured to come out, the brute who had him in charge locked up the place, and compelled him to spend the bitter winter night out in the cold. Apparently the in- tention was to kill him, and it was successful. After about ten months of this treatment, he died, aged nineteen. Two Friends were with him in his last hours. He turned to one of them and said : " This death I must die ; I have seen great things. Don't hold me, but let me go. Will you hold me 1 " Well might the answer be : " No, dear heart, we will not hold thee." And soon death set the captive free. Another who perished by this prison torture was Edward Burrough. He was a man of many Persecution and Martyrdom. ill gifts and acquirements, and while he was still but a boy was "convinced" by the preaching of George Fox in Westmoreland. He was a very powerful minister. They called him a son of thunder. When he was about nineteen he came up to London, where it was the custom, we are told, in summer time for " lusty fellows " when their work was done, to come out into the fields (which were close to the city then) and try their strength in wrestling matches, while an admiring crowd looked on. One evening Edward Burrough passed by just as a redoubtable champion who had already thrown three men, was daring any other to enter the lists with him. All were amazed when the young stranger stepped forth into the ring. They must have been still more surprised when he began to preach to them in strong and burning words. And — greatest^ wonder of all — that rough company whose amusement was thus strangely interrupted, listened with attention and respect. In 1662, he was one of those violently arrested at the Bull and Mouth meeting-house. After several weeks he was brought up at the Old Bailey 112 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. and fined ; but, conscientiously refusing payment, he was sent back to Newgate. There were six or seven score other Friends locked up with him, and they were all so crowded together in their miserable prison that many were taken ill and died, of whom Edward Burrough was one, being then twenty-eight years old. The persecution under the Conventicle Act was as furious in some other parts of the country as it was in London. In Colchester we hear that it was " exceeding fierce." The mayor came him- self to break up Quaker meetings ; and on two successive Sundays a body of mounted troops, about forty in number, burst in on the unoffending worshippers, and with swords, and clubs, and car- bines, most brutally and savagely attacked these Friends who were holding their meeting in the street because they were shut out of their pre- mises. One trooper used his sword until it dropped out of the hilt, when the Friend he was beating picked it up and handed it back to him with the words, " I desire the Lord may not lay this day's work to thy charge." So bitter were these assaults, that people fainted in the streets Persecution and Martyrdom. 113 from injuries and loss of blood. One man of seventy was so knocked about that he died a few days after. It was his daughter who, when her husband was lying bleeding and wounded on the ground beneath the blows that rained upon him, flung herself on him that she might receive them in his stead. Sewel says : " So hot was this time now, that these religious worshippers, when they went to their meeting, seemed to go to meet death ; for they could not promise to them- selves to return home either whole or alive." Per- haps there are those who will say that they might have stayed quietly in their houses, and so escaped all this terrible suffering. No doubt they might ; but that was not their way of bearing their testi- mony before the world. One who had to endure some of these persecu- tions, Thomas EUwood, thus eloquently appeals to his countrymen on behalf of his brethren : " Have not many of us been already stripped of all their outward substance ; not a bed left them to lie on, not a stool to sit on, not a dish to eat in } Is there a prison in the nation, or a dungeon in a prison, which has not been a witness of our I 1 14 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. groanings ? Have we not been tried by banishment, and proved by death itself? Death in New Eng- land by the hand of the hangman ! Death in Old England by the rough hands of rude and boister- ous officers and soldiers, who have given divers of our Friends those blows, which in a few days have brought them to their graves ! " I might add to these, burning in the forehead, cutting off ears, unmerciful beatings, whippings, and cruel scourgings. But did any or all of these deter us from the worship of our God ? Nay, hath not our cheerful undergoing all these hard- ships sufficiently evidenced to the world that our religion and consciences are dearer to us than our estates, our liberties, our limbs, or our lives ? Why then will you repeat severities upon us, which have so often been tried before in vain ? Can you take pleasure in putting others to pain, and delight yourselves in afflicting others? Oh, suffer not your nature so far to degenerate from the gentleness and tenderness of true and gene- rous Englishmen ! " And think not the worse of us, for our faith- fulness to our God ! He that is true to God, will Persecution and Martyrdom. 115 be true to men also ; but he that is false and treacherous to God, how is it likely he should be true to men ?" This extract and the few instances we have given may convey some faint idea of what these confessors in a bygone age passed through, and among them there were not a few who died, vic- tims to the cruelties inflicted on them, and whose names are added to the long roll of that noble army of martyrs drawn from every church and creed, who have loved not their lives unto the death. Looking back over the records which they have left, are we ready to ask if they were of the same flesh and blood as ourselves ? For not only have they come out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, but among them have been a great multitude of tender and delicate women, and even some children. Another question that forces itself upon the mind is this : Were all the persecutors who have left such dark lines on the pages of history cruel and wicked men ? And it is a relief to be able to answer. No. There is something very subtle about religious persecution. Men used to say that they 1 16 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. made the bodies of heretics suffer in order to save their souls ; and hence on the scaffold, by the stake, in the dungeon, tens of thousands of human lives have been sacrificed, a ghastly offering to the God of love. It is only as the truth is recognised that erring men have no right whatever to con- demn their fellows for abstract opinions, for which they are responsible to God alone, that persecution ceases out of a land. There is a terrible lesson for all time in what occurred in New England in the seventeenth century, where the Puritans, who had left their English homes, and braved all manner of hardships in an unsettled country that they might worship God according to their conscience, yet treated the Friends with a severity for which there had been no parallel in England. They had not then accepted the truth, which even now the world has learnt very imperfectly : "That they who differ pole-wide serve Perchance the common Master, And other sheep He hath than they Who graze one narrow pasture." CHAPTER VI. THOMAS ELL WOOD. Not in vain, Confessor old, Unto us the tale is told Of thy day of trial ; Every age on him who strays From its broad and beaten ways, Pours its sevenfold vial." J. G. Whittier. HE name of Thomas Ellwood is closely- associated with the Penns and Penning- tons, thus gaining an additional interest, though the incidents of his life, told by his own racy pen, are sufficiently remarkable in themselves. He was born in 1639, at the little town of Crowell in Oxfordshire, his parents being "well descended, but of declining families." When he was only two years old his father, who supported the Parliament, removed with his household to London. There they made acquaintance with Lady Springett, in her young widowhood, and he became " an early and particular play-fellow to her daughter Gulielma ; being admitted, as such, to 1 1 8 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. ride with her in her little coach, drawn by her foot- man about Lincoln's Inn Fields." Soon after the surrender of Oxford, his father returned to his estate at Crowell, and the boy was sent to a school at Thame, which had a high reputation. Here, he tells us, he " profited apace, having a natural pro- pensity to learning ; so that at the first reading over of my lesson I commonly made myself mas- ter of it : and yet, which is strange to think of, few boys in the school wore out more birch than I." He explains that this was because he could not keep his love of fun within the bounds required by the discipline of that day ; but his spirits do not seem to have been affected by the frequency of his punishments. After a time his elder brother was sent to college, and in order to meet the expense of this arrangement he was removed from school, much to his joy, probably, at the time, but to his great regret in after life, as having seriously inter- fered with his scholarly progress. He had now abundant leisure for taking his pleasure, and being good company and of "a comely aspect," plenty of it was at his command ; but in his most thoughtless days he chose for his Thomas Ellwood. 119 associates those who were temperate and orderly, and he hated anything Hke excess in drinking, or coarseness of manners and speech. He was a spirited youth. Once when returning with his father from the sessions at Watlington, on a very dark night, their carriage was suddenly stopped by two men armed with formidable clubs, who seized the heads of their horses, declaring that they were driving over the corn, which was quite untrue. The two gentlemen got out, and the magistrate civilly remonstrated with the ruffians. This plan failing, he tried threatening, and ordered them to deliver up their clubs, which they scornfully de- clined to do. Whereupon, turning to his son, who stood by burning with indignation and eager for the fray, the justice said, "Tom, disarm them." This was exactly what Tom was craving to do. " Stepping boldly forward to lay hold on the staff of him that was nearest to me, I said : * Sirrah, deliver your weapon.' He thereupon raised his club, which was big enough to have knocked down an ox, intending, no doubt, to knock me down with it, as probably he would have done had I not in the twinkling of an eye whipped out my rapier 1 20 Glimpses of George Fox mid his Friends. and made a pass upon him. I could not have failed running him through up to the hilt had he stood his ground ; but the sudden and unexpected sight of my bright blade, glistening in the dark night, did so amaze and terrify the man, that, slipping aside, he avoided my thrust, and letting his staff sink, betook himself to his heels for safety ; which his companion seeing, fled also." Young Ellwood, who was very agile, pursued the first, but failed to find his terrified assailant. However, in the darkness he so got out of his reckoning that it was only by hallooing on both sides that he re- gained his party. After this he seldom went out on such occasions without a loaded pistol, quite resolved to kill anyone who should so insult him again. In later life he thanked God that he had been saved from this. He now mentions the death of his " dear and honoured mother, who was indeed a woman of singular worth and virtue." By this time Lady Springett was the wife of " Isaac Pennington, Esq.," and they had come to live on his estate at Chalfont, about fifteen miles from Crowell. One day the justice went there to visit his old friend, Thomas Elhvood. 121 taking Tom with him. Both father and son were amazed to find that their host and hostess had joined the despised Quakers, and though the dinner was handsome, and there was nothing to find fault with, yet there was an unwonted gravity prevail- ing which amused and disconcerted the visitors. On their arrival Tom EUwood had eagerly sought for Gulielma, his once charming little play- fellow, now grown into a lovelier girlhood. He found her gathering flowers in the garden with her maid, but even over her a change seemed to have passed. This visit inclined the Ellwoods to think more favourably of the Quakers, and the justice de- siring to be better acquainted with their views, went with his son and two daughters to spend a few days at Isaac Pennington's ; and they were all pleased while there to have an opportunity of attending a Friends' meeting held at a farm- house near by. The hall was large and well filled, and Edward Burrough the only one who spoke. Young Ell wood says: "It was my lot to sit on a stool by the side of a long table on which he sat, and I drank in his words with 122 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. desire ; for they not only answered my under- standing, but warmed my heart with a certain heat, which I had not till then felt from the ministry of any man." Edward Burrough and the other Friends returned to the Grange with the Penningtons and their party, and had some theological discussion with the justice, which on both sides was courteously carried on. The next day the Ellwoods went home, the father and daughters in the same mind as they came ; but the son, who rode on horse-back beside the carriage, was pondering on many things with a heavy heart. He was anxious to attend another Quaker meeting, and finding that one would be held at High Wycombe, seven miles distant, he rode thither, taking his greyhound with him, that his errand might not be guessed. When he had left his horse and dog at an inn, he did not know what to do next, as he was ashamed to ask his way to the meeting ; but happily re- cognising a gentleman whom he had seen at the Grange, he followed him to the private house where the Friends were assembling. He stepped Thomas Ellwood. 123 in and took a seat as near as possible to the door, but his dress and sword attracted some attention. He went off quickly as soon as the meeting was over, feeling that the impression made on the previous occasion was so confirmed that it must mould the whole of his future. A great change had come over him. " Now was all my former life ripped up, and my sins by degrees were set in order before me. And though they looked not with so black a hue and so deep a dye as those of the worst sort of people did, yet I found that all sin, even that which had the fairest or finest show, as well as that which was coarse and foul, brought guilt, and with and for guilt, con- demnation on the soul that sinned. This I felt, and was greatly bowed down under the sense thereof. Now also did I receive a new law, an inward law superadded to the outward, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which wrought in , me against all evil, not only in deed and in word, but even in thought also ; so that everything was brought to judgment, and judgment passed upon all." He believed himself required to give up not only what was sinful in itself, but also many conven- 1 24 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. tional customs, of which, like the other Friends, he thought the tendency to be hurtful. He put aside his rings, removed the laces and other ornaments from his dress, and he ceased to take off his hat, except in the presence of his father. It is difficult for us to understand this hat question. It had been usual for men to stick to their hats as if they grew on their heads, just as our grandmothers stuck to their caps. Pepys " got a strange cold " in his head by throwing his hat off while he was at dinner. The removal of the hat was a frivolous French innovation. Young Ellwood could not long conduct himself so differently from others in his station, without getting into trouble ; and .when suddenly his father requested him to go to Oxford and bring back an account of what passed there at the sessions, he felt that the moment he dreaded had come. As he rode thither his frequent cry was, " O my God, pre- serve me faithful, whatever befalls me ! Suffer me not to be drawn into evil, how much scorn and contempt soever may be cast upon me ! " While he was in court waiting for the business to begin, he saw three gentlemen he knew well, two of them Thomas Ellwood. 125 being former schoolfellows. They greeted him as of old, and were plainly astonished not to receive in return, " your humble servant, sir," with bared head and bent knee. " One of them, a brisk young man, who stood nearest to me, clapping his hand in a familiar way upon my shoulder, and smiling on me, said : * What, Tom, a Quaker ! ' To which I readily and cheerfully answered, ' Yes, a Quaker.' And as the words passed out of my mouth I felt joy spring in my heart : for I rejoiced that I had not been drawn out by them into compliance with them ; and that I had strength and boldness given me to confess myself to be one of the despised people." At first the justice did not notice the change in his manners ; but one day when he was going to a meeting at the Grange, and dutifully inquired of his father if he had any message for him to take, it led to a warm discussion about Quakerism. Still, as he was not forbidden to go, he rode away on a horse which he had borrowed from a friend, thinking that his father might object to let him have one for such a purpose. By the time he returned a day or two afterwards, he had made up his mind that it 1 26 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. was not right to continue even to his father those outward marks of respect which he believed to be tainted by the spirit of worldliness. Those who think that he was mistaken in this, and who may wish that he had decided otherwise, must, if they are just, give him credit for sincere conviction, seeing what his decision cost him. When he came into the house the justice was not at home, and he sat down by the kitchen fire, seeking for strength to abide faithful. He says that " a sort of shivering " came over him as he heard the sound of the wheels which announced his father's return ; but, recovering himself he went to meet him with his hat on, and said, " Isaac Pennington and his wife remember their loves to thee." His father stopped as if to be sure that he had heard aright, and then said, in a tone of great displeasure, " I shall talk with you, sir, another time," and turned away. They did not meet again for that night ; but early the next morning young EUwood, who was anxious to attend a meeting at Oxford, begged his sister to go up to their father's room, and ask if he had any commands in that direction. The Thomas Ellwood. 127 justice said that he wished to see him before he left, and hastening down before he was fully dressed, he went into a furious passion when he saw the poor youth in the objectionable head- gear, struck him with both fists, tore off his hat, and hastening to the stable, commanded the bor- rowed steed to be sent back immediately to its owner, and then retired to finish his toilet. Know- ing his son's delight in riding, he thought he had matched him now, but young Ellwood started off on foot, to walk as far as Wycombe, though not without some misgivings as to whether it was right to go without his father's leave. The latter, meantime, supposed him safe in his own chamber, and did not mention his name all day ; but in the evening, which was very cold, the justice, as he sat by the fire, bade his daughter call her brother downstairs, lest he should take a cold. " Alas ! sir," said she, " he is not in his chamber, nor in the house either." * The justice, evidently startled, asked, " Why, where is he then } " The sister declared that she did not know, which was incorrect ; but she was angry with her father, and did not hesitate to say what was untrue in order 1 28 Glimpses of George Fox and his Frietids. to alarm him. " And, indeed, sir," she added, " I don't wonder at his going away, considering how you used him." " This put my father into a great fright, doubting I was gone quite away, and so great a passion of grief seized on him that he for- bore not to weep, and to cry out aloud, so that the family heard him, * O ! my son : I shall never see him more, for he is of so bold and resolute a spirit that he will run himself into danger, and so may be thrown into some gaol or other, where he may lie and die before I can hear of him.' " And then, in sore trouble, he went to his room, bemoaning himself and his son through the greater part of the night. This outburst of love and sorrow from the domineering, violent-tempered justice, softens one's heart towards him, and helps us to remember that some of our sympathy is due to the father as well as to the son. He, and Alderman Pennington, and Admiral Penn, saw their hopes blighted by these Quakers, on whom they looked down with infinite contempt. They had thought, and planned, and laboured for their sons that they might obtain the riches and the honours that men so greatly covet, Thomas Ellwood, 129 and then in a moment they saw all worldly advan- tages cast to the winds, and their authority for once disregarded by those who in other matters acknowledged it implicitly. Utterly unable to com- prehend the motives which brought about this change, was it any wonder that their wrath blazed forth, and that they believed they did well to be angry ? It was only like the inconsistency of human nature, that when the justice had his son safe at home again, his first act was to snatch off his hat and storm at him. Thomas Ellwood says : " This hat honour was grown to be a great idol, so the Lord was pleased to engage His servants in a steady testimony against it, what suffering soever was brought upon them for it." He was soon de- prived not only of his hats, but also of his velvet cap, and, it being winter, he got a very painful cold in his head and face in consequence. We cannot follow him in all his domestic troubles, but at last there came an outburst of his father's anger exceeding in violence all that had gone before. The occasion was this. The justice now and then had in the servants to prayers. One 1 30 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. evening he summoned them for this purpose, but they being indignant at the way in which their young master was treated, were slow to obey. The justice then began to rage at his son, who could not forbear saying, " They that can pray with such a spirit, let them ; for my part, I cannot." The justice seemed beside himself with fury at this retort. He was not satisfied with using his fists, but seizing his cane, struck his hatless son over the head with such force that the latter thought his skull would have been broken had he not warded off the blows with his arm. The man-servant grasped the cane and held it tightly, but young EUwood bid him let it go. The sister then threat- ened that she would open the window and cry out murder, if her father did not desist, which brought him to his senses. Thomas EUwood says he had much pain in his arm, " yet I had peace and quiet- ness in my mind, being more grieved for my father than for myself, who I knew had hurt himself more than me." Some will think that even from his father he ought not to have borne such ill usage. Be it so. Yet let it stand as one of the rare instances of patience in suffering wrongfully. Thomas Ellwood. 131 which abound in the history of the early Friends. Things improved after this. The Penningtons coming to stay the night had much private dis- course with the justice, which resulted in permission for his son to go back with them for a few weeks, and a hat was supplied to him for the purpose, though his father hastened out of the room that he might not see him with it on. It must have been some time after this, and when he had been in London on business, that he sent a letter to Oxford in reference to arrangements for a meeting. This was during the panic caused by the Fifth Monarchy outbreak. The letter was taken to the lord lieuten- ant, and while Ellwood was expecting an answer a body of troops appeared at his father's gates in the absence of the justice, and he was forced to go with them. He was brought before the magistrates, and on refusing to take the oath of allegiance, one of the militia was appointed to conduct him as a prisoner to Oxford. His father's man, who had followed at a distance, overtook him on the road armed with a thick cudgel, and would have driven off the soldier if his young master had not for- bidden it ; but the faithful fellow did not leave him 132 Glimpses of George Fox arid his Friends. until he saw him delivered with his mittimus at the house of an official of the city. Ellwood was soon sent home again, being told that he was at liberty on condition that he went nowhere without his father's consent. He distinctly replied that he could not accept these terms. After one attempt to stop him from going to meeting, his father never interfered again. The coronation of Charles II. was now at hand, and the justice went up to London with his two daughters to witness the festivities, leaving his son and two servants in charge at Crowell. This led to the breaking up of the household, as both sisters were married during this visit. Ellwood was now free to go where he would, and was often at the Grange, especially after a serious attack of small-pox. For some time he had been endeavouring to regain his classical and other learning, which he had to some extent forgotten ; but he wanted help, and consulted Isaac Pennington. " He had an intimate acquaintance with Dr. Paget, a physician of note in London, and he with John Milton, a gentleman of great note for learning throughout the learned world for the accurate pieces he had Thomas Ellwood. 133 written on various subjects and occasions. This person, having filled a public station in the former times, lived now a private and retired life in Lon- don, and having wholly lost his sight, kept always a man to read to him, who usually was the son of some gentleman of his acquaintance, whom in kindness he took to improve in his learning." So to Milton Ellwood was introduced, and taking lodgings near by, arranged to come daily to read to him in Latin. He was most assiduous in ful- filling this duty, and his great master seeing his eagerness, gave him all the help he could. " For having a curious ear, he understood by my tone when I understood what I read, and when I did not ; and accordingly would stop me, examine me, and open the most difficult passages to me." What would we not give now for a full description from Ellwood's graphic pen of one of those pleasant afternoon readings ! Unhappily, in six weeks' time they were brought to a close, because his health was affected by the murky air of the city; and he went to recruit at the house of a Quaker physician at Wycombe, where, it is a comfort to know, his father came to see him, 1 34 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. and gave him money to meet all his expenses. He had hardly been back with Milton for a week when his studies were again interrupted. He seems to have returned just as the persecution under the Conventicle Act began. He went on Sunday morning to the Bull and Mouth meeting-house, "when on a sudden a party of soldiers of the trained bands of the city rushed in with noise and clamour." The Friends were roughly dragged and driven into the street, where the soldiers surrounded them, forming a fence with their pikes, within which they were continually forcing fresh captives, until EUwood asked the commander if he intended a massacre. Startled for a moment, he quickly answered, " No ; but I intend to have you all hanged by the wholesome laws of the land." The meeting had only begun to gather when it was thus rudely interrupted, and those who were not Friends being allowed to depart, there only remained thirty-two persons, who were marched through the streets to the old Bridewell, formerly a palace, and they were ushered, not into a filthy dungeon, but into a noble room sixty feet long, the floor of which was strewn with rushes. ' Thoynas Ellwood. 135 The storm had been general that day, but, as usual, had fallen most heavily upon the Quakers, and many poor women had much ado to find out where husband, father, brother, or servant was confined. The Friends truly bore this mark of discipleship that they had love one to another. Some of their number were appointed to have charge of the different prisons in London, and to see after those of their brethren, especially the. poor, who might be lodged in them. " Two honest, grave, discreet, motherly women " had the care of Bridewell, and soon they and their servants ap- peared with hot meat and broth (for the weather was cold), and also with bread, cheese, and beer. The food was placed upon a table, and it was announced that all were welcome to partake who were not able to provide for themselves. The meal was very inviting, and Ellwood was hungry ; but having tenpence in his pocket, he did not feel free to avail himself of the offer while that lasted. So he withdrew as far as possible from the table, and afterwards bought a halfpenny loaf for his supper. He was among strangers, and judging by his appearance, no one would suspect him of 1 36 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. poverty. They all slept on the rushes, but had to walk about in the night to keep themselves warm. Many had beds brought to them next day, but Ellwood had to put up with four nights on the rushes, until one Friend being released offered him his hammock. Before his tenpence was quite spent he had a visit from William Pennington, a brother of Isaac Pennington, a merchant of London, who asked him about his resources, and Ellwood admitting that his funds were low his kind friend pressed twenty shillings into his hand. About a week after Mary Pennington sent him two pounds ; and some days later he received one pound from his father, who had heard of his imprisonment, and was anxious to obtain his discharge. Most thank- ful was he for these timely supplies, which enabled him to join a sort of club or mess of the younger men who, contributing equal amounts all round, had provisions supplied to them through one of the kind Friends appointed to see to their needs. He felt the want of employment, but got over this by working for a tailor. After some weeks they were brought up at the Thomas Ellwood. 137 Old Bailey, and refusing to take the oath of allegi- ance, were committed to Newgate, which was very- full. They had some liberty within the walls dur- ing the day, but were all shut up in one large room at night ; and this overcrowding caused sickness among them, and at last one prisoner died. When such an event occurred, it was customary for the turnkeys to go into the street and bring in any persons who were passing, until there was a suffi- cient number to form a jury at the inquest. On this occasion they laid hands on " an ancient man, a grave citizen," who was in great haste. In vain he protested ; he was forced inside, but being there he resolved to do his duty. He insisted on seeing the room where the prisoner had died, and when brought to the door he exclaimed that he did not think there had been so much cruelty in the hearts of Englishmen as to use Englishmen so. Then turning to the other jurors, he said : " We need not now question how this man came by his death ; we may rather wonder that they are not all dead." Ellwood supposes that it was in consequence of this man's representations that one of the sheriffs came to Newgate the next day. He was very 138 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. courteous to the Friends, and said the only thing he could do was to send those who had come from Bridewell thither again, so as to lessen the crowding. The next day therefore, EUwood and his com- panions walked without any attendance, two and two, through the streets on the way to their old quarters. People stopped them to inquire what the procession meant, and when told that they were prisoners going from Newgate to Bridewell, said, " What ! without a keeper t " " No," said we, " for our word which we have given is our keeper." When the sessions came on at the Old Bailey they were discharged. EUwood returned the hammock to its owner, refunded the money sent to him by friends, and "went to wait," he says, "upon my master Milton." Shortly afterwards he entered Isaac Pennington's household as tutor to his children, and remained there for seven years, with the exception of two imprisonments, common incidents in those days. His position at the Grange brought him into con- stant association with his old playfellow, "Mary Pennington's fair daughter Guli," as he calls her. Thomas Ellwood. 139 There were many who looked on him suspiciously, and said that his aim would be to add himself to the long list of her suitors, but he felt that to take advantage of his position would bring, to use his own words, " a wound upon mine own soul, a foul scandal on my religious profession, and an infa- mous stain upon mine honour ; either of which was far more dear unto me than my life." He proved himself worthy of the unbounded trust which her parents reposed in him, and was always her faithful squire, her devoted friend, but never her lover. On his marriage — which it is satisfactory to know was a most happy one — he settled at Hunger Hill, near Amersham. He died in 17 13. In the testimony issued by his own Monthly Meeting he is spoken of as " eminently serviceable in the Church of Christ ; a man to whom the Lord had given a large capacity beyond many, and furnished him with an excellent gift ; whereby he was qualified for those services in the church in the performance of which he did shine as a star which received its lustre and bright- ness from the glorious Sun of Righteousness." CHAPTER VII. EARLY LIFE OF WILLIAM PENN. "This Quaker was a strong and a brave, and therefore a free man : he ruled himself, and fearing God, feared no other ; and so he made posterity his debtor, for that spirit which won freedom for himself he left to it as a legacy, and there is no fear that the debt due to him will be unpaid, so long as the inheritance remains." — W. E. Forster. T was during the stormy time of the great Civil War in England, in 1644, that William Penn was born in the parish of St. Catherine, on Tower Hill. He was of gentle birth, though the family had become impoverished, but his father — who was still a young man — was fast rising in the naval profession, which he had followed from his boyhood. He was made an admiral by Cromwell, and grew rich on prize money. For a while he had a house near Wan- stead in Essex, and there his son attended the grammar school at Chigwell. It was about this time that young Penn, then only eleven years of * This account of William Penn is taken, somewhat shortened, from a little memoir already published. See last page. Early Life of William Penn. 141 age, seems to have received his earliest religious impressions. He often referred in after life to the revelation which had suddenly come to him when alone in his room of the reality of God, and the possibility of communion with Him, feeling it as a call to a holy life. A little later the admiral went to reside on his Irish estates in county Cork, and from thence Penn was sent to the university of Oxford, at the age of fifteen, having already made great progress in his studies. He distinguished himself in the same way while a gentleman com- moner at Christ Church, and also by his skill in athletic sports in which he delighted. All this was most gratifying to his father ; but we shall soon see that he learned there something else, the last thing that the admiral would have wished for him. It was the year of Cromwell's death in which Penn began his university course, and great changes were at hand. Charles II. was soon to be upon the throne. The time-serving admiral managed to stand well with him and his brother, the Duke of York, and they were ready to bestow their favour on his son also. Nor can we rightly estimate the lofty character of Penn, unless we remember how 142 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. dazzling was the proffered career from which, in his richly-gifted youth, he turned away for conscience sake. With the Restoration had been let loose floods of frivolity and vice, which were felt at Oxford as elsewhere. It likewise led to more ritualism being introduced into the religious ser- vices, which did not at all suit the views of some of the students, including Penn, whose mind had been awakened to strong religious convictions. He had attended a meeting where Thomas Loe, a minister of the Society of Friends, was present. Thomas Loe was a gifted and educated man, and had for- merly been at the university, and William Penn, when a child, had heard him preach in Ireland. Now for young Penn to associate with Quakers was to ruin his worldly prospects. He soon got into trouble at the university. With some who were like-minded, he refused to attend the estab- lished worship, and with them he was at last expelled from his college. There is a story that in their youthful zeal they tore off the surplices of some students who had assumed the obnoxious garment ; but this report lacks confirmation. His father, the admiral, naturally displeased at what Early Life of William Penn. 143 had happened — all the more so when he found how the lad's thoughts and wishes were opposed to the courtly life for which he was destined — stormed at and threatened him, even descending to blows, and at last in a passion ordered his son to leave the house. However, he soon relented, and calling him home, he tried another way by sending him to the continent with some companions of high rank, hoping thus to cure his grave and serious mood. This plan succeeded. When young Penn returned at the end of two years — much of that time having been spent in study at Saumur — he was, we are told, " a modish person, grown quite a fine gentle- man." But that his sweet, generous nature re- mained unspoiled may be seen by his behaviour in public on one occasion, when he was brutally attacked in the street for a pretended affront He skilfully disarmed his antagonist, and then, instead of killing him, gracefully handed back the sword he had taken, and went on his way. His father, gratified by the young man's appear- ance and gentlemanly address, now sent him to Lincoln's Inn, that he might add a knowledge of the law to his other acquirements. He took him 144 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends, to Court ; and when war broke out with the Dutch, the son went to sea with the father for a few days, in order that he might be the bearer home of des- patches to the King. This was in 1665, the year in which London was ravaged by the plague ; and this terrible visitation brought back to Penn the solemn thoughts that had been driven for awhile from his young heart. When the admiral returned in all the pride of victory, it troubled him to see this change, but he, resolved to try again the pre- scription which had answered so well once before, and sent his son to Dublin, where his friend, the Duke of Ormond, the lord-lieutenant, kept almost regal state. Here Penn found himself in the midst of a refined and intellectual circle, very unlike the dis- solute court of Charles II., and he received a welcome as one likely to prove a brilliant addition to its charms. He became very intimate with one of the Duke's sons. Lord Arran ; and when the latter was sent to put down an insurrection in Antrim, where the insurgents had seized the castle of Carrickfergus, Penn went with him as a volun- teer, and so distinguished himself by his skill and WILLIAM PENN, AGED TWENTY-TWO YEARS. Early Life of William Penn. 145 bravery, that the Duke was of opinion that in the profession of arms he might best earn profit and renown. Just after this military feat, when about twenty-two years of age, was painted the only portrait for which he ever sat. It represents him dressed in armour, with his long curls resting in masses on his mailed shoulders. The face is one of much beauty, with sweetness and strength com- bined in the fine brow, the large, soft, serious eyes, and the firm mouth and chin. He was quite dis- posed at this time to enter the army immediately, but for the present the admiral desired him to look after his Irish estates, and go to Shangarry castle, his residence in the county of Cork. Penn obeyed immediately, and left the attractive society in which he had shone, to throw his whole mind into the affairs of business, and in these he showed such ability that his father was delighted, and doubtless believed that his son had forgotten all about Quakers, and was entirely out of their reach. But one day when Penn went to the city of Cork, he heard that Thomas Loe was there — the minister who had first drawn his heart towards Friends ; and he felt constrained to hear him once again. He L 146 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. went to the meeting, and the preacher rose with these words : " There is a faith which overcomes the world, and there is a faith which is overcome by the world." The address which followed came to Penn as a message from God, and then his choice was made. If ever living man took up the cross and went after Christ in the path of self-denial, he did so in that hour. He knew the consequences. He could not forget what he had previously suf- fered when he inclined towards the Quakers. In allusion to those trials in after life he speaks of " the bitter mockings and scornings that fell upon me, the displeasure of my parents, the invectiveness and cruelty of the priests, the strangeness of all my companions ; what a sign and wonder they made of me, but, above all, that great cross of resisting and watching against mine own inward vain affec- tions and thoughts." He continued to attend the meetings of Friends at Cork, and on one such occasion was arrested with several others and taken before the mayor. The latter did not like to interfere with a gentleman of his position, and offered him his liberty on certain conditions, but Penn would not accept of treatment different from Early Life of William Penn. 147 the rest, and went to prison with eighteen others. From thence he wrote to the Earl of Orrery, eldest son of the Duke of Ormond, the highest authority in that district, protesting against the intolerance and injustice of the whole proceeding. Lord Orrery speedily gave orders for Penn's release ; and then his father summoned him back to England. At first the admiral was not harsh. He tried to persuade his son. He even implored him to yield. But with Penn it was a matter of conscience to stand firm, and he could only say that he must set what he believed to be the commands of God above even the commands of his father. In so deciding he was giving up the sunshine of royal favour, and the most coveted honours of the world, to cast in his lot with those who were despised and persecuted ; and harder than all the rest was his sense of the pain that he was causing his father. The admiral in great anger forbade him the house, and he would have been without means for his support if his mother had not sent him assistance. About twelve months later, when he was twenty- four years of age, he began to speak as a minister of the Society of Friends. Soon afterwards 148 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. appeared the first of the many books which he wrote in the course of his life. They were nearly all on subjects connected with religion. Many of them were written in defence of the views held by Friends, others were treatises on special points of Christian doctrine and practice, and some were noble pleas for civil and religious liberty. Both as a minister and as an author, his intellect and learn- ing were held by him as gifts to be used in God's service. His first book was speedily followed by others, in one of which he condemned the use of some common theological phrases as unscriptural and misleading. It was in reply to grossly unjust attacks made on the doctrines of Friends. This work roused a storm of ecclesiastical wrath, and finally he was committed to the Tower on a charge of blasphemy. His imprisonment was very severe ; and one day he was told that the Bishop of London had resolved that, unless he would re- cant, he should die there. He replied that his prison should be his grave rather than he would withdraw what he believed to be true. " I owe my conscience," he said, " to no mortal man ; I have no need to fear, God will make amends for all." Early Life of William Penn. 149 While in the Tower he spent much time in writing one of his best-known works, called " No Cross, no Crown." He also wrote a pamphlet to show how false was the charge brought against him of denying the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. After an imprisonment of nearly nine months he obtained his liberty, it was supposed through the influence of the Duke of York. The admiral could not help admiring his son's courage and con- stancy, and though he would not yet be wholly reconciled, he sent him on business to Ireland. But before Penn sailed from England he visited Thomas Loe, then upon his death-bed, and received his last farewell and blessing. " Dear heart, bear thy cross, stand faithful for God," was part of his dying counsel to the young convert who had hitherto been so loyal to conscience. When Penn reached Cork, finding many Friends confined in prison, he appealed to the Duke of Ormond on their behalf, and at last succeeded in obtaining the release of them all. His return home was hastened by the desire of his father, who was in very declining health and wanted to have his son near him. This was in 1670, when the 1 50 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. Conventicle Act was in full force. It forbade more than five persons, unless members of the same family, and in their own house, to meet for religious worship. Fines, imprisonment, and finally transportation were the penalties for disobedience. Of course this struck hard at the Quakers. Soon after Penn came back, on a Sunday in summer, he went to the Friends' meeting-house in Gracechurch Street, and found it guarded by soldiers. As the congregation could not get in, they gathered out- side, and Penn taking off his hat, began to preach. After a while some constables came forward and arrested him and another Quaker named William Meade, who had formerly been a soldier in the time of the Commonwealth. Both were brought before the magistrates and committed to take their trial at the Old Bailey. Penn wrote without delay to his father to let him know what had happened. After giving the particulars, he concludes thus : "And now, dear father, be not displeased nor grieved. What if this be designed of the Lord for an exercise of our patience .'*.., I am very well and have no trouble upon my spirits besides my absence from thee, especially at this juncture, Early Life of William Penn. 151 but otherwise I can say I was never better ; and what they have to charge me with is harmless. Well, eternity, which is at the door (for He that shall come will come, and will not tarry) that shall make amends for all. The Lord God everlasting consolate and support thee by His holy power, and preserve to His eternal rest and glory. Amen. " Thy faithful and obedient son, "William Penn." In about a fortnight the trial began before the mayor and recorder of the city, and eight other magistrates. It is a memorable one in our history, for prisoners and jury alike nobly vindicated then and for all future time some of the most precious rights of Englishmen. Penn was well aware that he had disobeyed the Conventicle Act, but he was equally sure that this Act was a breach of the principles laid down in the Great Charter, and that therefore it could not be binding. Moreover, the indictment against both him and Meade was full of errors. For one thing they were charged with causing riot and disturbance, which was absurdly untrue, as they had been perfectly peaceable, and it was the soldiers and constables who had made 152 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. the disorder. Both the prisoners pleaded Not Guilty. Penn made a masterly defence in spite of the most shameless attempts to silence him. Once he was threatened with chains, but only replied, " Do your pleasure : I matter not your fetters." The jury acquitted Meade altogether, and simply found Penn Guilty of speaking in Gracechurck Street. The magistrates were furious, and refusing to accept the verdict, commanded the jury to re- tire and consider it afresh. Again and again did these brave men bring in the same verdict, each time to have it rejected, and to be sent back with brutal threats and yet more brutal usage, for they were kept for two days and nights without bed, or food, and what was even worse, without water, so that their sufferings were terrible. But they knew that they were upholding the rights of English- men, and they would not yield. When for the last time they were brought in, and once more the question was put to them. Guilty or Not Guilty ? they answered through their foreman. Not Guilty. There was an excited murmur of sympathy and assent from the crowded court, while the defeated magistrates were for a moment dumb with amaze- Early Life of William Penn. 153 ment. But soon recovering themselves, they showed that their malice was not exhausted, by inflicting fines on the jurors and prisoners for con- tempt of court. All of them, on principle, re- fused to pay, and were committed to Newgate. The jury, following Penn's advice, brought an action against the mayor and recorder for false imprisonment, and carried their cause to a higher court. The appeal was successful. The judges of England gave their unanimous decision that a jury had absolute freedom in giving their verdict, and could in no wise be compelled to alter it. The sufferings of these fourteen men had not been in vain. By their stedfastness they had won a great victory for truth and justice. Penn and Meade would still have stayed in gaol, had they not soon been told that their fines were paid, and that therefore they were free to go. It was the admiral who had done this. He felt him- self drawing near his end, and he longed for the presence of his son. Penn hastened home to find him on his death-bed ; but the few days that re- mained to him must have been unspeakably pre- cious to them both. There was no shadow of 154 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. disquietude between them now ; for the dying admiral could approve and bless the conduct that had once roused his sternest wrath. " Son William," he said, "• I am weary of the world ; I would not live my days over again, if I could com- mand them with a wish ; for the snares of life are greater than the fears of death. This troubles me that I have offended a gracious God. . . . O ! have a care of sin ! It is that which is the sting both of life and death. . . . Let nothing in this world tempt you to wrong your conscience ; so you will keep peace at home, which will be a feast to you in the day of trouble." Much more he said in those hours of blessed communion, and thus in mutual love and unbroken harmony, father and son parted at last. The admiral only survived the trial for eleven days ; one of his latest earthly cares being to commend his son — for whom he foresaw much future danger — to the protection of the King, and more especially of the Duke of York. The latter promised to befriend Penn — a pledge which was faithfully kept. The admiral left his son his sole executor, and heir of all his property with the exception of a Early Life of William Penn. 155 life interest for Lady Penn — the mother whose faithful love received its full reward in kind. Penn was thus at the age of twenty-six, possessed of a handsome estate. Once more the path of worldly prosperity lay smooth and clear before him, and once more he chose the hard and narrow way to which he believed that the voice of God had called him. Hence a few months after his father's death, and in the same year, we find him arrested while preaching in the Friends' meeting-house in Wheeler Street. This appears to have been done by order of the magistrates who had been so signally de- feated in the famous trial at the Old Bailey, and who thought that now the admiral was dead they might persecute his son with none to hinder them. He was at first taken to the Tower, and there ex- amined before several magistrates who, being foiled in their attempts to use against him two different Acts of Parliament, at last got him into their power by requiring him to take the oath of allegiance to the King. The views of the early Friends being what they were, setting so strongly against the tide of public opinion, they could not look to escape hard measure at times, even from 156 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. those who meant to act justly, and these Quakers were not the men to complain of fair blows re- ceived in a conflict that they had invited. But it was well known that they conscientiously refused to fight, under any conditions, and therefore they of all men, did not need to swear that they would never take up arms against the King. It was also well known that they believed that even judicial swearing was a plain breach of Christ's command, so the trap was often set for them, as it was in this case, by tendering the oath of allegiance. Of course Penn declined to take it, and was therefore sentenced to six months' imprisonment in New- gate. The Lieutenant of the Tower commanded a body of soldiers to conduct him thither, when Penn exclaimed : " No, no ; send thy lacquey. I know the way to Newgate." His remonstrance was unheeded, and guarded as if he were a dan- gerous criminal, he was marched to the dreary prison, where, with yet more dreary company, this refined gentleman was condemned to spend six weary months, which he employed in writing. When he was set at liberty he paid a religious visit to Holland and Germany. Five years later Early Life of William Penn. 157 he repeated this, when he had most interesting in- tercourse with the Princess Elizabeth of the Rhine, niece of Charles I. On his return from his first Dutch journey in 1672, when in his twenty-eighth year, he married Gulielma Maria Springett. Of her it might be truly said, that " her body was the beautiful temple of a fairer soul;" and rich and titled suitors eagerly sought her in marriage. But she dwelt in a world apart from theirs, and the prize remained unwon until she met with William Penn in his visits to her step-father. Penn settled with his lovely bride at Rickmans- worth, a few miles from Chalfont. Just then there was a pause in the cruel treatment of the Quakers, though it was only a pause ; and part of this time of peace and leisure was spent by him in address- ing to Parliament a remonstrance on the injustice of religious persecution for any opinions, whatso- ever they might be. A few eloquent passages of Penn's on this point may be fitly given here. He says : "We came not to our liberties and properties by the Protestant religion ; their date rises higher. Why then should a nonconformity to it deprive us of them } The nature of the body and soul, earth 1 5 8 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. and heaven, this world and that to come, differs. There can be no reason to persecute any man in this world about anything that belongs to the next. Who art thou that judgest another man's servant ? He must stand or fall to his master, the great God. Let tares and wheat grow together until the great harvest. To call for fire from heaven was no part of Christ's religion. . . . His sword is spiritual, like His kingdom. Be pleased to remember that faith is the gift of God : and what is not of faith is sin. We must either be hypocrites in doing what we believe in our consciences we ought not to do, or forbearing what we are fully persuaded we ought to do." Again he speaks of the " gross and general mistake of Christ's church and kingdom, which is not an outward or worldly kingdom that can be set up by man and sustained by coercive laws, but it consists of the reign of God in the souls of men ; it is a spiritual kingdom, and none but spiritual weapons are to be used to reclaim those who are ignorant and disobedient." " Re- ligion is gentle, it makes men better, more friendly, loving, and patient than before." These noble sentiments were those of a small Early Life of William Penn. 159 minority in that day. England under Charies II., had fallen upon evil times, religiously and politi- cally. The King's disgraceful intrigues with France gave rise to suspicion of designs both possible and impossible. A strong belief existed that he was at heart a Roman Catholic, at least in as much as he believed in anything at all, and it was feared that he would restore the supremacy of the Papal Church. The air seemed full of wild rumours of Popish plots, which were credited even by the wise ; and in 1673 and 1675, the Test Acts were passed. Now these Acts struck heavily at the Quakers. When Penn gave evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons in 1678, he was listened to with respectful attention while he told them that it felt an added hardship to the members of his society, not only to be wronged and ruined for what they were, but also for what they were not ; and to know that the laws under which they grievously suffered were aimed, not at them, but at Roman Catholics ; though he added magnani- mously: "But mark: I would not be mistaken," and then he went on to say that while he protested against the injustice of Quakers being punished as 1 60 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. Papists, he equally condemned the persecution of Papists themselves, " for," he said, " we must give the liberty we ask and cannot be false to our principles, though it were to relieve ourselves." A common charge against the early Friends was that they were Roman Catholics in disguise ; and Penn himself was frequently accused of being a Jesuit. By other means than those already mentioned he strove on behalf of the unpopular cause of religious toleration ; and we in this day, can hardly under- stand how great was the courage which he showed in pleading for the rights of Roman Catholics. In 1673, we find him at Court, for the first time for five years. He went there, not to seek for profits and honours which he despised, but to obtain the release of George Fox from Worcester Castle. He was received with great kindness by the Duke of York, who promised to use his influence with the King, and eventually Fox was liberated. It was a striking tribute to Penn's uprightness that he did not lose the Duke's friendship by the most public and determined opposition to the policy of the Government. In the prospect of a general election, Penn addressed the electors in a pamphlet, urging Early Life of William Penn. i6i on them the duty of a conscientious discharge of their trust. He bids them to choose " wise men, fearing God and hating covetousness." " We must not," he says, " make our public choice the recom- pense of private favours from our neighbours ; they must excuse us that ; the weight of the matter will very well bear it ; this is our inheritance, all depends upon it, and therefore none must take it ill that we use our freedom about that which, in its constitution, is the great bulwark of all our ancient English liberties." He goes on to remind them of their birthright as Englishmen, of which they could only be deprived by their own fault. But such counsels as these fell too often on deaf ears ; and when he saw the debased condition of his country, it was natural that he should cast a longing eye on the vast region beyond the Atlantic, and think of the blessedness of building up a new and better England there. He had been engaged for some years in assisting emigration thither, as a trustee for West New Jersey, and now the time was near at hand for him to undertake that great work with which his name will be associated while the world lasts. CHAPTER VIII. WILLIAM PENN AND HIS ''HOLY EXPERIMENT:' " I have ever loved England, and moderation to all parties in it, and long seen and foreseen the consequences of the want of it. I would yet heartily wish it might take place, and persuasion that of persecution, that we might not grow barbarous for Christianity, nor abuse and undo one another for God's sake:^ — William Penn. I ART of the inheritance which came to Penn from his father was a claim on the Crown for ;^ 16,000 owed to the admiral. He now offered to take in payment a grant of land in America on the banks of the Delaware. The Duke of York was favourable to his request, and after many delays, difficulties, and anxieties, Penn obtained from Charles II. in 168 1, a patent or charter conferring on him the splendid territory, not much less in size than the whole of England, which is so well known to us as Pennsylvania. He was made governor and absolute proprietor, saving only allegiance to the throne. He was to pay to the King two beaver skins annually, and a fifth William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 163 part of all gold and silver ore found in the prov- ince. He had power to appoint magistrates and judges, and to make laws with the assent of the freemen of the colony, provided they were not in- consistent with the fundamental laws of England. Thus in his hands was placed authority to mould the destinies of a new state, far away from the political storms which were shaking to their base the countries of the Old World, overburdened with the errors and the wrongs of ages. He would leave behind him all the tyrannies and persecutions which embittered life to tens of thousands, to build up, in the fear of God, a kingdom whose founda- tions should be laid in righteousness. Its broad lakes and rivers should be emblems of the freedom awaiting both mind and body, and its solemn, un- trodden forests should be as temples wherein men worshipped God by holy lives. This beautiful land would need neither forts nor armies, for its inhabit- ants should be just, treating the Red Indian as a brother, not coveting other men's goods, or seeking cause of offence with any. A purer vision never dawned on statesman's waking dream ; and though it was most imperfectly realised, for our highest 164 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. hopes will always soar far beyond the possibility of any earthly fulfilment, yet it was founded on everlasting truth, and thus, partaking of that which is immortal, could never wholly pass away. There was much to be done before Penn could visit his vast possessions, and he showed at once how unselfish were his aims by steadfastly refusing proposals which, though largely to his own advan- tage, would not be best for Pennsylvania. One of these, which he himself says was " a great tempta- tion," was the offer of £6,000 with further profit for the monopoly of the Indian trade in his prov- ince ; " but," he adds, " as the Lord gave it me over all and great opposition, ... I would not abuse His love, nor act unworthy of His providence^ and so defile what came to me clean.'' Before the close of 1681, he sent three com- missioners to his colony, who were charged, among other duties, to choose a site for the city which he was about to found. His directions on this matter are most interesting, and manifest large and wise ideas respecting health and comfort. It is plain that he was resolved to have none of the close and crowded streets with which he was William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 165 familiar in Europe, where light and air found it hard to enter. So he tells them to seek a situation high and dry, on the banks of the Delaware, to set apart 10,000 acres for the limits of the city, and to have it so laid out that there might be plenty of room within its boundaries for gardens and or- chards, in order, he says, " that it may be a green country town, which will never be burnt, and always wholesome." It is cause of deep regret that this statesmanlike plan, which sounds so delicious to the closely packed dwellers in great cities, was not fully carried out. Had it been, it would have made Philadelphia a model for the world. As to the general principles which were to guide his commissioners, he bids them "Be impartially just and courteous to all, that is both pleasing to the Lord and wise in itself" In framing a constitu- tion for his young state, Penn took counsel with large-minded and experienced men. The govern- ment was vested in a Provincial Council and General Assembly. A code of laws was drawn up which decreed that no taxes should be imposed but by legal enactments ; that all trials should be by jury, to consist of six Red and six White men when 1 66 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. the culprit was an Indian ; and at a time when there were above two hundred capital offences in England, Penn abolished the penalty of death ex- cept for murder and treason. He took care to make arrangements that would keep the prisons free from the terrible abuses of which he had seen and felt the consequences ; and thus he anticipated by more than a century the work of John Howard and Elizabeth Fry. But to him by far the dearest right conferred by his new code, was the freedom granted to all Christians to worship God according to their own conscience, none making them afraid. What a blessed promise must this have seemed to the harassed Quakers of that day, fresh from filthy dungeons and ruinous fines. But whilst to William Penn belongs the glory of establishing religious toleration on a larger scale than had ever been seen before, we may rejoice in the knowledge that the same principle had already been recognised in America by the Roman Catholic Lord Baltimore in Maryland, and by the Puritan Roger Williams in Rhode Island. So that not to one church nor to one man was permitted the privilege of setting forth in the New World that simple truth which William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 167 had been trampled on for ages by those who knew not what they did. It is a most noteworthy fact, and finely illustrates the character of Penn, that in drafting a constitution for Pennsylvania, he took care to limit strictly the authority belonging to the office of governor, which he would be the first to fill. His own words are: "I propose ... to leave myself and successors no power of doing mischief that the will of one man may not hinder the good of an whole country!' . At last, in August, 1682, Penn was ready to follow his agents to the New World, there to set on foot what he called his " Holy Experiment." But before he went forth on his far uncertain journey, he wrote a long farewell letter to his wife and children, which is as attractive from the " soft and mellow English " in which it is written, as it is valuable for the wise christian tone of its counsels and instructions. It begins thus : " My dear Wife and Children, — my love, which neither sea, nor land, nor death itself can extin- guish or lessen toward you, most endearingly visits you with eternal embraces, and will abide with you for ever ! Some things are upon my spirit to leave 1 68 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends, with you in your respective capacities, as I am to one a husband, and to the rest a father, if I should never see you more in this world. " My dear Wife ! remember thou wast the love of my youth, and much the joy of my life ; the most beloved as well as the most worthy of all my earthly comforts ; and the reason of that love was more thy inward than thy outward excellencies, which yet were many. . . . Now I am to leave thee, and that without knowing whether I shall ever see thee more in this world, take my counsel into thy bosom, and let it dwell with thee in my stead while thou livest." Then follow many in- junctions, some respecting the management of his property, so as to meet all expenses and avoid debt, others relating to the education and future welfare of his children, from whom he tells her to require o bedience^ ^ On them he enjoms unfailing [\ity to their mother for her own and for their father's sake. He gives them loving advice for their guidance in the more general duties of life, and also in those special ones which were likely to fall to their lot. He bids them to love one another, and to remember the poor. Throughout the let- XS *i-f '^.T.^XTY William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 169 ter, which has all the solemnity of a last farewell, runs the thought expressed in many ways, Fear God and keep His commandments. He finishes thus: *'So, my God, that hath blessed me with His abundant mercies, both of this and the other and better life, be with you all, guide you by His counsel, bless you, and bring you to His eternal glory! that you may shine, my dear children, in the firmament of God's power with the blessed spirits of the just, that celestial family, praising and admiring Him, the God and Father of it for ever. For there is no God like unto Him, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of the prophets, the apostles, and martyrs of Jesus, in whom I live for ever. So farewell to my thrice dearly beloved wife and children ! Yours, as God pleaseth, in that which no waters can quench, no time forget, nor distance wear away, but remains for ever." This tender and beautiful epistle is dated from Worminghurst in Sussex, a fine estate which he had bought some years earlier, and where he left his family settled when he took leave of them before, what was then, a long and perilous voyage. I/O Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. With about one hundred persons, mostly Friends of Sussex, he embarked at Deal on the first of September in the Welcome, 300 tons burthen. The voyage, which was considered a good one, lasted for about two months, and was a time of much trial, thirty of the emigrants on board dying of small-pox before it was over. We are told that the survivors never, forgot how William Penn, undaunted by the deadly risk, ministered by night and day to . the sick apd dying. At last the Welcome dropped her anchor off New Castle, where Penn was joyfully greeted by the inhabitants, and next day received possession of the country by the form of offering to him turf, and twig, and water, and soil from the Delaware. The white population of Pennsylvania at this time numbered between 2,000 and 3,000 souls, chiefly English and Swedes ; and besides these were about 6,000 Indians, with whom, as original owners of the soil, Penn made his famous treaty a few weeks after his arrival — the "fairest page," it has been said, in the history of America. The autumn was then far advanced, and the primaeval forests were clothed in their regal garb William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 171 of gold and scarlet, radiant with a glory of colour which, we are told, can only be understood by those who have seen it. The place of meeting with the Indians was in the depths of those mighty woods, on the banks of the Delaware, with no roof but the wide-spreading branches of a magnificent elm tree, thenceforth held so sacred, that long afterwards, during the war between England and America, the British commander set a guard around it for fear it should be harmed. Thither in his barge came William Penn with a small company to meet the large gathering of Red men, who, dressed in their paint and feathers, awaited him, sitting in a half- circle on the ground, in their usual dignified silence. T hey had laid ,a sid£Llheir weapons, for here ^ere White n?f^" whn_cg.m e to them unarnie^T and they listened with the gravity nat ural to their race, when Penn rose to address them. H^ was then thirty-eight years of age, and a lady who was an eye-witness tells us that he was " the hand- somest, best-looking, most lively gentleman she had ever seen." His dress was, doubtless, in the style customary with gentlemen of that day, including the cocked hat and the abundant ruffles, but lack- _:;5 1/2 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. ing the swprH anH pliioag^wlndx^^h^a^Qrinfid^part of the costume of men of his raok, ^ sky-blue "sash marked him out from his companionsr—The^ presents which he had brought for the Inxiian chiefs were spread before him on the ground, while .he stood by the Council fire and spoke to them after this manner : " The Great Spirit who made me and you, who rules the heaven and the earth, and who knows the innermost thoughts, knows that I and my friends have a hearty desire to live in peace and friendship with you, and to serve you to the utmost of our power. It is not our custom to use hostile weapons against our fellow-creatures, for which reason we have come unarmed. Our object is not to do injury, and thus provoke the Great Spirit, but to do good. We are met on the broad pathway of good faith and good will, so that no advantage is to be taken on either side, but all to be openness, brotherhood, and love." He then un- rolled a parchment on which the proposed agree- ment was written, and explained it to them through an interpreter. The Indians heard him in perfect silence, for these savages were far too courteous to interrupt a speaker ; and when the time came for dwelt in safety with his door unbarred, among fierce Indians, while the homes of his neighbours were wasted by fire, and blood-stained ashes marked wEere their hearths had been. But between the Red William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 173 them to reply, they answered Penn in the same spirit of love and trust in which he had spoken. They said that the league between the two races should be kept bright and clean, without rust or spot, while the creeks and rivers ran, and while sun, moon, and stars endured. This was the treaty of which it has been said that it was the only one ever made with the Indians that was not ratified K by an oath, and the only one that was never / broken. They called their great friend Onas, which in their language signifies a pen^ and revered him whilejifijiiied, and held his memory dear when he had passed away from earth. Long after his death they were in the habit of meeting together in the woods, and spreading out the parchments contain- ing his speeches and those of his successors on a blanket or piece of bark, and looking over them again. More than this. They trusted all the chil- dren of Onas, as they called the Quakers ; and in after-times of cruel warfare, the unarmed Friend 174 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends, men and the Quakers the tomahawk was buried for ever. And this triumphant result followed a policy of simple justice and of obedience to the^ ^omjiiand._o£_the Divine Master, Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you^ do ye even so to them. The Friends did not look upon these Indians, as other colonists t^ie^ trften did, as if they were outlawed from the kingdom of God, but regarded them as brethren for whom Christ had died, as equally with^tHemselves under the care of the Almighty Father who has no outcasts in His_ family, who, as the Great Spirit, had revealed Him- self to^the dim mental vision of these children_of-^ the forest, and who would never hold them account- able for more light than they had received^ Penn did not think that because the King of England had granted him this immense territory, he had therefore any right to take from the Indians the lands which certainly belonged to them by an earlier claim. So he bought from them what they . were willing to sell, as had been done already by the enlightened Roger Williams in Rhode Island, and by the Friends in New Jersey. It was indeed a grand and wealthy country that had been committed William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 175 to the keeping of this Quaker statesman, of which he gives descriptions in his letters. The soil was rich, the climate good, the dense forests seemed to have no end, and in them were different kinds of noble trees, the oak, the walnut, chestnut, beech, cedar, cypress, hickory, and many more. Fruit abounded in the woods, such as strawberries, cranberries, peaches, grapes, etc. ; and lovely frag- rant plants and flowers, which would add, Penn said, to the charms of the best gardens in England. Beautiful living creatures revelled in those lonely regions. Among them were the elk, the deer, the beaver, wild cat, otter, wolf, fox, and bear. There were huge turkeys, pigeons whose immense flocks darkened the very air through which they passed, pheasants, partridges, and others ; while the mighty waters swarmed with fish as well as with swans, geese, ducks, teal, snipe, and curlew. It must have been a time set apart in Penn's life when his barge bore him up the Delaware to pay his first visit to the different parts of the bountiful province of which he was the lord. It was not the ownership of the soil, a thought so dear to men in every age, that would most fill his mind ; but rather I "j^ Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. joy and thankfulness that to him it was permitted to try this " Holy Experiment " in statesmanship. Here, far from the miseries which distracted ''woeful Europe," he would establish a government which should be just, ruling in the fear of God, and would be as a sheltering haven for the poor and the; oppressed. Darker days, even than any he had yet known, were in store for him. Sorrow, ingratitude, slander, and treachery were to strain his heart almost to breaking ; but they could not deprive him of the memory of those golden hours, when each passing moment brought to him some fresh revelation of the solemn beauty of a world still bearing the fresh impress of the Creator's hand, while every pulse beat high with boundless hope. He spent about two years in Pennsylvania on this occasion, and had much to do in settling the affairs of his infant colony. When the first Council and Assembly met, they desired some changes in the constitution, and he granted to them a second charter. One of the measures of this first session ^^^^^whicfiTlasted for only twenty-one days, but did plenty of work — was for the appointment in everjr county court of three peacemakers, who were to be William Penii and his Holy Experiment. 177 arbiters in all disputes between individuals ; and twice a year a court was to be held to look after the interests of widows and orphans. This As- sembly likewise offered to Penn, for his own use, a duty on certain exports and imports, which he, with his usual unselfishness, declined ; but it is grievous to add that he had cause to repent his generosity in after years. The building of his city of Philadelphia was another of Penn's cares ; and, meanwhile, settlers were pouring into this new land of promise. Yet in the midst of these weighty matters time was found to open the first school in a hut made of planks of pine and cedar. The scale of charges is interesting : "To leafn to read, 4s. a quarter ; to write, 6s. ; boarding a scholar — to wit, diet, lodging, washing, and schooling — £\o the whole year." But the colony had hardly out- grown its infancy before far more complete arrange- ments were made for education — a subject on which the Society of Friends, from a very early date, was far in advance of the times. Penn's chief difficulty at this period was the dis- puted boundary between his territory and that of Lord Baltimore. It was not settled until long after 178 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. the death of both, by what has been known since as "l^^ason and Dixon's Line;" but at this time the question had been referred for discussion in England, and this, which proved a principal reason why Penn's return thither was needful, was not the only one. There was much to be arranged before his de- parture. He had many friendly conferences with_ the India ns^ whose reverence for him seems to have been unbounded, and for whose good he gave with^ a most liberaLliand. In his absence the Council was to act in his stead, Thomas Lloyd, a Friend, being appointed its president, and having charge of the Great Seal. When all was in readiness Penn went on board the Endeavour^ and having des- patched thence a farewell letter to Lloyd and others, he sailed for England, and after a voyage of about severi weeks landed on the coastof. Sussex, seven miles from Worminghurst, and had the joy of finding his wife and his children well. A few months after Penn reached England Charles II. died. His brother, the Duke of York, who succeeded him as James II., though a much hcu:shgil^ and gloomier man, was thought William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 1 79 to possess far more sterling qualities than Charles, though looked upon with distrust because he was a Roman Catholic. Yet he gave great satisfaction at his accession by promising to maintain the Church and State as by law established. After considerable delay the imprisoned Quakers obtained their freedom through the influence of TPenn with the King, by whom he was treated with great favour and regard. What Penn had done for the sufferers of his own society was soon spread abroad, and, trusting to his humanity and unselfishness, others besieged him with entreaties "to do the like service for them. Persons of all des- criptions sought to him, begging for his intercession with James. We are told that his door at Ken- sington was daily thronged with petitioners, some- times as many as two hundred or more. He did for them what he could — even when his interference irritated the King — without gain or reward, though he himself said that he might have put ^20,000 into his own pocket, and ^100,000 into the treas- ury of Pennsylvania, if he would have sold his good offices, as many of his traducers would have done had they been in his place. After the failure 1 80 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. of the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion, we find Penn endeavouring, though in vain, to save the lives of some of the innocent victims with whom Judge Jeffries crowded the scaffolds of the West in what was known as "The Bloody Assize." He was more successful in another instance, for to his unceasing efforts was chiefly attributed the procla- mation issued by the King in 1686, which offered a general pardon to all who were imprisoned on the ground of conscientious religious dissent. This gave freedom to thousands who had been wearing out their lives for years in filthy gaols. But if Penn earned the gratitude of those whom he be- friended, he also brought on himself the most bitter accusations and misconceptions as time went on, and the conduct of James gave rise to the suspicion that he meant to replace the Church of England by the Church of Rome. It was widely supposed that this was the real object which lay behind his action, when in the spring of 1688, he issued a declaration of indulgence, granting liberty of con- science, and suspending the hateful religious tests. It was said truly that these could be repealed legally only by Parliament, though some of the William Penn and his Holy Experiment. i8i judges assured James that he was acting within his powers. The Quakers, like many others whom it enabled to breathe freely, went to him with a thankful address, yet they inserted a clause refer- ring to the importance of the concurrence of the Legislature. Penn also urged this upon James ; and when the latter sent to the Tower the seven bishops who had refused to obey his arbitrary order that the clergy should read the declaration in their churches, Penn tried to convince him of his folly, and to persuade him to release them, but as vainly as he had previously endeavoured to prevent the issuing of the order. As it was James's conduct in this matter which compelled him to abdicate, it seems hardly too much to say that he might have kept his crown if he would have listened to the unpalatable advice given to him by William Penn, who always believed that the King was a sincere friend to religious toleration, and that he was deceived by evil counsellors to his ruin. Then, as now, men with sympathies bounded by the limits of sect and party, could not comprehend one who looked on justice and freedom as the rightful heritage of all, and claimed them as 1 82 Glimpses of George Fox ajid his Friends. earnestly for those from whom he dissented as for those with whom he agreed. Yet it may well be that Penn judged too favourably of a prince, the best side of whose character — and doubtless it had a best side — had ever been turned towards him as his own and his father's friend. It may also be true that in his intense desire for religious freedom — the cause that lay nearest to his heart — he may not have been sufficiently alive to the manner in which James tampered with civil liberty, and the cloudy atmosphere of the Court would not tend to make matters clearer. Un- doubtedly his intercourse with the King laid him open to calumny, but this would not prove him to be in the wrong, for a good man must do his duty even at the expense of his reputation ; and though caution and prudence are very good things in their place, they may degenerate into cowardice and selfishness. The singular influence which Penn for a time possessed, was a talent which he was bound to use to good purpose ; but none who rightly honour this great man will try to prove him in- fallible, though it is fair to remember that while the events were actually taking place he could not William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 183 have that evidence before him which guides the decisions of those who see the end as well as the beginning. He may have stumbled on a path beset with pitfalls on the right hand and on the left, but no one who reads truly his life and character will doubt, that in the years when he was a frequent and favoured visitor at Whitehall, he went thither with the uncourtier-like motive of serving others, and that if he erred, he erred in judgment only.* The abdication of James and the accession of the Prince of Orange as William III., with his wife, James's daughter, as Mary II., changed the whole face of affairs in England. Penn was at once an object of suspicion, but strong in his con- scious innocence, he scorned to fly. In a few weeks' time, as he was walking in Whitehall, he was summoned before the Lords of the Council, and questioned by them. He repHed that he had * It is this part of Penn's life that has been especially attacked by his detractors, whom it would not be worth while to mention now, if, unhappily, there had not been in recent times one powerful voice lifted up on the same side, that of the late Lord Macaulay. But the errors into which this great writer fell when dealing with William Penn have been clearly shown and abundantly refuted by W. E. Forster and others. "Every statement," says Hepworth Dixon, ** made by the historian to the injury of William Penn is founded on mistakes of time, of person, and of place." 1 84 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends.^ done nothing but what he could answer for to God, and before all the princes in the world, that he loved his country and the Protestant religion more than his life, that James was his own friend and the friend of his father, and that he had ever striven to advise him for his true interest. He gave security for his appearance next term, but, when the time came, not a single accusation was preferred against him. There being no charge on which to try him, he was honourably dismissed. In the same year an Act of Toleration was passed, which, though it was by no means as full as the Friends would have made it, yet afforded immediate relief to them and to others. Then Penn was anxious to get back to Pennsyl- vania, where he knew that his presence was much needed ; but in 1690 he was again arrested, and brought before the King and Council on a charge of treasonable correspondence with James. The latter had written to him asking for his help, and the letter had been intercepted. Penn ably de- fended himself by telling the simple truth. He said that he had loved James in his prosperity for the many favours received from him, and that he William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 185 loved him still in his adversity ; that he could not hinder James from writing to him and requesting his assistance, but that while he would gladly do any personal kindness in his power to the exiled prince, he must also observe inviolably his duty to the State ; and that he never had the wickedness even to think of seeking to restore James. The King was so satisfied with Penn's defence that he would have given him his liberty on the spot, but in deference to the wishes of some of the Council, Penn was bound over to appear the next term, which he did, but no witness coming forward against him, he was, as before, discharged. But more and worse trouble was in store for him. While King William was fighting the armies of James in Ireland, Queen Mary had several persons arrested whose names had been given to her as likely to be disaffected to the Government, and among them was William Penn, on account of his friendship with James. He had to await his trial in prison, but when brought before the Court of King's Bench, he obtained his acquittal. After this he did not look for any further molestation, but while continuing preparations for his voyage. 1 86 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. he found that a notoriously bad man had made sworn accusations against him, and that but for a mistake as to the hour, he would have been arrested as he stood by George Fox's open grave in Bunhill Fields. " Oh ! he is gone," were Penn's words, "and has left us in the storm that is over our heads, surely in great mercy to him, but as an evi- dence to us of sorrow to come." Penn shrank from facing the testimony of a perjured witness, yet fearing that to leave England would seem like guilt, he resolved to remain in London, but to keep out of sight. It was during this concealment that in a long letter addressed to the members of his own society, in which he alludes to the slanders which assailed him on every side, he adds : "But of one thing be assured, / am innocent both of the imputation of Jesuitism, Popery, and plots, and my God will, in His good time, con- found their devices that trouble you and me with their false things, though I beseech Him to forgive the authors of them as I desire mercy for my own soul. I have little deserved this measure and usage from any of the people of this nation. I wrought as well as I could, with the strength William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 1 87 and instruments I had, for a general good. . . . / never accepted of any commission but that of a free and common solicitor for sufferers of all sorts and in all parties, which made my conversation very- general." But sorely tried as he already had been, the shadows on his pathway deepened still more. On a plea of military necessity the government of his province was taken from him, and Colonel Fletcher appointed in his place ; and this at a time when the failing health of his wife caused him constant solicitude. Her husband's trials had pressed heavily upon her, and though strong in faith, her delicate frame proved no match for the stedfast spirit, and she sank beneath the burden. Her end had all but come, when towards the cIqs^ QLj JQ^r Penn was fully cleared from the imputations hanging over him. Some influential men of high position having represented to the King the dis- grace of such a man being so circumstanced, William had replied that Penn was his old ac- quaintance as well as theirs, and that he might go where he pleased. But this permission being too much like a pardon to satisfy Penn, he claimed 1 88 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. and had the opportunity of defending himself before the Council at Westminster, with the result of receiving an acquittal from every charge. His wife had the joy of living to know it, but she only survived for a few weeks longer, passing away in that — if earth were all — inexplicable peace in which such tender souls depart, leaving their best beloved to the storms of life. Her husband says : " She would not suffer me to neglect any public meeting, after I had my liberty, upon her account, saying often, ' Oh ! go my dearest ; do not hinder any good for me. I desire thee, go ; I have cast my care upon the Lord ; I shall see thee again.' . . . About three hours before her end, on a relation taking leave of her, she said, ' My dear love to all Friends,' and, lifting up her dying hands and eyes, prayed the Lord to preserve and bless them. About an hour after, causing all to withdraw, we were half-an-hour together, in which we took our last leave, saying all that was fit upon that solemn occasion. She quietly expired in my arms, her head upon my bosom, with a sensible and devout resignation of her soul to Almighty God." William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 1 89 In a letter to a friend some days after her death, he writes : " My extreme great affliction for the decease of my dear wife makes me unfit to write much, whom the great God took to Himself, from the troubles of this exercising world, the third instant. In great peace and sweetness she de- parted, and to her gain, but our incomparable loss, being one of ten thousand, . . . but God is God and good — and so, I hope, though afflicted not forsaken." His cup of sorrow was not yet full. From his wife's death-bed he turned to mark the slow but sure decline of his eldest son, his faithful com- panion in trouble, in whom his dearest hopes were bound up. For two years the father kept his mournful watch, and thus describes the end : " His time drawing on apace he said to me, * My dear father, kiss me ! Thou art a dear father ! I desire to prize it! How can I make thee amends?" . . . All were in tears about him. Turning his head to me he said, softly, ' Dear father ! hast thou no hope for me ? ' I answered, ' My dear child, I am afraid to hope, and I dare not despair, but am and have been resigned, though one of the hardest 190 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. lessons I ever learned.' He paused awhile, and with a composed frame of mind, he said, * Come life, come death, I am resigned. Oh, the love of God overcomes my soul!' Finding himself decline apace, somebody fetched the doctor ; but as soon as he came in, he said, * Let my father speak to the doctor, and I'll go to sleep ; ' which he did, and waked no more ; breathing his last on my breast, the tenth day of the Second month, between the hours of nine and ten in the morning, 1696, in his one-and-twentieth year. So ended the life of my dear child and eldest son, much of my comfort and hope, one of the most tender and dutiful, as well as ingenious and virtuous youths I knew ; if I may say so of my own dear child, in whom I lose all that any father could lose in a child, since he was capable of anything that became a sober young man ; my friend and companion, as well as most affectionate and dutiful child." While Penn's long cherished wish to return to America was again and again frustrated, affairs had not been working very smoothly in the pros- perous young colony which he had founded. One portion of it, that has since been formed into the William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 191 State of Delaware, consisted of three counties called the Territories, and their representatives in the Assembly set up a sort of permanent oppo- sition to the members for the Province. In the latter the Friends were for many years the more numerous, though byi202 they were only half the inhabitants ; but the population of the Terri- tories ^on~'became of a very mixed character, composed of Germans, Dutch, and Swedes, as well as of English-speaking people, holding a variety of religious creeds. William Penn's large-minded legislation had led great companies of emigrants to flock thither from the Old World, and these were mostly settled in the Territories. When Penn was deprived of the government and Colonel Fletcher appointed in his place, the Assembly seems to have been nearly unanimous in objecting to the high-handed proceedings of their military ruler, yet they granted him more money than they ever voted to their founder, while steadily r efusing a supply for warlike purposes. Penn was reinstated in his rights in 1694, but five years more passed away before he again saw Pennsyl- vania ; the delay being caused in part by the 192 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. illness and death of his son, and also by the want of means, for the colonists who allowed him to spend his substance freely in their behalf, never seemed alive to the fitness of a return in kind. The death of his friend and deputy-governor, Thomas Lloyd, was a grievous loss to him, making his presence at Philadelphia more than ever necessary. When at last the time came for his departure, he took with him from the members of his religious society the most cordial expressions of love and respect. Penn crossed the Atlantic now with the hope and intention of making his home in the land for which he had done so much. His surviving son, William, stayed behind, unwilling to leave England, but he was accompanied by his daughter Lsetitia and by his second wife, for he had married a lady named Hannah Callowhill, the daughter of a Friend at Bristol. He also took with him as his secretary, James Logan, an accomplished young Irish Friend, whose great acquirements and states- manlike mind proved invaluable, as he became to Penn a most trusted and faithful friend and ser;;:. vant. After a three months' voyage they reached William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 193 their destination in the autumn of 1699. In a letter to young Penn, describing the joy with which his father was welcomed after the lapse of fifteen years, Logan writes : " Friends' love to the governor was great and sincere ; they had long mourned for his absence, and passionately desired his return. He, they firmly believed, would com- pose all their difficulties, and repair all that was amiss." For some months Penn remained in Philadel- phia, in a residence known as " the slate-roof house," the birthplace of h is son John , the only one of his children who was not born in England, and who consequently went by the name of " the American " in his family. In the spring or sum- mer of the year 1700, Penn removed to his beauti- ful estate of Pennsbury Manor. It contained about 6,000 acres of land, only ten of which were cleared, the rest being mostly covered with mag- nificent wood. It was situated on the banks of the Delaware, lying between two creeks, so that at high water it became an island. The mansion, which had been built nearly seventeen years before, at a cost of ;^5,ooo, stood on a slight o 194 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. elevation, whence a broad avenue, lined with poplars, led to the river. The house was in the midst of gardens and lawns, with distant views of the grand forests, and nearer ones of the Delaware and its falls. There were walks laid out in the woods, where the proprietor had been most careful to have the trees preserved. He had sent out all manner of plants, and roots, and seeds from Eng- land, and had ordered the loveliest wild flowers, of the neighbourhood to be transferred to his gar- dens, his directions showing his love of nature and sense of beauty. The two-storeyed dwelling built of brick was approached by a flight of steps and an oaken porch which gave it a handsome appearance, and led to the large hospitable hall, supposed to run the whole length of the house, which served to entertain great gatherings of Indians and other strangers, as well as for the occasional meeting of the Council. It contained a long table, with forms and chairs, a liberal stock of pewter plates and dishes, and six vessels called cisterns for holding beer or water. The account of the domestic arrangements gives the idea of simplicity and re- finement. Oak and walnut furniture is mentioned. William Pe7tn and his Holy Experiment. 195 The chairs seem to have been generally covered with leather, though we are told of easy chairs with cushions of plush and satin. There were likewise satin hangings in one of the chambers, and we read of damask curtains. Of course the pewter articles were designed for occasions when there was need for great quantities of such things ; as once, when Penn made a feast for the Indians under the poplars in the avenue, at which, tradition says, one hundred turkeys were provided, as well as venison and other kinds of food. For the use of his own household there was Tunbridge ware, blue and white china, some plate, and an abundance of damask table-cloths and napkins. It may be taken for granted that Pennsbury contained no smoking-room, its master having the strongest dis- Jike to the use of tobacco ; an objection so well known that the sight of Penn's barge drawing near the shore, once caused his friend the governor of New Jersey and the gentlemen who were with him, to lay down their pipes and put them out of sight. When Penn landed, he remarked that he was glad to see that they were ashamed of what they were doing, to which his friend replied that they were 196 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. not ashamed, but desisted to avoid hurting a weak l>rother. The stables at Pennsbury had stalls for ^ twelve horses. He owned some very valuable ones, and evidently felt pride and pleasure in them, as his inquiries after their welfare, when absent, tes- tify. He kept a coach and also a lighter carriage, and there was a sedan chair, probably for his wife's use ; but the commonest mode of going from place to place, for the ladies of his family as well as for himself, was on horseback. There is a pretty, char- acteristic anecdote, which tells how the governor, when riding to meeting one day, overtook a little barefooted girl bent on the same errand, and mount- ing her behind him, rode thus to his journey's end. But though Penn thought much of his horses, he was a sailor's son, and to him no travelling seemed so pleasant as by water. He had a large yacht, or barge as it was called in those days, which he prized greatly. Once, when sending directions about home affairs from a distance, he writes : " But above all dead things, my barge ; I hope nobody uses it on any account, and that she is kept in a dry dock, or, at least covered from the weather." William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 197 Isaa c Norris^ an influential and wealthy Friend in the colony, gives us in a private letter, a very agreeable impression of Mrs. Penn. After des- cribing the infant " American " as " a lovely babe," he speaks of her as " a woman extremely well- beloved here, exemplary in her station, and of an excellent spirit, which adds lustre to her character, and has a great place in the hearts of good people." Remembering the grace and loveliness of Gulielma, it is satisfactory to read the description of Hannah Penn's appearance, as it struck a young country girl, who used to tell in her old age, long after the master and mistress of Pennsbury had passed away, how being sent thither with some rural offering, she saw a pretty, dainty lady sitting by her infant's cradle, and knew that it was the governor's wife. If it causes surprise to hear that there were a few negro slaves in this sweet English home carved out of the forest, it must be borne in mind that William Penn had been in his grave for more than half a century before the unchristian character of slavery was recognised by Friends as a society, and they thenceforth took their stand in the forefront of the battle for its abolition. And previous to this, and 198 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. while still participators in the evil practice, a con- scientious care had always been manifested by them in the treatment of those they held in bondage, and they often emancipated their negroes. As early as 167 1, George Fox had enjoined the Friends of Barbadoes to " train up their slaves in the fear of God, to cause their overseers to deal mildly and gently with them, and, after certain years of ser- vitude, they should make them free." Penn's thoughtful care for the welfare of the coloured people around him, is shown by two beneficent measures which he brought forward in 1700, in the first session held after his return, one being to legalise the marriages of negroes, the other to for- bid the sale of rum to the Indians. Both of these were passed by the Council, but rejected by the Assembly. He also appealed to the Monthly Meeting of Friends in Philadelphia on behalf of the two races, where his words received the atten- tion which they deserved. The conclusion at which Penn arrived himself, is manifested by a clause in a will made in 1701, which runs thus : " I give to my blacks their freedom, as is under my hand already^ and to old Sam 100 acres, to be his William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 199 children's after he and his wife are dead, for ever." In the summer of 1701, Penn had to summon the Assembly in order to lay before them the com- mand of the King for a contribution of ^350 towards the building of forts on the frontier of New York. Penn, as he was bound to do, made the Assembly acquainted with this requisition, but gave them no advice, though they tried to make him do so. Finally, the members for the Province refused their assent, assigning various reasons, and putting off the consideration of the subject to a future session. But they desired the governor to explain to the King, and to assure him of their readiness to obey ''as far as their religious persua- sions would permit r The members for the Terri- tories sent in a separate reply, stating as they had no defences at home they begged to be excused assisting to protect any other colonies. To submit this military demand to the Assembly has been considered somewhat inconsistent with Penn's peace views, but this charge falls to the ground if we look carefully at what constituted the testimony of the early Friends against all war. With them it was a matter of deepest principle, which could 200 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. brook no interference from policy and self-interest. In their refusal to bear arms they were deterred by no apprehension of the loss of commerce, no dread of death, no fear of suffering. These men (and women too) faced some of the worst evils than human nature can endure, with an undaunted, patient courage that has never been surpassed. True soldiers of the Prince of Peace, they would follow Him to prison or to death, asking so to be baptized into His Spirit that all self-seeking, all hatred, and all scorn might perish for lack of sus- tenance. They believed that His words forbade to kill even in self-defence, or to avenge the bitter- est injury ; they regarded His command. Love your enemies, as one to be accepted in its most literal sense; and, so believing, they simply set themselves to obey, careless of consequences. Their testimony against all war was the outcome of their faith in Christ, and therefore was untouched by any argument based on loss or gain. Nobly had William Penn carried out this prin- ciple of peace in his " Holy Experiment," by deal- ing with those who were called savages in a spirit of love and justice which left no room for warfare. William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 201 He neither wronged them himself, nor suffered others to do them wrong, so that not only were he and his friends able to go unarmed, and yet in safety, among the Indians, but these sons of the forest laid aside their weapons also. It must be remembered that when Penn brought the King's command for a military impost before the As- sembly, although he was a Quaker governor, he did not rule a purely Quaker state. We have seen how multitudes of settlers of different nations and of different creeds, hastened to the land which his christian statesmanship had made so alluring ; and the risk to life and property which the true Quaker was prepared to bear in faith, could not be expect- ed of those who considered self-defence to be a duty, nor could they, with this belief, claim exemp- tion from a war-tax on conscientious grounds. It may be mentioned here that several years before this time, Penn had published a work entitled " An Essay toward the present and future Peace of Europe," in which he lays down a plan for a " General Diet " of Nations, for the equitable settling of all differences. An unexpected trouble came on him before he 202 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. had been two years in the beloved land of his adoption. While William III. was at war with France, those who wished to deprive the colonial proprietors of their rights brought a bill into the House of Lords to transfer the private colonies to the Crown. Penn was urged to visit England, as the only means of preventing the spoliation which his son was doing his best to avert. ** I cannot think of such a voyage," he said to the Assembly, "without great reluctancy of mind, having promised myself the quietness of a wilderness, and that I might stay so long at least with you as to render everybody entirely easy and safe ; for my heart is among you as well as my body, and no unkindness or disappointment shall, with submission to God's providence, ever be able to alter my love to the country, and resolution to return and settle my family and posterity in it." Yet Penn was obliged to sell some of his land to meet the heavy expenses which such a voyage then involved, for though the Assembly desired to have his services in England they did not see the need of helping to defray the cost ; nay, they thought it a fitting occasion to try to obtain some of his property with other William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 203 concessions. We can imagine that Penn felt more pain than anger, and alike in what he granted and in what he refused, he seems to have abstained almost wholly from reproachful words. But if there were a lack of gratitude and sympathy on the part of the colonists, there was no such want among the Indians. Their love and loyalty never wavered. And well might they trust and honour him. Too often had White men been known to them only as treacherous spoilers, but, "here," it has been justly said, " was one pale-face who would not cheat and lie ; who would not fire into their lodge ; who would not rob them of their beaver- skins ; who would not take a rood of land from them till they had fixed and he had paid a price." Their sorrow when they bade him farewell would have been keener still if they had been told that they should see his face no more ; and to him such knowledge would have given a bitter pang. But grieved though he was to go, he embarked strong in that hope which has been called "the element in which all the great men of the world move and have their being." He would come back, so he thought, to dwell among his own people, to carry 204 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. out more fully his ideal of a christian state, and when his work was done, to end his days peace- fully in his beautiful Pennsbury, with his children and his children's children round him. With dreams like these he started on the formidable voyage ; but though it was in the depth of winter when they landed, it was for those days a quick and apparently a pleasant one, as Penn tells Logan that " Johnne was exceeding cheerful all the way." He had resolved to send his son William to Philadelphia to represent him for a while, and he cherished the hope that the sense of responsibility, and removal from old temptations, would withdraw him from the evil habits into which he had fallen, to his father's grief, during his absence. Penn hoped much from Logan's good influence, whom he counsels how to treat the young heir. " Go with him to Pennsbury," he writes, " advise him, contract and recommend his acquaintance. No rambling to New York, nor mongrel correspondence. He has promised fair. I know he will regard thee. . . . Be discreet. He has wit, kept the top company, and must be handled with much love and wis- dom ; and urging the weakness and folly of some William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 205 behaviours, and the necessity of another conduct from~liiferest and reputation, will go far. And get Samuel Carpenter . . . and such persons to be soft, and kind, and teaching ; it will do wonders with him, and he is conquered that way. . . . If my son sends hounds, as he has provided two or three couples of choice ones for deer, foxes, and wolves, pray let good care be taken of them. . . . Watch him, outwit him, and honestly overreach him for his good. Fishings, little journeys (as to see the Indians, etc.), will divert him ; and interest Friends to bear all they can. . . . Pennsylvania has cost me dearer in my poor child than all otheF considerations. The Lord pity and spare in His" great mercy. I yet hope." The object of all this loving thoughtfulness reached America early in 1703. He went with John Evans, the new deputy-governor, who had been appointed with Queen Anne's approval. Evans was a very young man, and did not at all fulfil the high expectations which Penn had formed of him, but at first he and his companion made a very favourable impression. The latter was thought to resemble his father in '' person, in 2o6 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends, sweetness of temper, and elegance of speech ; " and the Indians hastened to Pennsbury to welconne the son of Onas. But the satisfaction was short- lived ; and finally a disgraceful fight with the watch- men of the city, in which both he and Evans were, involved, caused such commotion that young Penn resolved in displeasure, to return to England. His father writes to Logan : " If my son proves very expensive, I cannot bear it. ... O Pennsylvania, what hast thou not cost me t Above ;^30,ooo more than I ever got by it, two hazardous and most fatiguing voyages, my straits and slavery here, and my child's soul almost." While young Penn came back to England to be defeated in a contested election, and to talk of en- tering the army or navy, his father was struggling with difficulties which, if they did not wound his heart as sorely as his son's unworthiness, were enough to embitter his life. Heavy legal expenses were incurred in opposing the suggested annexa- tion ; but the colonists, though dead against it, could not be induced to supply funds to enable Penn to fight their battle. He had been obliged to sell his beautiful Worminghurst to raise money ; William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 207 his Irish property was almost valueless ; and his son had not only wasted the means inherited from his mother, but had also sold his fine American estate, and, being deeply in debt, urged his father to dispose of his colonial rights to the Crown. Laetitia had married a merchant named Aubrey, described by Logan as " one of the keenest men living," who clamoured to have his wife's portion in full, without delay. Penn speaks of himself as like one '* starving in the midst of bread," because he could not get what was justly his due. But when his troubles seemed already to be overpower- ing, his steward Philip Ford died, and the widow and son made a claim for ^14,000, which they declared to be owing to them. Penn had confided implicitly in Ford, who was a member of his own religious society, had passed his accounts without examination, and had neglected all legal security. A strict investigation showed that so far from his being in debt to Ford, Ford was in debt to hjm, but there was only moral proof of this, there was nothing that would stand in law. In a letter to Logan he exclaims, "I am a crucified man, between injustice and ingratitude there, and extortion and 2o8 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. oppression here." As he refused to submit to this wholesale robbery, the Fords tried to have him arrested, and he was compelled to lodge within the Liberties of the Fleet — a prisoner. The deepest sympathy was manifested by his friends, who felt that no dishonour attached to the position in which the wickedness of others had placed him. From America James Logan wrote : " Never was any person more barbarously treated, or baited with undeserved enemies. ... It must be con- fessed that something of it all is owing to his easi- ness and want of caution. . . . And what an old, cunning, self-interested man (Philip Ford) might be capable of doing when he had so much goodness, open-heartedness, and confidence in his honesty to deal with, is not difficult to imagine." The Fords endeavoured to get the colony made over to them, but the case being brought before the Lord Chancellor, he dismissed it with such severe comments that they became alarmed, and were willing to abate a portion of their iniquitous claim. Meantime Penn's friends had been exerting them- selves on his behalf — Isaac Norris had even come from America — and finally a sum, just half of what William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 209 the Fords had demanded, was raised on the security of his colonial possessions, and paid to them, and thus this matter was settled, which was so unjust that every penny of the amount was as if it had been stolen from Penn, whose confidence had been so cruelly abused. His was a nature with that capacity for trusting common to all noble souls, who know from an internal evidence that cannot be gainsaid, how worthy of trust men may be. But while this faculty often acts like a touchstone, revealing the presence or absence of faithfulness in others, it seems in some cases — as with Penn — to make it very hard to believe in the falsehood of those who hide their baseness under fair professions. An undue lack of caution and an excessive hope- fulness were, probably, the weak points in this great man's character, and if so (as is often the case), but exaggerated virtues. While it cannot be denied that he might, without the least taint of selfishness, have guarded his own interests far better than he ever did, yet let us remember that it was no moral weakness that involved him in pecuniary difficulties, but the misconduct of a spendthrift son, the villainy of an unjust steward, 2IO Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. and the niggardliness of an obtuse and forgetful colony. Many anxieties and perplexities still remained to him. Doubtless, he never ceased to hope that the gifted, handsome, once-generous son, whose very attractiveness had been a snare to its possessor, would yet come to himself ; but however this might be, he had to consider the interests of his younger children — ^John " the American," " Tommy, a lovely large child," as he describes him in a letter to Logan ; Richard, Margaret, and Dennis ; and there was his constant care for Pennsylvania. To return thither was the desire of his heart, that was the earthly goal for which he longed in spite of all the disappointments of which it was the source. He had to recall Evans, who had justly given great offence, though one is inclined to judge him len- iently because he was true to his master. The great troubler of the peace in the Assembly was David Lloyd, the Attorney-General, who had been in the army before he joined Friends, "a man very stiff in all his undertakings," Logan says, who was a bitter and unscrupulous opponent of Penn, and influenced others less able than himself. William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 2 1 1 Logan writes to Penn : " I have a tenderness in my own thoughts for the people, but cannot but abhor the appearance of baseness. I believe in the whole Assembly there are not three menjhat.wish ill ta- thee, and yet I can expect but little good from them." ~ ~~~ ""^ Their magnanimous governor did not judge them harshly. "As a father does not use to knock his children on the head," he says, " when they do amiss, so I had much rather they were corrected and better informed than treated to the utmost rigour of their deservings." After sending warm messages to many of his friends by name, he adds : " Indeed, all that love the truth in its simplicity, my love is for, and forgiveness for the rest ; " and he ends a long letter in which he has referred to the ill-treatment which he had received, with the christian prayer, "God Almighty forgive, reclaim, amend, and preserve us all." Perhaps he made more allowance for his wilful colonial children than we are inclined to do. After all, most of them were but common men with common minds, who could not see, at farthest, beyond to-morrow. How should they understand the aspirations of one 212 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. whose thoughts were reaching out to generations yet unborn^ with_that "Joying care for futurity," which none but the large-hearted feel ? The lead- ing Friends generally stood by him, but they had ceased to be a majority, even in the Province. Yet at last the violence of David Lloyd provoked a wholesome reaction. In the general election of 1710, not a single member of the previous As- sembly was returned ; and Isaac Norris mentions how " universally. _and^4"esolutely " the Friends ex- erted themselves to bring about this result. A period of harmony and wise legislation followed which must have been most cheering to PennT '""" foiTsome years he had been negotiating for the transfer of his government to the Crown, urged thereto by the difficulties of clearing off his liabili- ties, the factious opposition in the colony, the hindrance placed in the way of carrying out his peace principles by his allegiance to the Sovereign, and, probably, influenced also by the unfitness of his eldest son to succeed him. Yet he was unwill- ing to make the sacrifice, and his great care to secure the religious and political liberties of thfi_ colonists delayed the completion of the sale^^ William Penn and his Holy Experiment. 213 Still he looked forward to see again the land he had served so faithfully, to leave his children settled, as he said, " in their father's country',' and to find there his final earthly resting-place. But this was not to be. Worry and harass did their work at length. In the summer of 17 12, in the midst of writing a long — and as it proved — last letter to Logan, the well-worn pen dropped from the weary hand, and his active life Was over. He would see Pennsylvania no more, except in dreams. CHAPTER IX. WILLIAM PENN'S LAST DAYS. "Praised be the grandeur of the God who can endure to make and see His children suffer." — George Macdonald. DESIRE fervent prayers to the Lord for continuing my life that I may see Pennsylvania once more before I die." So ends a letter of Penn's to some Friends in Philadelphia, written only a few weeks before the sudden seizure which laid him aside for ever. Touching as is this longing unfulfilled, yet in the few years that remained to him, he was spared — though in a sorrowful way — from the bitterness of disappointment, as well as from the burden of anxiety. Successive attacks still further enfeebled him, but whilst the lustre of the noble intellect was dimmed, the sweetness of his disposition con- tinued unchanged ; and his friend, Thomas Story — who came to England on religious service in 171 3, — though deeply pained at the alteration, says he William Perm's Last Days. 215 was " as near the truth, in the love of it, as before, wherein appeared the great mercy and favour of God, who looks not as man looks ... so that I was ready to think this was a sort of sequestration of him from all the concerns of this life, which so much oppressed him, not in judgment, but in mercy, that he might have rest, and not be oppressed thereby to the end." There is something very suggestive in this intimation of spiritual light still clear, whilst other lights were, for the time, burning low. In the days of his power as a polished writer, and a logical and incisive theologian, he had held as most precious a simple faith in Christ, knowing, as he said, " no other Name, by which atonement, salvation, and plenteous redemption comes ; " and this was all he needed now when flesh and heart were failing. Thenceforth to the close, he resided at his country seat of Ruscombe, near Twyford, which he had taken in 17 10, on finding that it did not suit his already failing health to live in London. Hannah Penn showed herself in the time of trial not only a devoted wife, but as one possessed of remarkable energy and ability when forced to 2i6 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. become the protector instead of the protected. In Logan, who addresses her as "my honoured mistress," she had a constant and loyal helper ; yet in those closing years of her husband's life, as much as after he was gone, must she have needed the defence figuratively provided for her by the sorrowing Indians after his death, when they sent a present of wild animals' skins for a garment to shield her "while passing through the thorny wilderness without her guide." Meantime the son, who should have been the strength and stay of the whole household, was wrecking health and character in the dissipations of foreign towns, having left his three little children and their young mother to the shelter of his father's house at Ruscombe. This daughter-in-law and Laetitia were thus the only members of William Penn's family of an age to share his wife's anxieties when she was suddenly called upon to assume such heavy responsibility, her own eldest child, John, being then but twelve or thirteen years old. In a letter to Logan she thus describes her husband's condition : " When I keep the thoughts of business from him, he is very sweet, comfortable, and easy, and is cheerfully William Penn's Last Days. 217 resigned to the Lord's will, and yet takes de- light in his children, his friends, and domestic comforts, as formerly. It is the public and his family who feel the loss, and myself the trouble of his (I may say) translation. However, I bless the Lord, who has hitherto upheld me." Again she mentions how greatly he enjoyed the pleasant grounds of Ruscombe, and also its spacious rooms, so that for his sake, she felt that she could not give up the place, as otherwise she would like to do. Yet after all, though these descriptions bring with them a sense of peace and quietness, following on the vicissitudes of a chequered career, still it is impossible not to admit that the picture is very unlike what we would choose as the closing scene of such a life. We think its sun should set in all the splendour of a triumph crowning noble aims, so that an unbelieving world might give at last its unstinted, if tardy, meed of praise. But the mystery of this inequality is a mystery no more, if only it be accepted as truth, that the best and noblest souls are training here for a higher destiny hereafter, and therefore that discipline, in some form or other, is sure to be experienced by them. 2 1 8 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends, William Penn died on the thirtieth day of July, 171 8, in the seventy- fourth year of his age. There was no show or pomp in the long pro- cession, including persons of all religious denomina- tions as well as Friends, which followed the remains to the little Quaker burial ground of Jordans, through the fragrant leafy lanes wearing the full beauty of their summer foliage. In that large assemblage were those who had watched his unique career almost from the beginning to the end. They would recall the dignified presence, the courtly bearing, the gracious manners, the magnanimous temper by which he had been distinguished. They knew him as the enlightened statesman, far in advance of the age, as the fearless advocate of religious liberty, as the gifted scholar, the accom- plished gentleman, and — some of them — by dearer names than these. They could testify that all that was best and greatest in him was vivified by his faith in Christ, whereby, in spite of human im- perfections, he walked amidst visible things as seeing Him who is invisible, desiring most of all to fear God and keep His commandments ; and as they remember the clouds that gathered round William Penns Last Days. 219 the evening of his day, they can but rejoice that for him "The sweet immortal morning spreads Its blushes round the spheres." Of the three charming English country-seats in which he successively resided, not one is now intact. At Worminghurst and at Ruscombe alike, the dwelling-house has long since been destroyed ; and that at Rickmansworth — the first which he shared with his lovely Gulielma — is modernised, and the avenue of trees, which he would have carefully preserved, has been cut down. Even the mansion at his beautiful Pennsbury exists no longer. Only one home is still unchanged, the last and lowly one where he lies with kindred dust. The wife who cared so tenderly for him to the end is laid in the same grave, and beside him rest the mortal remains of her who was his first and dearest love, and of the cherished son with whom passed away his fondest earthly hopes. Many have come from distant shores to stand by that humble grassy mound, and many more will come in future years, as to a sacred spot. Yet a visit to Jordans would be indeed a dreary 220 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. pilgrimage, if that were the final goal of a life like William Penn's. Better far is it to be assured, that over such as he the grave can have no victory, that where the Master is, there shall His servant be, when all the infirmities of noble minds, and those conditions of mortality which limit service here, are left behind for ever. "Go up and on ! thy day well done, Its morning promise well fulfilled, Arise to triumphs yet unwon, To holier tasks that God has willed." CHAPTER X. A FEW MORE WORTHIES. *' Glory and dominion be to our God and to the Lamb who sits upon the throne immoveable and immutable, even to Him who was first and will be last, for it is His right to reign, all crowns must be cast down before Him. And we whose faith fails not, shall have the answer of our great Mediator's prayers ; we shall triumph as with palms in our hands in token of victory, and crowns of glory which will never fade away." — George Whitehead. LTHOUGH we have not space even to mention th.e names of a multitude of the early Friends worthy of lasting re- membrance, yet there are others of whom a few words may be said, as they illustrate the great variety of character and condition among those who were alike in striving to walk as Children of Light, the beautiful name by which they were sometimes called. We will take George Whitehead first. He was born in Westmoreland about 1636. He had a grammar school education and was afterwards for a short time employed as a tutor, though he must 222 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. then have been very young, as he was not seven- teen when the current of his life was changed by his joining himself to the Friends. Boy as he was, he had long been dissatisfied with the ministry he attended. Then he heard of the Quakers, and was anxious to know more about them, so he went to a meeting at Sunny Bank, where he was less im- pressed by the words of a Friend who spoke there than by the effect produced on the hearers, which seemed to him " a great work of the power of the Lord." What most struck him, he says, was " seeing a young maid go mourning out of the meeting, and beholding her seated on the ground, with her face toward the earth as if she regarded nobody present, as she, mourning bitterly, cried out, ' Lord ! make me clean : O Lord ! make me clean.' This did far more tenderly and deeply affect my heart than what I had heard spoken, and more than all the preaching that ever I had heard from man." He did not have the difficulties at home of which we have read in the case of some others, for although his parents were tried at first, they after- wards inclined to the same way of thinking, and A Few More Worthies. 223 his sister became a Friend. He was but eighteen, though he had already preached in public, when he met with George Fox, and from that time forth for sixty years he was a minister of the Gospel. We ought to bear in mind the youthfulness of George Whitehead, Edward Burrough, and many others, when we would condemn the vehemence, even occasional violence, of their language in con- troversy. We admit that there must be due allow- ance made for the manners of the times, but over and above this there should surely be tolerance for the burning zeal of those who were young in years, especially as we know that such of them as lived to grow older, manifested the mellowing influence of a ripening experience. It was in the North and East that George White- head first "went up and down preaching Christ," often with remarkable power. In a few months he was lodged in prison, for entering a church and contending with the minister after his sermon was finished. It does not appear that his conduct could be called "brawling," as no definite charge was made against him. He had, he says, been "tenderly brought up" by his parents, and the 224 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. hardships of a severe imprisonment of eight weeks in the depth of winter, was a pretty sharp test of constancy for a lad of eighteen. In the following summer we have an account of an extraordinary meeting held by him near Woodbridge in Suffolk. It began before noon and was in an orchard. People of all kinds flocked to it. George White- head, after he "had waited upon the Lord for a little space, for His power to arise," preached for nearly five hours standing upon a slippery stool. It must have been very soon after this that he had to bear a most cruel imprisonment of fifteen months' duration in the gaol of Bury St. Edmunds, from which he and other Friends there, as well as at Colchester and Ipswich, were at last released through the intercession of a Friend named Mary Sanders, who was a gentlewoman in waiting in the household of the Protector, and who obtained their liberation by direct appeal to him. Whitehead says : " Although we were confined to a noisome common ward and strait stinking yard, yet the Lord by His power so sanctified the confinement to me, that I had great peace, comfort, and sweet solace, and was sometimes transported and wrapt A Few More Worthies. 225 up in spirit, as if in a pleasant field, having the fragrant scent and sweet smell of flowers and things growing therein, though I was not in an ecstacy or trance." How truly he might have said : *'I will have hopes that cannot fade, For flowers the valley yields, I will have holy thoughts instead Of silent, dewy fields : My spirit and my God shall be My seaward hill, my boundless sea." Before he was twenty-one he was arrested for holding a meeting at Nayland in Suffolk, and was condemned by two magistrates to be publicly flogged next day. "So that night," he says, "I lodged at a public-house, where I rested quietly in much peace." The sentence was carried out on the morrow with such cruelty that many of the bystanders wept to see it ; " yet by the Lord's power I was enabled cheerfully to bear it all with patience, great comfort, and rejoicing." In later years he shared largely in the sufferings of his brethren. There was a time when he always went to meeting with his nightcap in his pocket, so as to have it at hand if he should spend the night in prison. Born when the unfortunate Charles I. Q 226 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. was on the throne, he lived through the Common- wealth, and the reigns of Charles II., James II., William and Mary, and Anne, dying in the reign of George I., at the age of eighty-seven. It was his lot often to stand before kings, as he took a prominent part in appeals to them on behalf of Friends. His last appearance at Court was in 1716, when he was eighty years of age, to introduce with fitting words a deputation from Friends, congratu- lating George I. on the failure of the Pretender's attempt. In concluding his memoirs George Whitehead refers to the many trials through which he had passed, and adds : " Yet I esteem not all my suffer- ings and afflictions worthy to be compared to the glory set before me ; for all which I must ascribe blessing, honour, glory, power, and dominion to the Lord God and the Lamb upon His throne, for ever and ever. And when by the grace and assistance of my heavenly Father, I have finished the work He hath given me to do, I firmly believe and livingly hope in the Lord, I shall die in the Lord Jesus Christ, and ever live with and rest in Him in His heavenly kingdom." A Few More Worthies. 227 Most unlike, but as remarkable in its way, was the career of Thomas Lurting, who, Sewel says, "from a fighting sailor became a harmless Chris- tian." He was boatswain's mate in a man-of-war serving under bold Admiral Blake, and was en- gaged in the last and most famous exploit of that great officer. It was in April, 1656, that Blake heard that sixteen Spanish galleons, laden with treasure, had put into the island of Teneriffe. The bay had a strongly fortified castle at the entrance, with smaller forts around it, and a considerable naval force within it, and thus the galleons with their rich cargoes seemed in perfect security. So thought the Spanish governor, and when a Dutch skipper in the harbour asked leave to go, saying, " I am sure that Blake will presently be among you," he replied, "Begone if you will, and let Blake come if he dares." Lurting has told the story of that day's work in which he bore an active part, how all the great galleons were des- troyed, and then, the wind veering at the right moment, the admiral brought out his own ships in safety, a feat which would have been called impossible if it had not been performed. 228 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. But before the close of the engagement, Lurting not satisfied with the risks he had already run, and seeing three galleons on shore, took the pinnace, with two men, and prepared to go and set them on fire. He was ordered to increase his little crew to the number of seven, and then they put off from the ship. They succeeded in their object, but on their way back they received a volley from a breastwork, by which two men close to Lurting were killed, and a third was wounded. Presently they came within range of the guns of the castle, which fired into them, cutting a rope just above his head without touching him. These escapes from death were, we are told, only a few among many similar deliverances. It must have been before this time that there was on board the vessel in which he sailed a soldier who had been at a Friends' meeting in Scotland. He was soon removed, but his account had made a deep impression on two young men in the ship, who began to object to doff their hats to the captain, and to attending the usual religious service. They met for worship in silence, being joined by four others. This much annoyed the A Few More Worthies. 229 captain and chaplain, and the latter one day ex- claimed, " O Thomas, an honest man and a good Christian, here is a dangerous people on board, namely, the Quakers, a blasphemous people deny- ing the ordinances and the word of God." Roused by this appeal, Lurting in great zeal fell upon these men, beating and abusing them. He felt very uncomfortable after the exploit ; his mind became much distressed, and some of the crew laughed at him, whilst others called him mad. But though he had prayed that he might die rather than live to join those he had so despised, he at last came to the conclusion : " Quaker or no Quaker, I am for peace with God." The captain and chaplain tried to convince him that the Quakers were not Christians, but at the end of the discussion he said that he was but half a Quaker when he went to them, but that they had almost made him a whole one. So he joined the little band in their worship, and the number increased until there were twelve men and two boys. Then sickness broke out in the ship, and in a little while there had been forty deaths among the crew. None of the Quakers 230 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. died, though some of them were very ill, but they were so full of care and kindness for each other, that often a dying sailor would cry, ** Oh, carry me to the Quakers." They were not yet "brought off from fighting," as Sewel expresses it, and they were so valiant and sturdy in warfare, that the captain declared that he would not mind if all his men were Quakers ; and when there was anything particular to be done, he would say, " Thomas, take thy friends and do it." At last a day came when Lurting was engaged in levelling the guns, and as he left the forecastle for a minute to see if the aim were true, the thought flashed through his mind, " What, if now thou killest a man } " He never touched a gun again. He knew nothing about Friends refusing to fight, but his scruple spread to his companions ; and their firmness was put to the proof when one morning it was reported that a large Spanish ship was bearing down on them, and the sailors were ordered to clear the decks for action. The Quak- ers alone remained idle. The captain was naturally in a fury, and after most violent behaviour sent for his sword, threatening Lurting that he would run A Few More Worthies. 231 him through, which it seems, according to the articles of war, he would have been justified in doing. However, the vessel which had caused the alarm turned out to be a friendly Genoese, so there was no fighting for that time ; and before nightfall the captain sent a message to Lurting by the chaplain, expressing his regret for having been so carried away by passion. After Lurting had left the navy and was in the merchant service, he was again and again seized by a press-gang, being as they remarked, " a lusty rogue," He had to endure insult and ill usage for his refusal to serve on board a man-of-war, but these early Friends had the courage of their con- victions, and in every instance the matter was settled by his being put on shore sooner or later. We must not close our notice of this Quaker sailor without an account of the most marvellous incident in his career, namely, his retaking without bloodshed a vessel which had been captured by the Turks, in which he was mate, and where the captain was also a Friend and a "very bold spirited man." They were coming from Venice and heard news of Turkish men-of-war scouring 232 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. the seas, and when they were near an island which Lurting calls May York (Majorca) they were chased by one of the enemy, and carrying too much sail in their efforts to outstrip her, some of their tackling gave way and they were caught. The Turks took the captain and four of the crew on board their own vessel, leaving to the mate three men and a boy, with ten Turks to keep possession. Lurting at first felt much concerned, but he says, " The word of the Lord ran through me thus, ' Be not afraid, for all this thou shall not go to Algier : ' and I having formerly great experience of the Lord's doings upon several deliverances in time of war, I believed what the Lord did say in me : at this all kind of fear was removed, and I received them as a man might his friends, and they were civil to us." His only anxiety now was to get the rest of their company on board, and he earnestly desired of the Lord that He would put it into the hearts of their captors to send them back, and very soon this was done. The others could see no way of escape, being without arms, while the Turks were well equipped, but he began to talk on the subject A Few More Worthies. 233 to the sailors, saying, " What if we should overcome the Turks, and go to May York ! At which they very much rejoiced ; and one said, * I will kill one or two ;' and another said, * I will cut as many of their throats as you will have me.' At which I was very much troubled, and said to them, ' If I know any of you that offers to touch a Turk, I will tell the Turks myself.' " After he had persuaded the men to leave the matter in his hands, he had hard work to get the consent of the captain, " insomuch that at last I told him we were resolved, and I ques- tioned not but to do it, without one drop of blood- shed ; and I believed that the Lord would prosper it, by reason I could rather go to Algier than kill one Turk. So at last he agreed to this, to let me do what I would, provided I killed none." Watching, or rather making his opportunity, Lurting got them all below when it was raining very fast, and waiting until they were asleep in different cabins, deprived them of their arms. Then telling his men to keep guard and not allow all of them to come on deck together, he altered the vessel's course, and looked to see what effect this would have on the Turks ; and when they 234 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. were told that " we were going towards May York, they, instead of rising, fell all to crying, for their courage was taken from them, and they desired that they might not be sold, which I promised they should not" As soon as they were in port it was needful to hide their prisoners, lest the Spaniards should seize them. An Englishman coming on board said, " They are worth two or three hundred pieces of eight each ; " " whereat both the master and I told him that if they would give many thousands they should not have one, for we hoped to send them home again." Finding that their visitor would betray their secret, they put to sea. It was not until after many days that the Turks discovered that they were steering for London, and then they began to rage at the captain, when he, the mate, and the man at the helm were the only Englishmen on deck. Lurting stamping with his foot speedily brought up the sailors, and then without any violence he ordered the Turks below. " All this while," he tells us, " I was very kind to them, insomuch that some of our men grumbled, saying I had more care for the Turks than them." A Feiv More Worthies. 235 At last Lurting decided to make for a part of the coast of Barbary where he thought that they could set their captives free with the least peril to themselves, though he well knew that the enter- prise was a most hazardous one ; and he and the captain parted with tears, " embracing one another with great tenderness." He wished for none but volunteers to help him, and his companions were two men and a boy, who all faithfully promised him that they would not hurt the Turks unless matters became desperate. So the boat was low- ered, the arms of the Turks piled in the bottom, and the four English — men and boy — with their ten prisoners put off from the vessel. The sailors grew frightened and excited as they neared the shore, and when they were very close declared that there were men hiding behind the bushes. Then for the first time Lurting felt alarm, and the Turks seeing it all rose to their feet. '' And this was one of the greatest straits I was ever put to ; not for fear of the Turks in the boat, but for fear of our men killing them : for I would not have killed a Turk, or caused one to be killed, for the whole world." His hesitation was momentary. Snatching 236 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. a boat hook he struck at the chief among them, and made them all sit down again, and presently put into a little bay, " and hove out our grappling, and with signs of great kindness they took leave, and jumped out, not very wet ; and when on shore, we put our boat very close in, gave them about half a hundred of bread and match, and other things, and hove all their arms on shore to them. So we parted in great love, and stayed until they had all got up the hill, and they shook their caps at us and we at them. . . . And when we came for England, coming up the river Thames, and King Charles and the Duke of York, and many of his lords being at Greenwich, it was told them there was a Quaker's ketch coming up the river that had been taken by the Turks and had re- deemed themselves, and had never a gun. And when we came near to Greenwich, the King came to our ship's side, and one of his lords came in and discoursed with the master ; and the King and the Duke of York stood with the entering ropes in their hands, and asked me many questions about his men-of-war. I told him we had seen none of them. Then he asked me many questions, how we A Few More Worthies. 2-37 cleared ourselves, and I answered him. He said I should have brought the Turks to him. I answered that I thought it better for them to be in their own country : at which they all smiled and went away." Let us take another of these worthies, as far removed as possible in circumstance and surround- ing from the brave sailor of whom we have just read. We will now glance at the cultivated gentle- woman Margaret Fell, who came of a very good family, being the daughter of John Askew of Marsh Grange in the county of Lancashire, and great granddaughter of Anne Askew. She shared in the personal graces, as well as in the mental endowments and constancy of spirit conspicuous in her martyred ancestress ; and before she was eighteen she became the wife of Thomas Fell of Swarthmore Hall near Ulverstone, a gentleman of large estate and high standing in the neighbour- hood. He was sixteen years older than his bride, and was a barrister at the time of his marriage, though his name is more familiar to us in connec- tion with his later dignity of judge. We have seen how just and generous he was when his wife and elder children united themselves 238 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends, with Friends ; conduct the more admirable in that he never followed their example. Yet he offered the large hall at Swarthmore for meetings, and from its oriel window George Fox was wont to address those gathered in the orchard below if the number was too great to be accommodated within doors. When it was known that he would be there, many persons often came from a distance to hear him, and the judge was once rather dismayed on his return from circuit, to find his stables filled with the horses of these stranger guests ; and he said to his wife that if this went on they would have no provender left for their own use. She cheerfully answered that charity doth not impover- ish, and that she fully believed that at the end of the year he would not find himself the poorer for this liberal hospitality. And she was right. The crop of hay was so abundant that season that it not only met all the demands upon it, but left a large surplus for sale. His widow, writing of him in 1658, when death had ended their twenty-six years of wedded life, says : " He was a tender, loving husband to me, a tender father to his children, and one that sought A Few More Worthies. 239 after God in the best way that was made known to him. He was much esteemed in his country, and valued and honoured in his day, by all sorts of people, for his justice, wisdom, moderation, and mercy." His only son was by no means satisfac- tory, but the seven daughters, all of whom joined Friends, appear to have excelled in worth and in- telligence. Sarah, for instance, married William Meade, who stood in the dock with William Penn in the famous trial at the Old Bailey. She was a very beautiful woman, and most capable and ac- complished ; managing affairs at Swarthmore Hall and studying Hebrew with equal facility. She occasionally spoke in the meetings of Friends. Margaret Fell soon felt the consequences of the loss of her husband's powerful protection. In 1660, as we have seen, George Fox was arrested in her house, during her absence, and she went to London to see Charles H. and protest against this insulting violation of the liberty of the subject. Again and again, undaunted by failure, did she exert herself on behalf of the persecuted Friends. She had repeatedly written to Cromwell about them ; and to Charles H. she wrote also, and had 240 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. frequent interviews with him besides the one men- tioned above. Only as we recall the difficulties of getting from place to place in those days, can we fully estimate the unfailing energy displayed in her many journeys to London and elsewhere. She travelled about a thousand miles in 1663, when accompanied by one of her daughters she paid religious visits to Friends in different parts of England. A few years later she went with her gracious presence and her message of heavenly consolation, delivered in her " most sweet harmon- ious voice," to all the gaols in England wherein Friends were confined, a laborious undertaking which occupied a year, showing that there must still have been great numbers of sufferers, though this was after the time when it was calculated that there were between four and five thousand Friends imprisoned in England and Wales. Her correspondence, too, was very extensive. When she could do nothing else, she could through her pen proffer sympathy and cheer to those who were enduring the loss of all things in the strait- ness of the persecution. Nor was she exempted from a heavy share in it herself. One might have A Few More Worthies. 241 thought that this dignified and bountiful lady, so honoured and well-known, would have been safe in her own neighbourhood and among those who were her equals in position. But it was not so. She was a defenceless woman now ; and it is sup- posed that private malice and the hope of getting some of her estates, led to her being arrested for meetings held in her house and for refusing the oath of allegiance. Four of her daughters stood beside her when she was first brought up for trial at Lancaster, and being remanded until the next assizes, she returned to her prison in Lancaster Castle. In the interval two daughters went to Whitehall and petitioned the King to interfere. They found him " very loving," but it was a love that did not bear any fruit, for when their mother next appeared in court, she was sentenced to the tremendous penalties of praemunire, namely, outlawry, life-long imprisonment, and the confiscation to the Crown of all her property. She did not falter even then. Turning to the judge, she said, "Although I am out of the King's protection, I am not out of the protection of the Almighty God." Truly she was 242 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. a worthy descendant of the martyr heroine, who more than a hundred years before had passed unshrinking through her fiery trial, "balancing against an awful yet a passing shame an eternal excellency." It was more than four years before Margaret Fell was released, and then the sentence still hung over her, and it was not until after she had been again lodged in Lancaster Castle, that Sarah Fell going to the King obtained from him the order for her mother's discharge. Meantime, after eleven years of widowhood, Margaret Fell became the wife of George Fox. His conduct in the matter was very characteristic. Having received her con- sent, he summoned her daughters and their hus- bands and inquired of them if their interests would be in any way prejudiced by their mother's marriage, and finding that this would be in no wise the case, and that it had their hearty approval, he was easy to proceed with it. Later on, when he was prosecuted for tithes against his wife's estate, her son-in-law William Meade appeared in court, and "told the judges," says George Fox, "that I had engaged never to meddle with my wife's A Few More Worthies. 243 estate. The judges would hardly believe that any man would do so ; whereupon he showed them the writing under my hand and seal, at which they wondered." We must give a little glimpse of Margaret Fox by quoting from a letter to her husband written from Swarthmore Hall in 1678.* " Dear Love, glad I am to hear that the Lord preserves thee in health and capacity to travel in His work and service, for which I praise His holy name. We hope and expect He will draw thee homewards in His blessed time. Thou art much expected and longed for here, but we must all submit to the Lord's will and time. I received thy kind token by Leonard, which I did not ex- pect, but I know it is thy true love to remember us. I thought to have sent something by Mary Fell to thee, but I (considered) thou would only buy something with it for me, as thou used to do, which caused me to omit it. I perceive thou hast sent things to the children by Leonard, he hath not yet delivered them ; but thy company would * For this letter and some other particulars relating to Margaret Fox the writer is indebted to "The Fells of Swarthmore Hall." 244 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. be more and better to us than all the world, or than all the earth can afford." This is not the only reference extant to George Fox's habit of laying out in presents for his wife the money which in her care for his comfort she sent to him for his own use. Two of these gifts have been specified : some costly black Spanish cloth for a gown, and red cloth for a mantle. The words in Margaret Fox's letter come to us freshly across the gulf of two centuries, supplying one proof among many of how full were these men and women of all tender home affections. They were no ascetics. Their hearts were torn with anguish for the sufferings of those most dear to them. It was only in a sense of the ex- ceeding love of Christ which mastered all beside, that they were able to surrender for a little while the objects of their deepest human love, remember- ing the joy that was set before them. Let us listen to John Audland's young wife when she has heard that his absence is likely to be pro- longed. She writes thus to him : " O ! dear Heart, thou knowest my heart, thou mayst read daily how that I rejoice in nothing more than in thy A Few More Worthies. 245 prosperity in the work of the Lord. Oh ! it is past my utterance to express the joy I have for thee. I am full, I am full of love towards thee, never such love as this. ... A joyful word it was to me to hear that thou wast moved to go for Bristol. O ! my own heart, my own life, in that which now stands, act and obey." When imprisoned by the Inquisition in Malta, Katherine Evans writes : " For the hands of John Evans, my right dear and precious husband, with my tender-hearted children, who are more dear and precious to me than the apple of my eye. Most dear and faithful husband, friend, and brother. ... I have unity and fellowship with thee day and night, to my great refreshment and continual comfort. Praises, praises be given to our God for evermore, who hath joined us together in that which neither sea nor land can separate. . . . Oh, the raptures, the glorious, bright, shining coun- tenance, of our Lord God, who is our fulness in emptiness, our health in sickness, our life in death, our joy in sorrow, our peace in disquietness, our praise in heaviness, our power in all necessities. He is a full God unto us, and to all that can trust 246 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. Him. He hath emptied us of ourselves, and hath wholly built us upon the sure foundation, the Rock of Ages, Jesus Christ. ... I do believe we shall see your faces again with joy." In a like spirit were the words of John Camm when he lay dying. He was passing as in quiet sleep to his eternal home, when he was called back again by the wailing of wife and children around his bed. Rousing himself, he said : " My dear Hearts, ye have wronged me and disturbed me, for I was at sweet rest. Ye should not so passionately sorrow for my departure. This house of earth and clay must go to its place, and this soul and spirit is to be gathered up to the Lord, to live with Him for ever, where we shall meet with everlasting joy." We have glanced in this chapter at a few of the true-hearted confessors of a heroic age, a few among thousands, for as old Fuller says : " God's calendar is more complete than man's best martyr- ologies ; and their names are written in the Book of Life who on earth are wholly forgotten." CHAPTER XL WILLIAM EDMUNDSON ^ FRIENDS IN IRELAND, " As sure as God liveth, as sure as the Holy One of Israel is the Lord of Hosts, the Almighty Right is Might, and ever was, and ever shall be so. Holiness is might ; Patience is might ; Humility is might ; Self-denial and Self-sacrifice is might ; Faith is might ; Love is might ; every gift of the Spirit is might. The Cross . . . was mightier than the world, and will ever triumph over it. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but no pure holy deed, or word, or thought. " Archdeacon Hare. ¥^ILLIAM EDMUNDSON, the Quaker Lm^ «ipostle of Ireland, whom in this res- pect we may liken to the St. Patrick of an earlier age, was born at Little Musgrove in Westmoreland, in 1627. Before he was eight years old he had lost both of his parents. He says that he and the older children were " hardly used ** by the uncle to whose care they were left, and when the eldest brother became of age much of their property was wasted in law-suits. As soon as William Edmundson was old enough he was apprenticed to a carpenter at York, a city where there was then a great deal of earnest- ness and discussion on religion, and his mind was 248 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. deeply impressed with the importance of the sub- ject, and burdened with a sense of his own sin- fulness. He must still have been very young when he entered the Parliament army, though his own statement that it was "about this time," is somewhat vague. In 1650, when George Fox was lying in the House of Correction at Derby, on a charge of blasphemy, William Edmundson was serving in Scotland under Cromwell, and during that campaign he seems to have been seeking after God, often cast down, but at times rejoicing in a sense of the mercy shown to him. When the tumult and the conflicts of the day were over, he would often recall at night the dangers through which he had safely passed, and resolve to manifest his gratitude by an amended life, but would forget his intention in the heat of action. He was at the battle of Worcester, and while quartered in some of the Midland towns soon afterwards, he found that a people called Quakers were much talked about, and as was the case with George Whitehead, the scorn and contempt with which they were spoken of, excited his interest and inclined him to think well of them. One day at Chesterfield William Edmundson and Friends in Ireland. 249 being in a tavern, "the priest of the town" came in, and, expecting sympathy, boasted of the rough- ness with which he had driven away two women Friends who had been preaching in the market- place. Our soldier felt indignant at the cowardly act ; and when the minister began to storm at another young man who remarked that, " It was a poor victory he had gotten over two poor women," Edmundson sprang to his feet and asked the priest and his companions if they sought a quarrel, adding that if they did they should have enough. The priest replied, " No, not with you, sir." " I bid them leave the room, which they presently did ; but these things came close to me, and the more I heard of this people the better I loved them." In 1652, he quitted the army, married, and, following the advice of a brother still serving in Ireland, went to Antrim to settle in business. His mercantile venture was successful ; and the next year he went across to the North of England to buy more goods. There he, one of his brothers, and another kinsman, going to hear James Naylor preach, " we were all three convinced of the Lord's 250 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. blessed truth ; for God's witness in our hearts answered to the truth of what was spoken." There is an instructive passage in his journal in reference to a matter that troubled him on his voyage back to Ireland, with his fresh stock of merchandise. " Whilst I was at sea, self reasoned strongly to save the duty of my goods, for I had an oppor- tunity to do it, the troop my brother belonged to would have helped me night or day, but I durst not do it, my conscience being awakened to plead for truth, justice, and equity ; yet there was a great contest betwixt conscience and self, and in this conflict many Scriptures were opened in my understanding, that duties and customs ought to be paid ; and though self struggled hard for mastery, yet at last was overthrown, and the judg- ment of truth prevailed." After he had landed he got into difficulty by refusing to take an oath at the custom-house, but was finally allowed to have his goods without doing so. He endured a great deal of perplexity and distress for some time, and found no help from any one, until "having none now to trust to but the Lord for counsel and information," he learnt to look only to Him. William Edmundson and Friends in Ireland. 251 In 1654, he went to live in the county of Armagh, where he kept a shop and had some grazing land as well. He does not seem to have been very comfortable. His straightforward manner of conducting business, asking the price he really meant, and then refusing to make abate- ment, was an offence to his customers. "All things were rough and rugged in the world," he says, " and the cross of Christ was foolishness and a stumbling-block to them." It was in his house at Lurgan that the first Friends' meeting was held in Ireland, by his wife, his brother, and himself sitting down together to worship God. In a little while they were joined by four others. After a time they had a visit from an English Friend, John Tiffin, who with William Edmundson held some meetings in the neighbourhood, which though looked on very coldly by most, were followed by a considerable increase in the at- tendance of their own little gathering. Other Friends from England had preceded John Tiffin, and in the course of the next few years a large number followed him, so that their views were spread throughout the length and breadth of the 252 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. land, and were accepted by a great many persons. Meantime Edmundson felt a desire to see George Fox, and going to Warwickshire, met him at a great meeting, and when it was over they went into an orchard together, and kneeling down, George Fox prayed ; and afterwards wrote a brief epistle for him to carry back to the small company he had left behind him. When he returned, Edward Burrough with his fiery eloquence, and Francis Howgill with his classical polish, were travelling in Ireland. They visited several parts of the country, holding meetings, some of which were attended by many military officers. On one occasion when they were forbidden to speak in the places of worship, Burrough preached to the people as he rode along on horseback. They made one noticeable convert, Susanna Worth, whose husband was afterwards Bishop of Killaloe. Religious enmity was so called forth by their influence, that Henry Cromwell and his Council were urged to banish them. They had a military escort to the place of embarkation, who treated them very respectfully. No doubt they were disappointed at this check to their labours, but they were ready William Edmundson and Friends in Ireland. 253 either to do or to suffer. In the words of Edward Burrough, " We are joint heirs of the incorruptible inheritance of the Son, who in us liveth and worketh of His own will, in whom we are what we are, and by whom we do what is done ; to Him we give His own, glorifying Him with His own, world without end." " Now about this time," says William Edmund- son, " it came mightily upon me to leave shop- keeping and take a farm, to be an example in the testimony against tithes." Therefore he and his brother rode over to the house of a certain colonel who lived in the county of Cavan, who was very favourable to Friends and wished them to settle on his land. They found him a hard man to deal with, and at first could come to no agreement. " After awhile the Lord's power filled my heart ; then was I moved in the word of life to tell him I would take his land, let him take what he would for it, and make his own terms ; at which he was amazed." The colonel went to walk in his orchard, whilst considering this proposal, and presently returned with an offer so liberal that many Friends were glad to avail themselves of it ; and thus was 254 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. formed a little Quaker colony, which seems to have been almost like the ideal of such a community. " We kept a meeting for the worship of God twice in the week, in which our hearts were tender before the Lord, and in His love near and dear one to another. ... In those days the world and the things of it were not near our hearts, but the love of God, His truth, and testimony lived in our hearts ; we were glad one of another's company, though sometimes our outward fare was very mean, and our lodging was on straw ; we did not mind high things, but were glad one of another's welfare in the Lord, and His love dwelt in us." William Edmundson had troubles with the colonel, and of course he was harassed about tithes, moreover he had previously had a taste of prison life in Armagh, and presently we find him in the stocks at Belturbet, but it was not until he had spent fourteen weeks in a loathsome dungeon in Cavan gaol, with thieves and robbers for com- panions, that he had a full personal experience of the horrors which so many of his brethren in the faith had to endure in England. There was an iron grating open by day, and people who came William Edmundson and Friends in Ireland. 255 there to look in at him would go away in tears. But his worst sufferings were at night when this grating was closed up, and the other prisoners would make a fire from turf which they had begged of passers-by. Once he was nearly stifled with the smoke, and became entirely unconscious. It needs hardly to be said that if this was his worst it was not his last imprisonment. Soon after his release he again changed his place of abode. The land- lord of the little colony of Quakers in Cavan having failed to fulfil his engagements with them, they removed into the province of Leinster, most of them settling about Mountmellick in Queen's County, William Edmundson's new residence being a few miles distant at Rosenallis. Hitherto, on the whole, the persecution of Friends in Ireland had been neither fierce nor continuous. The magistrates generally did not seem disposed to injure them any more than the higher authorities ; but just at the epoch of the Restoration, when the nation was " in heaps of confusion," to use William Edmundson's words, the Fifth Monarchy outbreak, which led to such direful results for Friends in England, involved 256 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. those in Ireland in similar suffering, and they were arrested and imprisoned in all directions. When the excitement had a little cooled down, he was granted liberty for twenty days to go to Dublin and appeal to the lords' justices, one of whom was the Earl of Mountrath. They willingly gave orders for a general discharge of the Quakers, and when in some places the sheriffs still kept them in prison on a demand for fees, Edmundson speedily obtained their release by again applying to the earl, " for," he says, " the Lord gave me a place in his heart which I retained to his death ; also his son after him was always kind, and ready to do Friends good upon occasion." In 1665, an ecclesiastical persecution fell heavily upon many Friends. Summoned by the Bishop's Court for tithes, most of the men who belonged to the same meeting as William Edmundson were imprisoned and excommunicated. The latter in- fliction they doubtless bore with equanimity. Their particular and bitter enemy was the parish clergy- man of Mountmellick, who, by threats and sum- monses to this court, laboured to prevent others from trading with the Friends or in any \yay William Edmundson and Friends in Ireland, 257 associating with them. Furnished with a written statement of these proceedings, signed by many of this clergyman's own congregation, William Edmundson again journeyed to Dublin and laid the matter before Archbishop Boyle, who was also chancellor, and before the Privy Council. He re- ceived immediate redress. The clergyman and his apparitor were called before the council and severely reprimanded, and were only saved from punishment by Edmundson's intercession with the primate. Strange to say, the persecutor thus for- given and spared did his utmost to injure the man who had shielded him. Under a claim for church rates he deprived him of a quantity of goods, and afterwards had him arrested for attending meeting. But the Earl of Mountrath interfered and set him at liberty till the assizes, and then came and stood by him in court. The feeling in favour of Edmundson was very strong. Four lawyers whom he had not retained and of whom he knew nothing, pleaded his cause, and as he passed through the crowd he heard from many lips : " The Lord bless you, William ; " " The Lord help you, William." He was triumphantly cleared. 258 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. In 1 67 1, as we have seen, William Edmundson was one of the Friends who sailed with George Fox in a leaky craft for the West Indies and America. This was the first of three visits which took him across the Atlantic when such a voyage was most formidable. There is a pathetic passage in a letter written during one of these absences to Friends in Ireland, which we will quote here : "Though it be my lot to be as one separated and taken from that which may be as dear and near to me as other men, and be as one cast out from enjoyment of wife, children, or other benefits and comforts in this life, as the off-scouring and forsaken, liable to what may happen, good report or evil report, received or rejected, plenty or want, liberty or bonds, safety or perils by sea and land, life or death, to take my lot as it may fall, by night or day, in house or wilderness, among friends or enemies, I must be content for the Gospel's sake." A description of one journey in Carolina lets in a little light on what some of these perils were like. It was through a pathless wilderness, with only marks on the trees to direct the traveller. He had two Friends with him, one of whom was William Edmundson and Friends in Ireland. 259 to act as guide, but who got completely out of his reckoning before long. The first day and night the weather was fine, and they got on comfort- ably in the grand and solemn loneliness of the primaeval forest. But the second day was wet, and they were hindered by swamps and rivers. "So we travelled in many difficulties until about sunset ; then they told me they could travel no farther ; for they both fainted, being weak-spirited men. I bid them stay there and kindle a fire, and I would ride a little farther, for I saw a bright horizon appear through the woods which travellers take as a mark of some plantation, so rode on to it, and found it was only tall timber trees without underwood ; but I perceived a small path which I followed till it was very dark, and rained violently. Then I alighted and set my back to a tree till the rain abated ; but it being dark and the woods thick, I walked all night between two trees, and though very weary I durst not lie down on the ground, for my clothes were wet to my skin. I had eaten little or nothing that day, neither had I anything to refresh me but the Lord." In the morning he found his way back to his companions who were 26o Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. lying by a great fire of wood, and being convinced that the path he had discovered in the night was the right one, he took the post of guide, and to their relief it led to the house of Friends who welcomed them with tears of joy. It was a Sunday morning ; and wet and cold, hungry, faint, and tired though he was, William Edmundson asked them to collect people for a meeting, and meantime to let him sleep, but to wake him if he slept too long. The backwoodsmen gathered at the summons and sat down, with their pipes in their mouths, which though not a promising be- ginning did not prevent the occasion being a satisfactory one. In the course of this journey he came to Rhode Island, where he records an incident which has a lesson for us all. This was his meeting and dis- puting with Roger Williams, whom he thought '• an enemy to Truth," and who bitterly attacked Friends in a book entitled, '' George Foxe digged out of his burrowes," so little did these good men understand one another. We shall remember that it was Roger Williams, himself a sufferer for conscience sake, who, many years before William William Edmundson and Friends in Ireland. 261 Penn had started on his " Holy Experiment," had made Rhode Island a place of absolute religious freedom, a haven of rest for all persecuted men, and who had treated the Indians with perfect justice and kindness. They loved him so, that they freely bestowed on him large tracts of land, and he in his turn, gave it all away to others. In William Edmundson's second visit to the West Indies the governor of Barbadoes threatened him in abusive language, charging him with trying to make the negroes Christians, which would cause them to rebel and cut their masters' throats. Edmundson endeavoured to convince him that such an extraordinary consequence of accepting Christianity was not to be apprehended ; and instead of being sent to prison he was afterwards treated by the governor with unvarying con- sideration. We must, however, leave these missionary jour- neys and go on to the most remarkable period of William Edmundson's life, when he and many Irish Friends went about unarmed and undefended in the presence of warfare and brigandage, at times walking, as it were, in the midst of the flames 262 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. unhurt. Hitherto their peace principles had not been put to the proof, for the frightful massacres and fighting which had desolated Ireland for many years, had occurred before the rise of Friends in that country ; but now they were brought face to face with the question whether they would maintain, when in imminent peril, the views professed in com- parative safety, — and nobly did they stand the test. The favour shown to the Quakers throughout the empire by James II. on his accession, was — as regarded those in Ireland — but a gleam of sunshine before the deadly storm. During his short reign some of them were chosen by his government to serve in corporations and as magis- trates. In reference to such, George Fox writes thus to William Edmundson : " Dear William, as for those Friends of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and other places that have taken those offices of aldermen and burgesses upon them, they must consider and be wise ; for if they keep to truth, they can neither take any oaths, nor put any oaths to any one, neither can they put on their gowns and strange kind of habits, as Friends have considered it here when they talk of putting them William Edmundson and Friends in Ireland, 263 in such places ; and again, when they have the aldermen, or mayors, or common council feasts, Friends here cannot join them in such things ; but if they will make the poor a feast that cannot feast you again, Friends have proffered themselves to join with them. But to feast them that will feast you again, and to join with them in their strange kind of habit and formalities, is not like truth that denies the pomps and fashions of this world. But in their places they shall do justice to all men, and be a terror to them that do evil and a praise to them that do well, and preserve every man both in his natural rights and properties, and in his divine rights and liberty, according to the righteous law of God." It was the beginning of a time of terrible distress for Friends, when James 11. resolved with the help of France to strive to win back his lost crown in Ireland. Here again politics and religion were inextricably mingled, for to the Roman Catholic the triumph of James would not only bring full toleration, but supremacy in Church and State, just as the success of William would retain all power in the hands of Protestants. In dread 264 Glimpses of George Fox and his Frieftds. of the conflict which they foresaw was coming, many of the Protestants, conscious of their weak- ness in point of numbers, withdrew to England ; but the Friends generally did not feel easy to fly, but remained in their homes, going about their daily calling, and attending their meetings for worship as usual : " A witness to the ages as they pass That simple duty hath no place for fear." They were not only surrounded by two hostile armies and liable at any moment to have troops quartered on them, but they were also exposed to the attacks and robberies of lawless bands of plunderers who went by the name of raparees. William Edmundson, who was treated with respect by James and his officers, did all he could by appeals to them to obtain protection not only for Friends, but for others who needed it, working for the public good. Every room in his house was soon filled with his neighbours, who took refuge there, feeling that somehow they would be safer with him. In the midst of all this terror and apprehension, the Friends, undeterred by the mortal peril it involved, journeyed from different William Edmundson and Friends in Ireland. 265 places to Dublin to gather at their half-yearly meeting. One who was present (John Burnyeat) writes thus at its close : " The Lord's care and mercy over us hath been largely manifest, and Friends do learn great experience of the pre- servation of the mighty arm of the Lord in this great day of trial, which is upon this nation ; yet to our joy and comfort Friends are carried over it in the faith of the Son of God, and have been preserved miraculously, even beyond our expecta- tion, in several places where their trials have been very great, and the dangers, as to appearances, dreadful ; yet Friends have kept to their habita- tions, trusting in the Lord and following their lawful concerns and business." After the battle of the Boyne William Edmund- son was in great jeopardy from straggling parties of the defeated army flying from the field. He con- cealed his family, and his wife begged him in vain to hide himself He says, " She would venture her own life to save mine ; but I could not do it, though they should be permitted to kill me ; yet the Lord's secret hand restrained them, and preserved our lives. They took all our household 266 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. goods they could find and liked, and all our horses that were left. Now was violence let loose, and no government to make address to." When some of King William's troops came that way, they, in spite of his proclamation drove off about 500 head of cattle belonging to Irish residents and took several prisoners, among them a father and two sons named Dunn who belonged to the most powerful Irish family in the district, but who had entirely failed to respond to William Edmundson's appeal to protect him and his neighbours. Yet it was to him they sent in their calamity, and he speedily mounted his horse and rode swiftly after the company, followed by some of the people who had been robbed of their cattle. The troops were furious, and threatened to kill them, "whereupon I quitted my horse and ventured my life among the rude soldiers to save the Irish, and with much ado, I with the captains' assistance got them moderated, on condition to give them a small part of the cattle to release the rest." He brought all the prisoners safely back, rescuing one of the Dunns whom the soldiers were about to hang as a raparee, reproving them for their cowardly William Edmundson and Friends in Ireland. 267 and unmanly conduct, and throwing him his own riding-coat until he could get the young man's clothes restored, which they had taken from him. This was not an isolated case. Without distinc- tion of race or religion, friend or foe, William Edmundson shielded and helped all who were in any necessity. Again and again he begged back from the English soldiery the cattle they had seized from the Irish near him, sometimes making a little payment in money to induce them to give up their booty. When the army went into winter quarters, the raparees had things pretty much their own way in his neighbourhood. He says : " They burned many brave houses and some towns ; also killed several Protestants, and all was full of trouble. Yet through the wonderful mercies of God, we kept our meetings constantly and enjoyed them peaceably, but in travelling to and fro were many times in danger of our lives by the raparees ; yet the Lord preserved us wonderfully, so that I do not know of above four Friends in this whole nation, that were killed by violent hands all the time of this great calamity." He went to the half- yearly meeting of Friends in Dublin in the latter 268 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. part of 1690, where, he says, they had "a heavenly, blessed, powerful meeting ; " nor was his enjoyment of it disturbed by tidings that twenty of his cows had been appropriated by raparees. He was " well satisfied," finding that his family were unharmed. He saw, however, that perils were thickening around him, and at last a night came when he and his family were startled out of sleep by shots fired through the windows. Then the house and premises were set on fire, one poor horse being burnt to death ; and finally he and his two sons were seized by the raparees and marched off with hardly any clothing on. " But one of them," says William Edmundson, "lent me an old blanket of my own to lap about me. They took away all my cattle, left not one, then they took me and my two sons that night through rough places, bushes, mire and water to the knees in cold weather, when our bare feet and legs were sorely hurt and bruised with the bushes, gravel and stones." In the morning the raparees held a council, and decided to hang the young men and shoot their father. When they were preparing to carry out William Edmundson and Friends in Ireland. 269 this sentence they wished to blindfold him, but he told them there was no need to do so, for he could look them in the face and was not afraid to die. Just at this crisis one of the Dunns came upon the scene, took possession of the prisoners, and resolved to conduct them to the Irish garrison at Athlone in hope of reward. He kept them for three days in a poor cottage, until they were half-starved with cold and hunger. Then as they passed a cabin, seeing an old peasant look pityingly on them, Edmundson begged for a piece of bread for his sons, which was heartily given, though of the coarsest kind. Arrived at Athlone they were mobbed and insulted in the street, but presently were taken to the castle and brought before the governor. He had known William Edmundson well, and did not recognise him " lapped " in his old blanket ; but when he gave his name, the governor stood up with tears in his eyes, expressed his sorrow at seeing him in such wretched plight, sharply censured Dunn, and giving the prisoners in custody to another officer, sent them bread, meat, drink, and brass money, " but we could get no straw to lie upon, but lay upon the bare 270 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. floor which was very cold and hard ; we wanting clothes and my strength was much spent, therefore was not likely to continue long if the Lord had not provided succour for me." Relief came to him in the person of John Clibborn, a Friend living at Moate about six miles from Athlone, so that he was, as it were, in the enemy's country. Through all the troubles he had kept up a meeting in his house, and his door was ever open to all who were in danger and dis- tress. Robbed and spoiled of his substance, dragged by the hair of his head and threatened with death by raparees, this brave man never quailed, nor did he seek a safer position until his house was burnt down and he was forced away, only to return as soon as possible. It was he who now gained admission to William Edmund- son, and when he saw the miserable condition of his friend, he cried out, wringing his hands as he spoke, that they had made prisoner of as honest a man as trod the earth. John Clibborn had but little left to give, but what he had he shared with the Edmundsons, and then tried to in- fluence the governor in their favour, who personally William Edmundson mid Friends in Ireland. 271 had nothing but goodwill towards his captives, but who was afraid to release them. At last he consented to surrender them to John Clibborn who pledged himself and all that he had as security that he would bring up Edmundson, alive or dead, if called on to do so. "So the governor was content, and let us go with him." In a little while they were set at liberty. William Edmundson had two narrow escapes after this. A party of raparees lay in wait to murder him, and steps were taken to ensure his passing that way ; " but as the Lord would have it, I did not go that day." A second attempt of the same kind was made almost immediately, but again he was " restrained by a secret hand " from going within their reach. But it is sad to know that his wife died a few months later from the effects of the exposure and suffering she had undergone. The losses sustained by Friends in Ireland during this time of distress were reckoned at ;^ioo,ooo, a large sum now, and a much larger sum then. It is interesting to find the Meeting for Sufferings in London writing to inquire what help was 2/2 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. needed, and sending money, contributions coming even from Barbadoes, until they are told that no more is needed. In a like brotherly spirit the Irish Friends, between 1682 and 1684, when it was comparatively well with them, sent hundreds of pounds to help those of their body who were suffering persecution in England ; and two years later they joined in raising a fund to redeem others from captivity in Algiers. Truly might it be said of the early Friends, " See how these Christians love one another ! " We will go on now to a brighter period, and give a short account of William Penn's last visit to Ireland in 1698, when Thomas Story was with him. By this time he was a man of world-wide fame, and when it was known that he would attend the half-yearly meeting at Dublin, the house was crowded, numbers of the nobility and clergy being present. At Ross, in county Wexford, he met with a curious interruption. Among the miserable penal laws of that day was one forbidding Papists to own horses exceeding £^ 5s. in value. Two officers, who were quartered at Ross, seeing that the horses on which William Penn and his son William Edmundson and Friends in Ireland. 273 rode were of considerable value, seized them, de- claring that the party, as they would not take an oath, were within the meaning of the Act. Penn complained of this treatment, and the officers got into such trouble that they were driven to beg his intercession on their behalf, which was cheerfully and successfully given. At Waterford multitudes assembled to hear him preach, and the bishop and some of his clergy, not liking to be seen among them, tried to hear what they could in an adjoining garden. But his strangest experience was on a Sunday at Cashel, where by order of the bishop, a meeting thronged with persons of all ranks was commanded to dis- perse. They did not obey, Penn promising to see the bishop afterwards, which he did, and pointed out that the interference was a breach of the Toler- ation Act. The bishop frankly replied that he was irritated that morning by finding that he had only a few officials and the bare walls to preach to ; everybody was gone to the Quakers' meeting. Afterwards, however, he wrote to the Earl of Gal- way saying that he had been filled with terror at seeing such masses of people, many of them armed, T 2/4 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. collected together. The earl showed the letter to Penn, who told htm that he had seen no armed persons, except here and there a gentleman wear- ing his sword as usual. William Edmundson survived his dangers and calamities for many years. In 1697, he married Mary, widow of Joshua Strangman, his ruined house at Rosenallis having been long before re- built. Although he did not again go abroad he had much religious service both in England and Ireland. At the age of eighty-three we find him visiting Friends in Munster, journeying more than two hundred miles, when riding on horseback was the usual mode of travelling. In all these later years of his life he had the unspeakable comfort of seeing the Society of Friends prospering within its own borders, and free in great measure from harass and restriction without. He thankfully records this state of things in a letter addressed to Friends in Barbadoes. After laying it before them that Christians must observe the law of Christ in all things, " that their doings may be to the praise and honour of God, whether in eating, drinking, buying, selling, marrying or giving in marriage, ... to William Edmundson and Friends in Ireland. 275 act and work for God in the unity of His Holy Spirit, and fellowship of His light, as co-workers together in His vineyard, that all things may be kept clean and sweet, and every weed and seed that God hath not sown or planted may be plucked up and rooted out of His garden," he goes on to say : " As to affairs in this nation, we are very peaceable, and truth prospers ; Friends in good esteem, and a godly concern comes upon many Friends to be devoted with their whole abilities to serve the Lord, who gives them wisdom and under- standing in the management of Truth's affairs, for the good of all. And the Lord blesseth their en- deavours, so that in His Spirit and power, which is strong and mighty with us, the authority of Truth in Church government is over all gainsayers. . . . The Parliament is now sitting in Dublin, where I, with several Friends, have, and do attend, and they are very loving and kind to us, ready to do us good, and to ease us in what they reasonably can, and have a regard to us in Acts that pass. The Lord is to be admired in the care He takes of His people who trust in Him, and cast their care upon Him, and seek His honour before all private 2/6 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. interest. Such the Lord is honouring, everlasting praises to His name." In 17 12, at the age of eighty-five, William Ed- mundson, we are told, " departed this life in sweet peace with the Lord, in unity with His brethren, and goodwill to all men." NOTE. Although in point of time entirely beyond the scope of this little volume, some readers may be interested in the relation of a few instances of the remarkable preservation of Friends during the rebellion of 1798, rather more than one hundred years after the deliverance of William Edmundson and others which we have just narrated; for the stedfastness with which these later trials were endured was in harmony with the " spirit of that early day." It should be mentioned that previous to the outbreak, the different Quarterly Meetings had recommended Friends who had guns in their houses to destroy them. In 1796, the half-year's meeting held at Dublin strongly endorsed this advice, "the more fully and clearly to support our peaceable and christian testimony in these perilous times." The position of Friends for some terrible months in 1798 was a most peculiar one. They generally remained in their homes, absolutely unarmed and undefended, and William Edmundson and Friends in Ireland. 277 they gave shelter to all who came to them in distress, so that some of their houses were full to overflowing. This occasionally placed them in a sort of double danger. The regular troops might accuse them of harbouring insurgents, while the latter threatened them for sheltering Protestants. One Friend at Ferns was told that his house would be burnt down if he did not turn out some poor women who had taken refuge with him. He replied that he could not help it ; that as long as he had a house it should be opened to the distressed ; and the next day he thought it right to take his family as usual to their monthly meeting, though they did not know that they would have a roof over their heads when they came back. But neither then nor afterwards was any damage done to him. When a little later the soldiers entered the town, he stood at the door of his house lest he should be supposed to be an enemy, when a soldier stepped from the ranks and presented a gun at his breast. The Friend bade him desist from murder, and the soldier, who was on the point of drawing the trigger, let his arm fall, and presently the officers interfered. It is interesting to see the confidence placed in the truthfulness of the Friends, as shown in this village. The troops had seized many of the inhabitants who declared their innocence, but had no means of prov- ing it. The commander said that if the Quakers would give certificates on their behalf he would release them, and this was accordingly done. A graphic and piteous account of what Friends passed through at Ballitore has been left on record by Mary Leadbeater (the accomplished granddaughter of the first Abraham Shackleton, the schoolmaster of Edmund Burke), who, with her family and relations, shared largely in the 278 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. horrors of the time, in a place which they had made " a centre of sweetness and light." The beginning of troubles was having troops and a yeomanry corps living on them at free quarters. When the burden became intolerable, others of the loyal inhabitants obtained orders from the commanding officer which exempted them, but the Friends did not feel easy to ask for armed protection, and suffered accordingly. Mary Leadbeater describes a day when bullets whizzed past them as they stood outside their own door ; then a crowd of insurgents passed by, and she says, "We laid our beds on the floor lest bullets should enter our windows to our destruction, and got some disturbed sleep." One of the rebels armed, entered the house to seize her husband (going into the room where the little children slept), but happily he was out. They did take her brother, Abraham Shackleton, for a time. He lived at the large school- house, which had then but few boarders, and she says, " Everyone seemed to think that safety and security were to be found in my brother's house. Thither the insur- gents brought their prisoners, and thither, also, their own wounded and suffering comrades. It was an awful sight to behold in that large parlour such a mingled assembly of throbbing, anxious hearts : my brother's own family, silent tears rolUng down their cheeks, the wives of the loyal officers, the wives of the soldiers, the wives and daughters of the insurgents, the numerous guests, the prisoners, the trembling women, all dreading to see the door open, lest some new distress, some fresh announce- ment of horrors should enter. It was awful ; but every scene was now awful, and we knew not what a day might bring forth." William Edmundson and Friends in Ireland. 279 At this time her brother had a sick soldier hidden and nursed in a house in his garden, watched over by her young niece, who showed herself a heroine in those days of misery. Abraham Shackleton and other Friends strained every nerve to induce the rebels in this neighbourhood to accept the favourable terms which were offered by the commander in that part, but a few held out and resisted until it was too late, and then the enraged soldiers were let loose for two terrible hours, plundering and burning. One of them, furious with passion, threatened Mary Leadbeater's life. Her perils were not over yet. Three times in the following winter their house was entered by bands of armed insurgents outlawed by their crimes. The Leadbeaters were robbed, muskets pointed at them, their lives in danger, but they were never injured, though once William Leadbeater, unarmed and defenceless, faced six of these men infuriated with drink. Another instance of escape from a death that many times seemed imminent, is given in the recollections of that awful period published by the late Dinah Goff, who was then fourteen years of age. Her parents Jacob and Elizabeth Goff lived in a large mansion on their estate of Horetown, between Wexford and New Ross, and about ten miles from each place. They also had an insurgent camp on each side of them, and were regularly laid under contribution for provisions by both. A Roman Catholic gentleman gave Jacob Goff warn- ing ten days before the outbreak of the rebellion, so that he had plenty of time in which to remove himself and his family, but did not think it right to do so. Their first trying experience was having fourteen beautiful horses taken from the stables, and the cellars emptied of salt 28o Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. provisions, etc. Often when they seemed in mortal peril, there came unlocked for help, as once, when a most violent party, yelling hideously, advanced towards the house, two young men who were perfect strangers to the Goffs, took their stand on the steps of the hall door, flourishing their great cavalry swords and preventing any one from entering. On another occasion they were told that orders had been given to kill Jacob Goff; and his wife gathered the family around him, that they might all die together if so it was to be. When they saw a party coming with a black flag, they knew that was a death sig- nal. The father went calmly to meet them, and the mother quickly followed him. " Why don't you begin ? " she heard one of the men say ; and then came from others the muttered answer, '' We cannot." At this mo- ment some women appeared, and tried to drag their husbands away, and the intended victim was left un- harmed. A pitched battle at Goff's Bridge was fought partly in their sight. For three hours the awful firing went on, the cannon balls falling thickly about the house, while the inmates having closed the lower doors and windows waited in fearful suspense in an upper room. When the rebels had been completely routed, two of the cavalry soldiers were seen slowly coming up the avenue in a sus- picious manner. Jacob Goff" went out to meet them most courteously. One of them was a German hussar, who rejoiced in broken English over a " Friend." That night the house was surrounded by these German cavalry, who slept on the lawn. In the morning twenty or thirty of the officers breakfasted with the family, and through them the latter knew for the first time the extremity of the William Edmundson and Friends in Ireland. 281 danger from which they had been preserved. Supposing the house to be a rendezvous of the insurgents, a cannon had been planted on the bridge to batter it down, the match was Hghted, when a gentleman came forward to say that it was " inhabited by a loyal Quaker and his family." In spite of constantly recurring alarms, the two elder daughters had been in the habit of walking three miles to meeting, which the parents were not in a state of health to do, and all their horses were gone. Some relatives of the same name, living near by, were warned that if they continued to attend meeting they would be put to death and their house burnt. Earnestly desiring to be guided rightly, the father and mother called their large family together that they might consider, not what was easiest and safest, but what was best. Then the eldest son, a lad of seventeen, said, " Father, rejoice that we are found worthy to suffer." These words decided the question ; they went, and were never molested in their attendance of meetings. Like the Friends at Ballitore, the worst sufferings of the Goffs was after the rebellion was suppressed, and from the same cause. They were urged to accept a nightly guard of yeomanry, but positively refused. On the first occasion of their being disturbed, they were roused after all had retired to rest, by a terrific knocking with muskets on the hall door. The master himself went down and opened it. Armed men rushed in, and up to his room, breaking open his desk and loudly demanding money. He gave them all he had in the house, but they swore they would kill him if he did not give more. They kept on clamouring for money, while they held a pistol at his head, threatening to murder him. At last they 282 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. desisted from this violence, and after supplying them- selves with watches, made a good meal and departed. A fortnight later the robbers came again, and after behaving very outrageously, and seizing a quantity of clothes, led out Jacob Goff, saying that they did not like to murder him in his own house. One of his daughters persisted in following him, though they had forced back his wife when she tried to do so. Her faith was so strong that they would not be permitted to take his life, that she gave directions for a warm drink to be prepared against his return. In about a quarter of an hour he came back, safe but much exhausted, and exclaimed, "This work will finish me; I cannot hold out much longer." He died before the end of the year. That during a time of fearful peril Friends in Ireland went about wherever duty called them unarmed, and remained in houses absolutely undefended, and that though there seemed often but a step between them and death, yet that none of them were suffered to die by violence — these are matters of fact. If, their trust being in God, they found " Stronger than strongest fortresses The shadow of His Hand," not the less was their conduct a striking instance of the obedience of faith. They had no assurance beforehand that their lives would be preserved— in some cases the contrary seemed almost certain — but they did not con- cern themselves about results. BeHeving that their allegiance to Christ forbade to them the weapons and the means which others thought lawful, they simply and nobly acted up to their principles, regardless of the consequences. CHAPTER XII. ROBERT BARCLAY AND FRIENDS IN SCOTLAND, ** As for us, we are not afraid of you, nor ashamed of our testimony, and yoii cannot vanquish us. . . . We are well contented to stay here until the due time of our deliverance come ; and our expecta- tions, be it known unto you, are neither from the hills nor from the mountains, but from God alone. Our case is committed to Him who judges righteously. We are, as regards our testimony, and for its sake, n'e// contented, well pleased, well satisfied to be here. Our bonds are not grievous to us. Glory to the Lord for ever ! who hath not been, who is not wanting to us." * N the year 1653, part of which George Fox spent in prison at Carlisle, there were some good people in the South of Scotland who, knowing nothing of him or of his teaching, were in the habit of meeting together for worship after the manner of Friends. One of the first preachers among them was William Osborne, a colonel in the army. James Naylor had been in Scotland before this date, but does not appear to have heard of them, and they had formed a little church for at least a year before Friends from * From a letter addressed by Robert Barclay and other Friends to the magistrates of Montrose in 1673, "from a cold and desolate prison, in the middle of winter." 284 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. England found them out, and came in goodly- numbers to visit them. Meanwhile, in the North of Scotland, at Aber- deen, Alexander Jaffray was unconsciously jour- neying towards the same spiritual goal. He was born in 16 14, of a good family, in the old city of which his father was provost, who was also a mem- ber of the Scottish Parliament. The son had, of course, a liberal education in schools, and, besides this, had many advantages of travel both at home and abroad. He was but nineteen, albeit already married, when he was present at the imposing coronation of Charles I. in Edinburgh, and in maturer life he was one of the commissioners who went twice to Holland to negotiate with the young King, Charles II., and felt so concerned at the Prince being compelled to subscribe to the Cove- nant, that he desired him not to do so unless his conscience were satisfied, " and yet," adds Jaffray, " went on to close the treaty with him who, I knew so well, had for his own ends done it against his heart." He had had many narrow escapes of his life, notably from the unjust fury of the Laird of Robert Barclay and Friends in Scotland. 285 Haddo, before he lay wounded nigh to death upon the field of Dunbar, his horse shot under him, his brother and servant killed almost beside him, and in these conditions a sword pointed at his throat which would in a moment have given a final blow, but that the hand which held it was diverted from its aim, " I having that day got again, as it were, a new take of my life for this end, to hold it upon a new account, of the Lord, and for Him!' He was taken prisoner, and " most civilly and courteously used," until at the end of six months he obtained his freedom by an exchange. During all these years he was a man of unblemished character, " of great account as to religion," exemplary in the different domestic and social relations of life, of weight and influence among his fellow-citizens, yet judging himself severely, and his conscience bur- dened with the recollection of his share in persuad- ing the exiled King to sign the Covenant. In 1652 there appears in a list of public func- tionaries appointed in Scotland, " Provest Jaffray, keipar of the great seall, and director of the chan- cellorie." He was one of four who in the following year went up from Scotland to sit in the Parliament 286 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. of England. He was in London for about eight months, and during that time received an order in Council for repayment in part of the almost ruinous expenses he had incurred in Holland. This incident is worth mentioning, as what follows shows the personal esteem in which he was held ; for he tells us, " When that Parliament was broken up, I, not being satisfied with the reasons thereof, was one of thirty or thirty-one who stayed in the House. Yet the Protector was pleased to give me the aforesaid order, of which I got payment, and did offer me to be one of the judges in Scotland, but this I refused, finding myself not capable for discharge of that duty." He was very glad to be at home again, as he could not bear being so long parted from his wife and family ; and in view of the mercy and loving- kindness manifested towards him and them, he desires " to make haste and follow hard after God." Later on he resolves to abridge himself even in lawful pleasures, for fear that he may not know where to stop ; he calls himself sternly to account for speaking too sharply to his servants ; and after the recovery of one of his sons from dangerous Robert Barclay and Friends in Scotland. 287 illness, he is earnest that he and his wife should take to heart the lesson which he thinks is in- tended as regards their children, and "learn to give them up, and wholly over tmto God, to be continued with or removed from us, at His plea- sure . . . lest He be offended, and even they may suffer for our sakes" Where he found strength and comfort is plainly shown in his com- ment on the passage, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, etc. " Here there is such a So, that neither angels nor men, nor all of them in heaven and earth together, can imagine anything comparable to it." Now that he was living in Edinburgh he speaks of himself as "not being a member of any gathered church," but uniting as far as he could with " godly men of the Presbyterian way." The birth of one of his many sons in 1657, causes him some perplexity about baptism, but on considera- tion he feels easy to consent to it, after distinctly stating that it is only as a member of " the catholic or universal church" that he will consent to his child receiving the ordinance. We should hardly expect after the restoration of 288 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. Charles II. to see on a list of suspected persons submitted to the Committee of Estates the name of one whose blood had been poured out like water at Dunbar, fighting for his King ; but so it was. On account of his unwillingness to sign " a bond to be subscribed for the peace," Alexander J affray lay in the Tolbooth for some months, until in January, i66i, through the intervention of the Earl of Middleton, and bound under a penalty of i^20,ooo, he was discharged, being allowed the liberty of the city and suburbs. It was in less than two years from this time that he joined himself to the Friends, for whose prin- ciples, when he became fully acquainted with them, "his very heart did leap for joy." Truly has it been said that such an act then was to take up a cross bitter as death to men in his station, for they had to despise a shame which was unspeakably hard to bear. We have few details of the remain- ing ten years of his life ; but we find him sum- moned before the High Commission Court, and forbidden to have any meetings in his house, or to go anywhere without a license from the Bishop of Aberdeen, under penalty of a fine. In 1668, Robert Barclay and Friends in Scotland. 289 when in a very weak state of health, he was im- prisoned at Banff for more than nine months on a charge that he had incurred the fine by breaking the command about meetings. But at last the civil power came to the rescue, the King's Privy Council giving orders for his unconditional release. He had only reached the age of fifty-nine, when, by what he called the " sweet passage " of death, he entered on his eternal inheritance. The visit of George Fox and other Friends to Scotland in 1657, had widely spread the views of Friends in the parts to which they went. Fox travelled in company of the Colonel Osborne of whom we have spoken before. At Heads he says, " We had a blessed meeting in the name of Jesus, and felt Him in the midst." He speaks again of " a great meeting," and then of the op- position they called forth. " The noise was spread over Scotland among the priests, that I was come thither ; and a great cry was among them that all would be spoiled ; for they said I had spoiled all the honest men and women in England already, so according to their own account, the worst were left to them." At Edinburgh he was brought 290 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. before " his Highness's Council," and by them ordered to leave Scotland in a week's time : a mandate of which he took no notice whatever. When the seven days were expired, he was told at Leith that warrants were out for his apprehen- sion, friendly people being anxious to warn him, to whom he replied, "What do ye tell me of their warrants against me ? If there were a cart-load of them I do not heed them, for the Lord's power is over all." So he turned his horse's head towards Edinburgh, and "rode up the street to Captain Davenport's house, from which we had been ban- ished. There were many officers with him, and when I came amongst them they lifted up their hands, admiring that I should come again ; but I told them the Lord God had sent me amongst thern again ; so they went their way. . . . Next day I went up to the meeting in the city. Friends having notice that I would attend it. There came many officers and soldiers to it, and a glorious meeting it was ; the everlasting power of God was set over the nation, and His Son reigned in His glorious power. All was quiet, and no man offered to meddle with me." This was on Sunday. The Robert Barclay and Friends in Scotland. 291 following day, being quite ready to depart, Fox and his companions set forth for England. On their way they held a meeting at Dunbar, the last which they had in Scotland. He says : " The truth and the power of God was set over that nation, and many by the power and Spirit of God were turned to the Lord Jesus Christ, their Saviour and teacher, whose blood was shed for them ; and since there is a great increase, and great there will be in Scotland." At the time of Fox's visit, the future Friend whose fame was destined to extend far beyond the limits of his own society and native land — Robert Barclay, the great "apologist" of Quakerism — was a child of nine years old. His father. Colonel David Barclay, traced back a lineal descent of more than five centuries to Theobald de Berkeley, a gentleman .of Norman extraction, prominent in the court of David I., and whose descendants had from that time onward held rank among the landed proprietors of Scotland. The mother of Robert Barclay was Katharine, daughter of Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstown, second son of the Earl of Sutherland, and second cousin to James I. The 292 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. father of Colonel Barclay becoming embarassed in his circumstances, was obliged to sell the ancient estates of his forefathers, and was then able to pay off his debts, but had not much to bestow on his children beyond a good education. In those days there was always one career — that of arms — open to men of high but impoverished families, and young David Barclay enlisted as a volunteer under Gustavus Adolphus, and distin- guished himself at the memorable battle of Lutzen, as well as elsewhere. The outbreak of the Civil War called him back to his native country, and he gave most hearty and efficient aid to the Royalist cause, until on the accession to power of the party of Cromwell, he laid aside his military engage- ments and never resumed them. It was then that he married and purchased Ury. But he did not retire into private life, for he sat in three successive Parliaments, where he made most vigorous and successful efforts on behalf of some of the Scottish nobility and gentry whose estates had been de- clared forfeited. His son Robert was born in 1648. He early gave promise of future eminence, and after pro- Robert Barclay and Friends in Scotland. 293 viding him with the best elementary education within reach at home, his father sent him to Paris, where his uncle was rector of the Scottish college. Here his rapid intellectual progress won him favour with all his teachers, and his uncle, influenced both by pride and affection, offered to bestow immedi- ately a large estate on him, and to make him his heir, if he would remain in France. But meantime his mother on her death-bed, in her anxiety that he should no longer remain under Roman Catholic influence, had pressed upon her husband the neces- sity of bringing him home ; and after her death the colonel went to Paris with this object. The uncle did not hesitate even then to make strenuous endeavours, in defiance of parental authority, to retain him, but the lad had one all-sufficient answer to such undutiful suggestions : " He is my father, and must be obeyed." He was then about sixteen, and had been in Paris from early childhood. Katharine Barclay died in 1663, and not long afterwards the Laird of Ury, who had so faithfully served and suffered for the King, was thrown into prison on a charge of disloyalty. He was soon set at liberty ; but it seems as though his earnest 294 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. study of the New Testament during this time of seclusion, combined with the influence of a fellow- prisoner, Sir John Swintoune, had done much to draw him towards the Friends, to whom he felt attracted, even by the report of their enemies, and with whom he had had intercourse in London. At last, being fully persuaded in his own mind, he cast in his lot with them. He soon felt the con- sequences. He had been wont to see the magis- trates of Aberdeen ride out bare-headed to meet him, and in state and ceremony conduct him to some civic entertainment. Now, this noble-looking soldier with his whitening hair, who was, we are told, "one of the largest, strongest, and handsomest men that could be seen among many thousands," was mobbed, insulted, and reviled, as he rode through the city, and he bore it all in silence and in patience. "Yet with calm and stately mien, Up the streets of Aberdeen, Came he slowly riding ; And to all he saw and heard Answering not with bitter word, Turning not for chiding." Colonel Barclay did not attempt to impress his Robert Barclay arid Friends in Scotland. 295 newly accepted views upon his gifted son. On the contrary, he wished to leave him to his own con- victions, though doubtless, it was a great joy to him when these led the youth at nineteen years of age to follow in his father's footsteps. It was in the silence of Friends' meetings that his heart and conscience were reached. In 1670 he married Christian Molleson, who had become a Friend when only sixteen, the most worthy daughter of a most worthy mother, of whom it has been said that her character was even as her name. He brought her home to his father's house at Ury. It was the first marriage in Aberdeen conducted according to the customs of Friends, and, though the bride's father was a magistrate, an unsuccessful attempt was made to get Robert Barclay summoned before the Privy Council on the charge of an un- lawful marriage. About three years afterwards he had his first taste of prison life, being arrested with other Friends at Montrose for holding their meet- ing for worship in that town. * * It was just twelve months before this that there occurred that strange episode in a life that otherwise could not be accused of a touch of fanaticism, when he went through three streets in Aberdeen calling the inhabitants to repentance. 296 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. He was on the Continent in 1676, when the Laird of Ury and over thirty other Friends, were deprived of their freedom under the Conventicle Act, and after a trying imprisonment of three months had heavy fines imposed, and were re- manded to prison until these were paid. It was then that Isaac Pennington wrote a letter of con- solation and sympathy, addressed to " My dear suffering Friends in Scotland." On this news greet- ing Robert Barclay when he landed in England, he hastened to Whitehall, and exerted himself to the utmost with King and Government to procure their liberation, but seems to have been only par- tially successful, though his father was soon re- leased. Before the year was out the son was himself committed to prison, being arrested, with other Friends, while attending meeting. Tidings of this reached Elizabeth, Princess Palatine of the Rhine, who was distantly related to his mother, and who had already tried to persuade her brother, Prince Rupert, to do his best for David Barclay and the rest. Now she again wrote to him most earnestly, urging his intercession, but apparently to no purpose. Robert Barclay and his com- Robert Barclay and Friends in Scotland. 297 panions greatly exasperated the magistrates of Aberdeen by preaching to the people outside, from the windows of the Tolbooth, often having a very large audience. For this offence some of the prisoners, including the Barclays, for the father seems to have soon followed the son, were re- moved to a place in the outskirts of the town, called " the chapel." It was a dreary spot, narrow, and cold, and dark ; but cramped and miserable as was the accommodation there, it was princely to the lot of some of those who were left in the Tolbooth, who, to punish them for their preach- ing, were taken from the others and put into a vaulted cell called the " iron house." Here through the hot days and nights of summer they were crowded together without any light or air save what could struggle through one double grating, for the windows were boarded up. The indigna- tion of their fellow citizens was aroused, who made an appeal on their behalf, which being se- conded by a dispute between the sheriff and the magistrates, the sufferers were released. But in prison or out of prison, the pen of Robert Barclay had little rest. As if he knew that his 298 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. time would not be long, he devoted his genius and his learning to the service of God. It is re- markable that his greatest work, " An Apology for the true Christian Divinity," was written before he was twenty-eight. It was not a confession of faith. To explain those points on which the Friends differed from others, and to refute the Calvinistic theology, were the objects at which he aimed. It was written in Latin, by a scholar for scholars, but so " calm and luminous," that in its translated form it could be understood by those who were in no wise learned. He has been called the " One great original theologian Scotland ever produced. . . . No man ever gave Calvinism such mighty shakes as Barclay did. And he shook it from within. He understood it. . . . His controversy with Calvinism was on fundamental principles ; and while Calvin's axioms and postu- lates are of the waning past, Barclay's are of the widening future." * We have not many details of Robert Barclay's comparatively short life. One familiar and charac- teristic anecdote tells how, when a highwayman * The Theological Review, 1874. Robert Barclay and Friends in Scotland. 299 demanded his purse, with a pistol at his throat, he, without flinching, so calmly reasoned with the man that he dropped his weapon and neither robbed nor harmed him. In 1682, he was appointed governor of East Jersey, the Earl of Perth, one of the proprietors, being his particular friend. The royal commission confirming this appointment, states that " such are his known fidelity and capacity, that he has the government during life ; but no other governor after him shall have it longer than three years." In addition to his own share of land, five thousand acres were allotted to him to bestow on whom he would. But he was unwilling to settle away from his native country, and no doubt shrank from leaving his father, who was still living at this date ; but he selected a deputy to send out. Like William Penn, he was the personal friend of James XL, and like Penn, was unjustly accused of encouraging a line of conduct in the King which was wholly opposed to their principles and counsel. They both had the courage (we can hardly under- stand how great it was) to speak generously of a fallen monarch, and of the members of an unpopular 300 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends, and depressed church. "As to the persons of Roman Catholics," says Barclay, "as it never agreed with the notions I have of the Christian religion to hate these persons, so their present misfortunes are so far from embittering my spirit towards them that it rather increases tenderness and regard to them. . . . Nor will I decline to avow that I love King James, that I wish him well, that I have been and am sensibly touched with a feeling of his misfortunes, and that I cannot ex- cuse myself from the duty of praying for him that God may bless him, and sanctify his afflictions to him." We find Barclay in London, visiting the seven bishops in the Tower, and, as usual, calling on James, so near the time of the last act in the drama which deprived the King for ever of his crown, that as they sat together in a window — looking out, we may suppose, upon the rippling Thames — James remarked on the wind being fair for the Prince of Orange to come over. Barclay's noble old father did not live to see the fall of the royal house for which he had fought so valiantly. He died after a short illness in 1686. His son has given a touching 5£j=Au»K^ 'MUS^ Robert Barclay and Friends in Scotland. 301 account of the last hours of the veteran soldier who had " Stood Ankle deep in Lutzen's blood With the brave Gustavus ; " but whose constancy had been far more sorely- tried in after years, when in the streets of Aber- deen he endured, without word or deed of ven- geance, the bitter insults of the populace. Now his warfare was accomplished, and he " fell asleep like a lamb, in remarkable quietness and calm- ness." Only four years more passed away before the greatest of the Lairds of Ury was laid to rest be- side his father in their own new tomb. Robert Barclay was but in his forty-second year when a violent fever quickly ended a life richly endowed with gifts and graces, and called him from the home he held so dear. But his dying words tes- tified to his belief that whatever might befall him would tend to his own salvation and to the glory of God, " and in that,'' he said, " / rest!' The last letter but one that George Fox ever wrote, was penned to comfort Christian Barclay in her desolation, just a fortnight before he, too, was 302 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. clothed with immortality. He tells her that she and her children may rejoice that they had such an offering to offer up unto the Lord ; and in concluding he writes : " From him who had a great love and respect for thy dear husband, for his work and ser- vice in the Lord, who is content in the will of God ; and so must thou be'' Robert Barclay died on the third of March, 1690. CHAPTER XIII. WHAT THE EARLY FRIENDS TAUGHT. We are nothing : Christ is all."— George Fox. HE rise of the people called Quakers is one of the most remarkable events in the history of man. It marks the moment when intellectual freedom was claimed uire ondi ti ondlly by' ^fhe people as an inalienable birthright. It was the aspiration of the human mind after a perfect emancipation from the long reign of bigotry and superstition." * We have already seen how argumentative and intolerant was the religious spirit of that day ; and that, whether Churchman or Presbyterian was in power, the Friends suffered persecution. Their utter rejection of every outward form and rite, their recognition oflio priesthood but the common priesthood of all believers, and their conscientious objection to tithes placed them in oppos ition to * Bancroft. 304 Glimpses of George Fox mtd his Friends. the ecclesiastical authorities when the Episcopal Church was restored with Charles 11. But they were quite as obnoxious to the Presbyterians. Before, however, we enter on those views which distinguished the early Friends from other religious professors, it is right to show in their own words how absolutely they accepted those scriptural truths respecting our Lord Jesus Christ which they were often accused of denying. Most explicit is the following passage by George Fox, contained in his epistle to the governor of Barbadoes, written in the year 1671 : " And we own and believe that He [Christ Jesus] was made a sacrifice for sin, who knew no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth ; and that He was crucified for us in the flesh, without the gates of Jerusalem, and that He was buried and rose again the third day by the power of His Father, for our justification, and we do believe that He ascended up into heaven, and now sitteth at the right hand of God. This Jesus who was the foundation of the holy apostles and prophets, is our foundation, and we do believe that there is no other foundation to be laid but that which is laid, What the Early Friends Taught. 305 even Christ Jesus, who, we believe, tasted death for every man, and shed His blood for all men, and is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world ; according as John the Baptist testified of Him when he said, ' Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.' We believe that He alone is our Redeemer and Saviour, even the captain of our salvation (who saves us from sin, as well as from hell and the wrath to come, and destroys the devil and his works) ; who is the seed of the woman that bruises the serpent's head, to wit, Christ Jesus, the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last." Nearly twenty years afterwards, in 1689, when William HI. and Mary had ascended the English throne, and an Act of Toleration was prepared, " which exempted Protestant subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the penalties of certain laws designed to force them to con- formity," Friends were watchful to have the Act framed so as to include themselves within its scope. The bill had a confession of faith attached to it, which had been drawn up with the X J 3o6 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. idea of excluding the " Quakers " from its provis- ions, on the plea that they were not Christians. George Fox says, " Though I was weak in body, and not well able to stir about, yet so great a concern was upon my spirit on behalf of Truth and Friends, that I attended continually with many Friends at the Parliament House labouring with the members that the thing might be done com- prehensively and effectually." A confession of faith was then drawn up by Friends and presented to Parliament by a com- mittee of their body, who were examined in relation to it. The result of the investigation was that Parliament was convinced that Quakerism was not adverse to Christianity. We will give the chief portion of this profession of faith, which is as follows: Question. Do you believe the divinity and hu- manity of Jesus Christ the eternal Son of God } or that Jesus Christ is truly God and man } Answer. Yes, we verily believe that Jesus Christ is truly God and man, according as Holy Scriptures testify of Him ; God over all blessed for ever ; the true God and eternal life ; the one Mediator between God and man, even the man Christ Jesus. What the Early Friends Taught. 307 Question. Do you believe and expect salvation and justification by the righteousness and merits of Jesus Christ, or by your own righteousness and works ? Answer. By Jesus Christ, His righteousness, merits, and works, and not by our own. God is not indebted to us for our deservings, but we to Him for His free grace in Christ Jesus ; where- by we are saved through faith in Him, not of ourselves ; and by His grace are enabled truly and acceptably to serve and follow Him as He requires. He is our all in all, who worketh all in us that is well pleasing to God. Question. Do you believe in remission of sin and redemption through the sufferings, death, and blood of Christ } Answer. Yes ; through faith in Him, as He suffered and died for all men, gave Himself a ransom for all ; and His blood being shed for the remission of sins, so all they who sincerely believe and obey Him receive the benefit and blessed effects of His suffering and dying for them ; they by faith in His name, receive and partake of that eternal redemption which He hath 308 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. obtained for us, who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity. He died for our sins, and rose again for our justification, and " if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin." This comprehensive document shows the accord of the early Friends with apostolic doctrine. Their whole theology may be summed up in one word, Christ. They looked to Him alone for redemption, accepting it in its two-fold aspect as expressed in these words of Robert Barclay : " The first is the redemption performed and accomplished by Christ for us in His crucified body, without us : the other is the redemption wrought by Christ in us, which no less properly is called and accounted a re- demption than the former." Yet their enemies constantly accused them of denying these very truths. There is, probably, hardly a single writer among the early Friends, and they were most voluminous authors, who does not again and again refute the charge. Thus William Penn speaking of his fellow professors, What the Early Friends Taught. 309 says : " They are so far from disowning the death and sufferings of Christ, that there is not a people on the earth that so assuredly witness and de- monstrate a fellowship therewith, confessing be- fore men and angels that Christ died for the sin of the world, and gave His life a ransom." Isaac Pennington, Robert Barclay, George Whitehead, and a host of others may be cited to the same effect. Why, then, was the imputation so frequently repeated .-* One reason was the great prominence given by the Quakers to the work of Christ by His Holy Spirit in the soul of mait — what in those days was sometimes called the doctrine of the Inward Light. They accepted implicitly the em- phatic promise of our Lord — a promise which they believed held good for all time — that He would send to His disciples the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who would guide them into all Truth. George Fox tells us : "I was sent to turn people from darkness to the light, that they might receive Christ Jesus : for to as many as should receive Him in His light, I saw that He would give power to become the sons of God ; which I had obtained 3 lo Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. by receiving Christ. I was to direct people to the Spirit that gave forth the Scriptures, by which they might be led into all truth, and so up to Christ and God, as they had been who gave them forth. I was to turn them to the grace of God, and to the truth in the heart, which came by Jesus ; that by this grace they might be taught, which would bring them salvation, that their hearts might be established by it, and their words might be seasoned, and all might come to know their salvation nigh. I saw that Christ died for all men, and was a propitiation for all ; and enlightened all men and women with His divine and saving light ; and that none could be a true believer, but who believed in it. I saw that the grace of God, which brings salvation, had appeared to all men, and that the manifestation of the Spirit of God was given to every man to profit withal." William Penn also writes : " The light of Christ within, who is the Light of the World (and so a light to you that tells you the truth of your con- dition), leads all that take heed unto it, out of darkness into God's marvellous light ; for light grows upon the obedient. It is sown for the What the Early Friends Taught. 311 righteous, and their way is a shining light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day." Again Fox says, when alluding to some to whom he preached in the North : " I directed them to the divine light of Christ and His Spirit in their hearts, which would let them see all the evil thoughts, words, and actions, that they had thought, spoken, and acted ; by which light they might see their sin, and also their Saviour, Christ Jesus, to save them from their sins." These extracts, and they might be multiplied ten-fold, show that to the early Friends the direct guidance and teaching of the Holy Spirit was no mere form of words, but the substantial truth of God. It was a truth too much ignored by many in that day, when pulpit discourses dwelt more on being saved from the wrath to come, than on Christ's power to overcome sin in the heart of the believer, to which blessed experience the Friends bore witness as that which they had themselves known. Here, again, they were con- stantly at issue with the religious world in which they lived. They were never weary of declaring that Christ came to save from sin as well as from 312 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. its punishment, that having required of all who loved Him that they should keep His command- ments, what He required He would give strength to perform by the power of His Holy Spirit to all who had faith to receive it, and exactly in propor- tion to their faith. Hence they taught that none must excuse themselves by saying that it was impossible to be without sin in this life, for they believed, to use the striking words of George Fox, that "Christ being come destroys the devil and his works, and cuts off the entail of sin!' And Robert Barclay writes : " We understand not such a perfection as may not daily admit of a growth, and consequently mean not as if we were to be as pure, holy, and perfect as God in His divine attributes of wisdom, knowledge, and purity ; but only a perfection proportionable and answerable to man's measure, whereby we are kept from trans- gressing the law of God, and enabled to answer what He requires of us." No doubt in the heat of controversy the Quakers were often misunderstood respecting their doctrine of Christian perfection, as well as on many other points. There must always have been a large What the Early Friends Taught. 313 measure of essential unity between them and all enlightened Christians, and this was frequently- manifested ; but we must remember that their dis- cussions were oftener with those who had more of the form of religion than its power. The early Friends believed that all Jewish cere- monies were fulfilled and ended in Christ ; that all worship thenceforth " must be in spirit and in truth ; " and that through the one Mediator all believers "have access by one Spirit unto the Father." They held that as worship must be the act of the individual soul, there could be no wor- ship performed for a congregation ; and hence they met with no appointed minister, and with no arranged service, to wait in silence upon the Lord, believing in His promise to be with those gathered in His name ; looking only to Him as their High Priest and Teacher, who would teach as man never taught, and would feed their worshipping souls with the " Bread of Life." It naturally followed that they thought that God alone could fit any to minister to the spiritual needs of others, because He alone knew what those needs were. They looked to Christ as 3 14 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. having an absolute right to entrust to older or younger, to man or woman, to rich or poor, learned or unlearned, the message of salvation, in- struction, reproof, encouragement, or the offering of vocal prayer and praise ; believing that the effect of all true ministry would be to bring men to Christ and to leave them there. With such unshackled views of Gospel ministry, in which the qualification was distinctly recognised as a Divine gift, the idea of exercising it as a means of procuring a liveli- hood, or even of attaching to it any pecuniary recompense would have seemed to them wholly out of character. It was their uncompromising declaration that Christ Himself must call forth and ordain His own ministers ; and coupled with this was their grand assertion that to compel the human conscience on matters of religion by arbitrary laws, was really to intrude between man and his Maker. While most other churches and sects of that day claimed relig- ious toleration for themselves on the ground that their doctrines were the true ones, the Quakers demanded it for all ; for others as much as for themselves, because they denied the right of any What the Early Friends Taught. 315 man to interfere where God alone could judge. It was this pervading view of the spiritual char- acter of the New Dispensation which led the early- Friends to differ from the ordinary interpretation respecting water baptism and the Lord's Supper. Whilst most other Christians have felt it a duty to retain the observance of these rites, though differing greatly as to the mode of celebration, the Friends believed that our Lord appointed no outward ordinance as of permanent obligation in His Church ; and that though the apostles practised water baptism as a sign of admission therein, there is no evidence that it was meant to be perpetuated any more than other Jewish rites which were for a while observed in the early Church. They accepted in its fullest meaning that utterance of our Lord which seems to be the keynote to many of His other sayings : " The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." They held that the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost was the indispensable process by which the soul enters into the kingdom of God ; that this washing could only be performed by Christ Himself, and that He would delegate His 3 16 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. power to no other. They believed that the one essential baptism is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. " He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." " Not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God." Hence the Friends recognising this one baptism disclaimed all other. So in relation to the Lord's Supper. They dis- carded the sign that they might, as it were, with more intensity grasp the thing signified. To them it seemed that the actual partaking of bread and wine could no more be intended as a permanent observance than our Lord's great lesson of humility — when He washed the disciples' feet, and bade them do to one another as He had done to them — was meant to be in very deed repeated. They remembered how He had gently upbraided His disciples, when, in their dull literalness, they had murmured at His words, ''My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed" etc., and had said to them, "// is the spirit that quick- eneth; tJu flesh profiteth nothing r In its deepest significance, the early Friends sought to realise with grateful hearts the promise of the Lord What the Early Friends Taught. 317 Jesus, ^'he that eateth Me^ even he shall live by Me!' * It must not be supposed that George Fox was the first to advance such views respecting the ordinances. We find there was an ancient com- munity in western Asia, from 600 to 900 A.D,, called the Paulicians, who held that " the eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood of Christ con- sisted simply in the coming into vital union with Him." But the plea of the early Friends was not so much for the absence of form as for the presence of a life-giving power. Their spiritual perception, quickened by a close walk with God, led them to see that the form must be temporary, that the essential truth alone could be permanent. The presence of the risen Saviour by His Spirit in their hearts was to them a reality ; and they needed no symbol to bring Him nearer to their apprehension. Their testimony against all war will best be * George Fox narrates in his quaint way a dispute which he had with a Jesuit priest, and tells us : "Then as to those words of Christ, 'This is my body,' I told him, 'Christ calls Himself a vine, and a door, and is called in Scripture a rock ; is Christ therefore an out- ward rock, door, or vine?' 'Oh,' said the Jesuit, ' those words are to be interpreted.' 'So,' said I, 'are those words of Christ, This is My body.' " 3 1 8 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. given in their own beautiful and simple words by a few short extracts from a document pre- sented to. Charles II. in 1660, to convince him how impossible it was for them to take up arms against him : " Our principle is, and our practices have always been, to seek peace and ensue it ; and to follow after righteousness and the knowledge of God;' seeking the good and welfare, and doing that which tends to the peace of all. We know that wars and fightings proceed from the lusts of men, out of which lusts the Lord hath redeemed us, and so out of the occasion of war. . . . All bloody principles and practices we, as to our own particu- lars, do utterly deny, with all outward wars and strife, and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretence whatsoever ; this is our testimony to the whole world. ... So we, whom the Lord hath called into the obedience of His truth, have denied wars and fightings, and cannot again any more learn them. This is a certain testimony unto all the world, of the truth of our hearts in this particular, that as God persuadeth every man's heart to believe, so they may receive What tJu Early Friends Taught. 319 it. . . . And all wars and fightings with carnal weapons we deny who have the sword of the Spirit ; and all that wrong us we leave to the Lord." Surely in the last line quoted lay the strength of their testimony ! Then in the matter of Oaths. They believed that the command, Swear not at all, covered judi- cial swearing as well as all other swearing, and thus it became with them a question of obedience to Christ. Their faithfulness to their convictions on this point, involved them in untold suffering, for their protest in those troubled times was almost a question of life and death, when refusal to take the oath of allegiance, if tendered by a magistrate, was sufficient to deprive a prisoner of his rights as an Englishman. The number of Friends im- prisoned at one time chiefly on this account, in the year 1685, at the time of the death of Charles II., was over 1,400. Yet the Quakers were constantly accused of undervaluing the Holy Scriptures ! In matters of controversy the appeal of George Fox was un- hesitatingly made to them, and, Bible in hand, he often confuted his opponents. " As saith the 320 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. Scripture," was with him final ; and his knowledge of its contents was so full and accurate, that it was said by men of learning who were his con- temporaries, that if the Bible were lost, it might be found in the mouth of George Fox. "Fox, Penn, and Barclay, all admit, in the most explicit manner, that the Scriptures are inspired writings ; but they maintain that, as the architect is greater than the building he erects, so is the Spirit that inspired the written pages greater than the pages themselves." They were jealous that none should give to the sacred records that testify of Christ the honour that was due to Christ alone, and they gave the title of the Word of God only to Him of whom the apostle says : " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." ^ And now as to the "peculiarities" of Friends. It would be altogether a mistake to suppose that George Fox ever intended to institute a distinctive garb, as if there were any sanctity attaching to an outside appearance. He ever taught that the fruit was the product of the root ; and the idea that an external profession alone What the Early Friends Taught. 321 could avail aught, would have " struck," to use his own words, at his " very life." But he felt the im- perative need of simplicity and moderation in the midst of the extravagance and license in dress and living which marked the corrupt age of the Restoration ; when fulsome, flattering manners and gestures, notably the removal of the hat, had replaced the Puritan severity of former years. Such customs were a miserable substitute for that christian courtesy which Fox, William Penn tells us, maintained in his own person, " being civil beyond all forms of breeding." So likewise as regards ''plainness of speech." In the days when the plural number was used to superiors, and the singular number to inferiors, Friends swept away the distinction, and used the grammatical and scriptural language to all. It was against world- liness and insincerity that they protested, and the spirit of that uncompromising protest is needed still. If some of these " peculiarities " were trivial — especially dropping the heathen names of the days and months — yet let it be remembered that the early Friends never neglected the weightier matters of the Law. Y 322 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. George Fox had no desire to be the founder of a religious body. When called " a chief upholder of the Quaker sect," he replies, " The Quakers are not a sect, but are in the power of God, which was before sects were," And at first, the only re- cognised bond of union was the large number of energetic ministers circulating among the different meetings gathered by their ministry, and sometimes assembling in conference to issue letters of advice and recommendation ; but as their number lessened it led to meetings being grouped together to watch over one another for good. This was the origin of Monthly and Quarterly Meetings, which were re- presented by the Yearly Meeting in London, to which subsequently those Friends holding office as elders and overseers were added, whose duty it was to watch in love over those engaged in the ser- vice of the Gospel, and over the flock. Women's meetings were afterwards commenced that, in the succinct language of George Fox, they might be helpmeets to the men. The care of the poor was expressly committed to them. Mental cultivation was always recognised in the society ; and from the time when George Fox expressed his desire IV hat the Early Friends Taught. 323 that the children of Friends " should be taught all things civil and useful in the creation," the subject of education has held a prominent place in its ar- rangements, the poorer members being carefully included in its benefits. Perhaps we cannot better close this chapter than with a short extract from one of the many epistles which George Fox used to address to Friends in his later days. It is dated about a year before his death, and runs thus : " Therefore, all live in the love of God, which keeps above the love of the world, so that none of your hearts may be choked or surfeited with these outward things, or with the cares of the world which will pass away ; but mind ye the world and the life that is without end, that ye may be heirs of it. And, Friends, you should strive to excel all, both professor and profane, in morality, humanity, and Christianity ; modesty, sobriety, and modera- tion ; and in a good, godly, righteous life and con- versation, showing forth the fruits of the Spirit of God, and that you are the children of the living God, children of the light and of the day, and not of the night. And serve God in newness of 324 Glimpses of George Fox and his Friends. life ; for it is the life, and a living and walking in the truth, that must answer the witness of God in all people, that ' they, seeing your good works, may glorify our Father which is in heaven.' " Brief and imperfect as are the foregoing sketches of the early Friends — of what they thought, and said, and did, yet enough has been told to show that the society to which they gave a name has no cause to be ashamed of its ancestry. Is it not well for the successors of these men and women to pause and consider before they lightly cast aside the inheritance bequeathed to them ? Whatever of weakness and of failure may have marked the two intervening centuries, there has never been a time when there lacked a hand to pass on the torch lighted two hundred years ago. Whether it will be so in the days to come rests with those on whom it depends, so far as human power goes, to mould the unknown future. Hitherto there has been a true apostolical succession. William Forster, What the Early Friends Taught. 325 Stephen Grellet, and many other names throng to the lips, as we think of those who have, even within Hving memory, made the epithet of Friend revered in the Christian Church and in the world at large. To what has been due the influence, out of all proportion to its small numbers, which the society has exerted in the past ? Surely to the testimonies which it has upheld and borne. There is no gainsaying this fact. Apart from them it is shorn of its strength. With the largest sympathy for other churches, the fullest recognition that God's commandment is exceeding broad, and that His holiest saints are to be found in all com- munions, the Society of Friends has yet its peculiar and appointed place to fill. Let its members re- joice in the assurance that through the most elab- orate ritual the humble heart may find its way to the Father in Heaven ; but let them take heed for themselves to the injunction of George Fox, " That nothing may be between you and God but Christ." Printed at The Orphans' Printing Press, Broad Street, Leominster, BY THE SAME AUTHOR. WILLIAM PENN. Crown 8vo, 80 pp., cloth boards, red edges. Price Is. " We are glad to welcome this well-written little book as a useful addition to the larger biographies of this great and good man. It should be in every school library, and would form, among others, in this day of prize giving, an excellent gift for the purpose.' — Friends' Monthly Record. " A charming sketch from the point of view of a favourite writer among modern Friends, presenting a vivid outline of the chief events in Penn's life. A gem from history, specially suited for young people, and not without interest to elders."— TAe Christian. S. W. Partridge & Co., Paternoster Row, London, EC. The Orphans' Printing Press, Leominster. OUR COUNTRY'S STORY. Price Is. 6d. KINDNESS TO ANIMALS, AND TRUE STORIES ABOUT THEM. Price Is; Joseph Boulton & Co., 4, Worship Street, Finsbury, London. GREAT EVENTS IN ENGLAND'S HISTORY. Price Is. 6d. John Marshall & Co., Paternoster Row, London, E.O. POEMS. Price 2s. 6d. S. Harris & Co., .5, Bishopsgate Street Without, London. h V THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. APR 20 1^35 ;:vY^2 2 1957 /^ :rp 11 1936 rvrf ^^ 51 1936 M^y 1 9 mi Dec4FF REC'D ID AM i V u^^s-,. '^m. 7Jtir/s WALaUaSx Ureb'53ES "Wftg 1953 tf! 22Apr»57Kl-.: LD 21-100m-8,'34 &x r c, 2-r vq6 / L kiU'^- €^'