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THE EARLY KRIENDS 
 
 AND 
 
 Their Services in America. 
 
THE 
 
 EARLY FRIENDS 
 
 THEIR SERVICES IN AMERICA. 
 
 AN ADDRESS READ BEFORE 
 
 THE FRIENDS' INSTITUTE FOR YOUNG MEN, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 Second Month IS, 1888, 
 
 By JAMES J. LEVICK, M. D. 
 
 "■ I*" -■ ' -> ^ 1 . , - ^ » o ■> » ' 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 WM. H. PILE, PRINTER, 422 WALNUT STREET. 
 
 1883. 
 
a4 
 
 • • •• 
 
Two hundred and thirty-five years ago the Religious Society 
 of Friends began to be known in England. Two hundred 
 years ago this Province was first settled by William Penn. 
 Of the latter event we have lately heard much, of the former 
 but little ; and yet the latter was so much the natural sequence 
 of the former, that the history of the one is incomplete with- 
 out the history of the other. 
 
 I propose, therefore, this evening to speak of three men, 
 each of whom was prominent in the early history of the 
 Society of Friends, and each of whom had somewhat to do 
 with the settlement of Pennsylvania and its vicinity. I allude 
 to George Fox, Robert Barclay and William Penn. 
 
 I am well aware that to some who are present this account 
 will have for them all the familiarity of a thrice-told tale. I 
 cannot but believe that to others, and especially to the younger 
 members of this Institute, there will be some facts mentioned 
 which are new to them, and I am strong in the conviction 
 that it will do no harm to any of us often to be reminded 
 what manner of men they were to whom as Friends, and as 
 Pennsylvanians, we owe so much. 
 
 George Fox was born in Leicestershire, England, in the 
 month called July, 1624. He had a good ancestry, for his 
 father was a man whose honesty was proverbial, and his mother 
 was of the stock of the martyrs. His school education w^as 
 but moderate, and yet he was by no means ignorant or illiterate. 
 He was carefully brought up in the faith and practices of the 
 Church of England, to whose communion his parents belonged, 
 and of which it was at one time proposed he should become a 
 clergyman. This, however, was objected to by some of his 
 
 ivi207733 
 
family, and it ended in his being apprenticed, as he writes, to 
 " a man who was a shoemaker by trade," though it does not 
 appear that George Fox himself ever belonged to what our 
 poet, Whittier, calls " the gentle craft of leather," for, as Fox 
 says of his master, " He dealt in wool and used grazing, and 
 sold cattle, and a great deal of it went through my hands. "^ 
 
 As his childhood had been a remarkably grave and staid 
 one, so his youth was one of great innocency and purity. At 
 twenty years of age grave and perplexing questions, doubts 
 and temptations, pressed heavily upon him. The mysteries 
 of this life and of the life to come enshrouded his mind in 
 much darkness, and were accompanied with a state of unrest 
 from which he vainly sought relief. Various were the sug- 
 gestions made to him at this time by his relatives. One who 
 knew the steadying influence o.f a good wife, advised him to 
 marry ; but, says he, ^' I told him I was but a lad, and must 
 first learn wisdom." Another bade him join the auxiliary 
 band among the soldiers; ''but I refused, and was grieved 
 that they proffered such things to me, being a tender youth." 
 And 'so, his relatives proving no help to him, he turned, 
 almost in despair, to " the priests," whom, however, he found 
 to be '' miserable comforters." One told him to '' take to- 
 bacco and sing psalms." *' Tobacco," he says, " was a thing 
 I did not love, and I was not in an estate to sing — I could 
 not sing." One made his troubles the sport of his servants; 
 while another, whose conversation at first gave him some 
 encouragement, flew into such a violent passion when young 
 Fox accidentally set his foot on the side of a flower-bed, that 
 he went away in sorrow, worse than when he came. 
 
 By this time certain thoughts, which before had been vague, 
 now began to assume a definite form and shape. Very inter- 
 esting is to note the gradual manner in which great truths 
 dawned upon him. Among the very first of these "heavenly 
 openings," as he deemed them, one is thus recorded by him: 
 
 ^ William Penn says of him, " As for his employment, he was brought 
 up to country business, and topk most delight in sheep, and was very 
 skilful in them, an employment that well suited his mind in several re- 
 spects, both for its innocency and solitude, and was a just figure of his after 
 ministry and service." 
 
"As I was walking in the field on a First-day morning, the 
 Lord opened to me, that being bred at Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge was not enough to fit and qualifie men to be ministers 
 of Christ." "And," says he, in his quaint language, "I 
 stranged at it, for it was the common belief of the people ; but 
 I saw it clearly, and was satisfied, and admired the goodness 
 of the Lord who had opened this thing unto me. ' ' At another 
 time, he writes, "It was opened in me that God, who made 
 the world, dwelleth not in temples made with hands. This 
 at first semed a strange word, * * but the Lord showed 
 me that He did not dwell in temples which man had com- 
 manded and set up, but in people's hearts." And then, rap- 
 idly following this, came the revelation, 'There is an anoint- 
 ing within man, and God will teach his people Himself.' " 
 
 Closely allied to this, if not identical with it, was opened 
 to his view, in the vale of Beavor, "how that every man was 
 enlightened by the Divine light of Christ, and that they who 
 believed in it came out of condemnation and came to the 
 light of life, and became the children of it ; but that they 
 that hated it and did not believe in it, were condemned by 
 it, though they made a profession of Christ." 
 
 Having had little comfort from the priests of the Established 
 Church, he turned his attention to the dissenting people, 
 among whom he found, as he writes, " some tenderness;" 
 ' ' but as I had forsaken the priests, so I left the separate 
 preachers, for I saw there was none among them that could 
 speak to my condition. And when all hope in them and in 
 all men was gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help 
 me, then, oh, then ! I heard a voice which said, there is One 
 even Christ Jesus, which can speak to thy condition. Then 
 the Lord did let me see why there was none upon the earth 
 that could speak to my condition, namely, that I might give 
 Him all the glory." 
 
 I have quoted largely George Fox's own words, because 
 they are necessary fully to understand the character of the 
 man, and because on them and what they express, hinged, as 
 it were, his whole subsequent life, his teaching and his preach- 
 ing. "After this," says he, "all things were new, and all 
 the creation gave another smell to me than before, beyond 
 
6 
 
 what words can utter." And now, with all the earnestness of 
 undoubting conviction, he recognizes fully his call to preach 
 the Gospel to his fellow men. First appearing as such in the 
 year 1647, when but twenty-three years old, his progress as 
 a preacher is a rapid one. Even before the organization of 
 the Society of Friends as such, he travelled largely in the 
 north of England, and found tender-hearted people who heard 
 with gladness his gospel message, which they freely owned, 
 and to which they found an answer in their hearts and 
 enlightened consciences. 
 
 For this was a time, if ever so in its history, that the 
 religious mind of the English people was stirred to its very 
 depths. The execution of King Charles, the rule of Cromwell, 
 followed by his death, and the short-lived protectorate of his 
 son, soon succeeded by the restoration of the Stuarts, had 
 produced a sense of insecurity among all the people. 
 
 To this was added, during the times we are considering, the 
 prevalence of that fearful pestilence known as the Plague. It 
 is at such a time as this^ when every earthly prop seems to be 
 insecure, that the soul, almost in despair, certainly with great 
 eagerness, grasps at whatever gives promise of real support. 
 For these among other reasons was it that so many of the 
 people heard George Fox's gospel message, and many of them 
 gladly received it. 
 
 And now, before passing further, it may be well to ask, what 
 was this gospel message, and what were some of the religious 
 views of George Fox and the early Friends ? 
 
 I think this message may all be epitomized in his own 
 words: ''I saw that Christ died for all men, and had 
 enlightened all men and women with his divine and saving 
 light, and that no man could be a true believer but who 
 believed in it." 
 
 I have said that his whole gospel message might be epito- 
 mized in these words, and I repeat it ; but it will be seen that 
 few as they are, these two propositions cover the whole field 
 of Christian faith. They are, however, inseparable one from 
 the other, and George Fox did not separate them. He held 
 in all its fulness the doctrine of the propitiatory offering of 
 Christ on Calvary ; and he recognized in all its force, the 
 
doctrine of Christ as the Light which lighteth every man that 
 cometh into the world. 
 
 I need not adduce any lengthened evidence to prove to this 
 audience the first of these statements. Its truth is to be found 
 all the way through his Journal, which is the reflex of his faith 
 and of his life. 
 
 Very early in his history, when but little more than twenty- 
 one years old he records that, "the priest of Drayton asked 
 me a question, viz. : why Christ cried out on the cross, My 
 God, my God, why hast thow forsaken me? And why He 
 said. If it be possible, let this cup pass from me ; yet not my 
 will, but thine be done? And I told him," says Fox, " that 
 at that time the sins of mankind were upon Him, and their 
 iniquities and transgressions with which He was wounded, which 
 He was to bear, and to be an offering for them, as He was 
 man; but died not, as He was God. And so in that He died 
 for all men, and tasted death for every man, He was an offering 
 for the sins of the whole world." And the priest said it was 
 a very good, full answer, and such an one as he had not heard. 
 
 Another record in his Journal reads thus : " When in Darby 
 dungeon, A. D. 165 1, there came to see me a man from 
 Nottinghamshire, a souldier, and with him came several others ; 
 and in discourse this person said : Your faith stands in a man 
 that died at Jerusalem, and there never was any such thing. 
 I was exceedingly grieved to hear him say so, and I said to 
 him : How ! did not Christ suffer without the gates of 
 Jerusalem through the professing Jews and Chief Priests and 
 Pilate? And he denied that ever Christ suffered there out- 
 wardly. Then I asked him if there were not Jews and Chief 
 Priests and Pilate there outwardly ; and when he could not 
 deny that, I told him as certainly as there was a Chief Priest 
 and Jews and Pilate there outwardly, so certainly was Christ 
 persecuted by them, and did suffer there outwardly under 
 them. Yet from this man's words was a slander raised upon 
 us, that the Quakers should deny Christ that suffered and died 
 at Jerusalem, which was all utterly false, and the least thought 
 of it never entered our hearts ; but it was a mere slander cast 
 upon us, and occasioned by this person's words." 
 
 This simple faith of his early youth never forsook George 
 
8 
 
 Fox. It is seen all through the pages of his Journal, and 
 finds its strong expression in that remarkable declaration of 
 faith made at Barbadoes. 
 
 This faith, I repeat it, George Fox and his friends held in 
 all its fulness and force; but this was not all that they held. 
 Not only does George Fox say, " I saw that Christ died for 
 all men," but he also says, " I saw that Christ had enlightened 
 all men and women with his divine and saving light." This, 
 which William Penn calls the characteristic doctrine of the 
 Friends, now appears in almost every sermon, epistle and 
 paper put forth by George Fox. That it was thus prominently 
 put forward was doubtless due to the fact that the great doc- 
 trine of the Atonement was generally accepted by the then 
 Christian world, and although the acceptance of it was mixed 
 up with error, there was, relatively, but little necessity for 
 especially pressing it upon men's attention at that time. But 
 this, to them, new doctrine, a living, present Christ, they 
 preached everywhere, and, I may add, almost everywhere 
 ''the common people heard them gladly." For to these 
 people, in their great unrest, there came with this doctrine of 
 direct access to their Saviour, a sense of rest and peace and 
 companionship, for which they had long earnestly yearned, 
 but to which they had thus far been strangers. No wonder 
 that the people heard it gladly ! No wonder, too, that there 
 soon arose that fierce spirit of persecution against those who 
 held it, taught it, and, with and by it, drew away so many 
 from their old forms and places of worship. 
 
 There can be no doubt that among these persecutors there 
 were two distinct classes. One class who fully believed that 
 these Quakers were pestilent fellows who would turn the world 
 upside down by what they taught, and who honestly thought 
 they were doing God service by promptly suppressing them ; 
 and another class who early saw how much of truth there was 
 in these principles, and how, carried to their full development, 
 they might forever put an end to all absolute necessity for 
 pope, for priest, for preacher. And hence with the instinct 
 of self-preservation, as it were, in a struggle for life itselt, they 
 strove at once and forever, to crush them. 
 
 And yet these primitive Friends very early recognized the 
 
9 
 
 aid to the Church of rightly qualified ministers of the gospel. 
 While they believed and taught that this Light shone in every 
 heart, they remembered that at times it shined in darkness, 
 and the darkness comprehended it not. They well knew that 
 there was a vast difference in degree between its feeble flicker- 
 ing in some hearts and the full blaze of its effulgence in others. 
 They knew that with many an awakened mind in the first 
 dawnings of this light, the Christian's step was often an uncer- 
 tain and an unsteady one, and that as with the Ethiopian of 
 old, whom Philip met, it was both right and helpful that 
 some man should guide him. 
 
 Out of this doctrine of an indwelling Christ came, as a 
 natural sequence, all their distinctive doctrines. If He were 
 in every heart, — if men had in them the Real Presence, it fol- 
 lowed that all mere types and shadows of that Real Presence 
 were unnecessary. This doctrine, if accepted, at once did 
 away with all need for the rites and ceremonies of the Church, 
 as it is called. The early Quakers recognized the necessity 
 of baptism, but it was a baptism of the Holy Ghost. They 
 loved to partake of the communion, but it was to them an 
 inward and spiritual feast. They recognized the value of a 
 rightly ordained ministry, but they taught that its lessons must 
 be learned in a higher school than Oxford or Cambridge, and 
 that having been freely received they must be freely given. 
 
 All that was distinctive in their views respecting the ministry 
 came of the doctrine we have been considering, an inward 
 revelation, qualifying, guiding, directing for this service ; not 
 a natural principle like reason or conscience, capable of being 
 cultivated by individuals themselves, influenced by their sur- 
 roundings, moulded by their education, but a direct gift to 
 their souls, unerring in its guidance, infallible in its teachings, 
 — an emanation from God himself. 
 
 To teach is one thing, to preach another, and it is only 
 from the standpoint of what constitute the qualifications 
 for, and the requirements of a preacher, that their views 
 respecting pecuniary compensation for preaching can be 
 rightly understood. By years of careful study and research 
 good men may make themselves familiar with great Scriptural 
 facts, may be able to explain parts of the Bible which to many 
 
10 
 
 minds are obscure, may be helpful in many ways to others. 
 For this and for the pastoral services required of them, the 
 care of the sick, the visits to the afflicted, the general over- 
 sight of the flock, engagements may be made and pecuniary 
 compensation may be offered. He would be a bold man, 
 indeed, who would dare to say that such teaching and such 
 services may not receive the Divine blessing. But these early 
 Quakers did not regard this as preaching, or these as the 
 qualifications of a preacher, who, as they believed, could only 
 preach when he received immediately the Divine authority 
 and the Divine command, which latter he could no more dis- 
 obey than he could presumptuously demand the former. Hence 
 he could make no contract with others, or engagement to preach 
 at stated times, as he knew not at what time this qualification 
 to preach might be given him, or when it might be withheld ; 
 and he no more claimed payment for this which he gave to 
 others, but which had first been given to him, than did the 
 disciples of old demand money of the multitude who were fed 
 with the five barley loaves and the few small fishes, which owed 
 all their sustaining virtue to Him who first blessed and brake 
 the bread and handed it to his disciples); who then, but not 
 till then, handed it to the famishing multitude. 
 
 Thus it will be seen with reference to the doctrine of the 
 Holy Spirit in the heart, that the whole superstructure of the 
 distinctive doctrines of these early Friends was built on this 
 foundation; but, I repeat it, this foundation itself, was in- 
 separably connected with the rock on which it rested, and 
 that rock was Christ, and any attempt to separate this founda- 
 tion from this rock, while it cannot weaken the foundation, 
 or move the rock, cannot fail to put in jeopardy the building, 
 and to endanger him who attempts it. 
 
 The Friends very early bore their testimony against all 
 swearing, a testimony of which their enemies took great ad- 
 vantage in those troublous times, when rulers were so often 
 changed, tendering them the oath of allegiance, and because 
 they would not take it, or any oath, sending them to jail as 
 persons disaffected and dangerous to those in authority. And 
 yet surely none of their testimonies had firmer foundation than 
 this had. The command of our Saviour is so emphatic, " Swear 
 
11 
 
 not at all," that it is surprising it should ever have been dis- 
 regarded by Christians. Aside from this, and from the flippant 
 manner in which it is so often taken, has it ever occurred to 
 you, my young friends, what a dangerous presumption attaches 
 to the concluding words of the legal oath, which indeed con- 
 stitute its very essence, the words "So help me God," "so, 
 {and not otherwise?) may God help me." 
 
 Can there be a more dangerous presumption than this, that 
 a poor, weak, sinful man, whose memory may be treacherous, 
 whose mind may be confused^ whose temptation may over- 
 come him, should dare, as it were, to bargain with the Al- 
 mighty, and to ask, in any contingency whatever, to be cut 
 off from that hope and help which he always needs ? Surely 
 too, he must have a low standard of truth in every-day life 
 who needs such an imprecation as this is to make him tell it 
 at any time. We owe to these early Friends the substitution 
 of the simple affirmation, which is now steadily and surely tak- 
 ing the place of the le^al oath. 
 
 To the early testimony of the Friends against all wars and 
 fightings may be traced the gradual development of the senti- 
 ment which shows itself in that remarkable event of the 
 Nineteenth Century, the recommendation, by the President 
 of the United States, to his legislators, and to all Christian 
 rulers, that peaceful arbitration sliould take the place of the 
 bloody arbitrament of the sword. 
 
 The early Friends always regarded, and never hesitated to 
 speak of the Holy Scriptures as the words of God, and as a 
 precious gift from Him ; but they did not apply to the gift 
 the name which belonged to the Giver, retaining that name 
 for ''the Word" which "was in the beginning; was with 
 God, and was God." Large opportunities for observation 
 have shown me that there is no body of Christians who hold 
 the Holy Scriptures in a truer and more affectionate regard 
 than do the Friends. While some good people, not all by 
 any means, are content to hear them read in places of public 
 worship, the religious Society of Friends enjoins its older 
 members both to read the Holy Scriptures frequently them- 
 selves, and to train up their children frequently to read them 
 also. 
 
12 
 
 A testimony which gave the early Friends much trouble 
 and, indirectly at least, sent many of them to prison, was their 
 refusal to take off the hat in deference to the presence of others, 
 or to the place where they then were. Doubtless it has often 
 suggested itself to you, as it often has to me, that as the hat 
 was made to protect the head from the heat or the cold, it 
 was very unnecessary for them to seem to court punishment 
 by wearing it in the house. William Penn says '' religion 
 makes no man discourteous, uncivil or unkind." 
 
 The early Friends, however, were among the first to pro- 
 claim the equality of men, and they regarded the bowing of 
 the body and the taking off the hat to their fellows as incon- 
 sistent with this great principle. But during all rightly author- 
 ized prayer in their religious meetings, in which each member 
 is regarded as participating, they devoutly took off the hat, and 
 remained uncovered. They could not in conscience, they 
 thought, pay the same mark of respect to man that they did to 
 God. For the wearing of the hat had an especial significance 
 in those days. The historian Bancroft, whose associations 
 certainly were not such as to prepossess him in favor of any of 
 the peculiar practices of the early Friends, thus writes on this 
 subject :: " The Quaker bows to God and not to his fellows- 
 man. The feudal nobility [in the i yth Century] still nourished 
 its pride. The Quakers knew that the hat was the symbol 
 of enfranchisement [full citizenship], and was worn by the 
 Norman nobility in the presence of the King as a proclama- 
 tion that they were peers of the realm, equal with their sover- 
 eign. When Cromwell assumed the power of a prince he 
 covered his head, all the others remaining uncovered." 
 
 ''After more than a century and a quarter, when in the first 
 great scene of the French revolution, at the opening of the 
 States General, the clergy and the nobility, according to estab- 
 lished privilege, had, like the King, put on their square caps 
 and plumed bonnets, the representatives of the commons, 
 imitating the Quaker precedent, covered their heads also with 
 their hats, that had neither plumes nor ribands; thus explain- 
 ing to the Bourbons the meaning of the Quaker symbol." 
 
 And now there came to George Fox and his associates that 
 fierce storm of persecution which, even though we read the 
 
13 
 
 literal account, we fail, I think, to comprehend the full extent 
 of it. By it, in the language of the historian I have quoted, 
 •' everywhere and for long wearisome years, they were exposed 
 to perpetual dangers and griefs. They were whipped, crowded 
 into jails among felons, kept in dungeons foul and gloomy, 
 fined, exiled, sold into colonial bondage. Imprisoned in 
 winter, without fire, they perished from the cold. Some were 
 victims to the barbarous cruelty of the jailers ; twice George 
 Fox narrowly escaped death. They brav.ed every danger to 
 continue their assemblies. Haled out by violence they re- 
 turned ; when their meeting-houses were torn down they 
 gathered openly on the ruins. They could not be dissolved 
 by armed men, and when their opposers took shovels to throw 
 rubbish on them they stood close together, willing to be buried 
 alive witnessing for the Lord." 
 
 One whose eloquent voice is now stilled in death, the late 
 Henry Armitt Brown, quoted, in his Burlington address, that 
 wonderful event in their early history when, in one of the 
 darkest hours, their comrades lay languishing in prison, the 
 Friends marched in procession to Westminster Hall, to offer 
 themselves to Parliament as hostages for their brethren. " In 
 love to our brethren, say they, who lie in Prisons, in dungeons 
 and in many fetters and irons, and have been cruelly beat by 
 the cruel jailers * "^ and many who be sick and weak in 
 Prison and on straw * * we do offer up our bodies and 
 selves to you for you to put us as lambs into the same dungeons, 
 and do stand ready a sacrifice for to go into their places that 
 they may go forth and not die." 
 
 And yet this is by no means an isolated instance of its kind 
 in their history. When George Fox lay in his cheerless prison, 
 one of the Friends went to Oliver Cromwell and offered to lie 
 there in his stead. Then it was that Cromwell, struck by this 
 act of friendship, looked around on his followers and said, 
 '' which of you would do as much for me if I were in the same 
 condition ?" In Wales, Richard Davies offered himself in the 
 place of his younger friend Thomas Ellis. So deeply affected 
 were some of the magistrates by this unselfish act, that they 
 became Friends themselves, and persecution ceased in that 
 immediate neighborhood. 
 
14 
 
 But perhaps the most touching instance of self-sacrifice of 
 this kind was seen in the case of James Parnell, "a little lad," 
 as George Fox calls him/ who was imprisoned when but 
 eighteen years old in Colchester Castle. An ingenuity of 
 torture, worthy of the Spanish Inquisition, was devised by his 
 jailers, which resulted in a serious fall, by which he received 
 several severe bodily injuries. Unable to reach his room, he 
 was now put into a cell so small that it was called the oven, 
 with no access for light or air but by the open door. Ten- 
 derly commiserating the sufferings of this youthful martyr, 
 three of his friends went to his jailer and begged that the poor 
 lad might go to their home until he had recovered from his 
 injuries, offering to lie in this wretched hole, body for body, 
 in his place, and voluntarily engaging to be bound under 
 penalty of a considerable sum of money if they failed to take 
 his place. 
 
 The rapid spread of the principles of the religious Society 
 of Friends was not confined to England. In the year 1653 
 one Morgan Floyd, '*a priest of Wrexham," North Wales, 
 sent two of his congregation to the north of England to in- 
 quire concerning Friends and, as George Fox says, '' to trie 
 us and bring home an account of us." Both of these Welsh- 
 men "were convinced of the Truth," and coming to scoff 
 remained to pray. They stayed some time with Friends, 
 and then went home, where one of them returned, after a time, 
 to his old faith, but the other remained steadfast to his con- 
 victions, and became a valiant preacher among Friends. There 
 was much in the simplicity of Quakerism to commend it to 
 the Welsh, who are a brave, thoughtful and independent peo- 
 ple, and John ap John soon found himself in the midst of an 
 intelligent, earnest company of fellow believers. They were, 
 as a rule, men of good education, and many of them of dis- 
 tinguished ancestry. Prominent among them were Charles 
 and Thomas Lloyd, of Dolobran, John ap Thomas, of Llaith- 
 gwm, Hugh Roberts, James Lewis, Richard Davies and others. 
 
 ^George Fox says : " When I was in the dungeon at Carlisle one James 
 Parnell, a little lad of about sixteen years of age, came to see me and was 
 convinced, and the Lord quickly made him a powerful minister of the 
 Word of life, and many were turned to Christ by him." 
 
15 
 
 They bore the persecution to which they were subjected with 
 a courage as great as that with which their fathers encounter- 
 ed the perils of the battle-field. I have elsewhere^ spoken fully 
 respecting them, and merely pause for a moment to notice 
 them here, because of the large part they took in the settle- 
 ment of the Province of Pennsylvania. 
 
 The north of England, which was the home of Fox and of 
 so many of his companions, was too near the border of Scot- 
 land long to leave the Scottish people in ignorance of the new 
 and strange faith which was s(r rapidly spreading itself among 
 the people. Prominent among the early converts were Alex- 
 ander Jaffrey, who had been Chief Magistrate of Aberdeen, 
 Patrick Livingstone, through whose instrumentality large num- 
 bers were added to the church in Scotland, John, nineteenth 
 Baron of Swintoun, an ancestor of Sir Walter Scott, David 
 Barclay of Ury, and his son Robert. William Penn, in his 
 " Rise and Progress of the Society of Friends," says that the 
 primitive Friends were not great and learned in the esteem of 
 this world, '' for then they had not wanted followers upon 
 their own credit and authority." Yet among them, as among 
 the early Christians, there were not wanting men learned in 
 the schools, who showed then, as St. Luke and St. Paul had 
 done before, that intellectual culture, under Divine guidance, 
 may become a potent factor for good. Where, indeed, in the 
 early history of any church, can there be found three men the 
 equals in native talent, in profound scholarship, in graceful 
 authorship, of Charles Lloyd of Wales, William Penn of 
 England, and Robert Barclay of Scotland ? 
 
 We all know how bitterly opposed to his son's new faith 
 was Sir William Penn. It was not thus with the father of 
 Robert Barclay. A brave old soldier under Gustavus Adolphus, 
 a dashing cavalry officer of the civil war, allied by marriage 
 with the royal house of Stuart, David Barclay, while a priso- 
 ner of State in Edinburgh Castle, became a Friend. His son 
 had been sent to France, where under the care of his uncle, 
 the rector of the Scottish College there, he had made great 
 progress in his studies, and had begun to look with some favor 
 on the Church of Rome. 
 
 ^ Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 4, p. Tpi,etseq. 
 
16 
 
 i\t his mother's request, Robert Barclay was recalled to 
 Scotland, where he soon after became a Friend, and, a little 
 later, issued that remarkable doctrinal thesis, so well known to 
 you as Barclay's Apology. This essay was first written in the 
 Latin language, an illustration of the wonderful erudition of its 
 young author — he was then but twenty-eight years old. It has 
 passed through more than twenty editions, and as is acknowl- 
 edged even by those who do not agree with it, it has never 
 had its propositions successfully refuted. 
 
 In the English Channel, about fifteen miles from France, is 
 a little island known as Jersey, containing in all an area of 
 about forty-five square miles. During the civil wars of England, 
 King Charles found safety in its fortress, and Sir George 
 Carteret successfully defended it from the enemy. Many 
 years later, when Sir George became possessed of the tract of 
 land which lies directly east of us, in honor of his brave* 
 defence of the little island in the Channel, this territory was 
 named New Jersey, the name it still retains. The eastern 
 part was settled early, and among these early settlers were 
 several gentlemen of Scottish nativity. 
 
 In the year 1682 Robert Barclay was appointed Governor 
 of East Jersey. Says a writer : '' Barclay united every quali- 
 fication for the office, being equally capable of excelling in 
 worldly matters as in those of a spiritual nature, and possess- 
 ing great influence, not only among the Quakers, but also 
 with the King and Duke of York. As if his name were 
 a tower of strength, he was not required to visit East Jersey 
 in person, being permitted to exercise his authority by deputy. 
 This appointment was for life, but his successors were to serve 
 but for three years." Governor Barclay held this appoint- 
 ment until his death, which occurred 8th mo. 3d, 1690, when 
 he was but forty-two years old. 
 
 Such a life — so brief in its duration, and yet so full of great 
 results, irresistibly recalls the words of the wise King Solomon, 
 ^'- Honorable age is not that which standeth in length of time, 
 nor that is measured by number of yea7^s. But wisdom is the 
 grey hair unto men, and an unspotted life is old age. He 
 being made perfect in a short time, fulfilled a long time.''' 
 
 Notwithstanding his high social position, the bravery with 
 
17 
 
 which he had fought as a soldier, his learning, piety and worth, 
 David Barclay was often the subject of persecution, imprison- 
 ment and insult. One such occurrence has been made by our 
 poet, Whittier, the theme of what I have always regarded as 
 one of his ablest poems, and one of the most remarkable pen- 
 pictures I have ever met with. Perhaps you will bear with 
 me while I read some verses of the poem, doubtless familiar 
 to many of you. 
 
 " Up the street of AbeT'deen, 
 By the kirk and college-green, 
 
 Rode the Laird of Ury ; 
 Close behind him — close beside, 
 Foul of mouth and evil-eyed, 
 Pressed the mob in fury. 
 
 " Flouted him the drunken churl, 
 Jeered at him the serving-girl. 
 Prompt to please her master ; 
 And the begging carlin, late 
 Fed and clothed at Ury's gate, 
 Cursed him as he passed her, 
 
 *' Yet, with calm and stately mien, 
 Up the street of Aberdeen 
 
 Came he, slow^ly riding; 
 And, to all he saw and heard. 
 Answering not with bitter word, 
 
 Turning not for chiding. 
 
 " Came a troop, with broadswords swinging. 
 Bits and bridles sharply ringing, 
 
 Loose and free and froward ; 
 Quoth the foremost, ' Ride him down ! 
 Push him ! prick him ! through the town 
 
 Drive the Quaker coward 1' 
 
 " But, from out the thickening crowd, 
 Cried a sudden voice and loud : 
 
 ' Barclay ! ho ! a Barclay !' 
 And the old man at his side, 
 Saw a comrade, battle tried, 
 ^ Scarred and sunburned darkly; 
 
18 
 
 Who, with ready weapon bare, 
 Fronting to the troopers there, 
 
 Cried aloud, ' God save us ! 
 Call ye coward him who stood 
 Ankle-deep in Lutzen's blood, 
 
 With the brave Gustavus ?' 
 
 ' ' Nay, I do not need thy sword. 
 Comrade mine,' said Dry's lord ; 
 
 ' Put it up, I pray thee ; 
 Passive to His holy will. 
 Trust I in my Master still. 
 
 Even though He slay me." 
 
 ' * Pledges of thy love and faith, 
 Proved on many a field of death, 
 
 Not by me are needed.' 
 Marvelled much that henchman bold, 
 That his laird, so stout of old. 
 
 Now so meekly pleaded. 
 
 ' ' Woe's the day,' he sadly said. 
 With a slowly shaking head. 
 
 And a look of pity, 
 ' Ury's honest laird reviled. 
 Mock of knave, and sport of child, 
 In his own good city !' 
 
 ' ' Speak the word — and, master mine. 
 As we charged on Tilly's line, 
 
 And his Walloon lancers, 
 Smiting through their midst, we" 11 teach 
 Civil look and decent speech. 
 
 To these boyish prancers ! ' 
 
 ' ' Marvel not, my ancient friend. 
 Like beginning, like the end,' 
 
 Quoth the Laird of Ury ; 
 ' Is the sinful servant more 
 Than his gracious Lord who bore 
 Bonds and .stripes in Jewry ? 
 
 " ' Give me joy, that in His name, 
 I can bear with patient frame, 
 All these vain ones offer : 
 
19 
 
 While for them He suffereth long, 
 Shall I answer wrong with wrong, 
 Scoffing with the scoffer ? 
 
 ^;- -;;- * * * 
 
 " ' Hard to feel the stranger's scoff; 
 Hard the old friends falling off; 
 
 Hard to learn forgiving ; 
 But the Lord his own rewards, 
 And his love with theirs accords, 
 Warm and fresh and living. 
 *■' 
 " ' Through this dark and stormy night, 
 Faith beholds a feeble light 
 
 Up the blackness streaking ; 
 Knowing God's own time is best. 
 In a patient hope I rest, ' 
 
 For the full day breaking.' 
 
 " So the Laird of Ury said, 
 Turning slow his horse's head 
 
 Towards the Tolbooth prison ; 
 Where, through iron grates he heard, • 
 
 Poor disciples of the Word, 
 
 Preach of Christ arisen." 
 
 As Philadelphians we are so accustomed to regard our Com- 
 monwealth as the especial home of Quakerism in the new 
 world, that we are prone to forget that long before William 
 Penn landed on these shores, various members of the Religious 
 Society of Friends had emigrated to America, that meetings 
 for worship, and even Yearly Meetings of considerable num- 
 bers were held in New England, in Maryland and elsewhere. 
 So early as 1655, two women Friends, Mary Fisher and Anne 
 Austin, visited Barbadoes, and, in the following year, were in 
 New England, where they were soon followed by eight other 
 ministering Friends. There were many Friends settled in the 
 vicinity of New Amsterdam, on Long Island, and in East 
 Jersey, and in the year 1677, the ship Kent landed a goodly 
 company of Friends at Chygoes island, where they founded 
 what is now the ancient and honorable city of Burlington. I 
 mention these facts that we Philadelphians may not be pre- 
 sumptuous, and because it explains the concern which impelled 
 George Fox, in the year 1671, to go beyond the seas and visit 
 
20 
 
 the plantations in America. I cannot but regard this visit, 
 occurring when it did, as one of the most remarkable 
 instances of missionary labor of which there is any record. 
 
 It was during a little lull in the fierceness of that persecution 
 from which he and his friends had so greatly suffered, that 
 George Fox wrote to his wife, who but a short time before 
 had been released from prison, that, in the words I have 
 •already quoted, it was laid upon him of the Lord to go beyond 
 the seas and visit the plantations in America, and asking her 
 .to meet him in London. 
 
 Surely if ever there was a time in George Fox's life when 
 the temptation to rest and ease presented itself, it was at this 
 time. His wife was just restored to her liberty and to her 
 estates ; his own health was greatly shattered and sadly need- 
 ing care and good nursing ; persecution was abated, and 
 everything conspired to induce him to remain in his comfort- 
 able home at Swarthmore. But George Fox was not such a 
 man. It was enough for him to know that it was laid on him 
 of the Lord to go, and all the dangers of the way, and all the 
 comforts of his home were alike disregarded. 
 
 On the 1 2th day of Sixth month, 1671, in the yacht 
 Industry, Captain Thomas Forster, in company with several 
 Friends, and having in all about fifty passengers, he sailed for 
 Barbadoes, a British island of the West Indies, with which 
 there then was a considerable commerce with England, and 
 later, a brisk trade carried on by the American colonies. 
 
 In his ode to his friend Virgil^ the poet, Horace says that 
 he was a brave man who first dared to commit his fragile bark 
 to the sea ; but surely he was a braver man who dared trust 
 himself, at that time, on the Atlantic, which then had added 
 to the ordinary risks of ocean travel, the dangers of a sea 
 infested with pirates from the Barbary coast. 
 
 Just such a danger the yacht Industry encountered ; for 
 when they had been at sea three weeks, they espied what 
 proved to be a man-of-war from the Barbary coast bearing 
 down upon them and soon giving them chase. The passen- 
 gers generally were much frightened; but, writes Fox, 
 ''Friends were well satisfied, having faith in God, and no 
 fear upon their spirits." The pirate continued the chase 
 
21 
 
 until sun-down, making rapidly towards them. At sunset the 
 Industry altered her course, hoping to mislead, but the pirate 
 soon altered his also and gained still more on her. Then the 
 captain, remembering the voyage of another man of God, and 
 profiting by the lesson, went to George Fox's cabin and asked 
 what he should do, for, said he, " if the mariners had taken 
 Paul's counsel they had not come to the danger they did." 
 " I told him," writes Fox, '*that 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 arfti steer on our right course. I wished them also 
 to put out all their candles but those that they steered by, and 
 to speak to all the passengers to be still and quiet. About the 
 eleventh hour of the night, the watch called and said they 
 were just upon us. This disquieted some of the passengers, 
 whereupon I sat up in my cabbin, 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 cabbin, but remember- 
 ing the word of the Lord, that his life and power was placed 
 between them and us, I lay down again * * By this time 
 the moon was quite gone down, and then a fresh gale arose, 
 and the Lord hid us from them, and we sailed briskly on and 
 saw them no more. ' ' 
 
 On the 3d of 8th month they arrived at Barbadoes, after a 
 voyage of nearly two months. George Fox was a very feeble 
 and ill man when he landed, his illness lasting for about three 
 weeks. But feeble as he was, he was not idle, but gave, from 
 his sick chamber, much advice respecting the discipline of the 
 Church. One of the subjects under his care while in Barba- 
 does, is especially noteworthy, as showing that the founder of 
 our Religious Society early saw the evils of negro slavery, and 
 was among the firsl; to suggest a remedy, which, one hundred 
 and fifty years later was adopted by the British Government. 
 He writes : " As to their blacks, or negroes, I desired them to 
 train them up in the fear of God, as well them that were 
 bought with their money as them that were born in their 
 families, that all might come to a knowledge of the Lord. I 
 
22 
 
 desired also that they would cause their overseers to deal 
 mildly and gently with* their negroes, and not use any cruelty 
 towards them, as the manner of some hath been, and that, 
 after certain years of servitude, they would set them free." 
 
 This it will be noticed, was in the year 1671, seventeen 
 years before Pastorius and the Germantown Friends had issued 
 their famous testimony against slavery. 
 
 Barbadoes proved to be a very hospitable shore for George 
 Fox and his friends, the Governor of the island receiving them 
 very kindly at his own home. All classes of people came to 
 their meetings, which were so large that at last some of their 
 adversaries endeavored to defame Friends with many false and 
 scandalous reports ; "whereupon," says Fox, '^^ I with some 
 other Friends, drew up a paper to go forth in the name of the 
 people called Quakers, for the clearing Truth and Friends 
 from those false reports." 
 
 This remarkable paper, which constitutes one of the fullest 
 and clearest expositions of the doctrines of the Religious 
 Society of Friends, has, on another occasion, been quoted by 
 me.^ It gives the strongest denial to many slanders which 
 had then, and have since, been circulated respecting the faith 
 of the Friends, especially, in Fox's own words, ''with refer- 
 ence to the charge that they do deny God and Christ Jesus 
 and the Scriptures of Truth." It is couched in such clear, 
 unequivocal language, that there can be no mistaking its 
 meaning, and I strongly commend it to the careful perusal of 
 such of my audience as may not be familiar with it. 
 
 After three months in Barbadoes, and seven weeks in 
 Jamaica, George Fox and his companions set sail for Maryland, 
 which they reached after a difficult and pretty dangerous pas- 
 sage of between six and seven weeks. 
 
 George Fox gives an interesting account of his travels on 
 the eastern shore of Maryland. To one of his meetings he 
 says : "It was upon me from the Lord to send to the Indian 
 emperour and his kings to come to the meeting. The 
 emperour came, but his kings, lying further off, could not 
 reach thither time enough. They came later, and we had in 
 the evening two good opportunities with them, and they 
 ^ See Philadelphia Friend, Vol. 54, p. 218. 
 
23 
 
 heard the word of the Lord willingly, and did confess to it, 
 and carried themselves very courteously and lovingly." This, 
 I suspect, was one of the very earliest conferences of the 
 Indians and the Quakers. And now began the journey by 
 land of George Fox and his companions to New England ; 
 as he says : *' A tedious journey through the woods and wil- 
 derness; over bogs and great rivers." I cannot do more 
 than hurriedly notice these journeyings, — how rivers were 
 forded ; how the weaker ones of his little party were fain to 
 fall short and lie in the woo(fs all night long ; how by hard 
 riding, Fox and one or two others got to "a Dutch town 
 called New Castle," how departing hence, they got over the 
 river Delaware, '*not without danger to some of our liyes ;" 
 how once over, "we had to get new guides, who were hard 
 to get, and very chargeable." " Then," says Fox, " we had 
 that wilderness country to pass through, which is since called 
 West Jersey, (this, bear in mind, was in the year 1672) which 
 was not then inhabited by English, so that we have travelled 
 a whole day together without seeing man or woman, horse or 
 dwelling-place, and sometimes we lay in the woods by a fire, 
 and sometimes in the Indians' wigwams, or houses." Won- 
 derful is it to note how these simple savages kindly received 
 and cared for this man of God, who never failed to tell them, 
 when he could do so, that Christ died for all men, for their sins 
 as well as for others, and that He had enlightened them as 
 well as others. 
 
 Coming to Middletown, an English plantation in East 
 Jersey, they were met by Richard Hartshorn, a Friend, for- 
 merly of London, "who received us gladly to his house," 
 "* where we refreshed ourselves, for we were weary ;" "and 
 then he carried us and our horses in his own boat over a great 
 river, and set us upon Long Island." The day following they 
 were at Oyster Bay, where they attended the Half-Year's 
 Meeting, and where they had " publick meetings for worship, 
 to which the people of the world of all sorts might and did 
 come." Some time later, George Fox went to Rhode Island, 
 where he was kindly received by all classes, and where he 
 attended New England Yearly Meeting. At Narragansett 
 Ihey made so favorable an impression that, to use Fox's words 
 
24 
 
 again, '' one of the magistrates said, if they had money enough 
 they would hire me to be their minister." " This," he adds, 
 '* was because they did not know us and our principles. But 
 when I heard it, I said it was time for me to be gone, for if 
 their eye was so much to me, or to any of us, they would not 
 come to their own teacher * * for this thing 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." 
 
 Moving southward, George Fox and his company, often- 
 times in great peril and amid many difficulties, passed on, 
 with their Indian guides, by the shore of the Delaware, until 
 they reached New Castle, where they were kindly received by 
 the Governor, and where they had the first Friends' Meeting 
 ever held there. 
 
 Thence their journey lay through Maryland, Virginia and 
 North Carolina, — wading through deep swamps, sleeping in 
 the woods, often ill, and wet and cold. But amid all this 
 hunger and cold and wet, his boat overturned, a part of his 
 luggage lost, his companions at times ready to give up, the 
 heart of George Fox never failed him. In the darkest hours 
 of his journeyings, the Light which in his youth had shone on 
 his path in the vale of Beavor, shone on his pathway still. It 
 is remarkable how, amid all his difficulties, George Fox kept, 
 as he carefully did, a Journal of his travels, which has been 
 preserved to the present day. 
 
 On the 2ist of 3d month, 1673, ''finding our spirits clear 
 of these parts," George Fox and his friends set sail for 
 England, where they arrived 4th month 28th, 1673. 
 
 At Bristol George Fox was met by his wife and her children. 
 A little later came William Penn, and here and then George 
 Fox and he held long conferences respecting the new world, 
 towards whose shores Penn's eyes had long been turned, and 
 where, in less than ten years, he was in person to found a 
 Province. 
 
 George Fox never forgot his visit to America, or the 
 friends he met and made there. Seventeen years later he, 
 who had three days before preached with great force and fer- 
 vency, lay on his bed of death, in the simple language of his 
 
25 
 
 biographer, "in much contentment and peace, and very 
 sensible to the last." The fear of death had long been 
 taken from him, and his last thoughts were for the living. 
 '' All is well," said the dying man ; " the seed of God reigns 
 over all, and over death itself!" and then, as though he felt 
 that there yet was much work to be done which he could not 
 do, he turned lovingly to those about him who, as they were 
 qualified for it, were now to take his place, and looking 
 earnestly at them said: ^^ Mirid poor Friends in Ireland — 
 mind poor Friends in America'' and as if to emphasize the 
 message, with all the sanctity of a dying request, he repeated, 
 ^^ Mind poor Friends in America /" 
 
 As we look back over the history of these early Friends, we 
 are tempted to ask : have subsequent results compensated for 
 this fearful expenditure of all that men deem valuable in lif6, 
 — health, strength, liberty — life itself? 
 
 / think they have, and I include in this expenditure, the 
 frightful persecutions in New England, where three highly 
 cultivated Christian men had their ears cut off; where deli- 
 cately nurtured women, younger and older, were whipped at 
 the cart-tail froih town to town, and where Robinson, Steven- 
 son, Leddra and Mary Dyer perished by the hand of the 
 hangman. 
 
 As I read to-day, on every side, the recognition of the great 
 doctrine of an indwelling Christ, hear it preached by Episco- 
 palian, Presbyterian, Baptist and others, see how it permeates 
 the life of the best men in all our churches, to what results it 
 has already led, and to what higher ones it is leading ; when I 
 see, as I daily do, their views on tithes, on oaths, on complete 
 religious toleration, accepted as correct by Christians all about 
 me, I know that these' early Friends did not live — did not die 
 — in vain. 
 
 I have elsewhere^ spoken on this subject, and have there 
 quoted the remarkable words of the Bishop of the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church of Pennsylvania, the emphatic language of 
 the Chairman of the late Pan-Presbyterian Council, and I need 
 not repeat these here. But I cannot refrain from calling your 
 attention to what I regard as one of the most remarkable 
 
 ' See Philadelphia Friend, Vol. 54, p. 218, et seq. 
 
 4 
 
26 
 
 modern recognitions of the doctrine of the immanence of the 
 Holy Spirit. It occurs in the last two numbers of the Princeton 
 Review, an organ of the Presbyterian Church, and is written 
 by a clergyman of the Episcopal Divinity School at Cam- 
 bridge, — mark, my friends, not at Harvard, but the Episcopal 
 School at Cambridge — that Cambridge through whose streets, 
 two centuries ago, brave men and delicate women were whipped 
 at the cart-tail, almost under the shadow of that "• bloody 
 Boston," on whose Common — holding just such doctrine — 
 William Robinson and his companions gave up their lives. 
 The essay referred to is entitled "■ The Theological Renaissance 
 of the igth Century.'' After noting the belief in the early 
 Greek Church of a Being whose presence pervaded the whole 
 earth, and the substitution for this of the idea, as prevalent in 
 the Latin churches, of God as remote from the world, the 
 author then traces the gradual re -development in the 19th 
 Century, of the doctrine of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, 
 and quoting Wordsworth's beautiful words, recognizing this 
 indwelling, he adds : '' Such is the conviction w^hich underlies 
 all that is highest and most truly characteristic of our own 
 age. Under its influence the curse beneath which the crea- 
 tion so long has groaned, has been lifted, and the world and 
 humanity have become allied to God in an intimate and 
 necessary relationship. ' '^ 
 
 I cannot follow further the writer, but will only add that, 
 
 ^ The exact words of the writer are : " The idea of God, as seen in the 
 earlier Greek Church, is that of a Being whose presence pervades the 
 world, and with whose essential nature man has a constitutional kinship, 
 or relation. The idea of God as remote from the world, reigned supreme 
 in Catholic and Protestant theologies. The Lutheran reformers distinctly 
 took the position, and in so doing were followed by the great English theo- 
 logians of the Puritan school, that God spoke to men only through the text 
 and letter of Scripture. The Bible became a substitute for a living Christ. 
 If God be assumed in thought as at a distance from the world, and, from 
 his remote abode, never moves to draw any nearer to his creation ; if 
 Christ came for a moment in time [only], and departed [forever] to sit 
 down on his judgment throne, it is not unreasonable to believe that sfome 
 vicar has been appointed to represent absent Deity, and to govern not 
 only the Church, but the world also in his stead. A system of mediators 
 is sure to arise as a substitute for that living Divine presence which the 
 mind has lost." 
 
27 
 
 nearly every view presented by this evidently learned, sincere 
 and thoughtful churchman, as the correct theology of the 19th 
 Century, had been anticipated by George Fox in the 17th. 
 
 And here, too, I cannot refrain from noting in what a 
 remarkable manner the crime of the New England rulers 
 towards the early Friends is expiated, so far as it can be, by 
 the most distinguished poet and by the most eminent historian 
 of New England, of this generation. 
 
 With Whittier's poems of^" Cassandra Southwick," and 
 "The King's Missive," you are doubtless familiar; but the 
 poem of ''John Endicott,'" by Longfellow, is, to my mind, 
 when I remember that its author was not a Friend, even more 
 remarkable in this way than anything the Quaker poet has 
 written. Considering the license usually granted to poets, its 
 historical accuracy is remarkable. It is in blank verse, but 
 some parts of it are very poetical, as well as truthful. The 
 scene is laid in Boston, in 1665, when persecution of the 
 Friends was at its height. John Norton, the Puritan minister, 
 is urging Governor Endicott to greater severity, when the 
 latter says of the Friends : 
 
 " Four already have been slain, 
 And others banished upon pain of death; 
 But they come back again to meet their doom, 
 Bringing the linen for their winding-sheets." 
 
 Later in the poem, Edward Wharton, a Friend, is made by 
 the poet to say — what was literally true of the brave martyrs, 
 Robinson and Stevenson : 
 
 " William and Marmaduke, our martyr'd brothers, 
 Sleep in untimely graves, if aught untimely 
 Can find place in the providence of God, 
 Where nothing comes too early or too late. 
 I saw their noble death. They to the scaffold 
 Walked hand in hand. Two hundred armed men, 
 And many horsemen guarded them, for fear 
 Of rescue by the crowd, whose hearts were stirred. 
 
 " When they tried to speak, 
 Their voices by the roll of drums were drowned ; 
 When they were dead, they still looked fresh and fair. 
 The terror of death was not upon their faces. 
 And Mary Dyer passed through martyrdom to her reward. 
 
28 
 
 Exclaiming, as they led her to hex- death, 
 
 ' These many days I've been in Paradise !' 
 
 And Leddra, too, is dead. But from his prison, 
 
 The day before his death, he sent these words . 
 
 Unto the little flock of Christ." 
 
 I cannot follow the poet through all his sad, but wonder- 
 fully true narrative ; how Edith Christison is condemned to be 
 whipped from town to town, and Edmund Wharton banished 
 from the Commonwealth. Then comes the king's missive, 
 forbidding all further persecution ; and then, perhaps, strangest 
 of all, Longfellow puts in the mouth of one of his characters 
 George Fox's very words, written two hundred years before 
 tin his Journal.^ 
 
 " When news of Leddra's death 
 Reached England, Edward Burrough, having boldly 
 Got access to the presence of the king, 
 Told him there was a vein of innocent blood 
 Opened in his dominions here, which threatened 
 To overrun them all. The king replied, 
 ' But I will stop that vein.' And he forthwith 
 Sent his mandamus to our magistrates. 
 That they proceed no further in this business. 
 So all are pardoned, and all set at large." 
 
 I shall close my quotations from Longfellow with one more 
 paragraph, first reading to you what the historian Bowden 
 says of the fate of those most active in the persecution of 
 the Friends in New England. " Bellipgham died distracted. 
 Adderton was thrown from his horse and killed. Norton 
 died instantly, exclaiming, 'The hand of God is on me!' 
 Danforth was struck dead by lightning. Webb, who led 
 Mary Dyer to execution, was drowned. Johnson, who led 
 William Leddra to execution, became insane. Dalton was 
 killed by the falling of a tree. Brown, of Ipswich, died in 
 
 ^ George Fox in his Journal, p. 241, says : " As soon as we heard of it, 
 Edward Burrough went to the king and told him there was a vein of inno- 
 cent blood opened in his dominions which, if it were not stopped, would 
 overrun all. To which the king replied : " But I will stop that vein." 
 Edward Burrough said, " Then do it speedily, as we know not how many 
 may soon be put to death." * * So the secretary was called, and a 
 mandamus was forthwith granted. 
 
29 
 
 great horror of mind, and Norris, of Salem, was struck dumb 
 while declaiming against the Quakers." In the poem, Endi- 
 cott says to Bellingham, the Deputy Governor : — 
 
 " Ah, Richard Bellingham, I greatly fear 
 That in my righteous zeal I have been led 
 To doing many things, which left undone. 
 My mind would now be easier. Did I dream it, 
 Or has some person told me that John Norton 
 Is dead ? ^ 
 
 B. You have not dreamed it ; he is dead. 
 E. Then it was very sudden, for I saw him 
 Standing where you now stand, not long ago. 
 B. By his own fireside, in the afternoon, 
 A faintness and a giddiness came over him, 
 And, leaning on the chimney-piece, he cried, 
 ' The hand of God is on me !' and fell dead. 
 E. And did not some one say — or have I dreamed it, — 
 That Humphrey Atherton is dead! 
 B. Alas, he too, is gone, and by a death as sudden. 
 Returning home one evening, at the place 
 Where usually the Quakers have been scourged. 
 His horse took fright and threw him to the ground. 
 So that his brains were dashed about the street. 
 E. I am not superstitious, Bellingham, 
 
 And yet I tremble, lest it may have been a judgment on him. 
 B. So the people think. 
 They say his horse saw, standing in the way. 
 The ghost of William Leddra, and was frightened. 
 And, furthermore, brave Richard Davenport, 
 The captain of the Castle, in the storm, 
 Has been struck dead by lightning ! 
 E. Speak no more I 
 For, as I listen to your voice, it seems 
 As if the seven thunders uttered their voices. 
 And the dead bodies lay about the streets 
 Of the disconsolate city. Bellingham ! 
 I did not put those wretched men to death, 
 I did but guard the passage with the sword 
 Pointed towards them, and they rushed upon it : 
 Yet now I would that I had taken no part . 
 In all that bloody work." 
 
 Pardon this long quotation, but is it not remarkable, that 
 more than two hundred years after these events transpired, a 
 
30 
 
 son of New England, not a Quaker, should in every New 
 England home where his poems are to be found — and what 
 New England home is without them — tell the story of the life 
 and death of these martyred Friends ? 
 
 Whittier's poem of *' The King's Missive," is also remarka- 
 bly historically correct, even to the mention of a little girl 
 eleven years old, who thought it her duty to plead for these 
 poor prisoners for conscience' sake, and who went all the way 
 from what was then called New Netherlands, but is now New 
 York, to do so. It will be remembered that the events this 
 poem records occurred after the king's mandamus had been 
 received, releasing Friends from prison. I will read a verse 
 or two of it. 
 
 " So the door of the jail was open cast, 
 
 And like Daniel out of the lion's den, 
 Tender youth and girlhood passed. 
 
 With age-bowed women and grey-locked men. 
 And the voice of one appointed to die. 
 Was lifted in praise and thanks on high ; 
 And the little maid from New Netherlands, 
 Kissed, in her joy, the doomed man's hands. 
 
 " And one, whose call was to minister 
 
 To the souls in prison, beside him went, 
 An ancient woman, bearing with her 
 
 The linen shroud for his burial meant. 
 For she, not counting her own life dear. 
 In the strength of a love that cast out fear. 
 Had watched and served where her brethren died, 
 Like those who waited the Cross beside. 
 
 " The autumn haze lay soft and still 
 
 On wood and meadow and upland farms ; 
 
 On the brow of Snow Hill the great windmill 
 Slowly and lazily swung its arms ; 
 
 Broad in the sunshine stretched away, 
 
 With its capes and islands, the turquoise bay ; 
 
 And over water and dusk of pines. 
 
 Blue hills lifted their faint outlines. 
 
 " The topaz leaves of the walnut glowed, 
 The sumach added its crimson fleck, 
 And double in air and water showed 
 The tinted maples along the Neck ; 
 
31 
 
 Through frost-flower chisters of pale star-mist, 
 And gentian fringes of amethyst, 
 And royal plumes of the golden rod. 
 The grazing cattle on Gentry trod. 
 
 '* But as they who see not, the Quakers saw 
 The world about them ; they only thought 
 With deep thanksgiving and pious awe, 
 
 Of the great deliverance God had wrought." 
 
 Time works great changes, and it is an interesting fact, that 
 the historian Bancroft, born in Massachusetts, writing in 
 Boston, should put in Boston type, on Boston paper, these 
 words : " The 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 uncondition- 
 ally by the people as an inalienable birthright. * * * 
 The Quaker doctrine is philosophy summoned from the closet, 
 the college, the saloon, and planted among the most despised 
 of the people."^ 
 
 Surely the blood shed on Boston Common was not shed 
 there in vain. 
 
 The visit of George Fox to this country strengthened the 
 desire which had long rested on his mind, that a territory 
 might be owned in America by Friends, where those who 
 wished to do so might remove with their families, where they 
 could worship God without molestation, and where their 
 children might have the proper social surroundings. 
 
 So early, indeed, as in the year 1660, an attempt was made, 
 at Fox's suggestion, and with the aid of Josiah Cole, a well- 
 known Friend, to purchase a territory of the Susquehanna In- 
 dians.^ This failed because of the tribal wars among the Indians. 
 It is an interesting fact, as suggested to me a few days since 
 by Frederick D. Stone, of this city, that this tract of land, 
 lying as it does along the Susquehanna river, just north of the 
 Maryland line, twenty years later became the property of 
 Penn, and has since been a part of the Quaker settlement. 
 
 From Maine to Florida the coast was either colonized or 
 
 ^History of the United States, Vol. 2, p. 337. 
 
 2 For correspondence on this subject, see Bowden's History of Friends 
 in America, Vol. i, p. 389. 
 
32 
 
 claimed, and it was not until Lord John Berkely offered for 
 sale his interest in New Jersey, that an opportunity was afforded 
 Friends to make such a purchase as they had long desired. 
 This opportunity was eagerly seized upon by Edward Byllinge 
 and John Fenwick, both of whom belonged to the Society of 
 Friends, but who, in this matter, acted in their individual 
 capacity. Disagreements occurring between these two, Wil- 
 liam Penn kindly consented to act as arbitrator. The dispute 
 having been settled, John Fenwick sailed for the new world. 
 Pecuniary embarrassments occurring to Byllinge, he trans- 
 ferred to his creditors his interest in New Jersey. Again the 
 aid of William Penn was sought, and now he consented to 
 act as joint trustee with two of Byllinge's creditors in the New 
 Jersey estate, and thus for the first time became personally 
 engaged in the establishment of an American colony. It 
 is quite probable that William Penn's connection with the 
 affairs of New Jersey determined the establishment of this 
 Province by him ten years later. It is true that a regard for 
 the aborigines of America and a desire to do something for 
 their welfare had long occupied his mind. '' I had an open- 
 ing of joy as to these parts," he writes, " in the year 1661." 
 This interest was deepened by his acquaintance with the 
 affairs of the country as trustee for Byllinge, by his association 
 with Barclay, even before the latter became Governor of East 
 Jersey, by his conferences with George Fox, and by his desire 
 himself to found a colony where freedom of conscience should 
 be regarded as the inherent right of every citizen. Mark, my 
 friends, not should be tolerated, but should be regarded as the 
 inherent right of every citizen.^ 
 
 ijin his address to Friends and others, proposing to remove to New 
 Jersey, William Penn, instead of holding out any undue inducements, uses 
 this remarkable language : " In whomsoever a desire is to be concerned 
 in this intended plantation, such should weigh the thing before the Lord, 
 and not rashly conclude on any such remove, and that they do not offer 
 violence to the tender love of their near kindred and relations, but soberly 
 and conscientiously endeavor to obtain their good wills, the unity of 
 Friends where they live, that whether they go or stay, it may be of good 
 favor before the 'Lord, (and good people), from whom alone can all 
 heavenly and earthly blessings come. This am I, William Penn, moved 
 of the Lord to write unto you lest any bring a temptation upon themselves 
 
33 
 
 We owe, in great measure, to William Perm the establish- 
 ment of this great principle, which is now an integral part of 
 our national Constitution.^ We owe to Penn and to his asso- 
 ciates of New Jersey, the protest against protracted imprison- 
 ment for debt.^ We owe to them also the assertion that no 
 tax should be levied on a people without their consent.' We 
 owe to Penn the suggestions for a union of the American 
 Colonies, which were first made by him in the year 1697/ 
 
 I shall not detain you by repeating what the Bi-Centennial 
 anniversary has made so familiar, in the early history of Wil- 
 liam Penn. Contemporary history often fails to do justice to 
 its subject, but Thomas Story; himself a gentleman by birth 
 and education, brought up to the bar, the first Recorder of 
 Philadelphia, Master of the Rolls, and an eminent preacher 
 among Friends, under date of London, 1694, thus writes: 
 ''What added much to my encouragement, was the fatherly 
 care and behavior of the ministers in general, but especially 
 of that great minister of the gospel, and faithful servant of 
 Christ, William Penn, who abounded in wisdom, discretion, 
 
 or others, and in offending the Lord slay their own peace. Blessed are 
 they that can see, and behold Him, their leader, their orderer, their con- 
 ductor and preserver, in staying or in going. Whose is the earth and the 
 fulness thereof, and the cattle upon a thousand hills." 
 
 In Smithes History of New Jersey, there is a letter from Dr. Daniel 
 Wills to his " near and ancient acquaintance William and Sarah Biddle," 
 in which, with the same spirit of caution, struggling against his wishes, he 
 writes : " Now my near and ancient acquaintance, William and Sarah 
 Biddle, my love you may feel beyond expression ; and if you have clear- 
 ness to come to New Jersey, let nothing hinder ; but if you have a stop 
 within yourselves, let not anything farther you until the way clears to your 
 full satisfaction. In this advice I deny myself; if I might I would for- 
 ward you to the utmost." And then the writer adds, as if he must say it, 
 " If a man cannot live here, I believe he can hardly live in any place in 
 the world." 
 
 His " ancient acquaintance" did have a clearness to come, and they 
 came. Two centuries of their descendants, men active in all those good 
 works which promote the welfare of the State, have shown that William 
 and Sarah Biddle did not mistake the pointings of the Divine Finger. 
 
 ^ See Concessions and Agreements of Proprietors of West Jersey. 
 
 "^Ibid. ^Ibid. 
 
 * Contributions to American History ; Penna. Hist. Soc, vol. 6, p. 264. 
 
 5 
 
u 
 
 prudence, love and tenderness, of affection, with all sincerity, 
 above most in this generation, and, indeed, I never knew his 
 equal." 
 
 Those of you who may be interested in the further study of 
 the men who gave stability to our colonial government will 
 find in the Philadelphia "Friend," Vols. 27th to 35th, in- 
 clusive, very full and interesting notices of many of them. 
 They are written by the late Nathan Kite, and must have re- 
 quired great research for their preparation. 
 
 The second voyage of William Penn, though not attended 
 with illness, was, fortunately, a long one, for had he arrived at 
 the time he was expected he would have found prevailing in 
 Philadelphia a fearful epidemic of yellow fever. It is an in- 
 teresting fact that for a correct history of the yellow fever of 
 1699, the medical profession and the community are indebted 
 to a non-professional writer, Thomas Story, who, though en- 
 gaged in religious service here, has left a graphic sketch of 
 this terrible pestilence. 
 
 And now, in closing my lecture, I wish to say that, in pre- 
 paring it, I have been agreeably surprised at the richness of 
 the field into which it has led me and the abundance of 
 material to be found there. 
 
 While I am well aware how imperfectly I have brought this 
 material before you, I must say, in my own behalf, that I have 
 been obliged to turn aside from many tempting paths of re- 
 search, and have been compelled to omit many pages of what 
 I had written lest I should encroach unduly on your time and 
 patience. The literature of the early Friends is amazing in 
 its extent ; how they ever found time to write and to print so 
 much I cannot understand. Here is George Fox's folio jour- 
 nal of nearly seven hundred pages. Here are selections from 
 William Penn's writings, a folio of more than eight hundred 
 pages. Indeed the theme, ''William Penn as an author," 
 would make a longer lecture than I have given you this evening. 
 
 The journal of Thomas Story, a folio of six hundred pages, 
 is written with great force and beauty of style, and the life of 
 Thomas Ellwood is one of those bright pictures of home-life 
 in the 17th Century, at the house of Isaac Penington, which 
 is both interesting and instructive. 
 
35 
 
 Ellwood was tutor to Penington's children, and at one time 
 was reader to the blind poet, John Milton. It seems to bring 
 those times pretty closely home to students of this day to read 
 that Milton had learned the Continental pronunciation of 
 Latin, and Ellwood the English, and that the same confusion 
 which exists nowadays on this account obtained two centuries 
 ago. These and many other matters may be found in the 
 literature of the early Friends, and while I am content to leave 
 out of my recommendation their purely controversial works, 
 I cannot do better than bid you, in the language of Charles 
 Lamb, get their history by heart and " love the early Quakers." 
 
 There are many lessons to be learned from what we have 
 been considering this evening, but there is one which I think 
 must commend itself to all of us. It is that we should be 
 charitable in our judgment of the religious opinions of others 
 however much they may differ from our own, when those who 
 hold them show, by their daily life, that they are sincere in 
 their belief, however erroneous we may deem it. 
 
 The longer I live and the more my daily duties bring me 
 in association with my fellows — of almost every religious sect 
 — the more do I find in them of sympathy for suffering, of 
 readiness to help the afflicted, and to reclaim the erring, of 
 those good qualities of the heart which form a common plat- 
 form to meet upon ; and every year's experience convinces 
 me that did good people know each other more they would 
 like each other more, and judge each other more kindly. 
 
 It would have been difficult to offer to the English people 
 of the 17th Century — as they understood them — any doctrines 
 more opposed to the prevailing belief, than were some of tjiose 
 of the early Friends ; and yet the faithfulness of these Friends, 
 their undoubted sincerity, their exemplary lives, and the fact 
 that these doctrines had the Divine approval, wrought their 
 slow but sure acceptance. 
 
 This charity need involve no disloyalty to convictions of 
 our own duty. It is the kindly judging of the motives and 
 even of the acts themselves, rather than the approval of those 
 acts, which it implies. 
 
 The late Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Dean of Westminster, 
 
36 
 
 in one of his latest poems, has largely recognized this truth. 
 Writing of the higher life beyond this, and what we may hope 
 to find there, he says : 
 
 " There may we, rejoicing meet 
 
 Loved and Lost, our heart's best treasures, 
 Not without surprises sweet, 
 
 Mount with them to loftier pleasures. 
 Though the earthly bond be gone. 
 Yet the spirits still are one, 
 One in love, and hope, and faith, 
 One in all that conquers death." 
 
 " And in those celestial spheres, 
 
 Shall not then our keener vision, 
 See, athwart the mist of years, 
 
 Through the barriers of division. 
 Holy soul and noble mind. 
 From their baser dross refined, 
 Heroes in the better land, 
 Whom below we scorned or banned." 
 
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