YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

GEORGE FOX.

ey

George Fox,

THE FRIENDS,

THE EARLY BAPTISTS.

BY

WILLIAM TALLACK,
» • »
Author of ** Malta under the Pkoeniciansy Knight^ and English,''
^^ Friendly Sketches in America,^'' Ssfc*

''^' LONDON:
S.W, PARTRIDGE & CO., 9, PATERNOSTER ROW.
i868.

By the same Author.
PETER BEDFORD, the Spitalfields Philanthropist.
With Portrait. Cloth, 2s. 6d.
THOMAS SHILLITOE, the Quaker Missionary and
Temperance Pioneer.
With Portrait. Cloth, 2s. 6d.

PEEFACE

This work is, it is believed, the first which has defi
nitely and minutely traced the doctrines and constitution
of Quakerism mainly to the early Baptists.
The review of the remarkable influence of Fox and the
Friends in the various departments of Philanthropy, Social
Progress, Political Reform, Literature, Science, and Com
mercial Enterprise, has also been carried farther into
detail than in any other book hitherto issued.
A large number of works and papers have been con
sulted in the prepairation of this Memoir, and have been
freely quoted from, with the view of collecting together,
in small compass, from widely-scattered sources, a com
prehensive and interesting description of the life and
influence of George Fox. Some particulars respecting
him are here for the first time published. His private
and personal characteristics, and the social and general
aspect of his times, have received special attention.

'n PKEFACE.
The author has gratefully to acknowledge his obliga
tions to his friends, Wilham Beck of London, Charles
Fox of Falmouth, and John Thompson of Hitchin, for
their valuable aid. To the assistance of the former he has
been chiefly indebted for collecting the proofs of the
Baptist origin of the chief portion of the constitution
of Quakerism.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
QtTAKERISM, ITS CHARACTERISTICS AND REMARKABLE
INFLUENCE UPON THE WORLD. PAOS
Influence of George Pox through the Society organised by him
— Quakerism and religious freedom — Thorough care for the
poor as a church duty — Education of every ohUd in the
Society — Zeal in Sabbath-school efforts — Quaker missions at
home and abroad — Quaker leadership in the great philan
thropic movements — Friends and polities — Science and litera
ture — Quakers' prominence iu BauHug, Manufactures aud
Trade — Great influence of Quakerism in the United States —
Ex-Friends ... ... ... ... ... ... 1

CHAPTER II.
ANTECEDENTS AND YOUTH OP FOX.
Non-originality of much of the doctrine and discipline promul
gated by George Fox — The State Cburch of the Stuarts —
Laudian persecutions — The Civil Wars and the Puritans — Con
venticles — Parentage and education of George Fox — Social
aspects of the times — Fox's youthful virtue — ^Early occupation

CONTENTS.

— Leaves home to seek for religious counsel and sympa.hy —
Formation of his theological vie-ws— Some defects in the
latter — Finds peace with God ...

39

CHAPTER III.
THE BAPTIST ORIGIN OP QUAKERISM IN GENEBAL.
Summary of Fox's vie-ws — Most of them anticipated by the
General Baptists — Proofs and verifying quotations sho-wing
the previous Baptist adoption of the doctrines and practices
which are often considered to have been of Quaker or Foxian
origin — The church " a society of equals " — Abrogation of
ceremonies — Belief in continuance of revelation — Rejection of
infant baptism — Baptist objections to War, Oaths, Tithes, etc. —
Their recognition of female usefulness in the churches — Their
disuse of names of months and days derived from Paganism
— Baptist disciplinary records — Their oversight of members
— Caution respecting theological definitions — Social inter
course as a religious duty — Protest against undue claims of
human learning for the ministry — Grattiitous preaching of
many early Baptists — Praise and singing —Fasting — Ministry
open to all members — Recognition of preachers by Baptists —
Meetings for discipline — Delinquent members — Manner of
marriage — Systematic care of the poor — Baptist use of "thee
and thou" — German Mystics also anticipated Fox's views —
Hooker on the early Baptists and Anabaptists — Subsequent
differences between Friends and Baptists ... 65

CHAPTER IV.
POX's PIRST MINISTRY IN THE MIDLANDS AND IN
YORKSHIRE.
Commencement of Fox's ministry — Silent worship — Conflicts
in the Vale of Belvoir — Divinity, physic, and law — First

CONTENTS.

imprisonment — Violently assaulted at Mansfield — Again im
prisoned at Derby — Lichfield adventure — On Christian
perfection — Undergoes great opposition in Yorkshire — The
ohurch "militant" at Tork, Wakefield, Doncaster, etc. —
The man in leather breeches — Favoured by the soldiery —
Cromwell — Physical aspects of England iu the seventeenth
century — The clergy and the yeomanry ... ... 89

« CHAPTER V.
SUCCESS IN THE NORTH — QUAKERISM ESTABLISHED.
In Westmoreland and Xanoashire — Firbank chapel — Gains
numerous and zealous coadjutors — Arduous service — Eighty
thousand Quakers iu Fox's days — -Power of concentrated
energy — Swarthmoor Hall and the Fell family — Margaret
Fell— Cruel assaults at Ulverstone and Walney Island —
Meets forty priests at Lancaster — Letter to Sawrey — Im
prisoned at Carlisle — Returns to the Southem counties and
to London ... ... ... ... ... ... 105

CHAPTER VI.
DIFFICULTIES AND SEVERE IMPRISONMENTS.
Case of James Naylor — Its effect upon Fox and the Friends —
Many Friends in prison — General meetings — Fox's extensive
home journeys — His repeated imprisonments — Specially
opposed by the clergy — Whittier's lines — Paroled at Lan
caster — Second imprisonment at Lancaster — Refusal to
take oaths — Sent to Scarborough castle — Integrity —
Extreme weakness of body at his discharge — Paroled and
imprisoned at Worcester — Final liberation — Thousands of
Friends imprisoned — The word of a king — Fatal persecutions
in New England — Maeaulay on Charles the Second's reign
— -Pepys's description of the court — Bishop Burnet — Fox at
Cambridge . ... ... ... •• ...116

X CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VII.
fox's FOREIGN MISSION JOURNEYS. page
Sails for America — Escapes the pirates — Judgment on an
opposer — Barbadoes — Coasts of Virginia — Large meetings-^
Rhode Island — Freedom of ministry — Roger Williams aud
the Friends.— Fox returns to England — His retrospect of
American travel — ^Visits Holland and Germany — Second
jom-ney to Holland — Progress of Quakerism abroad ... 131

CHAPTER VIII.
PRIVATE LIFE AND PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
OP FOX.
His marriage — Disinterested conduct — His affection as a hus
band and a. relative — Margaret Fox's matronly care for her
husband — His care for her — His property — Fox's personal
appearance — His piercing eyes, powerful voice, bodily strength,
and swiftness — His two portraits — His-.apparel — Very tempe
rate -^rlnstances of his shrewdness — Knowledge of natural
things — Appreciation of symbolism — His sound judgment —
Courageous, cheerful, and energetic — His prayerful vigilance
and seriousness — Reverend jesters — Fox remarkably con
versant with the Scriptures — Not eloquent ... ... 140

CHAPTER IX.
POX's ADDITIONS TO THB BAPTIST SYSTEM  THE
QUAKER POLITY.
Recapitulation of the Baptist Institutes adopted hy Fox  The
Quaker code of discipline — Practical restrictions of the
ministry — Albert Fox and Joseph Stephens — Value of min
isterial brevity— Female preachers — Fox's universal phi
lanthropy — His plea for slaves and Indians— His labours for

CONTENTS.

Education — His sympathy for the poor and for domestic ser
vants — Inculcation of Temperance — His views respecting the
Penal Code, the Magistracy, and Civil Government — His wise
counsels as the Quaker leader ... ... ... ... 159

CHAPTEB X.
LAST DAYS AND DECEASE.
The decline of life — Fox witnesses the cessation of the Stuart
persecution — His diligence in old age — Encounters some
opposition from his friends at times — Presents a meeting.
house to the Society — Attends the yearly meeting of 1690 — ¦
Labours to the last — Dies iu peace — His funeral — Re
interment — His superiority to all his colleagues — His growth
iu grace and in humility — Truth is many-sided — Hence the
essential function of sects — The harmonious variety of truth
— The mission of modern Quakerism ... ... ... 170

GEOEGE FOX,
THE FEIENDS, MD THE EAELY BAPTISTS.

CHAPTEE I.

QUAKERISM, ITS CHARACTERISTICS AND REMARKABLE
INFLUENCE UPON THE WORLD.

INFLUENCE OP GEORGE POX THROUGH THB SOCIETY OR
GANISED BY HIM — QUAKERISM AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM —
THOROUGH CARE FOR THB POOR AS A CHURCH DUTY —
EDUCATION OP EVERY CHILD IN THE SOCIETY — ZEAL IN
SABBATH SCHOOL EFFORTS — QUAKER MISSIONS AT HOME
AND ABROAD — QUAKER LEADERSHIP IN THE GREAT PHI
LANTHROPIC MOVEMENTS — FRIENDS AND POLITICS — SCIENCE
AND LITERATURE — QUAKERS' PROMINENCE IN BANKING,
MANUFACTURES AND TRADE — GREAT INFLUENCE OP QUAKER
ISM IN THB UNITED STATES — EX-PRIENDS.
The influence of the career of George Fox is best
appreciated by considering the subsequent character and
action of the Society of Friends, of which he was the
organiser. For few religious sects have been more
thoroughly moulded by their early leaders, and, so to

GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,

speak, stereotyped as to their future constitution, than
that Christian body. Let us then take a preliminary
glance at the prominent features of the Society, in order
the better to understand the importance of the life and
character of the subject of this work.
As respects their theological belief, the Friends have
never acknowledged any strictly defined creed, but have,
nevertheless, been generally successful in steering a middle
course between latitudinarianism on the one hand, and, on
the other, any such rigidity of doctrine as may be in
consistent with the exercise, by every individual member,
of a healthy free thought, recognising the Divine authority
of the Bible ; but at the same time repudiating human
claims to prescribe authoritatively fof others the meaning
and extent of scriptural doctrine.
Whilst eminently loyal to the civil government and
earthly monarch, they do not, in the slightest degree,
recognise the Sovereign's claim to be entitled "the Head
of the Church ; " for they hold, practically as well as
theoretically, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only real
possessor of that title. Similarly, any proclamations, from
Eoyalty or the Privy Council, ordering national manifes
tations of prayer, penitence, or thanksgiving, are, so far
as the Friends are concerned, respectfully ignored. The
King or Queen, the Archbishops or Bishops, are, in their
eyes, invested with no more religious authority, or eccle
siastical reverence, than the humblest Christians in the
land. The Friend cherishes a special sense of Hs individual
and inalienable responsibility to God, before whose iudg
ment seat he knows that each one must render a separate

AND THE BAPTISTS. 3
untransferable account of the actions and omissions of
this life. Doubtless, many Christians, in various degrees,
entertain a sense of this, but the Friends carry the principle
further into their practice than most others. Even in
their own religious assemblies they do not enforce on
themselves detailed uniformity of system or action.
Probably in no other sect in Christendom are there
entertained so many shades of opinion on religious matters
as amongst the Friends ; yet nowhere is there greater
harmony and brotherly love, or more practical respect
for the claims of moral and philanthropic duty as an
accompaniment of religious profession.
Whilst thus largely untrammelled by bonds of hierarchy
or rigid dogma, the Society of Friends unites in general
with the main body of the Church of Christendom (one
amid many diversities and temporary sects, actuated
widely by the same Divine Spirit, honouring and loving
the same Lord) in recognising the unity, yet triune
manifestation, of the Godhead, also the deity, expiatory
atonement, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the ever-living King of his people. Their views
of the perceptible presence and guidance of the Holy
Spirit in the hearts of the obedient, are perhaps more
definite than those of any other denomination. They
repudiate (as a body, and on scriptural grounds,) the
lawfulness of war, state-churches, slavery, oaths, and
capital punishment. They also differ in some other
respects from most of their fellow Christians, as for in
stance in the non-payment of preachers, the absence of
collegiate or special training for ministerial service, the
permission of public religious instruction by women, and
B 2

i GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
the restriction of the nature of sacraments to a spiritual
and invisible union with the Lord.
In connection with these views there are three very
important characteristics of the Friends which claim
special attention, viz. their freedom from the prevalent
"one man system" in Church matters; their practical
adoption of the great and praiseworthy principle, that it
is a primary duty of every religious community to care
for, and when necessary to maintain, its poorer members ;
and that it is a third requirement of the Church to secure
to all the children of its adherents a good education to
qualify them for religious, moral, and civil usefulness.
The Friends have carried out these three grand prin
ciples, unitedly, further than any other denomination has
done, although the Moravians, the Methodists, the Jews,
and some other bodies, share in a portion of these dis
tinctions. Firstly, as to the Friends' freedom from " the one man
system " of most other denominations ; they have thereby
derived a special vigour and healthiness both of corporate
and individual action. For recognising the scriptural
truths, that " the manifestation of the Spirit is given to
evert/ man to profit withal," and that " the body is not
one member but many," and knowing by lono- experience
and observation, that qualifications for Christian service of
a more or less religious nature are widely scattered
amongst the members of every intelligent earnest-hearted
community, . the Friends in their Church arrangements
afford opportunities for the exercise of these gifts. Hence
their public devotions are not limited to listening to the
ministry of one or more appointed individuals, but any

AND THB BAPTISTS. 5
member is at liberty to engage in prayer or exhortation,
provided he believes it his duty to do so, on the occasion.
Hence also, in the miscellaneous services of the Church,
there is a wide distribution of functions and offices.
Whether he avails himself of it or not, every Friend
has a more or less open door for the exercise of the duties
of ministry or of useful activity, which he may feel him
self called to undertake in aiding and sharing in the
Church action.
Lastly, as a consequence, it is observable that the
Friends generally are characterised by a special aptitude
for works of philanthropy, religious instruction, charitable
administration, and forthe business of committees of various
kinds. Just as a vigorous course of muscular training
develops every limb of the body, so does the Quaker
system (when fairly carried out) develop the spiritual and
executive energies of all its members.
The same principle of the distribution of Church service
is carried out in numerous other matters, and especially
in the general management of the Society, in the dis
tribution of its funds, the care of its poor, and the
arrangement of its varied efforts for the general and par
ticular welfare of its own members or others. It is
not to be denied that sometimes the Quaker officials
manifest a disposition to attempt a degree of oligarchical
and exclusive action, but the constitution of their body (as
handed down by George Fox) is so unfavourable to the
development of such exclusiveness, that it cannot make
great or permanent advances where attempted. The
Quaker founders laid the principles of their religious
republic too strongly on the simple basis of Christian

6 GEORGE POX, THE FRIENDS,
brotherhood, to be removed without overturning the whole
constitution of the Society. And there are, in general,
vigilant eyes and active spirits on the watch to check and
repress religious or disciplinary assumptions in this pecu
liarly democratic yet remarkably harmonious community.
A Quaker " Yearly Meeting," or large administrative
gathering of the Society, is a sight worth beholding, for
the rare spectacle which it presents, of cordial harmony
and peace, combined with great freedom of speech, and
withal with much seriousness. In these and other
Quaker assemblies, questions are not settled by mere ma
jorities. If there is such a difference of opinion that
present harmonious agreement is unattainable, the matter
is postponed or compromised. No cheers or sign of
applause are permitted. No votes of thanks are given ;
there is little, if any, of that sickening mutual laudation
which so characterises the speakers at some religious
gatherings. One often hears of vigorous hisses being
raised at " Church Congresses," when some plain-spoken
clerical or lay member has ventured to express, however
respectfully and legitimately, sentiments differing from
those of the majority. But such unseemly manifestations
do not occur at Quaker congresses. Very recently at a
meeting (composed mainly of Ritualistic clergymen) at
St. James's Hall, the name of the pious and beneficent
Earl Shaftesbury was received with loud hisses by an
audience who welcomed with " thunders of applause " the
statements of Archdeacon Denison, that the gifts of. the
Holy Spirit were solely conveyed by the outward visible
channels of Baptismal regeneration, and the Real Pre
sence in the Communien Bread, and as administered only

AND THE BAPTISTS. 7
by " the spirituality" (that is clergymen episcopally
ordained). But in the Friends' assemblies such unseemly
hisses and tumultuous noises would be attributed to spirits
of far other than celestial source, nor would respectful
dissentients be overwhelmed with shouts of ' ' turn him
out, turn him out," as raised on the above occasion.
As to the second great practical feature of the Friends'
Society — their care of their own poor as a systematic duty
of the Church as such — it is well known that members of
this community are never chargeable to the poor's-rates,
or appear as applicants for admission to " Union houses,"
although the Friends pay the same proportionate contri
butions to the general poor-rates as the members of other
denominations. (The Jews also are highly exemplary in
this respect.)
But the Society of Friends has outstripped all other
Christian bodies in its systematic and comprehensive care
for its own poor, whilst at the same time it has liberally
and abundantly extended its beneficent care to the poor of
other denominations in addition. The Friends' charity,
although beginning at home, has not ended there.
Every poor Friend who may be unable to earn a live
lihood usually receives aid from . his brother members,
to the extent of from .£20 to £40 per annum (adminis
tered privately in general), according to age and infirmity.
And this does not include the money spent upon the
education of his offspring.
When the poorer Friends are out of a situation, they
are often facilitated in obtaining employment by various
arrangements, such as free registries, and by the aid of
private inquiries for vacancies.

O GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
A large number of charitable bequests and special funds
has been appropriated for the local or general benefit of
the members of this religious community ; so much so,
that in some districts there has been a danger at times of
the spirit of self-exertion not being sufficiently developed
on the part of the recipients of these very liberal
subsidies. In addition to this testamentary and systematic care
for the poorer Friends, a large amount of private aid is
continually being extended to them.
If other denominations had bestowed upon their poor
a small proportion of the systematic and individualising
care exercised by the Friends in such cases, there would
not be the outrageous scandals upon English humanity
and civilisation which are continually cropping up in the
newspapers in connection with shamefully neglected poor-
houses and casual wards, to say nothing of the frequent
instances of starvation which the history of every winter
brings to light, as samples of a much larger number
which never attract any public attention at all. The best
administered poor-laws are a sorry substitute for the
exercise of individual Christian charity administered with
less publicity, and on the main basis of religious duty.
Charity enforced by law is not real charity in the Chris
tian sense of the word. It is given grudgingly. It excites no
gratitude in the recipient. Its administration is, at the
best, costly and clumsy, and is not attended by the reli-
gious-and moral advantages which are the privileges and
rewards of spontaneous individual beneficence.
Dr. Chalmers' testimony as to the condition of some
unassessed parishes of Scotland, where a Christian system

AND THB BAPTISTS. 9
of relief was practised, is a striking one : — " The relative
affections seem to be in much more powerful exercise in
the unassessed than in the assessed parishes ; as also the
kindness of neighbours to each other, and the spontaneous
generosity of the rich to the poor. There is a great deal
of relief going on in the unassessed parishes — perhaps as
much in point of materiel as in the assessed ; though not
so much needed, from the unbroken habits of economy and
industry among the people. The morale which accompanies
the voluntary mode of relief tends to sweeten and cement
the parochial society in the unassessed parishes."
Dr. Chalmers, Dr. Campbell (of London), and others
have urged the Christian Churches to take the care of the
poor much more upon themselves than is now the case,
and in particular to secure a provision for their aged poor.
Till this course is adopted, the poor-laws are a necessary
evil to avoid a worse result. But if all Churches had
acted like the Friends, there would be no need of such
laws for the maintenance of the poor.
As to the third great practical characteristic of
Quakerism — its provision of a liberal education for every
youthful member of its community — there can be little
question but that no other denomination whatever has
ever approached it in this respect. Every Friend (poor as
well as rich) may be enabled to secure to his offspring a
good hoarding-school education. The question of ' ' middle-
class education" has been long ago solved by the Friends
in addition to that of the instruction of their poor.
Hence the source of a large amount of the morality,
intelligence, influence and general prosperity, which
characterise the Friends as a body ; hence, in great

10 GEORGE POX, THE FRIENDS,
degree, the small amount of privation amongst them ;
hence also, in part, the fact that Friends so exceedingly
seldom come under the care of the police or the magistracy.
When it is remembered that the total number of Friends
in Great Britain and Ireland barely amounts to 15,000
(far fewer than could be contained in the Agricultural
Hall at Islington), the provision made for the education
of their offspring is marvellous.
In addition to day-schools and private tutors, there are
more than twenty private boarding-schools (with terms
ranging from thirty-five to one hundred guineas per annum
for each scholar), supported almost exclusively by the
well-to-do classes of Friends. Of these, the one at
Tottenham stands at the head, being the Eton or Rugby
of Quakerism, and devoted entirely to the education of
the sons of the wealthier Friends.
In addition to these twenty private schools, there are
twelve public boarding-schools for the Society. The latter
are under the control of committees appointed by the
Friends, and are more or less subsidised by annual sub
scriptions or permanent endowments, so as to be enabled
to furnish a good education to the children of the middle-
class and poorer Friends, at a charge very much below
cost price. These twelve public schools are respectively
situated at Ackworth, near Pontefract ; Croydon, near
London; Sidcot, near Bristol; Wigton, near Carlisle;
Rawden, near Leeds ; Penketh, near Warrino-ton ; Sibford,
near Banbury ; Ayton, near Middlesboro' ; Waterford,
Mountmellick, Lisburn, and Brookfield near Belfast.
They contain, on an average, nearly 1,000 boarders in the
aggregate.

AND THE BAPTISTS. 11
The same twelve schools have permanent endowments
of the value of more than one hundred and fifty thousand
pounds, and receive annual subscriptions to the extent
of about £5,500. In addition, the payments received
annually for each pupil average £14: per head.
Not included in the above list is a training college for
gratuitously educating teachers, named the Flounders
Institute, after its founder, Benjamin Flounders, a Liver
pool merchant, who endowed it with £40,000. It is in
Yorkshire, near the Society's large public school of
Ackworth. Many of the students of this institution and
of the elder pupils of Tottenham School subsequently
graduate at the University of 'London, and often with
considerable distinction.
In all the Friends' schools (especially the publio ones)
the useful and practical branches of study are mainly
cultivated, and very little attention is devoted to merely
ornamental attainments. The study of the classics is
made a prominent one in several of the principal Quaker
institutions, but by no means to the exclusion of the
pursuits likely to be required in ordinary business life.
In the girls' schools, "the accomplishments" are, com
paratively, slighted. Just a little music is taught, but no
dancing. The Quaker girls are early trained to habits of
usefulness and industry. In after life they are required
to aid the men in the administration of the charitable and
educational functions of the Society, so far at least as
their own sex is concerned. Thus many of the female
Friends acquire much skill in many matters of business
and of executive philanthropy, which renders them less
dependent on men than the ladies of most other denomi-

12 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
nations are. A large number of the young men and
women in the Friends' Society devote their Sabbaths to
the gratuitous instruction of the children of their poorer
neighbours of other sects, or of no sect at all.
This recent "Sabbath-school movement" amongst the
Friends has exerted a remarkable influence in stirring
up the Society, and especially its youthful members, to
religious earnestness. This must be evident when we
remember, that out of this body of 15,000 persons,
nearly 1,000 (elder and younger) devote a considerable
portion of the Sabbath (and often of week-days also) to
the self-denying and always gratuitous work of teaching
the poorest, most squalid, and most ignorant of the
juvenile and adult population around them. For this
noble work the Society is, under God, indebted in great
degree to the energetic example and efforts of Joseph
Storrs Fry and Arthur Naish, of Bristol, and William
White, of Birmingham.
The Society thus supports about seventy-five Sabbath-
schools, and (by means of 960 teachers) educates 11,000
pupils in them. It is a very noteworthy circumstance,
that scarcely a single pupil amongst these is a Friend,
and very few indeed ever become united to the Society,
although the kind care of these Quaker teachers is highly
valued both by the scholars and their parents.
This matter is associated with a further characteristic
of the Society, viz. that it is practically not a proselytising
body. Notwithstanding the many excellent qualities of
the Friends and the peculiarly liberal nature of most of
their arrangements, they are (often to their own astonish
ment and regret) found to be practically one of the most

AND THE BAPTISTS. 13
exclusive sects in Christendom. Notwithstanding their
unsurpassed charity to the poor and the peculiarly demo
cratic nature of their arrangements, they are in some
respects a most aristocratic body. Thus, in going into a
Quaker meeting, one seldom sees any attenders from the
really indigent and ignorant masses of the nation. Most
things about the Quaker assemblies are so "respectable,"
so systematised, so well looked after, so toned down to
quietude, order, and harmony, that only the initiated, the
habitual Friends, can, as a rule, settle comfortably and
advantageously into all the usual arrangements. Then
the pecuniary and educational privileges of membership
are so many, that a constant vigilance is requisite to avoid
the reception of candidates for admission who may be
prompted by interested motives. And, again, there
is the extent to which the Friends, owing to their small
aggregate number, their education after one general
plan, and their habitual disciplinary and social inter
course, acquire the class feeling of a social brotherhood
or of a large religious benefit club ; and all this makes
strangers feel still more strange and uncongenial
than they would otherwise be. Further, the religious
and doctrinal views of the Friends are so extreme on
some points, so different from those of other sects, that
outsiders feel themselves, on casually entering a Quaker
company, in a totally different atmosphere from what they
have been accustomed to, and one which requires long
training to get used to. No man can become a Friend in
a hurry. And, indeed, it may be generally asserted that
Quakerism, in its essence and actuality, is not at all
adapted for the masses of mankind. It is rather a very

14 GEORGE POX, THE FRIENDS,
excellent, but very eclectic, system, suited only for the
more thoughtful and serious of Christians, and for persons
with minds disciplined to deep feelings and abstract con
templation, and with strong preferences for individual
freedom of religious action. Thomas Carlyle has, we
believe, somewhere written that " the United Kingdom
contains a population of thirty million people, the major
part whereof are fools." This humorous libel has in it
a fraction of truth, in so far as that a very large pro
portion of mankind (whether English or others) do not
wish to think for themselves. They do not desire to be
independent of other men's control in religious matters.
They are neither wishful nor able to exercise their spirits
in earnest strivings for a realisation of close communion
with their invisible Lord. If caring little about any
religion, they rather covet the easy quietude of being
able to feel that they can lay their religious cares and
responsibilities upon other shoulders than their own. They
shrink with disinclination, if not with repulsion, from
uniting themselves with a coramunity not only requiring
a very strict discipline as to morals, and exercising a
vigilant but brotherly scrutiny over the actions of its
members, but also refusing to recognise a corporate
responsibility for each individual conscience and life.
Hence few men are likely to seek communion with the
Society of Friends. And practically, the Friends seldom
gain converts, or at least adherents. Perhaps it is not
to be desired that they should gain many, as mankind
are now constituted; for if the Society were swamped
with a mass of converts not prepared to enter fully into
the spirit of its communion, the tone of the whole body

AND THE BAPTISTS, 15
would be lowered, and possibly its constitution become !
radically altered. The Quakers are a select and disciplined I
body, better qualified for influencing outsiders than for
uniting with them in permanent communion. They have
exercised very great influence on the surrounding world ; ,
far more, in proportion to their very small number, than
any other sect that ever existed — the Jesuits not excepted.
But the retention of this beneficial influence is only compa
tible with their maintenance of the strict discipline and high
morality of their body. This would hardly be practicable
with any considerable accession of persons not prepared
for the abstract views and decided principles of the Society.
During the past quarter of a century, the Friends in
the United Kingdom have sent their preachers to the
most remote parts of the world ; to Hindostan, the Pacific
Islands, Australia, New Zealand, the Cape Colony, the
West Indies, California, Greenland, Iceland, Russia, the
Faroe Islands, Lapland, Madagascar, Egypt, Syria, and
the Holy Land. These good men have preached assidu
ously to a vast number of audiences ; have given cheering
counsel to the resident missionaries of other denomi
nations ; have administered considerable pecuniary relief
to the necessitous, and have disseminated innumerable
publications relative to Quaker doctrine. It is to he
hoped that all these efforts, necessarily involving an
expense of many thousand pounds, have been attended
with good to many souls, and have deepened the fa,ith
and increased the Christian knowledge of the persons thus
visited. But it is pretty certain that no appreciable
accession to the numbers of the Friends has ever resulted
in consequence.

16 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
In addition to all this, Quaker ministers are continually
traversing the various counties of the United Kingdom,
holding meetings to which the public are invited, dis
tributing tracts which inculcate their doctrines, and in
other ways attempting to promulgate their views. These
attempts are received with general satisfaction; never
theless it is, at best, but an exceedingly small number of
outsiders who become in consequence members of the
Society. For instance, one of the most active of Quaker
home-missionaries has been a zealous, excellent gentle
man, named Jonathan Grubb, who has for years laboured
assiduously in preaching to the poor, especially in the rural
districts of Suffolk, Essex, and Norfolk. His meetings
have been largely attended, and have also been occasions
of much solemnity and tenderness of spirit. They have
often been followed up by sympathising private con
versations with some of the most impressed amongst the
hearers. Great religious edification has doubtless ensued
in consequence. But we have not heard of any fresh
accessions to the ranks of Quakerism from any or all of
these meetings. .
More than two hundred years ago a Quaker hoy named
James Parnell, some sixteen years of age, often bigoted
in his views and addresses, preached vigorously to the
people of the same Eastern Counties, and gathered in
hundreds and probably thousands to the fold of his people
in the very district where Mr. Grubb (a man far superior
to young Parnell in most Christian virtues) can barely
secure one proselyte in several years' ministerial activity.
In that Eastern District the Quaker ranks are now
becoming smaller and smaller. Por instance, their con-

AND THE BAPTISTS. 17
gregations at Norwich and Ipswich, notwithstanding they
have contained some of the most influential and worthy
persons in the vicinity, have for years been sadly dwindling.
Thus Norwich, which about forty years ago contained five
hundred Friends, has now barely thirty.
It thus appears that the Quaker system is an admirable
one for developing a small band, of active, independent,
philanthropic, and spiritual Christians, but fails most
decidedly in gathering in the masses of mankind. This
is now generally admitted by the Friends. One of
them, an aged minister, lately remarked to the writer,
" Well, I must confess that if the evangelisation of the
great body of the people had depended upon us, very little
would have been done." It would appear that, in aiming
at perfection, the Friends have arrived at many conclusions
incompatible with the actual constitution of imperfect and
frail humanity. It is often observed that in the com
munication of religious instruction to the poor, a rough
and ready, but comparatively uneducated, yet zealous,
working-man is far more effective than a calm, refined,
and highly-educated speaker. Similarly, the very agencies
which the Friends deprecate and avoid as imperfect,
namely, "the one man system," hearty congregational
singing, untrammelled zealous preaching, outwardly visible
sacraments, settled pastorates and paid ministries, these
or other such arrangements are evidently and practically
essential to the evangelisation of the great masses of man-
hind, in spite of all the arguments of Quakerism and
notwithstanding the admirable results (on a very limited
scale) of a system from whioh these agencies have been
almost entirely excluded.

18 GEOEGB rOX, THE FRIENDS,
Hence, when, the Friend pleads for his distinctive
religious system, his auditor — whether Catholic, Episco
palian, Presbyterian, Methodist, or Congregationalist —
may fairly reply, " Yes, all that you say is very good.
Your arguments are reasonable up to a certain point.
Your conclusions follow logically from some selections of
Scripture texts. But, notwithstanding all this, you lack
a crowning argument, that afforded by the adapta
bility of any religious system to gather in the great
multitudes of mankind to the fold of Gospel fellowship.
Here you fail, and fail enormously. You are a first-rate
sect for the further development of some ready-made
Christians, but your arrangements are not suited to work
up the raw material of home and foreign paganism, unless
perhaps in a few exceptional cases.
"It is known that your organisers. Fox and othere,
gathered their followers almost exclusively from the
already converted Puritans, and especially from the Baptists.
Whenever you have tried to build on your own foundations,
you have had scarcely any success. You can sometimes
reap the choicest crops of other men's Christian hus
bandry ; but small indeed are the harvests wherever you
have been the first sowers of the Gospel seed. In short,
your Qu.aker system is like a dish of religious confectionery,
well adapted to richly feast a few, but unsuited for the
purpose of furnishing with plain, rough, healthy fare the
great tables needed to satisfy the multitudes of spiritually
starving humanity."
In further reply the Friend may urge some such defence as
this : " Whilst it is true that we are a very small sect, and
that we do not gather others largely into our fold, we have

AND THE BAPTISTS. 19
been able to promote the usefulness of members of other
denominations to a much more considerable extent than is
popularly supposed. If we do not evangelise the masses
directly, we do so, in great degree, indirectly. For,
by our peculiar zeal and success in promoting the spread of
popular education and temperance ; by our large pecu
niary aid to tract societies and home missions ; by our
universally acknowledged supremacy in exertions to eman
cipate millions of enslaved fellow-creatures ; by our
special activity in securing useful political reforms for the
masses of our countrymen ; by these and other similar
means, we have probably done as much for the present and
eventual advantage of the great body of the people (as to
moral and spiritual progress) as the whole of the Angli
can Church has ever done witb its enormous revenues,
State patronage, and tea or fifteen millions of real and
nominal adherents. Indeed, we have probably done far
more by our fifteen thousand than the Anglican Church by
its millions. Show us, if you can, the names of princely-
paid prelates who have done as much for the oppressed
slaves as our plain untitled Quakers have, or who have
laboured as we have in the great works of temperance and
peace, in prison and penal amelioration, and other extensive
moral and social reforms. Have we not, indeed, sometimes
had direct opposition, and the' most contumelious and
unchristian contempt manifested toward us by these clergy,
instead of their hearty co-operation in our works of Christian
charity and world-wide usefulness ? Further, we have always
tolerated the opinions of others. No brand of fierce perse
cution has distinguished our sect — (alas, that we are
almost alone in this respect !) Even when we have had
c 2

20 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
power to punish our opponents we have repeatedly and
uniformly shown Christian forbearance. If, iu short, we
have not succeeded as to the number and quantity of our
adherents, we have been enabled to maintain a corporate
standard of Christian life and action unsurpassed by any ;
and, therefore, beneficial in its example to all the surround
ing sects, and to the millions of outsiders also. It is not,
perhaps, given to any denominations to excel at the same
time in quantity and quality. Por instance, look at the
Moravian Church, which has long held up a pure and holy
beacon-light of humble Christian discipleship and pre
eminent missionary zeal — that ancient church which no
sect of Christendom can claim to surpass, if equal, in
fidelity to its Lord, and which has especially stood forth for
the three fundamental principles that the Holy Scriptures
in their simplicity, apart from all articles or creeds, are
the sufficient source of Christian instruction ; that the
exceeding preciousness of the Redeemer's atoning blood is
to be prominently and constantly cherished and set forth ;
and that it should be the daily effort of each Christian to
live reverently and humbly, as being in the very sight of
the personal Lord Jesus in heaven, invisible but (through
the medium of His Spirit, dispensed to each) perceiving
every act and thought, and ultimately rewarding each
in His future kingdom, when He will again be visibly
revealed to His people. Look at that small but honoured
sect. They are stated to have only five thousand adherents
in great Britain, another five thousand in Germany, and
a somewhat larger number in America. But who can
estimate their quiet but great infiuence in the world ? In
like manner, the influence of the Society of Friends on the

AND THE BAPTISTS. 21
World at large must not be merely estimated by the number
of its visible adherents. On the contrary, it is probable
that if it is faithful to its best principles of Christian
service, its numbers will become yet smaller, comparatively,
whilst the more extended will be its real and beneficent,
though sometimes invisible, influence in Christendom."
We have here supposed our Friend to speak for his sect
with less reticence than modesty would permit any
individual Christian to allude to his own personal efforts
or influence.
But, in confirmation of the above defence of the Friends
on the ground of their peculiar influence upon the
world, in indirect and direct ways, let us just glance at
the most prominent philanthropic and other beneficent
movements of the past two or three generations, and
it will be at once seen, that those movements have derived
an extraordinary advantage from Quaker leaders, beyond
all proportion to'the very limited extent of the Society.
First, on reviewing the great Anti-Slavery contest, how
prominent have been the names of Friends : as for instance,
Joseph Sturge, William Allen, William Forster, Josiah
Forster, Joseph Cooper, Thomas Harvey, Joseph John
Gurney, Wilson Armistead, Joseph Gurney Bevan, George
W. Alexander, Richard Davis Webb, the Croppers, and
others. Clarkson was greatly prompted and sustained in
his labours by Friends. Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton also
was largely indebted for his success to the aid derived from
J. J. Gurney, and others of the Society. Lord Brougham
received similar energetic and most valuable (though often
unobserved) co-operation from Quaker abolitionists (espe
cially from William Allen of Lombard Street).

22 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
On the other side the Atlantic, the Quaker poet
Whittier for many years animated the small band of
Abolitionists with persevering energy by the clarion notes
of his soul-stirring muse. Some of the most earnest and
enlivening appeals for freedom ever penned, have originated
with this plain and quiet Friend. The originator and
chief sustainer of the celebrated " Underground Rail
way" in America — that is, the systematic plan for facili
tating the transit of escaped slaves across the State of
Ohio to the British possessions — was a Friend, Levi Coffin,
of Cincinnati (depicted in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" as
" Simeon Halliday"). Through his instrumentality alone
many thousand slaves were safely concealed and trans
mitted beyond the power of their cruel owners and pursuers.
Since the termination of the American civil war, and the
abolition of slavery there, the Society of Friends in Great
Britain and the United States has made extraordinary
efforts for the relief, education, and permanent training of
the four millions of Freedmen thus suddenly emancipated.
Nearly £200,000 (or about half the total relief contributed
for the assistance of the Freedmen) has been raised by
the Friends alone from their own menibers. Amongst
those who have worked in this cause Friends have been in
the foremost rank, especially Arthur Albright, the Cad-
burys, and other Birmingham Friends, William and
Stafford Allen, Smith Harrison, Robert Alsop, John
Hodgkin, Frederick Seebohm, Joseph Simpson, John
Taylor, George Thomas (of Bristol), and Robert
Charleton. In the United States these English Friends have been
vigorously co-operated with in their efforts by the Trans-

AND THE BAPTISTS. 23
atiantic members of the confraternity ; especially by Levi
Coffin, Charles F. Coffin, and Timothy Harrison (of
Richmond, Ind.), Murray Shipley, Francis T. King (of
Baltimore), William F. Mitchell (of Tennessee), Elkanah
Beard, and others. General Howard, the excellent pre
sident of the United States' official " Freedmen's Bureau,"
has repeatedly sought the aid, and followed the counsels,
of the Friends in this philanthropic work, which he has so
efficiently promoted.
When, on the sudden failure of the potato crop, the Irish
famine brought multitudes face to face with starvation and
death, none more vigorously flew to the rescue than
the Friends. William Forster, Joseph Bewley, Samuel
Bewley, Richard Allen, Jonathan Pim, and many others,
entered heart and soul into the leadership of that work of
mercy. Many thousands of pounds were speedily raised by
the 15,000 Quakers, and their own agents visited the
most famished districts, and personally superintended the
administration of relief.
During late years there have been several severe famines
in Finland. The relief of these starving people has been
specially undertaken by some of the Friends, and in parti
cular by the Sturges and Bakers of Birmingham, William
Pollard of Hertford, the Gibsons of Saffron Walden, and
John Good of Hull.
In the promotion of the work of Popular Education, the
British and Foreign School Society (with which the
Quaker names of Joseph Lancaster and William Allen are
prominently connected, and which was mainly instituted
and sustained by Friends) has exerted a wide-spread and
very useful influence.

24 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
In their general advocacy of the Peace Question the
Friends have been pre-eminent. They have not only
endured innumerable fines and imprisonments for refusing
to fight, but have laboriously sought to promulgate their
views of the unlawfulness of war amongst other denomina
tions. In this work the names of .Joseph Tregelles Price
(of Neath), Joseph and Charles Sturge, Joseph Pease,
Henry Pease, Edmund Fry, Samuel Gurney (elder and
younger), Robert Charleton, John Priestman (of Brad
ford), Edward Smith and William Hargreaves (of Sheffield),
William Rowntree, Frederic Wheeler, and others are
well known.
The efforts for the Amelioration of the Penal Code and
the Improvement of Prison Discipline made by the Friends
have been unsurpassed by any other denomination. Here
again, the names of Joseph John Gurney, Elizabeth Fry,
Peter Bedford, John Thomas Barry, John Bright, Charles
Gilpin, Alfred Dyniond, Joseph Spence, Josiah and William
Forster, the Sparkses, William Rathbone, Joseph Gurney
Barclay, the Aliens, Peases, George Thomas, and others,
have been foremost. Of Barry alone, it may be said that,
working silently, and for the most part in secret, (by
influencing other men more powerful and prominent than
himself,) he was more instrumental in the successive
repeals of the death-penalty for various offences, in the
interval from 1829-40, than any other man in the kingdom.
Of course he could not have done what he did but for the
co-operation of others, especially Members of Parliament
like William Ewart, and journalists like John Sydney
Taylor. These two gentlemen were not Friends, but were
constantly and greatly helped by Quaker support.

AND THB BAPTISTS. 25
The first great movement for the Health of Tovma and
Sanitary Reform was mainly supported by Friends, espe
cially by the munificent Joseph Eaton of Bristol, a man
who, whilst living in a very small house, in the, simplest
style, devoted nearly all his income to works of usefulness
and charity. Thus, on one occasion during his lifetime,
he presented £5,000 to a local hospital.
In the efforts of the Bible Society the Friends have, in
proportion to their numbers, been in no wise behindhand.
Where their tongues have not spoken, their hands and
purses have aided. A Friend, Richard Phillips, was one
of the founders of this noble association. The Quaker
names of William Forster, Josiah Forster, Thomas
Norton and Thomas Binns, are well known amongst the
most steadily useful of the members of the central com
mittee of that association.
For local and miscellaneous philanthropy, Quaker names
are everywhere held in honour, especially such as Richard
Reynolds of Bristol, James Cropper of Liverpool, Peter
Bedford of Spitalfields and Croydon, Edward Thomas of
Bristol, George Bradshaw and Isaac Wright of Man
chester, Richard Dykes Alexander of Ipswich, John
Allen of Liskeard, Joseph Rowntree of York, Joseph
Bewley of Dublin, Edward Pease of Darlington, George
Richardson of Newcastle, William Tanner of Bristol,
John Baker of Thirsk, Joseph Sturge of Birmingham,
Isaac Braithwaite of Kendal, Robert Ransome of Ipswich,
Edward Hallam of Axbridge, William Forster of
Tottenham, Dr. Hodgkin of London, and John Yeardley
of Stamford Hill. All these good men are deceased,
but they have many living representatives in their own

26 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
little community. The names of many "honourable
women" might be added to this list, such as the late
Elizabeth Fry of London, Ann Alexander of York, Ann
Alexander of Ipswich, Louisa Radley of Tottenham,
Philippa Williams of Redruth, and a host of other
"sisters of charity," all "gone home," but succeeded
too by others like- hearted.
The Quaker philanthropists of America are also of
honoured reputation ; as for instance, Anthony Benezet of
Philadelphia, Elijah Coffin of Indiana, Stephen Grellet of
New Jersey, Isaac Collins of Philadelphia, Dr. S. B.
Tobey of Rhode Island, and Isaac T. Hopper of New
York. In the stirring world of politics the 15,000 have been
fully represented. In each Parliament there are generally
from four to six Friends, and these have never been men
of less than respectable M.P. ability. The name of one
Quaker, John Bright, towers high above the general level
of contemporary statesmen, attaining to the first rank of
celebrity for talent, eloquence, incorruptibility, boldness,
and consistency, and in no wise behind the reputation of
Hampden, Peel, Pitt, Fox, Russell, Aberdeen, Brougham,
Wilberforce, or Gladstone. His friend, Richard Cobden
(par nobile fratrum), though not a Quaker, was largely
imbued with Quaker sentiments, and was zealously and
persistently supported by the political partizanship of
members of that denomination. Amongst other useful
Quaker legislators are the names of Joseph Pease, Henry
Pease, Whitwell Pease, Charles Gilpin, Jonathan Pim,
John Ellis, Samuel Gurney, E. A. Leatham, W. H.
Leatham, and Jacob Bright. (William Edward Forster,

AND THE BAPTISTS. 27
M.P. for Bradford, and James Wilson, Chancellor of
Exchequer for India, were once Quakers.)
Measures of sterling worth, calculated to promote the
real advancement of the British people, have found amongst
Quaker politicians, whether in or out of Parliament, some
of their most hearty co-operators. In particular, the
great Anti- Com Law League was vigorously supported by
Friends. In Science and Literature the Friends have not been so
prominent as in other good things ; but even here they
are not without useful contributors to progress. Dr.
Dalton, the discoverer of the atomic theory, was a Quaker.
So was Dr. Thomas Young, the interpreter of Egyptian
hieroglyphics, &c. Robert Were Fox, F.R.S,, of
Falmouth, has done much for the elucidation of the
formation of mineral deposits. Joseph Jackson Lister,
F.R.S., of Upton, is a name well known in the history of
microscopic and optical discovery. Professor Oliver of Kew,
James Backhouse, sen. and jun., of York, Edward Newman
of London, Gough, "the blind botanist," Henry E. Brady of
Newcastle, and John Gilbert Baker of Thirsk and Kew, have
acquired honour amongst botanists. Luke Howard, F.R.S.,
Isaac Fletcher, Isaac Brown, Principal of the Flounders
Institute, Samuel Marshall of Kendal, and Lovell Squire
of Falmouth, have rendered good service to meteorological
science. William Pengelly of Torquay is one of the most
active of provincial geologists. Alfred Tylor of London
has also aided the progress of this and kindred sciences.
George Stephenson was greatly indebted to the patronage
of a Quaker — Edward Pease — of Darlington, for his deve
lopment of the English railway system. The ingenious

28 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
contrivance for stamping and numbering railway tickets —
as used daily and hourly at every railway station — was
the invention of a Friend, named Edmondson we beUeve.
The development of the china clay deposits of Cornwall,
and their application to the porcelain manufactures, was
largely owing to a Quaker, William Cookworthy of
Plymouth. In medicine, the Quaker physicians have often acquired
eminence ; as for instance, Dr. FothergiU, Dr. Lettsom,
Dr. Pope, the favourite attendant of King George III.,
Dr. Wilson Fox, Dr. Rutty, Dr. Thomas Hodgkin, and
Dr. Peacock.
In the treatment of the Insane, the Friends and their
" Retreat" at York have an honourable reputation, espe
cially William Tuke, Dr. Daniel Tuke, Dr. Caleb WilHams,
and Dr. Kitching.
The Quaker poets are also few ; but Bernard Barton,
Alaric A. Watts, Thomas Lister, Mary Howitt, Elizabeth
B. Prideaux, Wm. Ball, T. Frederic Ball, and Hannah
Bowden, have all written with much taste and feeling.
Mrs. Opie, Mrs. Ellis (Sarah Stickney), Mary Lead-
beater, Mary Ann Kelty, A. Letitia Waring, Maria Hack,
Maria Webb, Henrietta J. Fry, Frances Prideaux, authoress
of " Claudia," and E. J. Tuckett are Quaker authoresses,
whose works possess considerable interest. Lindley
Murray's name as a grammarian is known everywhere.
The theological writings of Joseph John Gurney; the
interesting biographies of S. Grellet and William Forster,
by Benjamin Seebohm ; the Commentaries, &c. by Dr.
Edward Ash of Bristol; Edward Tylor's " Anahuac ;" S.
Capper's " Acknowledged Doctrines ;" the Spanish trans-

AND THE BAPTISTS. 29
lations, &c., by J. J. Wiffen; C. Tylor's " Franconia ;" the
valuable work on Ireland by Jonathan Pim ; Dymond's
" Essays on Morality ;" and Wilson Armistead's anti-
slavery works, have all attracted considerable attention
outside the circle of Quakerism. Francis Fry of Bristol,
and Anthony Purver, are Quaker names well known to
students of Biblical literature. Frederic Seebohm' s work
on " The Oxford Reformers" — originally appearing in the
Fortnightly Review — has taken its place amongst the
standard historical works of the age. A Friend, Martin
Wood, edits the Times of India. In Great Britain the
Society supports a quarterly review, the Friends' Exa
miner, edited by William C. Westlake ; and two monthlies
— the Friend, edited by John Prank, and the British
Friend, edited by Robert Smeal. A catalogue of exclu
sively Quaker literature, filling 2,011 closely-printed
pages, has recently been compiled by Joseph Smith
(London, 1867). So that, after all, these names are not
a very scanty contribution to the world of science and
literature from a little band of 15,000.
In the work of City Missions, the Friends have of very
recent years taken an active part, especially in the Metro
polis ; where the Bedford Institute at Spitalfields — named
after the well-known Peter Bedford* — is a nucleus for a
number of philanthropic efforts — schools, workmen's club,
dispensary, invalid kitchen, mothers' meetings, &c. — for
the welfare of the poor of East London. Edmund Pace,
John G. Hine, William Beck, and others, manage its
operations with success.
* See " Peter Bedford, the Spitalfields Philantliropist." London :
S. W. Partridge & Co. Price 2a. 6d.

30 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
Similar efforts are made in other large towns ; as at
Birmingham, by William White, John Edward Wilson,
&c. ; at Liverpool by B. Townson, T. Crosfield, &c. ; and
elsewhere. The great Temperance Movement, which has done so
much towards the moral and social progress of our country,
has had a large proportion of Quaker leaders ; amongst
whom may be especially named Thomas Shillitoe, Joseph
Eaton, Eichard Barrett, William Janson, Richard Dykes
Alexander of Ipswich, Nathaniel Card and Charles
Thompson of Manchester, the Peases of Darlington,
George Thomas, and Robert Charleton of Bristol, the
Cadburys of Birmingham and Banbury, Edward Back
house of Sunderland, the Clarks of Street, Joseph Spence
of York, Joseph Thorp of Halifax, Edward Smith of
Sheffield, Samuel Bowly of Gloucester, Henry Eussell of
Dublin, John Taylor of London, Jonathan Grubb of
Sudbury, and Edward Hornor of Halstead.
The movement for supplying public Drinking Fourdains
in cities and towns has had for its leader a Friend, Samuel
Gurney, M.P., and other members of the Society as its
prominent supporters.
The Aborigines' Protectiori Society has been mainly
carried on by Friends and ex-Friends, and in particular
by Dr. Hodgkin, Eobert N. Fowler, Robert Alsop, and
James Bell.
In the great world of Commerce and Enterprise the
Society of Friends have taken a prominently useful part.
Their bankers and merchants have maintained, with very
rare exceptions, a conspicuously honourable and just
position. In looking over the list of English bankers,

AND THE BAPTISTS. 31
the number of Quaker names is very striking for so
extremely small a community. Amongst these are those
of the Barclays, Gumeys, Alexanders, Fowlers, Drewetts,
and Dimsdales of Lombard Street and Cornhill (the
Hoares and Hanburys were once Friends), the Peases and
Backhouses of Durham, the Sharpies, Tukes, and Lucases
of Hertfordshire, the Gibsons of Saffron Walden, the
Alexanders of Ipswich, the Crewdsons of Kendal, the
Spences of Newcastle, the Lloyds of Birmingham, the
Hutchinsons and Ellises of Leicester, the Heads and
Mounseys of Carlisle, the Bassetts of Leighton Buzzard,
the Foxes, Williamses, and T weedy s of Cornwall, the
Leathams of West Yorkshire, the Gilletts of Banbury,
the Peckovers of Wisbeach, the Ashbys of Staines, and
others, to say nothing of the numerous Quaker directors
of joint-stock banks. These houses have obtained long
and well-merited public confidence. Quaker names are
also well known on railway boards. The few lines of
railway where Quaker directors have had the upper hand
have been managed with much success ; for instance, the
Stockton and Darlington. Bradshaw's Railway Guide
was originated by a Friend.
The Quaker Insurance Companies, including the
Friends' Provident, the United Kingdom, the National
Provident, and the Metropolitan — all largely managed by
Friends — continue to be specially successful and safe.
The Quaker Steam Packet Companies include those of
the Malcomsons of London, Liverpool, Dublin, and
Waterford, and of the Pikes of Cork, probably larger
and better managed fleets of steamers than possessed by
any other company not subsidised by Government. The

3:2 CEORGE FOX, THB FltlENDS,
Tindalls, the Wilsons of Sunderiand, the Thompsons,
Grimshaws, and Nicholsons of Liverpool, are well known
amongst shipowners.
In many other branches of comraerce and trade Quaker
prominence is striking ; for instance, the Ashworths,
Brights, Emmotts, Kings, Braithwaites, Priestmans,
Thomassons, Hodgkinsons, Holdsworths, Naishes,
Ecroyds, Burgesses, Rices, Cashes, Pims, Richardsons,
and Malcomsons amongst the textile manufacturing firms;
the Frys, Cadburys, and Eowntrees in the chocolate
business ; the Eansomes, Mays, Sims, Fowlers, Hewit-
sons, Tangyes, Whitwells, Worsdells, Gilkes, Wilsons,
Tylors, and Warners in general engineering and the
manufacture of agricultural instruments ; the Darbys and
Dickensons of the Colebrookdale Ironworks ; Hargreaves,
Smiths, and others in cutlery ; Huntley and Palmer, Carr,
Haylock, and Slater in the wholesale manufacture of
biscuits ; the Hanburys, Aliens, Corbyns, Howards, and
Warners as manufacturing chemists ; the Eeckitts in the
starch trade ; Bryant and May, and Tylor and Pace as
wholesale manufacturers of matches and safety lights;
Williams, Foster and Co. as copper-ore merchants ; Henry
Bath and Sons of Swansea, perhaps the largest British
consignees of foreign copper and silver ; the Hornimans,
Harrisons, and Crosfields in the tea trade ; the Christys
and Coopers as hat manufacturers ; the Crowleys of Alton
and Croydon, the Ashbys of Staines, and the Lucases of
Hitchin, as brewers.
The Cornish and other mines have been largely worked
by the Friends, especially by the Fox family of Falmouth,
and the Williamses of Redruth. The Sturges of Birming-

AND THE BAPTISTS. 33
liam and Gloucester, and other Friends, are amongst the
leading men in the corn trade.
Many further Quaker names might be mentioned as
holding a respectable and prominent position in the
various branches of trade and commence.
But the position collectively occupied by those above
named — especially the ones prominent in philanthropy
and social progress — is doubtless unequalled by any
similar number of names that can be collected from any
body of merely 15,000 persons. Many small kingdoms,
or states of several million inhabitants, do not exercise so
wide an influence upon the world as do these few Quakers.
The influence of Quakerism in the United States has
been less of a personal kind than in Great Britain ; but
the practical principles of the Society have been indirectly
received to a very considerable extent in that large nation.
The Friends were the founders of the State of Pennsyl
vania, and cftcupied a prominent position also in the
early governments of Rhode Island, Delaware, and other
colonies. Hence they had opportunities — of which they
availed themselves — for largely moulding the first legis
lation of those States. To their influence may be mainly
traced the general freedom of the United States from
religious persecutions, from the numerous titles, " blazing
garments," and other semi-barbaric gewgaws of European
courts ; from unduly severe penal codes and unmerciful
treatment of criminals, and from any extensive neglect of
public education, or of provision for the poor.
Through William Penn and his companions, George
Fox has probably exerted even a greater influence upon
the American continent than in Great Britain.

34 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
There is yet a further manifestation of useful Quaker
influence, namely, that exerted through the considerable
number of persons who, after having been trained in the
habits and general sentiments of the seet, have, from
various causes^ -afterwards quitted its fold for some other
section of the universal Church. To most of these, the
remark, " once a Quaker, ialways a Quaker," applies with
even more force than the proverbs, " once a priest, always
a priest," "once a Jesuit, always a Jesuit." For, any
person once imbued with the active, independent habit of
mind which Quaker training peculiarly fosters, can
rarely, if ever, divest himself of it. The old feeUngs of
untransferable individual responsibility, philanthropic
interest, and cautious examination, continually assert
themselves in the ex- Friends. Hence, Quakers who join
the ranks of Bpiscopalianism, Unitarianism, Plymouth
Brethrenism, &c. often become specially earnest and
valuable members of these denominations. *
For instance, amongst such worthy examples we may
name the following ex-Friends : Williani Rathbone, of
Liverpool, William Edward Forster, M.P. for Bradford,
Henry Bewley of Dublin, William and Mary Howitt,
Mrs. Sarah Ellis of Hoddesdon, Richard Davis Webb of
Dublin, Frederic Lucas, Eobert N. Fowler of London,
Isaac B. Cooke of Liverpool, the Crewdsons, Wilsons,
Croppers, and Wakefields of Kendal, Isaac Crewdson of
Manchester, Potto Brown of Earith, John Cropper of
Liverpool, and many others.
The following and other well-known persons were either
of Quaker birth or descent, viz. Lord Lyndhurst ; Lord
Gough ; Dr. Tregelles, the BibUcal scholar ; Dr. Birch,

AND THE BAPTISTS. 35
tutor to t-jhe Prince of Wales; Dr. Pritchard, author
of the Un-fty of the Human Race ; Eickman, the eccle
siastical arc3!hitect ; Boulton, the coadjutor of James Watt ;
Francis Ga^lton, natural philosopher ; Dr. Birkbeck, founder
of Mechanitjss' Institutes ; John Harford of Blaize Castle,
author ; Professor Joseph Lister of Glasgow ; Sir Henry
EawlinSon, (decipherer of cuneiform inscriptions ; John H.
Gurney, naturalist; Ward, the Indian missionary; Professor
William A. Miller, chemist ; Professor W. H. Harvey,
botanisty^nd . Professor W. Neilsou Hancock, LL.D.,
statistician and political economist.
The Hon. Neal Dow of Portland, Maine, to whom
New England is indebted for the " Maine Liquor Law,"
was born a Quaker, and virtually remains such in many
respects. It is but fair to add to these honourable ex- Quaker
names an ignoble exception, Thomas Paine, the infidel
writer, whose parents were Friends. But he used for evil
purposes the energy and independence of spirit fostered
by his early training. In his case, as in that of others,
the perversion of the best things ended in the worst
results. The Eev. Joseph Baylee, D.D., the energetic Principal
of St. Aidan's Training College, Birkenhead, is an ex-
Friend, and, doubtless, his eminent services to the Church
of England, are largely owing to his Quaker training.
An ex -Friend may more easily become a good clergyman
than a tractable lay Episcopalian. He is usually too
independent in his habits of thought to ' ' sit under "
the authoritative exclusive teaching of any one spiritual
guide. D 2

36 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS, I
/
A clergyman complaining bitterly of an ex-Qtuaker to a
friend ofthe writer, said, " I wish Mr.  had nefver entered
the Church of England. He is always interi^'ering with
something — always wanting to exercise his own/ judgment.
He has given me a deal of trouble, and I hearfily wish he
had never quitted your communion." It is becaVise Friends,
as a body, love to " exercise their own judg/ment," that
they have been peculiarly hostile to all spiritual, restrictions.
Hence too, in politics, there are not many Qu^iker Tories.
There are just a few. As a body, the Fri,?nds are
Liberals, rather than Radicals.
Much Quaker blood ran in Lord Macaulay's veins, and
also, we believe, in those of Sir Walter Scott and Abraham
Lincoln. Many of the prominent politicians and soldiers
of the United States have been Quakers by birth, or near
descent, as, for example, Mr. Secretary Stanton.
The influence of the ex- Quaker element in several dis
tricts of England — especially at Manchester, Liverpool,
and Kendal — is owing in part to a secession of evangelical
Friends about the year 1836, during what was termed
the " Beaconite Controversy." This originated in the
publication of a scriptural and evangelical work, entitled
The Beacon, written by the late excellent Isaac Crewdson
of Manchester, to warn the Friends against the Deistical
writings of an American Friend, named Elias Hicks, and
at the same time to point out that the root and source of
this danger was fairly traceable to deficiencies and errors
in the theological writings of George Fox, and still more
in those of his associates, Robert Barclay and William
Penn. Mr. Crewdson raised as his beacon-cry, " to the
Law and to the Testimony," or " Holy Scripture as the

AND THE BAPTISTS. 37
alone standard of religious truth." It will hardly be
credited by outsiders, now-a-days, that this faithful man
and his supporters (numbering several hundred) were com
pelled to withdraw from the Quaker communion. This
was mainly through an unscriptural reverence for the
traditions and writings of the early Friends, which,
strange to say, had with singular inconsistency pervaded
a considerable proportion of their successors. A worthy
" elder " of the Lancashire Friends once remarked to the
writer — ' ' the best blood of our local Quakerism left us at
that sad Beaconite controversy."
However, the circumstance has been overruled for good
in many ways. The good men who thus quitted Quakerism,
transferred their philanthropic and evangelising energies
to other sects, (chiefly to the Plymouth Brethren and the
Church of England,) and have been widely blessed in
their subsequent influence and example. The main body
of the Friends — aided especially by the influence of Joseph
John Gurney, and the most intelligent and philanthropic
men of the Society — have subsequently come round, with
little exception, to the very views for which their Beacon
brethren were obliged to secede.
In reviewing the whole influence of Quakerism, both
within and without the Society, it is evident that there
must be powerful characteristics, specially operating
amongst the Friends, to enable them to acquire such a
disproportionate position amongst their fellowmen as they
have done. These characteristics are, in particular, those
of their universal education, their mutual brotherly watch
fulness over each other's conduct, their meditative mode
of worship, their union of the social with the religious

38 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
element in their large gatherings, and their repubUcan
sense of inalienable individual responsibiUty to the Lord,
apart from the medium of sacrament or hierarchy.
Further, the man who was the main instrument (under
God) of organising or completing the system of such a
Society, could have been neither the fool nor fanatic that
some of his enemies (including even writers like Lord
Maeaulay) have chosen to represent him as being, on
account of certain eccentricities and faiUngs. He must at
least have possessed rare shrewdness and natural talent ;
(he never received other than the most limited educational
advantages;) and it appears not unreasonable to presume
that he was, in addition, largely endowed with the true
wisdom which comes alone from God, and which is only
granted in special measure to His most humble, obedient,
and prayerful servants.

AND THE BAPTISTS. 39

gHAPTER IL
ANTECEDENTS AND YOUTH OF FOX.
NON-ORIGTNALITY OF MUCH OF THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE
PROMULGATED BY GEORGE FOX — THE STATE CHURCH OP THB
STUARTS— LAUDIAN PERSECUTIONS — THB CIVIL WARS AND
THE PURITANS  CONVENTICLES — PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION
OP GEORGE POX — SOCIAL ASPECTS OP THE TIMES — FOX's
YOUTHFUL VIRTUE— EARLY OCCUPATION — ijEAVES HOME TO
SEEK POR RELIGIOUS COUNSEL AND SYMPATHY — FORMATION
OP HIS THEOLOGICAL VIEWS — SOME DEFECTS IN THE LATTER
— FINDS PEACE WITH GOD.
In the various narratives of the life of George Fox,
and of the rise and establishment of the Society of
Friends, there has been', for the most part, a general non-
recognition of the fact that Quakerism, as respects its
distinguishing doctrines, did not originate with the sud
denness and abruptness that is commonly supposed, as if
it had been a new discovery of truth by Fox, or a revelation
vouchsafed from heaven, for the first tirae, through his
instrumentality. It appears that there was much more
of steady continuity and successive advance in the pro
gress of the principles of the Reformation towards the
comparatively extreme doctrines of Quakerism than the
Friends themselves have usually recognised. This latter
feature — the non-originality of much of the Quaker
system — has, however, been slightly alluded to in the

40 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
valuable and suggestive introduction to a memoir of
George Fox, written (it is understood) by Thomas Evans
(of Philadelphia) and his brother WilUam. These authors
have, to some extent, acknowledged the influence of the
Baptists on the subsequent development of the Quaker
theology ; but the extent of that influence is shown by
contemporary records to have been much more considerable
than even the Evanses represent it as being.
George Fox, both before and after his entering on the
public preaching of the Gospel, associated constantly
with the Baptists, from amongst whom, many, if not most,
of his first converts were derived. He had an uncle,
named Pickering, who was one of that sect ; and he
mentions in his " Journal " that he visited this uncle, in
London, in 1645, about two years before publicly coming
forth as a preacher. One of his first sermons was preached
at an assembly of Baptists, at Broughton, in Leicester
shire, in 1647 ; and he repeatedly records his intercourse
with this denomination throughout his autobiography.
Josiah Marsh, in his interesting Life of Fox, remarks
that "the great object of the Reformation was to draw
people from the authority of the Church, so called, to the
authority of Scripture." But this intelligent writer seems
to have greatly overlooked the continuity of the develop
ment of these Eeformation principles. He does not even
mention the Baptists as influencing Quakerism. He briefly
alludes, however, to the Brownists and Independents.
The characteristic feature of the Reformation may be
further described as the recognition that men may be safely
trusted alone with their Bibles. The Roman Catholics
did not concede this safety. The Lutherans and the

AND THB BAPTISTS. 41
Anglican Church largely, but not fully, admitted it.
The Presbyterians, Brownists, and Independents, carried
on this principle of Christian freedom to successive stages.
The Baptists advanced again in the liberty of private
interpretation, and the Friends have, in some respects at
least, carried it out still farther. But the further process
of this development was a very gradual one, and effected
through much persecution and suffering, especially by the
inflictions endured by the Baptists and the Friends.
It is worthy of notice that whilst the progress of this
fundamental principle of the Reformation was accompanied
in general by a steady proportionate advance of pure and
Apostolic Christianity, the Anglican State Church did
not, in some important respects, improve upon her Roman
sister ; but, on the contrary, whilst maintaining a cruel
and most un- Christian system of persecution towards Dis
senters, throughout the period of the Stuart sovereigns,
she was lacking in the self-denial, missionary zeal, and
personal holiness, which had for ages adorned many
members of the Roman Church. The character of Arch
bishop Leighton was indeed an exceedingly beautiful
one ; and Usher, Hooker, Taylor, Bedell, and other
Anglicans, were also bright Christian exemplars.
In his " New History of England," G. S. Poulton, after
recognising the most religious and tolerant of the Ep*s-
copalians in the eighteenth century — viz. Barrow, Bull,
Cudworth, Leighton, Lightfoot, Pocock, StUUngfleet,
Tillotson, and others, adds: "In all succeeding periods
these illustrious men have been regarded by the Church of
England as her brightest luminaries ; it should be remem
bered that they were educated and trained during the.

42 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
Commonwealth and under the tuition and guidance of the
Nonconformists Owen and Goodwin, and others of the
same class ; and that many of them were Nonconformists,
until the rigours of this time induced them to conform."
(Page 542.)
j On the whole an arrogant and unfervent character dis
tinguished the clergy, and especially the dignitaries, of the
i English State Church, in the interval between the reign
of Henry VIII. and that of WilUam IIL, and, indeed,
lasted long after the latter, until at least the stimulus sup
plied by the rise and rivalry of Methodism in the middle
of the eighteenth century. Throughout that long period,
the leaders of the Anglican Church, with some exceptions,
contrasted very unfavourably with the examples (in pre
ceding ages, or in their own times) of St. Bernard, St.
Francis, Thomas a Kempis, Fenelon, Xavier, the Jesuit
missionaries of South America, India and Japan; St.
Thomas Aquinas, St. Charles Borromeo, St. Bonaventure,
St. Philip Neri, St. John of the Cross, St. Theresa, St.
Francis Borgia (Duke of Gandia), and other eminently
pious Christians of the Roman communion ; and again,
with such Puritans and Dissenters as Baxter, Manton,
Calamy, Bates, Bunyan, Howe, AUeine, Owen, Eobinson,
Brewster, Skelton, Higgison, Harvard, Mather, Roger
Williams, Eliot, Mayhew, Fox, Penn, Burrough, Pen
nington ; the Scotch covenanters, Rutherford, Nielson,
McKail, Woodrow, Crawford, John Brown ; and a noble
army of other like-minded Nonconformists.
How could piety be expected in Bishops selected by an
I imbecile James the First, or a profligate Charles the
! Second ? The whole history of the seventeenth century is

AND THE BAPTISTS. 43
a most instructive expansion of that notable exclamation \
of John Bright: " The Church religious is one thing; the '
Church political is another." Very scriptural are (for the
most part) the service, the articles, and the doctrines of
the Church of England. But inseparably associated as
this Church was at that period with unspiritual and
wicked politicians, her excellent teachings were largely
nullified and contradicted by the practical examples
of her professing representatives, who, like a stifling
incubus, pressed her down in the darkness of cruelty
and ungodliness. Thus her doctrines often became
as powerless as the liberal sentiments of a Mexican or
South American constitution, breathing of liberty and
progress on paper, but converted into a cruel burlesque
in the hands of irresponsible tyrants. Such was the State
Church of the Stuarts. Happily the modern Anglican
Church has shaken off many of these encumbrances ;
• but in this, thanks are not due to herself so much as to
the persistent Christian fidelity and stimulating example
of her Nonconformist brethren, who, from the days of
Stuart persecution to the present time, have boldly main
tained the necessity for a clearer line of demarcation
between the Church and the world, between the Temple of
God and idols.
This antagonism was the source of Nonconformity in
general, and of Quakerism in particular.
That there was abundant cause for the efforts and active
scruples of the Nonconformists all impartial writers admit ;
and this is especially evident from the pages of Church
men themselves, as Burnet and Pepys. (We once heard
a Quaker remark that " Whoever wishes to understand

44 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
many of George Fox's words and actions should first read
Pepys's Diary.")
.Lord Maeaulay writes of the Laudian period : " Every
little congregation of separatists was tracked out and
broken up. Even the devotions of private families could
not escape the vigilance of Laud's spies. Such fear did
his vigour inspire that the deadly hatred of the Church,
which festered in innumerable bosoms, was generally dis
guised under an outward show of conformity. On the
very eve of troubles, fatal to himself and to his order, the
Bishops of several extensive dioceses were able to report
to him that not a single Dissenter was to be found within
their jurisdiction."
Laud was of course fully supported in his acts by the
King, who appeared determined to carry into effect the
memorable words of his father James I., when he exclaimed
to the Puritans at Hampton Court, " I will have one
doctrine, one religion, in substance and ceremony, in all-
my dominions ; so speak no more on that point to me.
No Bishop, no King ! " And presently added, with cha
racteristic dignity, " If this be all your party hath to say,
I will make them conform themselves, or else I will harry
them out of the land, or else do worse. No Bishop, no
King!" It was on this occasion that Prelate Bancroft
knelt down before James and exclaimed, " I protest that
my heart melteth for joy that Almighty God of His
singular mercy hath given us such a King as since Christ's
time hath not been." Prelate Whitgift added (with a
strange idea of spiritual "fruits") that "His Majesty
hath assuredly spoken from the Spirit of God."
One of Laud's greatest means of annoying the Puritans

AND THB BAPTISTS. 45
was his attempt to enforce respect to the Book of Sports,
that impious work given forth by order of King James, to
render, first legal, and then compulsory, the desecration
of God's holy Sabbath, and in particular recommending
on that day (from the pulpit !) " Sabbath exercises,
dancing, archery, leaping. May games, Whitsun ales,
morris dances," &c. Some pious bishops and clergymen
resisted. These were suspended, imprisoned, or otherwise
punished. On the whole, however, the book appears to
have had general clerical approval. The Bishop of Bath
and Wells had presented Laud with a petition signed by
seventy-two of his own clergymen, asking for a restoration
of the wakes and revels. He added his belief that "if
he had sent for a hundred more, he would have had the
consent of them all." Drunkenness, profligacy, and even
murder, abundantly followed from this "wickedness in
high places" being enforced upon the poor and ignorant.
But exceeding pain and scandal ensued amongst the
remnant of godly persons in the realm, both Episcopalian
and Puritan.
It must be ever borne in mind that there was a true
and really Christian Church of Episcopalians at this time,
distinct in essence from the political counterfeit styling
itself "the Church," although inextricably intertwined
with the latter as to its officers and professors. " The
Church religious was one. thing ; the Church political was
another." But the former being married to the latter
suffered grievously in spiritual matters in consequence.
Amongst the numerous cases of oppression at this time
for conscientious resistance to the royal and hierarchical
encouragement of " sports," &c. was the well-known one

46 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
of Mr. Prynne, a learned Puritan lawyer, who pubUshed
a book entitled " The Player's Scourge," severely con
demning revels, masques, dances, and other sports,
" because he saw the number of plays, play-booksj play-
haunters, and play-houses so exceedingly increased, there
being above forty thousand play-books, being now more
vendable than the choicest sermons." For this work
Prynne was fined £50,000, his forehead was branded, his
nose slit, and his ears cut off. Subsequently Dr. Bastwick
and Dr. Burton endured a similar cruel punishment for a
like " offence." Prynne also for a repetition of his faithful
protests was fined an additional £5,000, branded on both
cheeks, the stumps of his ears were further scarred and
burnt, and he and his brother sufferers were then ordered
to be imprisoned for life. Such was a sample of the
Christianity of the " Royal Martyr" and his hierarchy.
It was not, therefore, to be wondered at, that "in 1638
there were eight sail of ships at one time in the river
Thames, bound for New England and filled with Puritan
families ; amongst whom were Oliver Cromwell, John
Hampden, and Arthur Haselri gge ;'' (these ships were,
however, prevented from saiUng by an order of the Privy
Council;) or that, "during the twelve years of Laud's
administration, there went over from England about 4,000
Dissenters to settle as planters" in America. (Timpson's
History, p. 340.)
These persecutions continuing year after year, and
threatening ruin and death to the noblest of England's
sons, the sturdy yeomanry of the nation (most of whom
had become Puritans) at length rose as one man, and,
under the leadership of the sincere-hearted Cromwell,

AND THE BAPTISTS. 47
hurled from their seats of power the faithless monarch
with his un-Christian prelates, winning battle after battle
with the sturdy energy which might be expected in truly
pious men, who felt that they were not only fighting for
their civil liberties guaranteed by Magna Charta and the
Petition of Right, but for the house of prayer, the open
Bible, and the very cause of God Himself.
Meanwhile these stirring events, and the general sense
of danger ever present to all thoughtful men, were deve
loping some of the noblest lives that have ever adorned
our land. For, as the mountain-pine, when bending in
the roaring wind, thrusts its strong roots still deeper and
more firmly into the abiding rock, so, in these political
storms, the hearts of godly men were constrained to
special trust in the Lord alone, and to such a permanent
closeness of prayerful union with Him that a rare excel
lence of bold Christian fideUty was the result.
Amid the conflict of contending parties the Scriptures
were increasingly precious to many earnest souls, their
doctrines became the subjects of the deepest interest, and
religious meetings for mutual sympathy and edification
followed as a matter of necessity. But such meetings
were a new thing in English history, and became a source
of bitter hatred and opposition to all concerned in the
long- vested interests of exclusive priesthoods and spiritual
monopolies. Such meetings (or coiiventicles, as they were con
temptuously termed) had indeed commenced during the
reign of Elizabeth, and had necessarily been conducted
with much secrecy and timidity during the sway of King
James and the • early portion of that of Charles the

48 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
First. But after the downfall of that monarch's ill-used
power, the removal of the cruel Laud and Strafford, and
the development of popular freedom through the successes
of the parliamentary armies, the right of free religious
conference in England was first developed in an open and
general custom. Precisely at this juncture Quakerism
also was developed, and was to a large extent produced
by the reaction from the oppressive restraints so long
imposed upon religious freedom.
Its founder was one of those contemplative, brooding,
but withal boldly resolute characters whom the circum
stances of the time were so specially adapted to foster.
He inherited the intense feelings and religious enthusiasm
of ancestors who had suffered as martyrs for their faith.
His mother, Mary Lago, cherished this fervent zeal for
godly concerns as the most precious heirloom of her
family, and it would appear that to her may be chiefly
traced the. faith in spiritual realities, and whioh was a
prime feature in her son's character. She was a woman
of considerable reading, and of an education beyond that
usually enjoyed by persons in her station. This was pro
bably owing to a deep interest in the history of the great
religious struggle in which her own relatives had suffered
even to the death. She married a husband of congenial
disposition — Christopher Fox — a man whose integrity and
kindly sympathy for others won for him a local reputation
in and around the rural village where he resided, Draytonw
in-the- Clay, in Leicestershire, and where he usually went
by the name of " Righteous Christer." Like his pious
wife he was a zealous attender of the services of the
Church of England. His outward circumstances seem to

AND THB BAPTISTS. 49
have been more comfortable than his occupation as a
weaver might imply, inasmuch ,as his son George at
an early age was supplied with sufficient money to enable
him to live, in an economical style, without being necessi
tated to work for a living ; and indeed throughout his
career he was free from poverty and straitened circum
stances whioh might otherwise have attended the lot
of one whose life was spent in unremunerated itinerant
missions, at home and abroad.
George Fox was born in July, 1624, commenced preach
ing publicly about 1647, was most actively and arduously
engaged in mission journeys, and in suffering imprison
ments, from 1652 to 1675, and died (aged 66) on the
13th of November, 1690, having been permitted to attain
nearly to the "threescore years and ten," and to witness the
final security and estabUshment, by ' ' the Glorious Revolu
tion," of the reUgious and civil liberties for which he had
so valiantly, consistently, and disinterestedly struggled and
suffered throughout his life.
His childhood and youth were not eventful, but passed
in that deep quietude and seclusion which, even in those
stirring times, was a noticeable feature of many parts
of the rural districts of England, jemoved from courts and
camps, disturbed neither by mail coaches nor railways,
accessible often only by bridle-paths, obtaining news from
London at irregular intervals, supplied with wares by
pedlars and packhorses, destitute of newspapers, unlighted
by gas or oil, and agitated by no public meetings, reform-
bills, corn-law leagues, or teetotal societies. But then
the summer sunshine in quiet meadows, and the winter
evenings in snug-built homely dwellings, fostered in
B

50 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
prepared minds a deeper and less interrupted thought-
fulness than the exciting liveliness of these modern days,
when, by means of penny papers, cheap postage, and
universal telegraphic wires, the Land's End and John
o'Groat's House have become, in a manner, mere suburbs
of the bustling Metropolis. Nevertheless, there were
strangely exciting tidings ever and anon conveyed to the
quiet hamlets of those Stuart days ; but the intervals for
reflection were long and still. The whirl of the nineteenth
century had not as yet wrung from any distracted poet the
exclamation, —
" The world is too muoli with us ; late aud soon.
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers ;
Little we see in Nature that is ours."
In the quiet Leicestershire village young George grew
up a silent, pensive, gentle boy, — the darUng of his
mother, who watched with more than ordinary maternal
sympathy the development of the deep spiritual conscious
ness that he had inherited from herself. The boy was in
a certain sense childlike but not childish, docile, obedient,
and most dutiful. He cared little, if at all, for the sports
of the other village lads. It was seen that he was
very observant, especially of the elder folk. He often
startled his parents with grave questions about God and
the things of an immortal existence. The subject of
a future endless Ufe as a simple plain reality seemed,
even in his earliest years, to have taken such a hold of his
mind as oftentimes it is not permitted to, in the most
observant men.
N* The educational facilities of that age were extremely

AND THB BAPTISTS. - 51
limited, there being no national or British schools, very
few provincial academies other than a few endowed " gram
mar schools ;" and as Drayton was but a country village
there was probably no school whatever in the place.
Although thus disadvantageously circumstanced as to
education, George learnt to read and write, being taught,
most likely, by his excellent mother. This very elemen
tary course was all the instruction he ever received. So
that, if in after life his addresses and writings were at times
lacking in eloquence, there was no reason to disparage his
abilities, which were indeed of a bright and vigorous charac
ter. It was very wonderful, considering his scanty education,
that he accomplished what he did. Even his literary works
fill several thousand closely-printed foUo pages.
As George's pensive sober character developed thus
early, some of his relatives urged his parents to train him
for a clergyman. But it was not so to be. Eventually
he was placed with one of those industrious folk, common
in country villages, who manage to combine in one business
several diverse occupations. George's master was of this
description, inasmuch as he was at the same time a wool-
dealer, a shoemaker, and a grazier. The wool and sheep
department appears to have been that in which George
was usually engaged. This was an appropriate occupation
for him, from the facilities it afforded for a contemplative
out-door life. He engaged in it with much interest, and
became a skilful assistant to his master. His quiet, in
offensive disposition, scrupulous honesty and truthfulness,
and his deep seriousness, obtained for him general esteem
in the neighbourhood. His duties brought him at times
to the country fairs ; but these were not congenial occasions
E 2

52 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
for the silent, meditative youth. He was not so ascetic
as altogether to refuse joining his companions in the
quiet ale-house parlours, where the polished oak tables
and neatly sanded floors presented a marked contrast to
the vile beer- shops and reeking gin-palaces fostered by
the unlimited facilities for evil afforded by the lax licensing
system of our day ; but when there appeared the slightest
tendency to drink more than simple thirst required,
George would quietly rebuke his friends, put down
his money, and immediately withdraw in sorrow for their
misconduct. He was most uncompromising in his own
endeavours to maintain a life of inward and outward
purity. In his resolute efforts to be faithful and godly
he often necessarily appeared unsocial and eccentric to
unappreciative observers. In his journal, referring to this
period, he quaintly records, " When boys and rude people-
would laugh at me, I let them alone and went my way ;
but people had generally a love to me for my innoeency
and honesty."
Notwithstanding this goodwill of the neighbours and
the deep sympathy of his mother in particular, George
felt increasingly solitary, from his inability to find serious
friends who could share in his difficulties on various
religious questions. In his lonely musings, those heart-
searching anxieties which have constituted the early trials
of so many eminent Christians, were growing in frequency
and force. The gravest doubts and perplexities were
taking possession of him.
In this condition of soul, finding no prospect of much
spiritual assistance in the remote village, George threw
up his wool-dealing and shepherding, and at the age of

AND THE BAPTISTS. 53
nineteen betook himself to the neighbouring town of
Lutterworth for awhile; but, finding there no effectual
relief for his difficulties, he proceeded to other places,
taking a room at various towns in succession, as North
ampton, Newport Pagnell, and Barnet, and still continuing
his meditations and efforts to obtain Ught and peace.
Many a time he paced the silent woodland paths of Barnet
Chase, " waiting upon the Lord."
Thence he journeyed on to the great Metropolis, to his
uncle Pickering and his Baptist friends. Here he seems
to have found more sympathy than anywhere else, and
some of the pious people in London wished him to remain
with them. This he would, perhaps have done had he
not received intelligence that his parents and relatives
were anxious and grieved at his unsettled state of mind and
at his leaving home. He therefore returned to Leicestershire.
Here his friends thought his mind was visionary and
excited for want of some engrossing active engagement.
It was feared that his quiet life amongst the fields and the
long solitary musings in his chamber at night had been
a peculiarly unsuitable training for a young man of his
taciturn temperament. In order, therefore, to rouse him
effectually, his friends urged him to take a wife. On his
rejecting this counsel he was advised to enter the army.
The parson of the parish, a Mr. Stevens, became much
interested in George's case and often visited him. In
return, the youth frequently called to converse with the
clergyman, and George's thoughtful remarks at their
conferences repeatedly furnished matter for the Sunday's
sermons in church. Mr. Stevens conceived a high estimate
of the young man's piety, and spoke of him to his

54 GEORGE pox, THB FRIENDS,
parishioners as a worthy example to them. But George
did not feel satisfied with himself, but perseveringly con
tinued his inquiries for spiritual consolation. A neighbour.
ing clergyman recommended him to take tobacco and sing
psalms, thinking he needed soothing influences to counter
act his habits of anxious self-examination and cogitation.
George replied, ' ' Tobacco was a thing I did not love, and
psalms I was not in a state to sing." No comfort came
from this source. Another clergyman tried to relieve his
troubles by bleeding him. "But," he records, "they
could not get one drop of blood from me, either in arms
or head (though they endeavoured it) ; my body being as
it were dried up with sorrow, grief, and troubles, which
were so great upon me that I could have wished I had
never been born, or that I had been bom blind, that I
might never have seen wickedness or vanity ; and deaf,
that I might never have heard vain and wicked words, or
the Lord's name blasphemed."
Meanwhile he pursued a blameless, kindly life, notwith
standing his deep melancholy. At Christmas time, instead
of joining in the merry-makings, he visited the poor
widows of the parish and gave them alms. When invited
to wedding-parties he decUned, but in the course of a few
days he would visit the young couple and give them good
advice. He adds, "and if they were poor I gave them
some money ; for I had wherewith both to keep myself
from being chargeable to others and to administer some
thing to the necessities of others." This remark, in
connection with other information respecting his circum
stances, indicates a pecuniary condition of considerable
ease, at least for a person in his position.

AND THB BAPTISTS. 55
His religious difficulties still continuing, George Fox
withdrew more and more from his clerical and other
advisers, relinquished going to church (to the great grief
of his relatives) and spent his Sabbaths in reading the
Scriptures alone in orchards and fields. When urged by
his friends that all believers should go to church, George
replied that, "to be a true believer was another thing
than they looked upon it to be, and that being bred at
Oxford or Cambridge did not qualify or fit a man to be a
minister of Christ." He adds, "to neither them, nor
any of the Dissenting people could I join with, but was
a stranger to all, relying wholly upon the Lord Jesus
Christ." His course of action was not, however, quite consistent
with this profession of total religious independence, inas
much as we presently find him again travelling from place
to place, and seeking such persons as took special interest
in various theological doctrines. Thus, in one locality he
met with a body of persons holding the strange opinion
that women have no souls, "no more than a goose;"
George's thorough study of the Bible in orchards, fields,
hollow oaks, and woodland glades, had furnished him with
a remarkable aptitude for the prompt quotation of perti
nent texts, and he at once met this doctrine with the
words of the blessed Virgin Mary, " My soul doth magnify
the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour."
Next, he came amongst a number of visionaries who
reUed much on dreams. These also he rebuked, and
subsequently many of them became his own followers. In
this manner, passing from place to place, he wandered
through the counties of Derby, Leicester and Nottingham,

56 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
still in much distress of mind, often fasting, holding
conference with men of many opinions, but uniting with
none, earnestly striving after peace with God, but not
finding it.
With all his sincere zeal for hoUness and his youthful
" innocence," George Fox seems to have not fully appre
ciated, as yet, the first great principle of God's way of
peace, viz. the entire inability of man either to justify or
sanctify himself, and the consequent necessity for per
manent reliance upon a full free pardon, as an absolute
and gracious gift through the atoning blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ, by whose death on the cross God rendered
it consistent with His perfect crystalline holiness to for
give sins even to the very uttermost. For inasmuch
as " God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Him
self," and inasmuch, also, as " He was wounded for
our transgressions" with infinite sufferings, both spiritual
and physical, He has for evermore removed "the enmity."
Hence, with unlessened irreconcilability to sin, He " who is
of purer eyes than to behold iniquity," may be approached
with humble penitence by those who have hitherto been the
most impure and sinful of His creatures. To the very
chief of sinners the door of infinite love is thrown open, and
the royal grace of the King of Heaven flows freely to all
who seek it.*
No one can impute the slightest compromise with
* A modem Friend (William Brown, jun., of Shields), in his
work on "Man's Restoration," has, in criticising the defects of
George Fox's theology, very appropriately quoted from a popular
hymn the foUowing instructive stanzas, as iUustrating what Fox, ia
general, omitted to set forth : —

AND THE BAPTISTS. 57
sin where God Himself has suffered for sin. That suffer
ing has sent forth Immaculate Holiness to seek for sinners
in the lowest depths of their degradation, to elevate them
despite of the worst failings, and to transmute, by un
merited gratuitous love, the darkest guilt into permanent
purity. Eventually, after several years of unsatisfactory efforts
for rest of soul, George Fox's prayers were graciously

" Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream ;
All the fitness He requireth
Is to feel your need of Him.
This He gives you ;
'Tis His Spirit's rising "beam.
" Come, ye weary, heavy laden.
Lost and ruined by the fall !
If you ta/rry till you're better
Tou will never come at all.
Not the righteous —
Bimners Jesus came to call."
Christ must he relied on w'hoUy for the continuing and future work
of sanctification and personal holiness, as well as for justification,
"the forgiveness of sins that are past." William Taylor of Cali
fornia, in his " Infancy and Manhood of Christian Life" (London:
S. W. Partridge), shows the root of perpetual failure amongst
Christians to crise from their trying to be better disciples by fresh
exertions of their own strength, so often proved worthless in the
past. He exhorts to daily, total, and renewed recourse to the Lord
for strength to live aright, and to confess, " However much I may
desire it, and however sincerely I may try, I am sure I can never he
any better than I have beeu, nor do better than I have done unless
renewed in the spirit of my mind."

58 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
answered. In the year 1647, at the age of twenty-three,
four years after the commencement of his wanderings
in search of reUgious truth, he was enabled to declare : —
" As I had forsaken the priests, so I left the separate
teachers also, and those called the most experienced
people; for. 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 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
unbeUef, as I had been, that Jesus Christ .might have the
pre-eminence, who enlightens and gives grace and faith,
and power. 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."
In so far as George Fox thus placed his reliance on
Christ only, he found peace and joy. But, nevertheless, he
does not appear to have ever arrived at a full appreciation
of the absolutely free gift of God's grace in Christ. He
was enabled to lead a Ufe of remarkable faith, prayer and
earnest missionary zeal, but it always remained a weak
point with him (as for the most part also with his followers
till near the middle of the nineteenth century) that he too
much omitted to set forth the readiness of the Lord Jesus

AND THE BAPTISTS. 59
to receive sinners just as they are, and to sanctify them also
by successive daily supplies of spiritual strength entirely
from Himself, and not from human strivings, other than
the strivings of an empty broken heart confessing in
fervent prayer its permanent and utter need.
It is perfectly true that on occasion (and especially in the
often quoted letter to the Governor of Barbadoes)' George
Fox acknowledged Christ's work of salvation and an atone
ment for sins wrought by the one sacrifice on Calvary, but if
we regard the general tenor, the prevailing tone of his teach
ings, the full, free, open-handed gratuitous gospel was not
preached by him or his early followers, in the manner
which the general experience of evangelical Christendom
has shown to be most successful in bringing peace and
conversion to the sinner, or in the precise way by which
the Apostlic churches wrought the great work of evan
gelisation. Throughout his Ufe, George Fox too much spiritualised
away the actuality of the personal manifestation and
humanity of the Redeemer. We do not say that he
wholly did so (as some of the Hicksites have, more
or less, whilst professing to follow Fox's teaching) but he
did so to an extent which has at various periods brought
grave dangers and trials upon the Society he organised.
In connection vrith this ultra and unscriptural spirituali-
sation, (or rather, at times, volatilisation,') of divine truth,
he ofteu virtually, though without intentional disrespect,
depreciated the Holy Scriptures. (Some of his immediate
followers greatly exceeded him in this error.)
His favourite style of preaching was, " to turn men
to the Ught within," to " Christ in them." For he, and

60 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
his first followers, held that every man has within him a
"universal and saving Ught," sufficient in itself to guide
to salvation. He taught that this " light!' was the
"primary rule of faith and practice," and that the Holy
Scriptures are not the primary rule, inasmuch as the
Divine Spirit who gave forth the Scriptures is superior to
the latter.
A very dangerous fallacy lay concealed at the root of
this doctrine. Doubtless the Divine Author of the Bible
is a higher authority than the latter ; but if it has pleased
Him to ordain the Scriptures as the chief and universal
source of instruction and guidance for His children, they
are a "primary rule." The guidance of the Holy Spirit
is indeed infalUble; but the early Friends continually
ignored the fact that man's perception of the Spirit's
guidance is very fallible ; generally much more so in fact
than his perception of the meaning of the Scriptures.
Another truth overlooked by the Foxian Quakers was,
that not only a good, but also an evil, spirit sometimes
influences the soul of man, and may readily be mistaken
for right guidance. In so far as inward feelings or
impressions were made a primary test and guidance, a
way was thus opened for the most serious errors.
The Hicksites, a body of American Friends, numbering
about one hundred thousand, and professing a more
enthusiastic reverence for George Fox and his con
temporaries than the " orthodox" portion of the Society,
are largely justified in their claims to be the truest repre
sentatives of the Foxian Quakers. But they have never
theless, under the professed guidance of "the inward
light," denied the deity of the Lord Jesus, styled the

AND THB BAPTISTS. 61
Scriptures a "secondary rule" and "a mere written
book," rejected the doctrine that salvation is purchased by
the personal sufferings of the Saviour, and "spiritualised"
away many other of the plain declarations of the Bible.
Probably one of the most thorough and accurate neviews
of George Fox's doctrines is that by Samuel M. Janney,
of Virginia, U.S., the learned, painstaking, and remark
ably impartial author of the American biographies of Penn,
Pox, and others. He has carefully collated the eight
volumes forming the body of Fox's works. He has shown
by collocated passages that the apparent evangelical tone
of some of Fox's writings (as the letter to the Governor of
Barbadoes) was the exception rather than the general
characteristic of his theology.
Janney, in summing up his respective investigations of
Fox's works, says " he reje&ted the doctrine of ' original
sin,' " — "he rejected the term Trinity and the idea of
tri- personality." " From thes.e and other passages to be
cited in the sequel, we cannot avoid the conclusion that
George Fox rejected the commonly-received doctrine of
satisfaction or vicarious atonement. He did not beUeve
in imputative righteousness." And then at considerable
length S. M. Janney shows the grounds which, as he
considers, justify the Hicksite section of the Friends in
their claims to be the most faithful foUowers and
representatives of Fox and his coadjutors.
Yet George Fox appears to have been virtually more
"evangelical" toward the close of his life, than the
general scope and purport of his teachings would in
dicate ; but with all his zeal to inculcate genuine sin
cerity and hoUness, he nevertheless continually omitted to

62 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
enforce some of the fundamental principles of the Gospel.
The apology for this grave error must be that a large
proportion of the authoritative teachers of "orthodox"
religion in those days did not practically exemplify or
urge the truth that "without holiness no man shall see
the Lord," and that as all sin is abominable in the Divine
sight, there cannot be real acceptance and salvation apart
from an honest abiding repentance.
Another source of error amongst early Quakerism was
the practice (often still observable amongst the Friends)
of speaking of the Holy Spirit as impersonal, as "the
truth," "the inward ^nraczpZe," and the " spiritual seed."
By also continually speaking of the Lord Jesus as chiefly
manifest as " Christ in every man," and as identical with
this " universal principle," the early Friends lessened the
energy and power of the great source of Christian holiness,
namely, affection to a living, personal, loving, suffering
Saviour. Men cannot love a mere '^principle," a mere
abstract impersonal " light."
I Hence Quakerism has had its chief secessions through
Deistical tendencies. The secessions (in 1827) of the
Hicksites, of the Irish Deistical Friends (about the year
1800), and several smaller defections, have been on the
side of this heresy. These very secessions have, however,
proved that Friends are not Deists, but that at the same
time there was in the theology of Fox, Barclay, and Penn
a dangerous defect, a Deistical tendency.*
* Since writing the preceding paragraph the author has received,
through a Friend of Manchester, a printed paper, giving an accoimt
of disciplinary proceedings at that meeting (the largest congrega
tion of Friends iu Great Britain), intended to repress, in 1868, renmei

AND THB BAPTISTS. 63
The characteristic of the Apostolic preaching was not
to turn men to internal feelings, to an " inward light, "
but to Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the Divine Saviour, and
to the sacred Scriptures, to which our Lord Himself
referred, as " they are they which testify of Me." The
excessive spiritualisation by Fox and his fellow founders
of Quakerism was then carried to perilous lengths.
For instance, the term "body and blood of Christ"
was constantly explained as if -wholly spiritual and
immaterial. Thus Penn in his "Christian Quaker" (vol. i. p. 527) :
says : " There is no essential difference between the Seed,
Light, Word, Spirit, Life, Truth, Power, Unction, Bread,
"Water, Flesh, and Blood, only so denominated from the
various manifestations, operations and effects of the same
Divine principle in man." Here we see a likely root
of much heresy. A pious and influential Friend, the
late John Wilkinson of High Wycombe,, who at one
period filled the office of presiding clerk (or chairman)
of the Friends' Yearly Meeting (a position like that
of president of the Wesleyan Conference), and who
eventually quitted the Society (in 1836), on account of
manifestations of doctrines of an objectionable tendency, and which
are calculated to lessen the authority of the Holy Scriptures. These
doctrines are being promulgated by several of the most eamest and
conscientiously consistent upholders, in that locality, of Barclay's
Apology and of the Quaker principles of the Foxian era. They are,
however, most distinctly opposed to the principles of evangelical
scriptural orthodoxy as generaUy held by the Churches of Christen
dom, and by the modern Friends as a body, except by the American
Hicksites, some of the PhUadelphian Friends, and their few EngUsh
representatives.

64 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
what he and others deemed to be its heterodox doctriiie,
has, in quoting the above words of Penn, made the fol
lowing just comment : " Compared with this, it would be
harmless to lay it down as a principle to begin with in
giving children reading lessons, that the letters of the
alphabet were all in reaUty alike, only that they had
different shapes." (" Quakerism Examined," p. 167.)
Probably the weakness of early Quakerism on the side
of impersonal ideas of Deity has had much to do with
its subsequent failure in evangelising the masses. And
further, it has been since the introduction of more evan
gelical views into the Society that the Friends have
chiefly manifested the philanthropic and missionary zeal
which has latterly characterised their sect.
George Fox was a good man ; but, being a man, he
had his share of fallibility ; and, notwithstanding his un
doubted piety, his arduous mission labours, and clear
views relativg to certain important doctrines, he can by
no means be implicitly relied upon on some other points
of Christian truth. His chief power and merit consisted
in his earnest example of personal piety, his infectious
enthusiasm, his judicious ability in selecting and enforcing
the doctrines most neglected in his day, and especially in
his tact in organising or uniting other godly men for
mutual Christian labour.

AND THE BAPTISTS. 65

CHAPTER III.
THE BAPTIST ORIGIN OF QUAKERISM IN GENEEAL.
SUMMARY OP pox's VIEWS — MOST OP THEM ANTICIPATED BY
THB GENERAL BAPTISTS — PROOFS AND VERIFYING QUOTATIONS
SHOWING THE PREVIOUS BAPTIST ADOPTION OF THE DOCTRINES
AND PRACTICES WHICH ARE OFTEN CONSIDERED TO HAVE
BEEN OP QUAKER OR FOXIAN ORIGIN — THE CHURCH "a
SOCIETY OF equals" — ABROGATION OP CEREMONIES— BELIEF
IN CONTINUANCE OP REVELATION — REJECTION OP INFANT
BAPTISM — BAPTIST OBJECTIONS TO WAR, OATHS, TITHES, ETC.
— THEIR RECOGNITION OP FEMALE USEFULNESS IN THE
CHURCHES — THEIR DISUSE OP NAMES OF MONTHS AND DAYS
DERIVED FROM PAGANISM — BAPTIST DISCIPLINARY RECORDS 
THEIR OVERSIGHT OF MEMBERS  CAUTION RESPECTING THEO
LOGICAL DEFINITIONS — SOCIAL INTERCOURSE AS A RELI
GIOUS DUTY — PROTEST AGAINST UNDUE CLAIMS OP HUMAN
LEARNING FOR THB MINISTRY — GRATUITOUS PREACHING OP
MANY EARLY BAPTISTS — PRAISE AND SINGING — PASTING 
MINISTRY OPEN TO ALL MEMBERS  RECOGNITION OF
PREACHERS BY BAPTISTS — MEETINGS POR DISCIPLINE —
DELINQUENT MEMBERS  MANNER OF MARRIAGE  SYS
TEMATIC CARE OF THE POOR — BAPTIST USE OP " THEE AND
THOU" — GERMAN MYSTICS ALSO ANTICIPATED POX's VIBWS
— HOOKER ON THB EARLY BAPTISTS AND ANABAPTISTS —
SUBSEQUENT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FRIENDS AND BAPTISTS.
After several years of profound spiritual exercises,
frequent conference with serious persons of various reli
gious opinions (especially amongst the Baptists), and much

66 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
opportunity for observing the laxity of conduct indulged
in by many nominal "ministers" of the Gospel, George
Fox believed the time was come for zealously extending
his adopted views of Christian truth and ecclesiastical
organisation. In particular he desired to set forth : —
1. The necessity for a practical individual experience
of God as manifesting a living, energizing, and perceptible
presence of the Spirit in the souls of men, not merely as a
" God afar off" filling the immensities of the universe, but
also as condescending and willing to reveal His love and
counsels to the lowliest and most humble hearts.
2. The comparative uselessness of studying the Bible
only as a record of past times, dead men, and ancient
experiences, instead of searching it for practical applica
tions to the every-day life and present wants of each
reader. 3. The duty of " honouring all men," therefore of avoid
ing undue partiaUty, flattering titles, or cringing to the
few whilst neglecting the many who were all alike to
be recognised as being God's children, and as having
a glorious immortal life offered to them through Christ.
Hence Christians should seek to elevate and bless all
men, even the repulsive and the debased ; for these latter
should be loved as possessing dormant capacities of bound
less future development for good.
4. The call and right of every Christian to some re
cognised sphere of usefulness in " the Lord's body,"— the
Church universal, which consists of " many members,"
and has need of the faithful performance of the respective
function of each and every one of them. Hence, spiritual

AND THE BAPTISTS. 67
monopolies were to be guarded against as treason to
the church.
5. The primary importance of aiming at "the essence
and marrow" of all religious matters, rather than resting
in verbal creeds, visible ceremonies, or mere professions.
For our Saviour declared that God seeketh those who are
worshippers of Him " in spirit and in truth."
6. That the ministry of the Gospel, or other spiritual
service, is only to be entered upon under an honest sense
of duty, and to be performed throughout in continual,
humble, prayerful dependence upon the one " Giver of
every good and perfect gift."
These were the main and characteristic principles arrived
at and promulgated by George Fox and his followers.
They were, and are, the essentials of Quakerism.
But these and other kindred principles had, with little
exception, been previously the characteristics of the Baptist
theology also, and more particularly of the " General,"
as distinguished from the "Particular," Baptists. Both
divisions of the Baptists had anticipated most of the
doctrines, and also the system of discipline, adopted by
George Fox and the Friends. But it was the General
Baptists, (who were a distinct body as early as 1608,)
that had most fully arrived at the views and usages which
have been subsequently attributed to Quaker origin.
The differences of opinion which arose amongst the
Baptists (relative to election and reprobation) about the
time of the Civil Wars, resulted in many thousands
joining the ranks of Fox and the Friends. Fox was rather
the organiser or completing agent, than the founder of
Quakerism. One special doctrine, that of the "inward

68 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
light," was partly original as traceable to him, but even in
this he had been almost wholly anticipated by some of
the German Mystics, as Tauler, and by some English
theologians. We will now proceed to verify, by quotation and
historic retrospect, the very extensive anticipation of
Quakerism by the early General Baptists and other
Christians. We find, as a first illustration, that John Smyth, " the
father of the English General Baptists," and a very
intimate friend of the Puritan pastors Robinson and
Ainsworth, who died about a.d. 1610, a generation before
Fox, had earnestly contended for " the beautiful simplicity
of a New Testament church, as a society of equals, volun
tarily associated, to promote the glory of the Great Head
of the Church."
In 1609, Mr. Smyth published an exposition of the
views held by himself and his associates, and in this
he, like Fox subsequently, bore a strong testimony against
ceremonials in religion, saying, "We affirm that all
the ordinances of the Old Testament — that is, the church,
ministry, worship, and government of the Old Testament
—are abolished; all which were types and shadows of
good things to come, but the body is of Christ.''
Like the Friends, too, many of the Puritans and Baptists
believed in the continuance and renewal of inward revela
tions from God. Thus Neal, in his " History of the
Puritans " (I. 476), states that at the formation of the first
Independent Church, in 1616, " they solemnly covenanted
with each other, in the presence of Almighty God, to walk
together in all God's ways and ordinances, according as He

AND THB BAPTISTS. 69
had already revealed, or should, further make them known
to them."Respecting the general influence of the Holy Spirit, one
of the leading Baptists of the seventeenth century — Gran
tham — in his book on "Primitive Christianity," thus
writes : ' ' Without the influence of God's Spirit, illuminat
ing our judgments and heightening our affections, and so
evidencing with our spirits that we are the children of
God, we may talk of much, but we truly inherit very little,
of those virtues of yhich we talk." Another eminent
Baptist of the time — Griffiths — in his " God's Oracle,''
page 30, says: "The Spirit works in us not only by
its own operations, but also in an especial manner by the
preaching of the Word."
Smyth and the Baptists rejected infant baptism and the
baptism of ungodly adults. Many of their predecessors —
the Anabaptists — had rejected baptism altogether, in its
outward use. (Fox and the Friends followed the latter in
this respect.) Wickliffe had asserted that children may
be saved without baptism, and that the baptism of water
profiteth not without the baptism of the Spirit. In the
period after Wickliffe many of the Lollards proclaimed
" that Christian people were sufficiently baptised in the
blood of Christ, and needed no water."
(At the commencement of the seventeenth century some
of the Puritans had declared the unscriptural nature of
war, oaths, tithes, q.nd enforced payment for the ministry.)
In 1615, the General Baptists, whilst acknowledging
their allegiance, in temporal matters, to the civil govem
ment, vindicated their religious Uberty and their responsi
biUty in spirituals to God only, saying. All men must let

70 GEORGE POX, THE FRIENDS,
God alone with His right, who is to be Lord and Lawgiver
of the soul." (Pamphlet entitled " Persecution Judged,"
1615.) For these claims, the Baptists were cruelly per
secuted, especially about 1620 (thirty years before the rise
of Quakerism).
It appears, also, that about 1640, it was not uncommon
for women to engage in public discourses, in at least some
of the Baptist congregations, in England (Edwards' " Gan-
grsena," part I.) George Fox also sanctioned this custom.
About the year 1643, some of the Baptists, Seekers,
and Independents united in holding meetings in the
Metropolis, to advocate full Uberty of conscience, espe
cially as respected the free exercise of the ministry.
Another scruple which was entertained by some of the
Baptists, in common with George Fox and the Friends,
was that respecting the use of the names of the months
and the days derived from pagan or idol times (as
Monday, April, May, &c.)
The entries in the books of discipUne of the early
Baptists are almost amusingly identical in form with those
in the corresponding records of the Friends' meetings for
church "business." For instance, the following is the
commencement of the minutes of one of the Baptist
disciplinary meetings in Huntingdonshire : —
" On the seventh day of the Eighth-month, 1655, at a
general meeting of the congregation, held at Papworth
Everard, after prayer and suppUcation to the Lord, and
some words of doctrine and exhortation, Edmund Mayle
spake as foUoweth, viz. :
" ' Brethren, according to your order, upon the two-
and-twentieth day of the seventh-month, our brother

AND THE BAPTISTS. 71
Denne and myself went to Wisbeach, where we were
joyfully received by the brethren,' " &c. &c.
And so, frequently, if not in general, in the old church-
minutes of the Baptists, a similar form of phraseology
occurs. We append a few confirmatory instances, viz. : —
The records of the Baptist churches at Spalding, Bourn,
and Hackenby, are dated "the 31st day of the 6th month,"
&c., and contain a list of elders, deacons, and six "gifted
brethren," or preachers.
A letter from another Baptist church in Lincolnshire is
dated " From Caxton, the 25th day of the 7th month,
1653." Another letter from the same church to the
Baptist church at Canterbury, is dated " the 31st day of
the 10th month, 1654." It commences thus, " Dear and
holy brethren, — Called out from this present evil world, and
sanctified through the knowledge of the truth by the Spirit
ofour God," &c., and concludes with, "Brethren, fare
well. Be of one mind; Uve in peace," &c. "Your
brethren assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."
The documents issued by the Baptist churches at Ches-
ham and Berkhampstead are similarly dated " the 9th
day of the 9th month, 1676," &c. The Baptists im
prisoned (for conscience' sake) at Dover, in petitioning the
Duke of York for their release, date " the 17th day of the
9th month, 1661." The early records of the Baptists
at Biddenden, near Smarden, in Kent, are dated "the
twenty-fifth day ofthe Tenth-month, 1648."
The Baptist system of church discipline resembled in
many other particulars that afterwards established by
G. Fox, and especially in its care for the poor and over
sight of delinquents.

72 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
The Friends have generally been careful to avoid attempts
at precise definitions or limitations respecting the nature
and personality of the Godhead, and rather to confine
themselves to strictly scriptural terms in speaking of so
mysterious and awful a subject. Hence, they seldom
make use of the terms " Trinity," &c. It appears that,
in like manner, the English General Baptists, in the
seventeenth century, being " sensible of the grandeur and
incomprehensibility of the Deity, and of the weak and
limited powers of the human mind, spoke with great caution
in their explications of the essence and attributes of the
Infinite Being; generally using Scripture terms, and
never attempting to explain and define what they reverently
deemed, in their own expressive phrase, ' unwordable.'" —
(Hist. Gen. Bapt.)
Like the Quakers afterwards, the early Baptists largely
cultivated the social element and mutual sympathetic
intercourse in their reUgious arrangements. In the 16th
Article of the Baptist Conference of a.d. 1611, it was
declared that " the members of every church ought to
know one another, that so they may perform all the duties
of love towards one another, both to soul and body."
" A church ought not to consist of such a multitude as
cannot have particular knowledge of one another." Hence
the Baptist historian observes that " at their first rise the
General Baptists did not affect large societies."
Like the Friends, the Baptists employed some of their
female members in officially relieving the necessities of the
poorer sisters of their denomination. These were called
"deaconesses," Again, like the Friends, the Baptists had, long before

AND ^HB BAPTISTS. 73
G. Fox's days, from 1610 onwards, protested against the
necessity for colleges and learned studies to constitute
ministers of the Gospel. They admitted the value of learn
ing as a subsidiary, but not as an essential, and urged four
reasons, viz. — " 1. The Gospel was at first preached and
brought forth into the world by unlearned men; such
were the apostles. 2. Amongst the many qualifications
required in the Scriptures, to be found in those that
are set apart to the work and office of an elder, we never
find this recorded as one. 3. Experience testifies that
men unlearned in the languages have been very useful
in the Lord's hand, and famous instruments for the
good of souls. 4. In all ages learned men have intro
duced and defended the errors of Popery and persecuted
the true Christians."
It is further stated in the " History of the Baptists,"
(I. 420,) that, in the seventeenth century, " most of their
ministers carried on business " ; and it is evident from their
earliest records, that they seldom received anything from
the congregation, except travelling expenses, &c. And
when the increase of the cause and other circumstances
rendered it necessary to contribute to their support, it was
in many places yielded to with great reluctance. So late
as 1679 it was considered, at Berkhampstead, rs a crime
worthy of church censure to affirm " that men ought
to have a set maintenance by the year for preaching."
Mr. Francis Stanley, an active and godly Baptist
minister in the time of the Commonwealth, declared
his knowledge that " some ministers had spent a great.
part of their outward substance in the service of the
churches ; some their all, and some more than their;

74 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
all ; many being reduced to the affecting strait, either
to neglect the worthy work of the Gospel, or else to
be reported worse than infidels, 1 Tim. v. 8." Here,
again, we see a prominent Quaker " testimony" anticipated
and carried out by the Baptists.
Respecting praise and singing, Mr. Grantham, a pro
minent minister of the early Baptists, wrote that "such
persons as God hath gifted to tell forth His mighty
acts, and to recount His special providence, and upon
whose hearts God hath put a lively sense of present
mercies, should have their Uberty and convenient oppor
tunity to celebrate the high praises of God, one by one, in
the churches of God ; and that, with such words as the
nature ofthe matter and present occasion require,"
As to oaths, the early Baptists' declaration of faith
stated: "We further declare that, as we are to be a
peaceable people upon the account of action, so we look
upon it to be our duty to keep ourselves from oaths,
engagements, and covenants, either for or against this or
that person, government, or persons whatsoever. ' For
because of swearing the land mourneth.' Jer. xxiii. 10."
— Crosby's Hist. Baptists.
In his Journal, George Fox repeatedly mentions his prac
tice of fasting. On one occasion he appears to have fasted for
ten days. The Baptists had also attached some importance
to this exercise. These generally fasted from six in
the morning till six in the evening, spending the interval
in reading the Scriptures, solemn prayer, and exhortation,
accompanied with acts of charity. For example, we find
the Baptist church at Amersham holding a united fast on
account of the trials and difficulties of their congregation,

AND THE BAPTISTS. 75
and recorded subsequently in their book of minutes the
following entry: " The ninth of the eighth-month, the
church kept as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty
God, because He had been pleased to give most of the
things which we had been seeking to Him for by fasting
and prayer." In Pepys's Diary (May 8, 1656) he writes,
at Ipswich, " I had the curiosity to visit some Quakers
here in prison ; a new fanatic sect of dangerous principles,
who show no respect to any man, magistrate or other,*
and seem a melancholy proud sort of people, and exceed
ingly ignorant. One of these was said to have fasted
twenty days, but another endeavouring to do the like
perished on the tenth, when he would have eaten but
could not."
The Quaker plan of recognising and encouraging the
gifts of the individual members of the churches was in
general exercise by other sects during the Civil Wars be
fore the rise of Quakerism, and afterwards in the time of
CromweU's administration. Many instances and illus
trations of this occur in the histories of the period, also
in the general literature of the time — whether Hudi-
brastic or grave. For example, the General Baptists at
Spalding held a prayer meeting every Wednesday, " that
our brethren, as many of them as can, lay out themselves
in such a manner for the Lord as seems most to answer
the gifts given them of the Lord, that so a discovery may
be made of that precious treasure of preaching and
* The Quaiers, on the contrary, were taught to "honour aU
men," and it especially aimoyed the magistrates and clergy that tha
new sect often treated the poor and lowly with as much respect as
themselves.

76 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
expounding the Word which, it is hoped, may tend to the
glorifying of our Heavenly Father and the edifying of
one another."
Others, besides the Baptists, especially the Independents,
taught the diffusion of spiritual gifts throughout the
members of the churches. Thus, William Dell — who held
the living of Yeldon, and was afterwards Master of Caius
College, Cambridge — published in 1645 a work entitled,
" Power from on High ; or, the Power of the Holy Ghost
dispersed through the whole body of Christ and commu
nicated to each Member."
When any one of the Baptist brethren had exercised
his gifts for a considerable time with acceptance to the
congregation, such a one was recorded as " a brother con
firmed in the ministry." In most churches there were
several such recorded ministers. The Friends have
adopted the same plan, using also the term "recorded
minister," or " acknowledged minister."
The Baptists and the Friends in the seventeenth
century alike termed their gatherings for church govern
ment "meetings for discipline." In these disciplinary
assemblies the Baptists " considered • Christ as the sole
Governor of his Church, and the precepts of the New
Testament as the only rules of discipline." Their histo
rian says : " All their records which have fallen under our
notice afford pleasing evidence of this, for scarcely any
decision of moment is entered without a reference to the
texts of Scripture on which it is founded." In this scrip
tural simplicity the Baptist discipline surpassed that of
the Friends, who have gradually accumulated a compen
dious code of discipline — forming a printed volume of 240

AND THE BAPTISTS. 77
pages — which is sometimes administered with more for
mality and reverence for sectarian traditions than simple
reference to the authority of Scripture.
The Baptists held their "meetings for discipline"
monthly, quarterly, and yearly. So do the Friends.
They appointed some of their members to watch over the
others for their good. These were styled "helps in
government." The Friends have similar officers, who are
named " overseers."
The early Baptists attached considerable importance to
the avoidance of " superfluity of apparel." So have the
Friends, though often mistaking formalistic peculiarity for
simpUcity. In 1628 the Kentish Baptists recorded the
following resolution: — "Agreed thatthe soul- condemning
sin of pride be utterly extirpated and rooted out from
amongst us, and that all the discriminating characters
thereof, to wit, superfluity of apparel, &o. be utterly
extinguished." At the Quarterly Meetings of the General Baptists
regular inquiries were instituted into the character and
conduct of the members. The same plan was subse
quently adopted by the Friends, who have framed ten
" queries," which are read and answered in writing at
least once a year, and oftener as to some of the inquiries.
Summaries of these answers form the subject of collective
deliberation at the annual meeting. The doctrines
preached by the ministers formed a regular subject of
church inquiry, as also the regular attendance of meetings
for worship by each member.
Delinquent Baptist mepibers were at first dealt with by
private remonstrance ; this failing, the " meetings for

78 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
discipline " took them in hand. If still obdurate, the
offenders were, after three admonitions, excluded. The
Quaker plan is almost identical. The latter do not, how
ever, require — as the Baptists did — that persons laying a
complaint against the conduct of a member shall certify
the same with their signatures in a letter to the over
seeing officers of the church.
At the Baptist meetings for discipline there were some
times appeals issued for assistance to other similar
meetings — as amongst the Friends. For example,
we find the Baptist meeting at Warboys thus writing
to a neighbouring congregation: "Brethren, — For
asmuch as many differences have happened between
William Dunn and Thomas Chapman, elders of the
church at Warboys, we beseech you to send one or two of
your elders to hear the said differences — and so help the
brethren at Warboys with your advice for ending of them.''
The Baptists surpassed the Friends in mercy to
expelled members, inasmuch as the former sent repeated
invitations to such persons, imploring them by special
messengers to repent of past evil deeds, and offering a
welcome back on sincere compliance. These messages
were often continued at intervals till the death of the
expelled. The Friends, with some exceptions, have taken
little further care of their excommunicated members.
The Baptists also anticipated the Friends in their
thorough care of the poorer members of the church. Their
relief to the latter was very liberal. We find, that in 1652
some of their followers made it a trade to go from place
to place to seek relief from the churches.
The Friends' mode of solemnising marriages is almost

AND THE BAPTISTS. 79
identical with that previously established by the early
Baptists. Both sects required preliminary notice to be
given to the church, in time to allow proper inquiries as to
parental approval, &c. After a mutual promise of fideUty
and affection " till the Lord by death shall separate us,"
the pair " took each other" in marriage, and then signed
a " certificate " to that effect. The congregation present
also signed the same, after which it was carefully regis
tered and preserved. The Quaker custom is nearly the
same. Like the Friends, the Baptists were much troubled by
their members "marrying out" of the church. Both
denominations in general "disowned" the delinquents.
But, till recently, the Friends were more harsh in such
cases than the Baptists, for the latter usually only dis
charged the offenders temporarily ; hut the Friends have
often promptly and permanently dismissed such — by
scores per annum — and thereafter treated them as if
grave moral delinquents. During the past ten years a
wiser and more merciful principle has regulated this
branch of the Quaker discipline.
Many of the early Baptists used the singular pronouns
"thou" and "thee" in addressing individuals. This
custom the Quakers have, as a body, adopted till very
recently. It is now falling into disuse.
Altogether, the resemblance, or often the identity, of
the Quaker institutes with those of the Baptists is sb
complete, that the Society of Friends may truly be termed
an offspring of the Baptist denomination, George Fox
appears to have long and carefully studied the doctrine
and discipline of that godly people, and to have largely

80 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
gathered the constitution of Quakerism from this source.
But it is extraordinary that so very little, if any, acknow
ledgment of the same has been made by himseff, or by
his successors, hitherto.
One of the reasons why the General Baptists received less
attention during the latter half of the seventeenth century
— the era of the establishment of Quakerism — was from
the circumstance that their meetings were often, if not
usually, held in private houses. (Taylor's History, page
317.) Yet the sect was widely distributed over England, espe
cially in the midland and eastern counties, and in London, '
In 1615 the General Baptists published a protest
against the numerous persecutions of their members for
conscience' sake. They complain that ' ' many of them
were exposed to want, lost their estates, and were con
fined in noisome dungeons till death released them.''
Many years later they complain bitterly of " persecuting
priests" who "hale us before the judgment seats." In
Charles the Second's reign many hundreds of them were
imprisoned. The Baptist histories often mention their members as
joining the Friends' Society. Thus, at Littleport, near
Ely, twelve out of thirty-four members became Friends.
*" Many " of the Baptists of Fenstanton and Yelling are
mentioned as becoming Quakers. Similar defections are
recorded in Essex, Kent, &c.
Fox went heyond the Baptists in rejecting all outward
baptism and the outward celebration of the Lord's Supper.
Doubtless the Baptists would say that he here went
beyond Soripture also. But here again the Lollards had
anticipated him.

AND THE BAPTISTS. 81
In the " History of the EngUsh (Particular) Baptists,"
by Thomas Crosby (five vols), London, 1738, there are
to be found many further lUustrations of the similarity of
the early doctrine and discipline of the Baptist Church to
that of the Friends ; but not so strikingly shown as in
the histories and records of the General Baptists.
The practice of silent waiting upon God, so charac
teristic of the Friends, had long ago been cherished by
the German and other " Mystics." These excellent men,
as Tauler, Jacob Behmen and others, were Quakers
before Fox. T. Hancock, author of " The Peculium,"
(prize essay) says (p. 149) : " I do not think it has ever
been noticed that Giles Calvert the pubUsher of all the
first Quaker tracts, was also publisher of the English
translation of Behmen. Some early passages of Pox's
journal are singularly Behmenistic." He elsewhere re
marks : " The Quaker prohibitions of music, of mourning
habits, of gravestones, and almost every other item of the
' Book of Discipline,' arose from the Puritan spirit of
the seventeenth century contributed to Quakerism."
There is now lying before the writer an old folio copy
of Hooker's " Ecclesiastical Polity," printed by R.
Bishop, London, 1638 (ten years before the rise of
Quakerism). In the introductory remarks is a striking
passage, where the author, describing the Baptists and .
their Anabaptist predecessors (some of whom were
Lollards and WickUffites in the preceding centuries),
shows conclusively their anticipation of some of those which
have often been represented as " peculiar testimonies " of
Quakerism. Hooker says :
" Amongst others there sprang up presently one kind
G

82 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
of men, with whose Zealand forwardness, the rest being
compared, were thought to be marvellous cold and dull.
They secretly made their doleful complaint everywhere as
they went, that albeit the world did begin to profess some
dislike of that which was evil in the kingdom of darkness,
yet fruits worthy of a true repentance were not seen ; and
that if men did repent as they ought, they must endeavour
to purge the truth of all manner of evil. Private repent
ance, they said, must appear by every man's fashioning
his own life contrary unto the custom and orders of this
present world both in greater things and in less. To this
purpose they had always in their mouths those greater
things — charity, faith, the true fear of God, the cross, the
mortification of the flesh.
' ' They were soUcitors of men to fast, to often medi
tations of heavenly things ; and, as it were, conferences
in secret with God, by prayers not framed according tp
the frozen manner of the world, but expressing such
fervent desires as might even force God to hearken
unto them.
"Where they found men in diet, attire, furnitm-e of
house, or any other way observers of civility and decent
order, such they reproved as being carnally and earthly
minded. Every word otherwise than severely and sadly
. uttered seemed to pierce like a sword through them. If
any man were pleasant, tlieir manner was presently with
sighs to repeat those words of our Saviour Christ, ' Woe
be to you which now laugh, for ye shall lament.' So
great was their deUglit to be always in trouble that such
as did quietly lead their lives, they judged of all other
men to be in most dangerous case.

AND THB BAPTISTS. 83
" They SO much affected to cross the ordinary custom
in everything, that when other men's use was to put on
better attire, they would be sure to show themselves
openly abroad in worse. The ordinary names of the days
in the week, they thought it a kind of profaneness to use,
and therefore accustomed themselves to make no other
distinction than by numbers, ' the first,' ' second,' ' third
day.' " From this they proceeded to public reformation, first
ecclesiastical and then civil. Touching the former, they
boldly avouched that themselves only had the truth, which
thing upon peril of their Uves they would at all times
defend, and that, since the Apostles lived, the same was
never before in all points sincerely taught.
"Wherefore, that things might again be brought to
that ancient integrity which Jesus Christ, by his word
requireth, they began to control the ministers of the
Gospel for attributing so much force and virtue unto the
scriptures of God read ; whereas the truth was that when
the Word is said to engender faith in the heart and to
convert the soul of man, or to work any such spiritual
divine effect, these speeches are not thereunto applica:ble,
as it is read or preached, but as it is engrafted in us by
the power of the Holy Ghost, opening the eyes of our
understanding, and so revealing the mysteries of God,
according to that which Jeremiah promised before
should be, saying: 'Iwill put my law in their inward
parts, and I will write it in their hearts.' "
Hooker continues this description at great length,
alluding further to their " forbidding oaths, the necessary
means of judicial trial, because Christ hath said ' Swear

84 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
not at all.' " He somewhat severely writes, ' ' when they and
their Bibles were alone together, what strange fantastical
opinion at any time entered into their heads, their use was
to think the Spirit taught it them. And forasmuch as
they were of the same suit with those of whom the
Apostle speaketh, saying, ' they are still learning but
never attain to the knowledge of truth,' it was no marvel
to see them every day broach some nev? thing not heard of
before, which restless levity they did interpret to be their
going ou to spiritual perfection and a proceeding from
faith to faith."
Further on. Hooker speaks of " their wonderful show
of zeal toward God, wherewith they seemed to be even
rapt in everthing they spake," and "the bountiful reUef
wherewith they eased the broken estate of such needy
creatures as were in that respect the more apt to be
drawn away."
This remarkable portrait of the Anabaptists (mainly
based on a similar one in a French writer, Guy de Bres),
if written some sixty years later, might have been styled
in general, a portrait of Quakerism. The resemblance is
in many respects (allowing for some prejudices) minutely
exact. The inference is plain — Quakerism was mainly a
copy and continuation of the Anabaptist and Baptist
system. (Hooker died November 2, KtdQ— fifty years
before the rise of Quakerism?)
And no Friend need be ashamed of tracing his spiri
tual ancestry to Baptists and Anabaptists. (The two
were in general identical, but the latter was the name
mostly given prior to about 1600.) The contempt with
which advocates of spiritual monopolies have sought to

AND THE BAPTISTS. 85
invest all Anabaptists on account of the extravagances of
a few professors of their views in one locality (Munster
in Germany), is most underserved. Even those Munster
men were rebels against the cruelty of German tyrants,
whose oppressions over the souls and bodies of the com
monalty, then actual serfs and bondsmen, were often,
without exaggeration, diaboUcal. They failed and were
rebels. Had they conquered, men would have styled
them heroes and patriots. Their rebellion was fero
cious, because their oppressors had been far more
ferocious. But these few Anabaptists of Munster were not by any
means examples of the generality of Anabaptists or
Baptists. As a whole these Christians were (and their
representatives still are, in the nineteenth century),
eminent for the best virtues of godliness and scrip
tural obedience. And their Quaker offspring have fol
lowed them in the good example, thus received as an
inheritance. About a quarter of a century after the rise of Quaker
ism some disputes sprang up between the Friends and the
(Particular) Baptists. Several public discussions were
held in London, in which it appears that, according to
the general impression of the public, the Friends had the
worst of the argument. The Quaker Thomas Ellwood
(Milton's friend) alludes somewhat cheerfully to the result
of a provincial discussion with Baptists at Wycombe, in
a Latin couplet —
" Praevaluit Veritas ; inimioi terga dedSre :
Nos sumus iu tuto ; laus tribuenda Deo."

86 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
This he thus translates —
" Truth hath prevailed ; the enemies did fly ;
We are in safety; praise to God on high."
However, the Baptist account might perhaps indicate a
different result.
Many years later, in 1717, some weak brethren of each
sect, desired to "discuss" publicly with each other; where
upon the more judicious men of both denominations wrote
a letter exhorting all parties to quietness and peace. This
letter was signed by five leading Baptists and as many
principal Friends, including the venerable George White
head (then aged eighty-one), the last survivor of the first
establishers of Quakerism. (He had begun to preach in
1655 at the age of nineteen ; in his declining years he was
regarded as the Nestor of the Quakers ; he died, aged
eighty-seven, in 1723.)
This letter of advice wisely exhorted the disputants
"not to insist upon such public ways of striving, with
each other, seeing there are other methods which will he
less offensive, and more informing, to them who are in
search of truth." (Crosby's Hist. Bapt.)
George Fox says of many of the doctrines and customs
long previously adopted by the Baptists and Puritans,
that he was " moved" to declare them. " It was opened
to me" is another of his favourite phrases. But it is
plain, from the preceding and many other historic proofs,
that his "movings" and "openings" were not new in
formation, except through the instrumentality and medium
of other raen and their interpretations of Scripture.
Fox's "openings" were in fact his terms for spiritual

AND THE BAPTISTS.' 87
acquiescence with, znd approval of, such and such doctrines or
usages. He explains his own meaning of this in a passage
where he records in his Journal (I. 92), " For though I
read the Scriptures that spoke of Christ and of God, yet
I knew Him not hut by revelation, as He who hath the
key did open, and as the Father of life drew me to his
Son by his Spirit." It is of course utterly preposterous
to conclude from this that the facts of Scripture were
afresh " revealed " independently to Fox. But his own
language is awkwardly ambiguous.
The question will doubtless occur to many, — Seeing,
then, that the early Friends and the early Baptists were at
first so nearly identical in doctrine and discipline, whence
is it that the subsequent influence of the former has, in
proportion to their numbers, been so much greater than
that of the latter ?
To this it may be replied, that the Friends have far
more thoroughly acted out and persistently maintained the
original Baptist principles and discipline. They have been
much more conservative of their early principles and
constitution. The General Baptists have not continued as they were.
Their discipUne has, in particular, been greatly relaxed.
The Friends are their modern representatives, even more
than the present Baptist churches. The General Baptists
may almost be said to have gone over in a body to the
Friends, in many districts; at any rate they no longer
exist separately in their Quaker-like form of the seven
teenth century. In other words, a gradual revolution
has changed much of the distinctive element of the early
Baptists. Charles H. Spurgeon is perhaps their nearest

88 OEORGB FOX, THE FRIENDS,
modern representative as a Baptist, and hence, as is well
known, he has large unity with the Friends. Hence also
much of his special success as a Christian minister.
Further, the doctrine of individual religious responsi
bility was carried out much further by Fox than by the
General Baptists. He far more absolutely referred his
hearers to the sufficiency of individual personal access to
God for all reUgious and moral purposes. He also more
fully and repeatedly recognised the perceptibility and the
individualising visitations of the Spirit of God. Hence
the Friends have attained an unequalled activity by their
freedom from mediate and ministerial control in reUgious
matters, whilst still retaining reverence and fidelity to
their one Lord by individual independent access.
The generaUty of other sects (the modern Baptists
included), with all their excellencies, do not so fully leave
their members alone with God. They interpose more of
the authority or special influence of spiritual chiefs and
pastors, instead of the more direct theocratic rule of the
republic of Friends.

AND THB BAPTISTS. 89

CHAPTER IV.
FOX'S FIRST MINISTRY IN THE MIDLANDS AND IN
YORKSHIRE.
COMMENCEMENT OP FOx's MINISTRY — SILENT WORSHIP —
CONFLICTS IN THB VALE OP BELVOIR — DIVINITY, PHYSIC,
AND LAW — PIRST IMPRISONMENT — VIOLENTLY ASSAULTED
AT MANSFIELD — AGAIN IMPRISONED AT DERBY — LICHFIELD
ADVENTURE — ON CHRISTIAN PERFECTION — UNDERGOES
GREAT OPPOSITION IN YORKSHIRE — THE CHURCH "MILI
TANT" AT YORK, WAKEFIELD, DONCASTER, ETC. — THE MAN
IN LEATHER BREECHES — FAVOURED BY THE SOLDIERY
— CROMWELL — PHYSICAL ASPECTS OP ENGLAND IN THE
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY — THE CLERGY AND THE YEOMANRY.
There is a remarkable contrast observable between the
ripened Christian judgment manifested by George Fox in
the middle and concluding stages of his life, as compared
mth the rashness sometimes exhibited during his first
years of public action. By the fervours of young and
inexperienced zeal he was then involved in much trouble.
His discourses were mainly of two kinds ; first, those
for the edification and comfort of awakened persons ;
secondly, those for the denunciation of evil-doers and
of presumed sources of error. The latter class of addresses
was often of questionable effect as to any good, and
was certainly productive of sturdy opposition and bitter
passion. It is instructive to observe how, in the New

90 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
Testament, the denunciatory passages, even of inspired
writers, are few and far between. The Gospel is, as
its name implies, good tidings of great joy — the invita
tions of the united love and holiness of God in Christ. If
this principle had been more fully recognised by the early
Friends much greater success might have attended their
labours, and with far less strife and pain. Yet the
preaching of the cross will always be "an offence''
or " foolishness" to a certain class of hearers.
Xjfeorge Fox's public ministry commenced about 1647,
and was chiefly addressed, at first, to companies of serious
persons scattered through parts of Leicestershire, Warwick,
Derby, and Nottingham. The quiet pastoral regions of
the Trent valley and the Derbyshire hills were the cradle
of Quakerism. In these districts the Baptists were
specially the objects of Fox's visits. Thus, on coming
into Nottinghamshire at this period, he writes : "I
found there a company of shattered Baptists and others ;
arid the Lord's power wrought mightily and gathered
many of them." (Journal, I. 104.) In Leicestershire also
he says, at this time, " There were some Baptists in that
county whom I desired to see and speak with." In
other parts of England, subsequently, the Baptists, at
least the " General" Baptists, united them,selves to Fox
"in shoals."
The chief matter urged upon these companies of pious
persons was the importance of cultivating inward watchful
communion with the Spirit of the Lord. This eminently
edifying exercise was generally styled by George Fox
' ' waiting ' ' upon God . ' ' The Mystics, ' ' a very interesting,
much misrepresented, but undoubtedly holy, class of

AND THE BAPTISTS. 9l
persons, have usually styled it " recollectedness of spirit."
Some of the Moravians also cherish the same exercise,
hilt with more direct reference to the contemplation of the
presence (at God's right hand in heaven) of tho glorified
Person of the Lord Jesus.
As George Fox's auditors increased in the cultivation
of. this habit, especially in their collective gatherings,
their assemblies became characterised by a remarkable
Solemnity which powerfully affected many beholders, often
gained further adherents, and exercised a powerful and
permanent effect on the life and conversation of those who
practised these earnest prayerful introspections and retro
spections. A description of Fox and the Quaker meetings
at this early period, is thus given by Thomas Thompson,
one of the first Friends gathered in Yorkshire :
" In the fore part of the year 1652 it pleased the Lord
to order His faithful and valiant servant and messenger,
dear George Fox, into these parts ; but I had not then
Opportunity to see him, though I greatly desired it. But
some of my familiars that were with him, gave me an
account of his manner of life, and also of his doctrine;
they told me that he was in his behaviour very reserved,
not using any needless words or discourses that tended
not to edification, and thus he used not respect of persons,
very temperate in his eating and drinking, his apparel
homely yet decent ; as for his doctrine he directed people
to the light of Christ in their consciences, to guide them'
to God.
" Now it happened that about the sixth or seventh
raonth of the year' 1652, we heard of a people raised up
at or about Malton that were called Quakers ; which was

92 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
the first time that I heard of that name being given to
any people. They were by most persons spoken against ;
but when I strictly enquired what any had to lay to their
charge, that might give cause for such aspersions as were
thrown upon them, I met with none who could justly
accuse them of any crime ; only they said they were a
fantastical and conceited people, and burnt their lace and
ribbons and other superfluous things which formerly they
used to wear, and that they fell into strange fits of
quaking and trembling." On the arrival of the Friends
near Bridlington, with William Dewsbury (a companion
of George Fox), T. T. went to see them. He adds:
" Coming into the room where William was, I found him
writing, and the rest of his company were sitting in great
silence, seeming to be much retired in mind and fixed
towards God ; their countenances, grave and solid withal,
preached unto me and confirmed what I had before be
lieved, that they were the people of the Lord. After a
Uttle time William ceased writing, and many of the
town's-people coming in, he began, in the power and
wisdom of God, to declare the truth. And oh, how was
my soul refreshed ; and the witness of God reached in
my heart ; I cannot express it with pen. I had never
heard nor felt the like before, for he spake as one having
authority and not as the scribes ; so that if all the world
said nay I could have given my testimony that it was the
everlasting truth of God.
" And in the same month my mouth was livingly
opened to declare the name of the Lord and preach
repentance to the people ; and the work of the Lord
prospered in the hands of His faithful servants ; and I

AND THB BAPTISTS. 93
knew a bridle to my tongue, and was greatly afraid lest I
should offend Him in thought, word, or deed."
Whilst comforting and instructing many companies of
such pious persons in the Midlands, George Fox at times
had returns of his former inward conflicts. Thus,
whilst preaching in the Vale of Belvoir, he records :
" One morning, as I was sitting by the fire, a great cloud
came over me, and a temptation beset me ; but I sat still.
And it was said, " All things come by nature." But as I
sat still and said nothing, the people of the house per
ceived nothing. And as I sat still under it and let it
alone, a living hope arose in me and a true voice, which
said, ' There is a living God, who made all things.'
And immediately the cloud and temptation vanished
away — and I praised the Uving God. After some time I
met with some people who had a notion that there was no
God, but that all things came by nature. I had a great
dispute with them, and overturned them, and made some
of them confess that there is a living God. Then I
saw that it was good that I had gone through that
exercise." '
Fox's indignation was greatly excited against the ex
clusiveness of the clergy, and especially against making a
mere profession of preaching, and against undue reverence
for churches. Inasmuch as the term a " Church " is in
the Bible applied to any congregation of believers. Fox
refused to use it in speaking of a building, holding also
that episcopal consecration was a delusion. Hence he
and his companions usually styled the Church edifices
"steeple-houses." George says, " The Lord opened to me three things,

94 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
relating to those three great professions in the world,
physic, divinity (so called) and law. He showed me that
the physicians were out oi the wisdom of God ; that the
priests were out of the true faith, which Christ is the
author of, the faith which purifies and gives victory ; also
that the lawyers were out of the equity, and out of the
true justice and out of the law of God."
' ' But the black earthly spirit of the priests wounded
my life ; and when I heard the bell toll to call people
together to the steeple-house, it struck at my life ; for it
was just like a market- bell to gather people together,
that the priest might set forth his wares to sale. Oh !
the vast sums of money that are gotten by the trade they
make of selling the scriptures, and by their preaching, from
the highest bishop to the lowest priest ! What one trade
else in the world is comparable to it? " (Journal I. 117.)
With these feelings, George came one day in 1649, to
Nottingham, and there his attention was attracted to a
large church on the hill, of which he writes : " The Lord
said unto me, ' Thou must go and cry against yonder great
idol, and against the worshippers therein.' When I came
there, all the people looked like fallow-ground, and the
priest (like a great lump of earth) stood in his pulpit
above." Here George interrupted the minister whilst
preaching, and, it must be acknowledged, very inap
propriately. It was not to be wondered at that he
was speedily stopped. He adds, "As I spoke thus
amongst them, the officers came and took me away
and put me into a nasty stinking prison, the smeU
whereof got so into my nose and throat, that it very much
annoyed mc."

AND THB BAPTISTS. 95
After an imprisonment of " a pretty long time" in
Nottingham Gaol, George was liberated, and proceeded to
Mansfield Woodhouse. Unintimidated by his recent
confinement he writes, " I was moved to go into the
steeple-house there and declare the truth to the priest and
people ; but the people fell upon me in great rage, struck
me down, and almost stifled and smothered me ; and I was
cruelly beaten and bruised by them with their hands, bibles
and sticks. Then they haled me out, though I was hardly
able to stand, and put me into the stocks, where I sat some
hours; and they brought dog-whips and horse-whips,
threatening to whip me." Eventually these cowardly
savages stoned their visitor out of the town.
In other places he was received with kindness, and
many persons embraced his views, and took to the habit
of worshipping in the silent, contemplative, "waiting"
reverence of soul which he recommended. At Coventry
he heard of some fanatics confined in the gaol there,
who denied the existence of God. He says, " As I walked
towards the gaol the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
¦' My love was always to thee, and thou art in My love.' And
I was ravished with the sense of the love of God, and
greatly strengthened in my inward man." Arrived at the
prison, he found in it a wild group of "Ranters" who
professed to be God. George, with his usual shrewd
repartee, promptly confounded them by a few such
questions as " Whether it will rain to-morrow ? " &c.
Continuing his itinerant ministry he came to Derby,
and going into the church, waited till the service was
ended, when he began to address the people there. This
was a custom often permitted in those days, provided it

96 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
were done with order and courtesy. However, George was
arrested and eventually imprisoned for blasphemy. This
charge was based upon his declarations that he was " in
the paradise of God; " and on being asked if he had no
sin, he replied, " Christ, my Saviour, has taken away my
sin, and in Him there is no sin."
As we have already remarked. Fox was throughout his
Ufe a man of a truly reverend and godly spirit ; but in his
early career, and amid the excitements of the times and of
the novelty of his own position, he often laid himself open
to serious misunderstandings by some of his expressions,
and by the positive assertion of his individual feelings as
the communications of the Lord's Spirit. This was a
common error with many persons in that and the pre
ceding age. Concerning such, the judicious Hooker
pertinently writes : " Most sure it is that when men's
affections do frame their opinions, they are, in defence of
error, more earnest a great deal than — for the most part
— sound believers in the maintenance of truth apprehended
according to the nature of that evidence which Scripture
yieldeth. It is not, therefore, the feiwent earnestness of
their persuasions, but the soundness of those reasons where
upon the same is built, which must declare their opinions
in these things to have been wrought by the Holy Ghost,
and not by the fraud of that evil spirit which, even in his
illusions, is strong."
Some of George Fox's early utterances were certainly
lacking in the common sense which in general character
ised him. Thus, at one time he declares, " Now was I
come up in spirit through the fiaming sword into the
paradise of God. All things were new. I knew nothing

AND THB BAPTISTS. 97
hut pureness, and innoeency and righteousness, being
renewed up into the image of God by Jesus Christ ; so
that I say I was come up to the state of Adam which he
was in before he fell." Again, " In the year 1648, I saw
there was a great crack to go throughout the earth, and a
great smoke to go as the crack went ; and that after the
crack there should be a great shaking ; this was the earth
in people's hearts which was to be shaken," &c. On
another occasion, seeing at a distance the three spires
of Lichfield, he records, " They struck at my life.
I stepped away and went by my eye over hedge and
ditch till I came within a mile of Lichfield." Here,
although it was winter, he took off his shoes, being so
" commanded by the Lord," and proceeding barefoot into
the city, went up and down the street crying out, " Woe
to the bloody city of Lichfield ! " Having discharged
this apprehended duty, he did what most reasonable men
would have done beforehand, viz. he began to consider
" why, or for what reason, I should be sent to cry against
that city, and call it the bloody city." " Afterwards I
came to understand, that in the Emperor Diocletian's time
a thousand Christians were martyred in Lichfield." With
this very vague and questionable "reason" George appears
to have satisfied himself.
A few harmless escapades and rhapsodies, such as the
preceding, have led to Fox being styled a fanatic and a
ranter by his enemies. But these were exceptional occur
rences. The main tenour of his life, especially in later
years, was characterised by wonderful prudence and
Christian wisdom. Some of his friends have injured his
character, by refusing to concede the error of some of his

98 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
early weaknesses . As to his professions of ' ' innocence ''and
being " without sin," we may remember that, in a certain
sense, the New Testament recognises perfection as an
attainable duty in this life. Peter exhorts : "Be diligent
that ye may be found of Him in peace, without spot, and
blameless." (2 Pet. iii. 14.) Paul prays for the Thessa
lonians, " The very God of peace sanctify you wholly,"
(1 Thess. V. 23,) and exhorts the Romans : " Present
your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God.
(Rom. xii. 1.)
But George Fox and the early Friends sometimes spoke
ambiguously of " perfection," and hence gave offence even
to good men. They did not with sufficient clearness
represent this requirement to be a thoroughly repentant
trust for the gift of justification or perfect pardon for past
sins, through the propitiation of the Lord Jesus, and con
tinual prayerful dependence on the same Lord Jesus for
perfect sanctification also, or for the whole supply of the
present and future daily recurring need for strength to
continue in His way.
Of this condition William Taylor, the Californian
Methodist "revivalist," says: "The very nature ofthe
work shows its adaptation to this life. The idea of a
soldier never becoming loyal till he is dying ; or of a wife
remaining infidel to her husband till she is closing her
eyes in death ! The idea that we can't be holy till we
come to die is ridiculous. The heart may be full of love
to-day, but will expand and contain more to-morrow.
Christian perfection, instead of fixing a limit to Christian
attainment, is the grand preliminary basis for a rapid,
felicitous, growing up into Christ, that wiU certainly go

AND THE BAPTISTS. 99
on to the close of our mortal struggle, and will probably
be as illimitable as eternity." — " Infancy and Manhood of
Christian Life." London: S. W. Partridge.
But George Fox's plea of perfection at Derby was
deemed heretical and dangerous ; and for this and other
statements he was detained a year in prison there. George
manifested so much patience, goodwill, and cheerfulness
in his confinement, that he gained many friends amongst
those who visited him. The jailor treated him with great
kindness, and permitted him privileges not accorded to
the other prisoners. George's relatives came to see him,
and were much troubled, "for they looked upon it to be a
great shame, to them, for me to be imprisoned for reli
gion ; and some thought I was mad because I stood for
purity and righteousness and perfection."
It was during this imprisonment at Derby that the name
"Quaker" was first applied to George Fox, because he
often exhorted his hearers to quake and fear before the
mighty power of God. On some occasions violent
tremblings seized the early Friends during their united
prayers. After his discharge from Derby gaol, in 1651, he pro
ceeded to Yorkshire, and preached in various parts of that
county, especially in Holderness, the eastern coast, and
Cleveland, not fearing to rebuke the "priests" again in
their " steeple-houses." Thus, at one place, the clergy
man preached from the text, ' ' Ho ! every one that
thirsteth, come ye to the waters ; yea come, buy wine and
milk without money and without price." Whereupon
George exclaimed, " Come down, thou deceiver. Dost
thou bid people come freely, and take of the water of
H 2

100 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
Ufe freely, and yet thou takest three hundred pounds a
year of them for preaching the Scriptures to them?
Mayest thou not blush for shame?"
Many of the Yorkshire men, especially the intelligent
yeomanry, received George's doctrines vrilUngly, and
became his followers. Others — chiefly of the ignorant
and poorer class — treated him with much cruelty. At one
place he was refused food or lodging at an .inn, and
obliged to lie in a haystack all night in the rain and snow,
it being only three days before Christmas. At another
place he was compelled to lodge amongst the furze bushes.
Indeed, at that time he says, "I lay many weeks vrithout
doors." At Tickhill, near Doncaster, when he began to speak'
in the church — not during the service or sermon — he
writes : " They immediately fell upon me, and the clerk
up with his Bible as I was speaking, and struck me on
the face with it, so that my face gushed out vrith blood,
and I bled exceedingly in the steeple-house. Then the
people cried, ' Let us have him out of the church ; ' and
when they had got me out they beat me exceedingly, and
threw me down and over a hedge ; and afterwards they
dragged me through a house into a street, stoning me and
beating me as they dragged me along, so that I was all
over besmeared with blood and dirt. They took 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."
Similarly, he was thrust out of Wakefield church on a
Sabbath-day, the people "punching and beating me."

AND THB BAPTISTS. 101
Thereabouts, also, George's lodging accommodation was
very comfortless ; for one night he and three companions
lay in a hedge, and another night in a wood, where, he
says, " we were very wet, for it rained exceedingly." Soon
afterwards he mentions spending the night on a common,
on some fern or bracken.
At York, George went into the fine old Minster, where
he was invited by the worshippers to speak. He told
them that " they lived in words, but God Almighty looked
for fruits among them." He says, " As soon as the
words were out of my mouth, they hurried me out and
threw me down the steps." From Doncaster church also
he was hurried out, thrown down, and haled before the
magistrates. At Balby he was stoned.
Nevertheless, his preaching was very impressive in
general and excited deep thoughtfulness, amongst the
yeomanry in particular. Many of the clergy and their
hearers were alarmed when the rumour spread that ' ' the
man in leathern breeches is come." George records, "At
the hearing thereof the priests in many places would get
out of the way, they were so struck with the dread of the
etemal power of God ; and fear surprised the hypocrites."
He had need of leather breeches during the rough travel
and whilst lodging in hedges and brakes, to say nothing
of the pushings, halings, and violent assaults of his
infuriated adversaries in many places. Nothing but the
most substantial vestments could keep him in tidy trim
amid such experiences.
And, after his receptipn in the various ""steeple-houses,"
it is no matter of surprise that his associations with eccle
siastical buildings were neither poetical nor reverential.

102 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
The fearless boldness and indomitable perseverance of
Fox won him many admirers amongst the soldiers. He
was again and again urged to enter the army, and was
offered the command of a company if he would accept it.
But he repeatedly refused, feeling himself called to fight
with spiritual rather than carnal weapons. The stem,
but honest-hearted Cromwell, recognised the sterling sense
and goodness of George Fox, and, with tears in his eyes,
exclaimed to him after his first interview, " Come again,
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." However, Fox was no courtier, and did not seek
for further intimacy with the Protector or his chief men.
Even on this occasion he refused to accept Oliver's kindly-
offered hospitality when invited to dine at Whitehall.
Hereupon the Protector remarked, " Now I see there is
a people risen and come up that I cannot win either with
gifts, honours, offices, or places ; but all other sects and
people I can," Fox adds, " It was told him again that
we had forsaken our own, and were not like to look for
such things from him."
Truly a remarkable and unparalleled disinterestedness
characterised George Fox and the early Friends, as was
abundantly evidenced in their lifelong sacrifices for the
Gospel, in the face of tremendous opposition, and without
hope of any earthly reward.
The difficulties of the itinerant ministry of the first
Friends were greatly increased by the absence of roads in
most districts of the kingdom, the small number of inns,
and the extensive tracks of unpeopled wilderness which
then occupied the sites of oiir modern crowded towns and

AND THE BAPTISTS. 103
fertile estates. Lord Maeaulay (speaking of a period
forty years later than the rise of Quakerism) says, "Could
the England of 1685 be, by some magical process, set •
before our eyes, we should not know one landscape in a
hundred, or one building in ten thousand." " From
those books and maps (of the seventeenth century) it is
clear that many routes which now pass through an end
less succession of orchards, hayfields, a,nd beanfields, then
ran through nothing but heath, swamp, and warren."
Thousands of deer fed in the forests around London,
especially in Enfield Chase. In various parts of the land
the sportsmen at times made great massacres of foxes,
wild cats, and fen eagles. " On all the downs from the
British Channel to Yorkshire huge buzzards strayed in
troops of fifty or sixty. The marshes of Cambridge and
Lincolnshire were covered during some months of every
year by immense clouds of cranes." Salt meat was the
general diet of English households in winter ; vegetables
were few and scarce. The wages of agricultural labourers
were four shillings a week. Horses were purchased for
about fifty shillings each. Coal was only used in a few
places easily accessible from the pits.
Only four provincial towns in England contained at
this period as many as 10,000 inhabitants. Many
of our populous and busy seats of nineteenth-century
industry were then the haunts of wild animals, or, at
best, consisted of a few rural cottages. All travel, with
the very rare exception of a coach for wealthy ladies, was
performed on horseback or on foot, leisurely and with
much peril from hindrances of quagmires and floods, to
say nothing of freebooters.

104 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
The squires were a set of ignorant rustic magnates, Uttle
superior (except in wealth) to the poorest of the people.
The clergy also were, as a body, very ignorant, and still
more bigoted and harsh, except in the Metropolis and the
Universities and in the case of a few isolated worthies
elsewhere. Intelligence and virtue were mainly to be
found amongst the yeomanry or the small freeholders — a
much larger body then, in proportion to the population,
than they are now — who were, as a class, Nonconformists,
and who constituted the strength and flower of the vic
torious armies of the Commonwealth — the most valiant
and most pious legions the world has ever witnessed, and
only approached subsequently by the intelligent volunteers
sent forth in our own days from the innumerable freehold
homes of the United States to maintain the Uberties of
their great republic against the advocates of a slavery
hardly worse in kind than that attempted by Laud and
Strafford.

AND THE BAPTISTS. 105

CHAPTER V.
SUCCESS IN THE NORTH— QUAKERISM ESTABLISHED.
IN WESTMORELAND AND LANCASHIRE — FIRBANK CHAPEL —
GAINS NUMEROUS AND ZEALOUS COADJUTORS  ARDUOUS
SERVICE — EIGHTY THOUSAND QUAKERS IN POX'S DAYS —
POWER OP CONCENTRATED ENERGY  SWARTHMOOR HALL
AND THE FELL FAMILY — MARGARET PELL — CRUEL ASSAULTS
AT ULVERSTONE AND WALNEY ISLAND  MEETS FORTY
PRIESTS AT LANCASTER — LETTER TO SAWREY — IMPRISONED
AT CARLISLE — RETURNS TO THE SOUTHERN COUNTIES AND
TO LONDON.
George Fox spent three years in the six northern
counties (1651-54) ; and of this service the most in
teresting and important was his ministry in the small
district included between Lancaster, Sedberg, Kendal, and
Ulverstone, among the rocky fells looking down on the
pleasant valleys of the Lune and Kent, and on the breezy
waters of Morecambe Bay. This was a locality which
George always loved ; here he achieved his greatest
triumphs ; here he gained his most enthusiastic con
verts, both amongst zealous lion-hearted men and kindly
motherly women ; here he won his faithful wife Margaret ;
here, too, he underwent some of the sharpest persecutions
and imprisonments of his life ; hither he repeatedly retired
in later years, to rest awhile from his arduous labours ;

106 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
here, also, there has remained down to the present day a
company of his most earnest followers.
After his rough experiences in the Yorkshire churches
he traversed the picturesque Wensleydale, Grisedale, and
Lunedale, and thence passed over into Westmoreland.
Here, on the high fells between Kendal and Sedberg, he
preached a sermon memorable in the annals of Quakerism.
It was delivered from the summit of a weather-beaten
rock adjoining the bleak moorland chapel of Firbank,
whither a great company of zealous preachers and laymen
had assembled from all the surrounding district for a
religious conference. George Fox, taking advantage of
the opportunity, came also, and being favourably re
commended by several of the audience who had previously
heard him preach, was invited to address the congregation.
In a sermon of three hours' duration he set forth the con
victions of his heart, and succeeded in communicating his
enthusiasm to many of his hearers, some of whom speedily
devoted themselves to the work of promulgating his views.
Amongst those who, in consequence of this and similar
meetings in this district, became his coadjutors, were some
of the most eminent leaders of the early Friends, and
in particular John Audland, Francis Howgill, Edward
Burrough, and George Whitehead. Edward Burrough
was the Xavier of early Quakerism, a young man of
the most fervent soul, who devoted himself mainly to the
work of preaching in the Metropolis, and, after ten years
of very arduous ministry, died, worn out with labours,
travels, and imprisonments, at the early age of twenty-
eight. In all, about sixty energetic preachers were the harvest

AND THE BAPTISTS. 107
of this northern journey of George Fox. Many of them
were mere youths, but the fervour and prayerful dedication
of their hearts gave them the strength of giants in pro
mulgating their principles in the face of innumerable
difficulties and of the most bitter persecution. As an
iUustration of their activity it may be mentioned that
young George Whitehead travelled on foot out of West
moreland, on a preaching journey, at the age of eighteen,
and proceeded sixty miles to York ; thence, after a stay of
three days, he walked on eighty miles to Lincoln, and the
next day started f6r Cambridge, where he arrived in three
days, and thence proceeded, again on foot, to Norwich.
In this manner Quaker itinerant preachers spread their
doctrine over England, Scotland, and Ireland, and in
a few years to various parts of the Continent, the West
Indies, and the North American colonies.
Although these sixty Quaker pioneers were mostly
young and vigorous, the greater part of them — and
certainly the most active of them — appear to have died
within fifteen years of their commencing the itinerant
ministry. They wore out their lives in hardships, im
prisonments, and toils, presenting themselves as livirig
saqrifices to their invisible Lord, and preferring the ever
lasting certainties of faith to the temporary comforts
of worldly ease.
The period from 1650 to 1655 witnessed the complete
establishment of Quakerism, and probably its maximum
number of adherents.
For, from the registry of Quaker names who died
in London during the great plague, it has been reasonably
estimated that there were then 10,000 Friends in the
MetropoUs alone. And from various data it is similarly

108 GEORGE POX, THB FRIENDS,
computed that the total number throughout the king
dom, at the same period, was about 80,000. Hence,
George Fox and his coadjutors were remarkably suc
cessful, especially when we remember how bitterly they
were persecuted. A harvest of 80,000 followers was
probably nearly as large a proportionate part of the
whole population of the kingdom then as a million
would be at the present day. But from that period the
numbers have, with more or less regularity, continued
to decline, until now, after two centuries of existence,
Quakerism possesses fewer than 15,000 adherents, of
whom barely 2,000 inhabit London and its vicinity. But
whilst the numbers of Quakerism have thus diminished,
its power and influence have increased. The 15,000
now are stronger in some respects than the 80,000
were then.
And there is no prospect whatever of the extinction of
the Society, as some persons imagine. By no means. It
should have learnt the lesson that power for the highest
good may be as largely possessed, and far more effectually
wielded, by a compact disciplined phalanx than by a great
multitude of adherents. By power we would here mean
efficient Christian influence on the world, irrespective of mere
numerical proselytism. For instance, how incomparably
greater has been the influence exercised upon the world by
the smaU prayerful band of one hundred and twenty
disciples meeting in the upper room at Jerusalem after the
Ascension, than of the ignoble hosts of Israel in the reign
of Solomon, of whom it is simply recorded, that " Judah
and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea
in multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry."
(1 Kings iv. 20.)

AND THB BAPTISTS. 109
It is not improbable but that the infiuence of Quakerism
would be still more powerful, and more beneficial than
ever, if its ranks were reduced to a half or third of
its present numbers by the aboUtion of the existing system
of birthright membership. What would be thus lost in
quantity would be gained in quaUty, in intensity, in en
thusiasm, in concentrated vigour of action and influence.
Some of the best friends of Quakerism would gladly
see its ranks thus further diminished under such salutary
conditions. Amongst the spots often visited by George Fox, in the
district we have specially alluded to, was Swarthmoor
Hall, near Ulverstone, the seat of Judge Fell, a worthy
legal brother and contemporary of Sir Matthew Hale. On
the occasion of Fox's first visit there he attended the
morning service at Ulverstone church, and, when the
clergyman had finished, he asked permission to speak,
which was granted. Then, standing on a seat, he preached
an impressive sermon on the necessity of heartfelt sincerity
in reUgious profession, and of an individual inward
realisation of the things contained in Holy Scripture.
Many of his hearers were profoundly moved at this address.
One of them was Margaret Fell (the wife of Judge Fell)
who writes of the occasion, " I stood up in my pew
and wondered at his doctrine ; for I had never heard such
before." After describing the sermon, she adds, " Then
I saw clearly we were all wrong. So I sat down in
my pew again, and cried bitterly ; and I cried in my
spirit to the Lord, ' We have taken the Scriptures in
words, and know nothing of them in ourselves.' "
That evening George Fox, by invitation, preached to

110 GEORGE POX, THE FRIENDS,
the family and servants at Swarthmoor Hall, and with
such effect that the whole household became convinced of
the truth of his doctrine. Meanwhile, Judge Fell was
absent on the Welsh circuit. In three weeks he returned,
and was immediately informed by the neighbouring gentry
that his family had been " bewitched " by the Quakers in his
absence. He was, therefore, greatly annoyed ; but his wife
sent for George Fox, who was still in the vicinity, to
come and explain matters. Accordingly, one evening
George came over to the Hall, and Margaret Fell (after
having, with womanly tact, first taken care that her
husband should have a good supper) introduced him to the
Judge. George then set forth his doctrine, and added
a severe exposure of the conduct of the clergy in various
parts of the country. Margaret Fell thus records the
result of this interview : ' ' And so my husband came
to see clearly the truth of what he spoke, and was very
quiet that night, said no more, and went to bed. The
next morning came Lampitt, priest of Ulverstone, and got
my husband into the garden and spoke much to him there ;
but my husband had seen so much the night before
that the priest got Uttle entrance upon him." From that
time forward the Judge offered no opposition to the
Quakerism of his household, but at once gave them and
their Friends permission to hold a regular meeting at the
Hall, there being no other place in the immediate neigh
bourhood suitable for a chapel. This meeting continued
to be held there for forty years, until 1686, when George
Fox built a meeting-house adjoining the HaU and endowed
it with three acres of land which he had previously purchased.
This Quaker chapel remains, and is still used as such.

AND THE BAPTISTS. Ill
On the next Sabbath, after Judge Fell's return, he rode
off to Ulverstone church, unattended as hitherto by his
family and household, and having merely his clerk and
groom with him. He continued a Churchman to the end
of his life, but always protected the Quaker element which
had so suddenly and so overwhelmingly leavened his
establishment. He was a wise and learned man, in
corruptible as a judge, honoured and feared as a magis
trate, and beloved by his neighbours. He died in 1658,
six years after Fox's first visit to Swarthmoor, at the age
of sixty. His wife, who had married him at the age of
eighteen, was then forty-four. They had lived happily
together for twenty-six years, and had one son and seven
daughters. In 1669, eleven years after the Judge's death, George
Fox married his widow, he being then forty-five years of
age, and she fifty-five. So that Margaret Fox was sixteen
years younger than her first husband, and ten years older
than her second. She survived the latter eleven years,
dying at Swarthmoor on February 2, 1702, aged eighty-
eight. Her last words were, " I am in peace." She was
a noble, motherly, and godly woman, fair in person, cour
teous and kindly in manners, and a worthy great-grand
daughter of the martyr Anne Askew. .Shortly before her
decease she remarked to a friend, " The Lord is with me,
and I am with the Lord ; and in Him only wiU I trust,
and commit all to the divine providence of the Lord, both
concerning my children and grandchildren, and all things
they do enjoy from Him, both in spirituals and in naturals,
who is the God of all the mercies and bles.sings to his
people, throughout all generations. To Him be glorious

112 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
praises for ever." (Quoted in "Journal and Life of
Fox," p. 403.*)
The success of George Fox with Judge Fell and his
family exceedingly enraged the clergy and magistrates of
the neighbourhood; and accordingly they directed the
full vigour of their opposition against the new comer.
The people, instigated by one Justice Sawrey and by
Parson Lampitt, knocked George down, kicked him,
trampled upon him, beat him with stakes and holly-
bushes, and dragged him through the town to a marshy
common, where they left him senseless. Judge Fell's son
ran after them to see what was happening, and the savage
mob threw the youth into a ditch, whilst some cried,
" Knock the teeth out of his head ! " When George
recovered his consciousness he began to preach again ;
presently he was further assaulted, but nevertheless went
boldly back to Ulverstone Market-place, where a soldier
accosted him, saying, " Sir, I see you are a man, and I am
ashamed and grieved that you should be thus abused;"
hereupon he drew his sword and would have attacked
Fox's foes, but George entreated him to sheath the
weapon. He writes, "My body and arms were yeUow,
black, and blue, vrith the blows and bruises I received
amongst them that day."
A fortnight afterwards George Fox proceeded to Walney
Island, near the adjacent coast, and records, " As soon as
I came to land there rushed out about forty men with
staves, clubs, and fishing-poles, who feU upon me, beating
* An interesting hiography of Margaret (FeU) Fox and her
family has been written hy Maria Webb of Dublin, entitled, " The
Fella of Swarthmoor HaU." London : A. W. Bennett.

AND THB BAPTISTS. 113
and punching me, and endeavouring to thrust me back
ward into the sea." Here again he was knocked senseless,
and his friends hurried him back in the boat. But they
were between the horns of a dilemma, for he adds, " When
I was come over to the town again, on the other side of
the water, the townsmen rose up with pitchforks, flails,
and staves, to keep me out of the town, crying, ' Kill him,
knock him on the head, bring the cart and carry him away
to the churchyard.' " He was thus driven away from that
place. Shortly afterwards he was summoned to appear at the
Lancaster Sessions on a charge of blasphemy. Here, he
says, "there appeared against me about forty priests."
The charge could not be sustained, and he achieved a
triumph, having had an excellent opportunity of pro
claiming his views to a large company of the neighbouring
magistrates, several of whom, including the mayor of
Lancaster, became his converts.
He had now nearly accomplished his campaign in the
Lake district, one attended by remarkable hostility and
still more remarkable success. But, before quitting the
locaUty, he addressed a few vigorous protests to his worst
persecutors, especially to Lampitt and Sawrey. In these
protests, which George declared he was "moved" to
write, there were some expressions which might appear
uncharitable but for the excessive provocations received.
Por instance, he writes to Sawrey, ' ' Thou wast the first
stirrer-up of strikers, stoners, persecutors, mockers, and
imprisoners in the North, and of revilers, slanderers,
railers, and false accusers ! How wilt thou be gnawed
and bumed one day, when thou shalt feel the flame, and

114 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
have the plagues of God poured upon thee, and thou
begin to gnaw thy tongue because of the plagues ! Thou
shalt have thy reward according to thy works. Thou canst
not escape. The Lord's righteous judgments wiU find
thee out."
Sawrey was eventually drowned ; and it was often
noticed in those days that the cruel persecutors of the
Friends met vrith violent and untimely deaths. Some of
them, in their last moments, confessed that the Dirine
judgments were indeed come upon them for their merciless
deeds. It is easy now to charge George Fox and his fellow-
sufferers with using language of an unchristian and un
charitable nature ; but the provocation was tremendous.
The meekness and forgiveness of the Friends were in
general marvellous. And if, at times, they could not
restrain themselves, the fault was that of their pitiless
foes. Nor is it surprising that they were especially severe
in their protests against the clergy, inasmuch as the latter
made their cruelty immeasurably worse by claiming for it
the sanction and alliance of Divine law.
George Fox now proceeded further north into Cumber
land, Durham, and Northumberland. In this district,
again, he met with the Baptists, many of whom became
his followers. At Carlisle he was again imprisoned for
interrupting the services in a church. Some of his fellow-
ministers were also imprisoned at this time.
After his release from Carlisle Gaol he held meetings,
many of which were very large and solemn gatherings,
throughout the neighbouring counties, and everywhere
gained adherents and faithful coadjutors. In 1654 he

AND THE BAPTISTS. 115
concluded his great pioneering work in the north, and
departed to Leicestershire, London, and the southern and
westem counties.
Quakerism was now an established fact. It had taken
permanent hold of many of the best men in the nation,
and, meanwhile, scores of zealous converts were preaching
its doctrines throughout the kingdom. ,
Henceforth the work of George Fox was rather that o f
a counsellor and organiser than a pioneer. By 1654 he
had fought and won the decisive battles of his Ufe. The
remaining ones were of comparatively minor importance.

I 2

116 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,

CHAPTER VI.
DIFFICULTIES AND SEVERE IMPRISONMENTS.
CASE OP JAMES NAYLOR — ITS EFFECT UPON POX AND THE
FRIENDS — MANY FRIENDS IN PRISON — GENERAl MEETINGS
— POX'S EXTENSIVE HOME JOURNEYS — HIS REPEATED IMPRI
SONMENTS — SPECIALLY OPPOSED BY THE CLERGY — WHITIIER'S
LINES  PAROLED AT LANCASTER — SECOND IMPRISONMENT
AT LANCASTER — REFUSAL TO TAKE OATHS — SENT TO SCAR
BOROUGH CASTLE — INTEGRITY  EXTREME WEAKNESS OE
BODY AT HIS DISCHARGE  PAROLED AND IMPRISONED
AT WORCESTER  PINAL LIBERATION  THOUSANDS OP
FRIENDS IMPRISONED — THE WORD OP A KING — PATAIi
PERSECUTIONS IN NEW ENGLAND — MACAULAY ON CHARLES
THE second's reign — PEPYS'S DESCRIPTION OP THE COUET
— BISHOP BURNET — FOX AT CAMBRIDGE.
In 1656, a very painful occurrence took place, which
brought great sorrow upon the Friends, but which was
overruled for salutary effects, both upon George Fox and
his followers as a body. One of his converts, named
James Naylor, formerly a quarter- master in the parUa
mentary armies, had preached in various counties with an
eloquence which excited much admiration, and which
especially fascinated some of his female auditors. Flat
tered and excited by a few visionary women, poor Naylor
yielded to some extraordinary delusions. Having imbibed
extreme notions respecting Fox's doctrine of " Christ
within," he permitted these flatterers to address him in

AND THB BAPTISTS. 117
terms which were positive blasphemy. Thus, on entering
the city of Bristol, one of the women led his horse, and
the others spread their garments before him, exclaiming
" Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of Hosts ! Hosannah
in the highest ! "
This procedure astonished even the people of an age
accustomed to religious extravagances. Naylor, with his
party, was promptly arrested and sent to London, where
his case was brought before Parliament and claimed their
attention for twelve days. His punishment was a severe
one. He was placed in the jsillory, whipped through
London (receiving 310 stripes which terribly lacerated his
body), pilloried again, branded on the forehead with a hot
iron, bored through the tongue, then taken to Bristol and
flogged through the streets there, and further imprisoned
for two years. After his discharge, he voluntarily made
public confessions of his sin, manifested the most sincere
repentance, and died in 1660, in a very humble and
contrite state of mind.
George Fox and the other Friends had, previously to
the sad affair at Bristol, warned Naylor and rebuked Ms
conceit. But the event was useful td Fox himself, inas
much as that good man also had, on various occasions,
expressed assumptions based on the same doctrine of
"Christ within," which were certainly dangerous.
Further, he had himself been occasionally addressed by
his admirers, especially by some Quaker women, in a style
whioh was highly objectionable, and even blasphemous, but
which he does not appear to have encouraged.
Poor Naylor' s case came upon the Friends as a terrible
warning. The lesson was sharp but salutary, for it

118 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
effected a change in the career of Fox and many others.
From that period George Fox's language was more
cautious, his conduct more guarded, his doctrine more
sound and scriptural. And thereafter the dangerous
ambiguities of some other of the Quaker practices appear
to have been greatly lessened. But it may be admitted
that throughout the history of Quakerism, at least tiU
the Beaconite secession of 1836, the weak side of the
Society was its danger of substituting for the Holy
Scriptures the asserted superior certainty and divinity of
inward voices. But the Holy Spirit has not ordained that
any inward manifestation should take the place of His
outwardly recorded words of Holy Scripture. The Divine
wisdom of the priceless gift of the Bible is shown by the
fact that evil voices, as well as good ones, speak to the
soul of man, and may readily, at times, be mistaken for
the latter, apart from the check and greater clearness
of an outward revelation cognisable by the great body
of manifestly pious believers in the Church Universal.
At the same time this outward revelation, the Bible, is
a treasure which cannot be effectually received, or acted
on without the additional reception of the energies, and
holy love to God and man, derived from the actual
presence of the Holy Spirit. No words can too re
verentially declare the indispensability of the gift and fruit
of this Sacred Spirit in the heart of man. But the weak
side of George Fox and his followers has almost always
been the tendency to confound the distinctly separate, but
ever harmonious, offices of the Divine Spirit and those of
the Scriptures, and to attribute to the former the fmictions
ichich He himself has positively committed to the latter.

AND THE BAPTISTS. 119
This tendency, however, has been accompanied in
general by many balancing checks, and notwithstanding
its danger, George Fox, at least, practically manifested
an example of honour to the Bible, and of obedience to its
teachings. Bythe year 1656 the Friends were so numerous and
faithful that there were seldom fewer than a thousand of
them in prison during the next four years, chiefly for
scruples respecting the payment of tithes, for refusing , to
go to church, to take oaths, or to uncover their heads
before magistrates.
In 1656, three General Meetings of Friends, from
various parts of the nation, assembled at Balby in York
shire, Ringwood in Hampshire, and Exeter in Devon.
These were large and solemn gatherings, and resulted in
valuable conferences and renewed energies. In 1658,
a General Meeting, held at Skipton in Yorkshire, issued
orders to raise funds annually for the payment of the
expenses of travelling ministers. Hitherto such had
usually defrayed their own expenses. This has often been
the case subsequently. But, as a general rule, expenses
of ministers' transit are paid by the Society. At this
Skipton Meeting £443 was contributed on the spot, a very
large collection in those days. At another General Meet
ing at Skipton in 1660, a renewed appeal was issued for
funds to aid Quaker ministers then travelling in Germany,
America, Tuscany, Lombardy, the Palatinate, Rome,
Turkey, Jerusalem, France, Switzerland, Norway, Bar
badoes, the Bermudas, Jamaica, Surinan, and Newfound
land. During the twenty-five years following his first northern

120 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
journey, George Pox continued his itinerant mission-work
with unremitting perseverance. In this period he traversed
England (repeatedly), Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.
He spent two years in the West Indies and the North
American Colonies, was four times at the Land's End,
many times at Swarthmoor and the Lancaster district, and
still more frequently in London. He sometimes visited the
greater part of England in a single year, as in 1656, in 1663,
in 1666, and again in 1668. In this marvellous energy he
resembled Wesley and Whitfield ; but, in the time of the
latter, travelling was very much more easy than in Fox's
days. The founders of Methodism had some persecution to
encounter, but it was insignificant compared with the long-
sustained, barbarous, and often fatal onslaughts made
upon the English Nonconformists and Scotch Covenanters
in the preceding century.
Thus, in 1656, George Fox was imprisoned eight
months in Launceston Castle, in a filthy dungeon, deep in
mire ; in 1660 he was imprisoned in Lancaster Castle ; in
1664-6 he was again confined for two years in Lancaster
and Scarborough Castles ; and in 1674-5 he was impri
soned for fourteen months at Worcester. On each of these
occasions he was punished on false charges of intended in
surrection, or for harmless conscientious scruples, such as
refusing to take oaths, or uncover his head before the
authorities. And, in general, clergymen were his bitterest
foes and the fiercest in hounding on the civil power
upon him.
Well and justly has the Quaker poet Whittier, in
his poem on Clerical Advocacy of the GaUows, alluded to
this often-manifested scandal of ministerial severity in

AND THE BAPTISTS. 121
former ages, and to its continuance in our own days, when
so many thousand sermons, based on isolated texts (inter
preted contrary to the general scope and spirit of Chris
tianity, just as Satan quoted Scripture to tempt our
Saviour), have been preached in vindication of slavery
(because Paul sent back Onesimus), war, the gallows, and
the administration of a stern and inconsiderately rigid
treatment of criminals and paupers, irrespective of their
usual antecedents and often irresistible temjjtations. It is
a grievous scandal this ; even to-day, clergymen and
ministers are too often fqund sneering at philanthropy
and social science reforms, as "humanitarianism" and as
" sentimentalism." Whittier reminds us that —
" Where Christ hath spoten peace, His name hath beeu
The loudest war-cry of contending men ;
Priests, pale with vigUs, in His name have blessed
The unsheathed sword, and laid the spear in rest,
Wet the war-banner with their sacred wine,
And crossed its blazon with the holy sign j
Yea, in His name who bade the erring live.
And daily taught the lesson — to forgive,
Twisted the cord and edged the murderous steel ;
And with His words of mercy on their lips
Himg gloating o'er the pincers' burning grips
And the grim horror of the straining wheel.
*****
The midnight of Bartholomew, — the stake
Of Smithfield, and that thrice-accursed flame
Which Calvin kindled by Geneva's lake —
New England's scaffold, and the priestly sneer.
Which marked its victims in that hour of fear ;
t When guilt itself a human tear might claim,
/ Bear witness, 0 Thou wronged and merciful One !
That Earth's most hateful crimes have in Thy name
been done!"

122 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
There are some of the noblest men upon earth to
be found amongst the ranks of the priesthood, both of Rome
and of England; nevertheless, too many of their clerical
brethren have distorted the Scriptures of the God of love
to support arguments in favour of objects diametrically
opposed to the spirit of the Bible. Thus, only a few
months ago, an ecclesiastical dignitary of Westminster
Abbey preached a sermon to associate the hangman with
the odour of sanctity !
As an illustration of the utterly malicious nature of
much of the persecution inflicted upon George Fox, it may
be mentioned that when he was imprisoned in Lancaster,
in ] 660, the charge laid against him in the mittimus was,
' ' that he, with others, had endeavoured to raise in
surrection and embroil the whole country in blood."
He replied, "I was never an enemy to the king nor
to any man's person upon earth." Some of his friends in
London procured a writ of Habeas Corpus requiring him
to be brought thither for trial. Hereupon the Sheriff of
Lancaster, in order to spare the expense of conducting his
prisoner to London, liberated him, upon his simple promise
to appear before the judges in town on a certain day!
Accordingly Fox proceeded to London, holding meetings
by the way, and in due time surrendered himself there in
court. When the judges and lawyers heard the charges
read, describing him us such a dangerous personage, seek
ing to embroil the nation in blood, and further learnt that
he had been permitted to travel without guard or restraint
250 miles, under the writ of Habeas Corpus, the glaring
inconsistency of thus paroling a prisoner, committed on such
a charge, so astonished and amused them, that they lifted

. AND THE BAPTISTS. 123
their hands in amazement. Further, none of his accusers
appeared against him, and the King promptly issued
an order for his release. He records of this discharge,
" After it was known that I was discharged, a company
of envious wicked spirits were troubled, and terror took
hold of Justice Porter [on whose warrant he had been
committed to Lancaster Castle and detained there five
months], for he was afraid I would take the advantage of
the law against him for my wrong imprisonment, and
thereby undo him, his wife and children. And, indeed, I
was pressed by some in authority to have made him and
the rest examples, but I said I should leave them to the
Lord; if the Lord forgave them, I should not trouble
myself with them."
George Fox's second imprisonment at Lancaster Castle,
in 1664, was a time of terrible suffering. (The brave-
hearted Margaret Fell, his future wife, was imprisoned in
the same building at that time, and for four years altoge
ther, for refusing to take an oath.) George also was
confined for the same offence, and for being a "rebel"
and dangerous character. Yet, on this occasion, also, the
magistrates, when committing him for trial, had liberated
him on his parole until the assizes, when he faithfully
delivered himself up. At his trial, his shrewdness and
acumen were displayed by his discovery of four flaws in the
indictment, each one sufficient in equity to upset it. The
judge, in anger, exclaimed, "You are at liberty; but I
will put the oath to you again 1 " Whereupon a Bible
was tendered him to swear upon. George protested that
that very book commanded, " Swear not at all." He added,
" I never took an oath, covenant or engagement in my life ;

124 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
but my yea and nay were more binding in me than an oath
was to many others. I was a man of tender conscience,
and it was in obedience to Christ's command that I could
not swear." This plea did not avail him, but he was
consigned to prison. He records, "Yet this got about
all over the country as a by-word, ' That they gave me a
book to swear on that commanded me not to swear at all,
and the Bible was at liberty, and I in prison for doing
what the Bible said.'"
He was confined all the foUowing winter in a tower
which was constantly filled with smoke from the prison
fires, and where the wind and rain also came in freely and
could not be kept out. His swelled limbs evinced the
acnteness of his sufferings.
At the next assizes he again detected several flaws in
the new indictment, but was recommitted and sentenced
to a premunire, which involved perpetual imprisonment.
After some time he was transferred from Lancaster to
Scarborough Castle in Yorkshire, and there placed in a
room with no fireplace and open to the rain and storm.
He describes it thus : " This room being to the seaside,
and lying much open, the wind drove in the rain forcibly,
so that the rain came over my bed and ran about the
room, that I was fain to skim it up with a platter. And
when my clothes were wet I had no fire to dry them ; so
that my body was benumbed with cold and my fingers
sweUed, that one was grown as big as two." His friends
were forbidden to bring him food or comforts. He says,
" Commonly a threepenny loaf served me three weeks,
and sometimes longer, and most of my drink was water
with wormwood steeped or bruised in it."

AND THE BAPTISTS. 125
Truly has Maeaulay written of those days, " The prisons
were hells on earth, seminaries of every crime and of every
disease. At the assizes the lean and yellow culprits
brought with them from their cells to the dock an at
mosphere of stench and pestilence which sometimes
avenged them signally on bench, bar, and jury."
After two years' continuous imprisonment, George Fox
was liberated from Scarborough by an order from the
King, procured mainly through a friend at court, one
" Esquire Marsh," by whom he had long been known and
appreciated, and who now declared that, if necessary, " he
would go a hundred miles barefoot for the liberty of
George Fox." The Governor of the Castle, who had at
first treated him cruelly, gradually conceived a respect and
esteem for his harmless honest- hearted prisoner. Ever
afterwards he protected the Friends as much as he could.
(When, several years later, George Fox again visited
Scarborough, the Governor invited him to his residence
and treated him with the greatest courtesy.) The soldiers
and officers, who had been severe to George at first, said
of him at his discharge, " He is as stiff as a tree, and as
pure as a bell, for we could never bow him."
He was now so very weak in body, when liberated,
that it appeared unUkely that he could long survive. He-
was only able to travel a mile or two in a day for some
time afterward.
His next imprisonment (of fourteen months) was at
Worcester, in 1674. A clergyman there complained
bitterly that through the preaching of Fox he had lost
nearly all the attenders of his church. Whereupon he
prevailed upon the authorities to tender the oath of

126 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
aUegiance, previously knowing Fox's scruples against
taking it. Again his friends procured a writ of Habeas
Corpus to bring him to London, and the Sheriff of Wor
cester permitted him to go up on parole. In London
he was, through some technical difficulty, remanded to
Worcester, but the judge permitted him to be again
at liberty on his promise to appear at the following
assizes there. Here he was once more paroled till a
future trial. Eventually he was consigned to prison ; and
during his confinement his beloved aged mother died, her
end being hastened by bitter sorrow at her son's inability
to come and take leave of her. In 1675, George Fox
was once more removed to London by Habeas Corpus ;
this time his indictment was found to be so full of errors
that it was immediately quashed. Some of his enemies
protested against his liberation, alleging that he was "a
dangerous man," to which Lord Chief Justice Hale
replied, that "he had indeed heard some such reports, but
he had also heard many more good reports of him."
George Fox was, therefore, liberated, and during tho
remaimng fifteen years of his life was permitted to remain
in peace, unmolested by gaolers, writs, or assizes.
Thousands of his friends suffered during the reign of
Charles the Second. That king, on his accession, had pro
mised a Friend (Richard Hubberthorn) , ' ' None of you shall
suffer for your opimons or reUgion, so long as you live
peaceably; and you have the word of a king for it." What
" the word of a king" was in a Stuart's mouth had been
too often proved in Charles the First's days. And now,
in his son's reign, there were, within one year of the
above promise, 4,230 Friends committed to prison in-

AND THB BAPTISTS. 127
nocent of crime or violence ! Many of these died in their
bonds. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, some of the Puritans
had set up a State-church in New England, and enforced
compliance by fines, imprisonments and whippings. (Mr.
Benjamin Scott, Chamberlain of London, has shown in a
recent pamphlet (pubUshed by Bennett, London) that
these persecuting Puritans of Boston were not of " the
Pilgrim Father" stock. They were Episcopalians and not
Nonconformists.) Finding these measures insufficient to
deter the Friends, they hanged four of them. On hearing
of this cruelty, the English Friends immediately sent
a deputation to the King to plead for his interposition.
Charles promptly granted a mandamus to stop such pro
ceedings, and, further, entrusted it to a Friend, named
Samuel Shattock, who was in England, having been
banished from New England on pain of death if he
retumed. To the great chagrin of the colonial authorities
he now returned as a Royal Commissioner, armed with a
document overturning their own power in the matter. It
was a bitter pill to swallow ; but the Friends remaining in
prison in the colony were forthwith liberated, and in
future were permitted the exercise of their religion.
King Charles would not have sanctioned the severities
which characterised his reign, in England, had he not
been over-persuaded by the clergy. Sometimes he
plainly expressed his sense of their evil ways. Thus, in
1667, in addressing the Privy Council relative to the
disorders of the times, he stated (as Bishop Burnet
admits) that "the clergy were chiefly to blame for these
disorders, for if they had lived well and gone about their

128 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
parishes, and taken pains to convince the Nonconformists,
the nation might have been by that time well settled. But
they thought of nothing but to get good benefices and to
keep a good table."
The times were indeed awful. Licentiousness, hypocrisy,
and cruelty were rampant. Scotland's fair landscapes
were the scenes of martyrdom and butchery, and in
England 2,000 of the most virtuous ministers, the
flower of the age, were driven into nonconformity and
penury. Many thousands more of the excellent of the
land were immured in dungeons, tortured, starved, or
hanged. Not too severely has Maeaulay thus sum
marised this reign : —
" Then came those days never to be recalled without a
blush, the days of servitude vrithout loyalty, and sensuality
without love, of dwarfish talents and gigantic vices, the
paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age
of the coward, the bigot, and the slave. The King
cringed to his rival, that he might trample on his people ;
sank into a viceroy of France, and pocketed, with com
placent infamy, her degrading insults and her more de
grading gold. The caresses of harlots and the jests of
buffoons regulated the policy of the state. The govern
ment had just ability enough to deceive, and just religion
enough to persecute. The principles of liberty were the
scoff of every grinning courtier, and the Anathema
Maranatha of every fawning dean. Crime succeeded to
crime, and disgrace to disgrace, till the race, accursed of
God and man, was a second time driven fortli to wander
on the face of the earth, and to be a by-word and a
shaking of the head to the nations."

AND THE BAPTISTS. 129
What contrasts, again, are afforded by the memorials of
holy Covenanters and Nonconformists of that day, as
compared with the records of the Court and the hierarchy !
Thus Pepys writes of a banquet at Whitehall, in April,
1667: — "The cheer was extraordinary; each knight
having 40 dishes to his mess, piled up five or six feet
high; the room hung with the richest tapestry." And,
side by side with records of the king's intrigues and
profanities, we have descriptions of the sacrament being
administered, with full ceremonial, to him and his three
illegitimate sons, by the Bishops of London, Durham, and
Rochester ! When, a year or two afterwards, the con
demned Duke of Monmouth asked for the sacrament, it
was refused him, for his immorality ! A king might
sin a thousandfold, and yet receive, through episcopal
" channels of grace," the rite wliich was asserted
to confer "communion" with the awful and holy One,
who, to the persistently wicked (whether king, bishop,
or pauper) ever proclaims Himself to be " a consuming
fire," an unreconciled and retributive Judge. But to the
fallen unsuccessful sinner, " the Church " was " faithful "
in its protest against his evil ways.
Bishop Burnet, in describing Charles's primate, Arch
bishop Sheldon, says, " He seemed not to have a deep
sense of reUgion, if any at all; and spoke of it most
commonly as an engine of government and a matter of
policy." Burnet adds that when the Earl of Clarendon
urged the King to do justice to the Dissenters, "the
bishops did not approve cf it." Here again we are re
minded that "The church religious is one thing; the
church political is another,''^

130

GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,

When the intolerance of the senior and higher clergy
was so excessive, it was not surprising that the Univer
sity students should display the same disposition.
Thus when George Fox visited Cambridge, the young
collegians assaulted him as he entered the town, and
unhorsed his companion. He records of them — "When
we were in the inn they were so rude in the courts and
in the streets, that the miners, the colliers, and carters
could never be ruder. The people of the house asked us,
' what we would have for supper ? ' ' Supper ! ' said I ;
' were it not that the Lord's power is over them, these
rude scholars look as if they would pluck us in pieces and
make a supper of us.' "

AND THB BAPTISTS. 131

CHAPTER VIL
FOX'S FOREIGN MISSION JOURNEYS.
SAILS FOR AMERICA — ESCAPES THE PIRATES — JUDGMENT ON
AN OPPOSER — BARBADOES  COASTS OP VIRGINIA — LARGE
MEETINGS — RHODE ISLAND — FREEDOM OF MINISTRY — ROGER
WILLIAMS AND THE FRIENDS — FOX RETURNS TO ENGLAND —
HIS RETROSPECT OP AMERICAN TRAVEL — VISITS HOLLAND
AND GERMANY — SECOND JOURNEY TO HOLLAND — PROGRESS
OP QUAKERISM ABROAD.
In Fox's foreign travels he underwent many perils and
hardships ; but, at the same time, received more general
kindness and courtesy from all classes than in his own
country. Twelve of his fellow-preachers accompanied him on his
voyage to the West Indies and North America in 1671.
On the voyage they were chased by Barbary pirates, who
overtook them, and appeared to be on the point of attacking
their yacht; but unexpectedly desisted, to the great joy
and surprise of the captain and crew. Fox says for
himself and his companions, " Friends were well satisfied
in themselves, having faith in God, and no fear upon their
spirits." They sought the Lord's protection, and it was
granted. Some weeks afterwards, at Barbadoes, a Bar
bary merchant gave information that one of the pirate
K 2

132 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
ships of his people had chased a large yacht at sea, " and
were just upon her ; but there was a spirit in her that they
could not take."
Some years before George Fox visited Barbadoes, a
wealthy young man of that island, during a visit to
England, fell in love with a rich Quaker orphan giri,
who had been placed under the guardianship of George
Fox by her mother. He accordingly applied to Fox
for his consent to the marriage. The latter refused,
saying that the girl's mother had specially desired that her
daughter might be trained up in the fear of the Lord. He
added, " and therefore I should betray the trust reposed
in me if I should consent that he who was out of the fear
of God should marry her." The young man, who was " a
common swearer and a bad man," was exceedingly angry.
When, after his return to Barbadoes, he heard of the
expected arrival of George Fox in the island, he repeatedly
swore, "I'll have him burned!" George Fox records,
" About ten days after, he was struck with a violent
burning fever, of whieh he died, and by which his body was
so scorched that the people said 'it was as black as
a coal.' Three days before I landed, his body was laid in
the dust."
George Fox's transatlantic visit was of great service in
organising the numerous Friends previously gathered by
earlier Quaker preachers. He everywhere assisted in the
estabUshment of disciplinary meetings and administrative
rules. The humane treatment of negroes and Indians
claimed much of his attention. He visited some of the
Indian tribes in the forests, and held meetings amongst
them to mutual satisfaction.

AND THB BAPTISTS. 133
In the then primitive condition of the American colonies
travelling was arduous work, involving constant camping
out at night, fording deep rivers, wading through swamps
and quagmires, and penetrating vast vrildernesses. Thus,
whilst coasting amongst the bays and rivers of Virginia,
he records, — " 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. Next day 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 own use was frozen
near the fire-side. We made to sea again the next day ;
but, the vrind being strong and 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
blowing high, and the frost and snow being great, that it
was hard for some to abide it." In other places they
were pestered with mosquitoes. In the log-houses of the
colonists they received a hearty welcome ; but even here
they often spent the night lying in their clothes by the
fires of pine-knots.
In several of the colonies George Pox attended large
General Meetings and Yearly Meetings of the district.
In Rhode Island he met with a special welcome. Some
of the magistrates there said that if they had money
enough they would hire him to be their resident minister.
On hearing this, he remarked, " It was time for me to

134 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
be gone ; for if their eye was so much to ine, or any of us,
they would not come to their own Teacher. For 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."
. This was very honourable and disinterested. But it is
to be wished that George Fox and the Friends had con
fined themselves to the encouragement of the cultivation
of individual gifts, vrithout proceeding further to stigmatise
all paid preachers as "hireling ministers," to use their
favourite term. The establishment of settled pastorates,
in addition to individual freedom of religious function,
has been found to be a necessity, iu every age of the
Church universal, for the great masses of mankind. Small
select bodies of "ready-made" Christians, all educated
and subjected to a carefully-maintained church discipline,
as amongst the Friends and Plymouth Brethren, do not
need the care of permanent pastors. Each member is a
priest. And this condition of things is eminently favour
able to the development of the highest form of individual
energy and usefulness, both religious and philanthropic.
Quakerism is a standing proof of this.
But Quakerism is also a standing proof that its own
system is utterly unadapted for the unconverted and
ignorant masses of mankind. It is admirable for the
prepared few, a failure as to the untrained many.
Nevertheless, it is also plain that the testimonies of
Fox and the Friends against the "one man system" of
ministry have been, and are still, a valuable protest
against the opposite extremes of hierarchical and ritual-

AND THE BAPTISTS. 135
istic assumptions. In an age when there are renewed
assertions that priests, possessing aUeged Apostolical
succession, are the exclusive "channels" of the Holy
Ghost, even though some of these priests and the
recipients of their " gifts " may be manifestly uncon
verted, supercilious, and destitute of many of the biblical
" fruits " and tests of the Divine Spirit, there is a real
value in the doctrines of Quakerism on these points. The
latter are a useful counterpoise, especially when sup
ported by the holy Uves of so many of the Friends holding
them. The Friends have ever held firmly by the ancient,
divine, and common- sense. rule, " a tree is hnown by its
fruits," They justly refuse to believe in the impartation
or presence .of invisible spiritual "graces'' where there is not
the external proof and evidence of their presence.
Again, there is still a high value in the Quaker testi
mony against the prominence of the money element in the
churches. The Spectator has recently complained, with
truth, that " the principle of the Church of England seems
to be, that unless a man is wealthy enough tp pay for a
University education, he cannot possibly be fit to preach
the Gospel to others." In fact, the Anglican Establish
ment virtually says — " It never pleases God to call a man
to the ministry except he has so many hundred pounds to
pay for the preliminary expenses virtually imposed by our
bishops." Or, at least, " If God does call a man to the
office, our bishops will not recognise his call as valid,
apart from the outlay of a considerable sum of money."
Is this a scriptural state of affairs ? Is this a proof of
" apostolic succession" ?

136 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
Whilst in Rhode Island, George Fox and his com
panions met vrith an opponent in the eminent and un
doubtedly godly Roger Williams, one of the chief founders
of that colony. He objected to the theology of Fox as
obscuring the fulness and freedom of the pardoning love
of God in the Lord Jesus. Having vainly sought for an
opportunity of arguing in person with George Fox, he
wrote a book of fourteen theses, quaintly entitled (after
the manner of the age) " George Fox digged out of his
Burrowes," Boston, 1676. In the preface he thus
explains its object :
" To the people called Quakers.
" Friends and countrymen. From my childhood, now
above threescore years, the Father of lights and mercies
touched my soul with a love to Himself, to His only
begotten Son, the true Lord Jesus, and to His Holy
Spirit," &c. Then, after describing his experiences, he
adds — "My conclusion is that, 'Be of good cheer, thy
sins are forgiven thee' (Matt, ix.), is one of the joyfuUest
sounds that ever came to poor sinful ears. How to obtain
that sound from the mouth of that Mediator that spoke
it is the great dispute between the Protestants and the
Romanists. This is also the great point between the true
Protestants and yourselves."
Eventually, three of the companions of George Fox
(Edmundson, Stubbs, and Burnyeat), had a pubUc dispute
with Roger WilUams, but it was a very unsatisfactory one.
WilUams states, respecting it, " My disadvantages in our
contests, especially at Newport, were great and many ; for
though John Stubbs and John Burnyeat were more civil
and ingenious, yet WilUam Edmundson was nothing but a

AND THE BAPTISTS. 137
bundle of ignorance and boisterousness ; he would speak
first and all, though all three were constantly on me at
once," &c.
There appears to have been fair ground of complaint as
to the want of courtesy towards Williams, and, at an ad
journed discussion, this overbearing treatment was still
further manifested; insomuch that at length "stood up
Captain John Green, one of our magistrates, who observ
ing the insulting carriage, especially of W. Edmundson, he
desired leave to propose one query, which being granted,
he said he spake not as a magistrate with authority, but
as an auditor and sitter-by ; and he said, ' I desire to
know whether Mr. Williams be here as a delinquent,
charged to answer at the bar, or as a disputant upon
equal terms? ' "
George Fox's return voyage from America was a very
tempestuous one. Yet he thankfully records, " The same
good hand of Providence that went with us and carried us
safely over, watched over us in our return, and brought us
safely back again. Thanksgiving and praises be to His
holy name for ever. 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 and under the
company. When we came into Bristol harbour there lay
a man-of-war, and the press-master came on board to
impress 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, stayed the meeting, and
was well satisfied with it. After the meeting, I spoke to
him to leave two of the men he had impressed in our ship

138 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
{for he had impressed four), one of which was a lame man :
he said, ' at my request he would.' "
This American journey occupied two years. George
Fox thus summarises it in one of his letters, dated 1672 :
— " We have had great travail by land and sea, and
rivers and bays and creeks, in New England, New Jersey,
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Carolina ; where we have
had great service among Friends and governors and others,
and with the Indians and their king and emperor. Oh !
blessed be the Lord God Almighty, who is over all, and
over all giveth dominion : and glory be to His great Name
for ever. Amen."
In 1677, in company with William Penn and Robert
Barclay, the two most eminent of the Quakers, except
himself, George Fox spent several months preaching in
Holland and Germany. At that time there wei^ already
many Friends in various parts of the Continent. At
Amsterdam, monthly and quarterly " meetings for disci
pline" had been established, and it was now resolved to
institute a Yearly Meeting "for Friends in all the United
Provinces of Holland, Embden, the Palatinate, Hamburg,
Frederickstadt, Dantzic, and other places in Germany."
During this journey, George Fox held many meetings
with the Friends and others. On arriving at towns he
used to inquire ' ' whether there were any tender people in
the town that feared God, or that had a mind to discourse
of the things of God." His interpreter on such occasions
was a Dutch Quaker, named John Claus.
In 1684 he paid a second very brief visit to HoUand.
Quakerism has now died out in Holland. The writer
weU remembers the last representative of the Dutch

AND THB BAPTISTS.

139

Friends, a venerable man named John S. Moliett, of Am
sterdam. There are a few Friends at Pyrmont and
Minden in Germany, and a few at Paris, Nismes, Con-
genies, and elsewhere in the South of France. In Norway
there are several hundreds ; but scarcely any in other parts
of the Continent.
In the United States — especially in Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas — the Friends are rapidly in
creasing in numbers, and already form an aggregate of
several hundred thousand.

140 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,

CHAPTER VIII.
PRIVATE LIFE AND PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
OF FOX.
HIS MARRIAGE — DISINTERESTED CONDUCT— HIS AFFECTION AS
A HUSBAND AND A RELATIVE — MARGARET POX's MATRONLY
CARE FOR HER HUSBAND — HIS CARE POR HER — HIS PRO
PERTY — pox's personal appearance — HIS PIERCING EYES,
POWERFUL VOICE, BODILY STRENGTH, AND SWIFTNESS — HIS
TWO PORTRAITS — HIS APPAREL  VERY TEMPERATE — IN
STANCES OP HIS SHREWDNESS — KNOWLEDGE OP NATURAL
THINGS — APPRECIATION OF SYMBOLISM — HIS SOUND JUDG
MENT — COURAGEOUS, CHEERFUL, AND ENERGETIC — HIS
PRAYERFUL VIGILANCE AND SERIOUSNESS — REVEREND
BUFFOONS — POX REMARKABLY CONVERSANT WIIH THB
SCRIPTURES — NOT ELOQUENT.
George Fox's marriage with the widow of Judge
Fell occasioned very little interruption to his ministerial
activity. After a brief "honeymoon'' of ten days, he
again started on a religious journey through the southern
counties, and thence to London. Meanwhile his wife
returned to Swarthmoor. She had but recently been
liberated from four years' imprisonment in Lancaster
Castle (for refusing to take an oath). A few months
after her marriage, her adversaries again arrested her,
and re-committed her, at the age of fifty-six to Lancaster
Castle. But good interest was made in her behalf vrith

AND THB BAPTISTS. 141
the king, who soon issued his mandate for her liberation,
accompanying it vrith " a discharge under the broad seal
to clear both her and her estate." The remaining thirty-
one years of her life were spent in tranquillity, or at
least undisturbed by imprisonments or forfeitures of
estate. George Fox's conduct in respect to his marriage was
highly honourable and disinterested. Before coming to a
.conclusion, he consulted the seven daughters of his in
tended wife, and also her sons-in-law, and obtained their
cordial sanction of the proposal. He also took care that the
provision for these children of Judge Fell was thoroughly
settled and secured before the marriage. The Judge's
son was the only member of the family who disapproved
of the union ; but, inasmuch as he had become a wild and
irreUgious young man, his opinion was of little, if any,
importance, and was, therefore, very properly dis
regarded. George Fox, after describing his conference with Mar
garet Fell's family, respecting the proposed union, adds,
"I told them, 'I was plain, and would have all things
done plainly ; for I sought not any outward advantage to
myself.' So after I had thus acquainted the children with
it, our intention of marriage was laid before Friends,
both privately and publicly, to the full satisfaction of
Friends, many of whom gave testimony thereunto that it
was of God. Afterwards, a meeting being appointed
on purpose for the accomplishing thereof, in the
public meeting-house at Broadmead, in Bristol, we
took each other in marriage, the Lord joining us
together."

14' / GEORGE POX, THE FRIENDS,
But twelve years after this union, on the occasion
of lorge Fox having to appear in a court of law relative
to ajclaim on the estate of Swarthmoor for small tithes,
William Mead, who had married one of Judge Fell's
daughters, informed the court that " George Fox had,
before marriage, engaged himself not to meddle with his
wife's estate." The judges present could scarcely beUeve
in such disinterested conduct, until documents in proof
of it were produced.
George and Margaret Fox's union was, throughout,.
a happy and affectionate one. Their mutual love was
eminently accompanied by that which the poet Cowper
describes as an essential element of the truest and best
attachments, whether conjugal or social —
" Religion ruling in the breast
A principal ingredient."
After the decease of Fox, his widow, writing a narrative
of the persecutions he had suffered, commences with these
words : "It pleased Almighty God to take away my dear
husband out of this evil troublesome world, who was not
a man thereof, being chosen out of it ; who had his Ufe
and being in another region, and whose testimony was
against the world, that the deeds thereof were evil, and
therefore the world hated him." At the age of seventy-
seven, Margaret Fox undertook the then very arduous
journey from Swarthmoor to London (250 miles), to visit
her husband, who had been prostrated by illness whilst
continuing his diligence in the oversight of the numerous
charities established through his influence. In mentioning
this undertaking as " that great journey," the good woman

AND THE BAPTISTS. 143
adds, " I look upon it that the .Lord's special hand was in
it that I should go then, for he Uved but about half
a year after I left him; which makes me ^dmire the
wisdom and goodness of God in ordering my journey
at that time."
Twelve other members of the Fell family also wrote
respecting George Fox after his decease. " Neither days
nor length of time with us can wear out the memory
of our dear and honoured father, George Fox, who, as a
tender father to his children (in which capacity we stood,
being so related unto him), never failed to give us his
wholesome counsel and advice. And not only so, but as
a father in Christ he took care of the whole family and
household of faith, which the Lord had made Uim an
eminent overseer of."
Twice after his marriage, George Fox was able to spend
two years uninterruptedly at Swarthmoor vrith his wife.
On other occasions his visits to his northern home were of
short duration. His early covenant with the Lord con
tinued throughout life to be the paramount affection of his
spirit, his truly deep affection for his wife not excepted.
Even at the close he was far distant from her. But when
ever opportunities for manifestations of their mutual love
and sympathy occurred, they were promptly and eagerly
seized by both. Thus, on the occasion of Margaret Fox's
brief but vexatious imprisonment at Lancaster, soon after
her marriage, her husband vigorously and efficaciously
exerted himself to procure a royal mandate for her
liberation. When, in 1674, he was imprisoned at Worcester, his
faithful wife travelled thither from the North to be near

144 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
him, and to wait upon him as much as possible. Shortly
afterwards she proceeded to London, and interceded vrith
the king on his behalf. Charles was willing to grant
a free pardon ; but Fox would not accept of his. libera
tion on these or any terms acknowledging him as a
delinquent. He was eventually liberated by the quashing
of his indictment.
During his absences from Swarthmoor he vigilantly
watched over his wife's interests, and took measures to
protect her from the persecutions of some of the neigh
bouring clergy and magistrates. A letter written from
London, August 8th, 1681, relative to one of these
injuries, commences thus: " Dearly beloved, — There is a
rumour here that one of the Justice Kirbys (but which I
cannot tell) took one of our fat oxen and killed him for
his own table, in his own house, which ox was distrained
and taken away from thee on account of your meeting at
Swarthmoor. Now of the truth of this I desire to know,
and with a witness or two to prove it ; for justices of peace
do not deny appeals here." He then requests a minute
specification of all the circumstances, with particular
reference to the terms of certain Acts of ParUament which
he mentions. He concludes his letter with the words —
" Therefore, sweetheart, I do entreat thee let me soon
know the truth of all these things, and what thou writes
let it be proved by witnesses. Thy faithful husband,
George Pox. P.S. The Lord preserve thy soul in patience
through all thy sufferings, troubles, and trials."
This excellent couple were also watchful over one
another's comfort in smaller matters. In " The Fells of
Swarthmoor" it is stated of George Fox that if, when

AND THE BAPTISTS. 145
he was from home, his wife sent him money, it seems he
was sure to lay out full as much, or more, in a present for
her. Thus, on one occasion, he tells her that with the
money she had given him to buy clothes for himself, he
had purchased of Richard Smith a piece of red cloth for a
mantle, believing she required that more than he needed
the coat. And in one of his letters, written to his wife
from Worcester prison, he tells her he had got a friend to
purchase as much black Spanish cloth as would make her
a gown, with what she had given him, adding, " It cost a
great deal of money, but I will save.' " From incidental
aUusions to presents of salmon, &c., sent from Swarthmoor
to George Fox, it is evident that, on the other hand, his
personal comforts were a matter of great interest to his
loving partner.
George Fox derived from his own family and patrimo
nial property an income sufficient for his personal support.
Although not actively taking part in any business, he held
shares in two vessels trading from Scarborough, and had
an interest in some other undertakings also. From his
letters we gather that he had money lodged in the hands of
various Friends. Further, a grant of a thousand acres of
land in Pennsylvania had been presented to him by William
Penn, but he does not appear to have received any income
from this latter source.
The personal appearance of George Fox was dignified
and portly. His friend, William Penn, describes him as
being "a bulky person." Gerard Croese speaks of him
as "a large and succulent man." Penn also says of
him, " his very presence expressed a religious majesty."
He adds : " The inwardness and weight of his spirit, the

146 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
reverence and solemnity of his address and behaviour, and
the fewness and fulness of his words, have often struck
even strangers with admiration, as they used to reach
others with consolation. The most awful, living, reverent
frame I ever felt or beheld, I must say, was his in prayer.
And truly it was a testimony he knew and lived nearer to
the Lord than other men ; for they that know Him most
will see most reason to approach Him with reverence and
fear. " He was of an innocent life, no busy-body nor self-
seeker, neither touchy nor critical. So meek, contented,
modest, easy, steady, tender, it was a pleasure to be in
his company. A most merciful man, as ready to forgive
as unapt to give or take offence. Civil beyond all forms
of breeding in his behaviour ; very temperate, eating little
and sleeping less."
Thomas Ellwood (the friend of Milton) describes Fox
as being ' ' graceful in countenance, manly in personage,
grave in gesture, courteous in conversation, instructive in
discourse, free from affectation in speech or carriage."
His eyes were peculiarly bright and piercing. When
preaching in Holland, a Mennonite minister requested
him to keep his eyes off him, "for they pierced him."
Again, at Carlisle, a Baptist deacon said to him, " Do not
pierce me so with thy eyes ; keep thy eyes off me." One
of his gaolers also told him not to look at him so pierc
ingly. Sometimes, as he walked along, people would
exclaim, " Look at his eyes !" Even judges on the bench
would flinch beneath their powerful glances. His hair was
thick, long, aud inclined to curl. In this respect (as in
his dress also) he appears to have affected no needless

AND THB BAPTISTS. 147
eccentricity. The Puritans generaUy held long hair in
abhorrence. He mentions that when many persons com
plained of the length of his hair, he repUed that inasmuch
as God had given it to him, and as he felt no pride in its
growth, he should allow it to remain.
His voice was an unusually powerful one, and enabled
him to command attention even in noisy and tumultuous
assemblies. A judge once exclaimed to him in court,
"Thou hast good lungs; I must have four or five town-
criers in to drown thy voice." When confined in Carlisle
gaol (in 1653) the gaoler brought a fiddler to annoy
George with his noise, but the latter raised his voice
and sung so loudly that, he says, " My voice drowned
the noise of the fiddle and struck and confounded them,
and made them give over fiddling and go their way."
(Journal I. 231.)
This mighty voice served him well in his open-air
preachings, especially amongst the fells of Yorkshire,
Westmoreland, and Cumberland, as when from Pardshaw
Crag, or the rock above Firbank Chapel, he addressed
assembled thousands on the mountain sides.
His bodily strength was great. If it had not been so
he would have died in early manhood from the assaults,
imprisonments, beatings, fastings, and hardships of every
kind which he endured. Similar sufferings terminated
the career of most of his young and energetic contem
porary preachers ; but his powerful frame enabled him
to survive all the strains put upon it, and to see the
barque of Quakerism brought into a quiet haven before
he died. When, on one occasion, an officer determined
to make him bow by main force, and ran violently
L 2

148 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
against him to knock him down, George quietly maintained
himself erect, his adversary being unable to bend that
stalwart form.
If occasion required the exertion, he could outrun most
men. Indeed his speed of movement at such times ac
quired for him the reputation of a wizard. For this and
similar reasons, when he was arrested by a company of
soldiers in Lancashire, they placed a guard at the chimney-
opening, fearing lest George might disappear unexpectedly
in that direction !
There are current several portraits of George Fox,
of whicii two are widely published. One of these two
represents him as a young man of a dismal and fanatical
appearance, and gives the idea of a deluded and half-
insane visionary. A copy of this portrait (we believe) was
exhibited in the picture-gallery at South Kensington.
But it is probably a mere libel on Fox, and there appears
to be no foundation for its authenticity. The other, and
most usual portrait (see Frontispiece^, represents him, as
his contemporaries describe him to have been, a portly,
dignified person, of grave, but pleasing expression, and
with very bright eyes. The latter portrait was first pub
lished, in a separate form, by Thomas Stackhouse, a
Quaker bookseller, of Bell Alley, London, who copied it
from a plate in an old volume of the seventeenth century.
That plate contained six portraits of eminent Noncon
formists, as Baxter, Bunyan, and others. Five of these
portraits were known to be faithful likenesses of their
subjects, whence there is reason to conclude that the remain
ing one, that of Fox, is probably also a correct delineation.
Plis dress was simple, and does not appear to have

AND THB BAPTISTS. 149
differed in cut or style from the usual apparel of sober
men of the period. His grey suit with "alchemy
buttons " is mentioned, also his strong " leather
breeches " for travelling, or for wear in perilous ex
peditions. His linen was scrupulously clean. When
itinerating on foot he took care to carry a supply of it
with him. On one. occasion when brought before a
magistrate (during his first journey to Yorkshire) as
being a suspicious character, the justice exclaimed, " He
is not a vagrant by his linen," and presently liberated
him. A principal source of his trouble during his im
prisonments was the intolerably filthy condition of the
gaols. For instance, the state of Carlisle gaol, at the
time of his confinement there, was so horrible that a
woman was almost eaten to death by vermin.
He was very temperate and even abstemious, living for
many weeks at a time on vegetable diet, and frequently
fasting in early life. During his days of special ministry
he sometimes omitted dinner altogether, or merely re
freshed himself with a draught of water. In later life
he took a little wine (as mentioned in a letter by Sarah
FeU), but he was always a special advocate of sobriety,
both by precept and example. WilUam Penn speaks of
his " exemplary sobriety " in all respects. His indul
gence in sleep was also very limited. He was habitually
an early riser, and repeatedly owed to this practice his
escape from apprehension by magistrates and constables.
He was a man of great shrewdness. He repeatedly
detected flaws in the indictments presented against him
by his persecutors at assizes and sessions. For example,
when arraigned before Judge Turner at Lancaster, he

)150 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
exposed one discrepancy after another, both as to date and
fact, in the indictment, until the local justices " stamped"
with rage. At another assize-trial he detected other
similar mistakes, which irritated the judge to exclaim,
" Take him away, gaoler, take him away." At a third
assize-trial (at Launceston) Chief Justice Glyn com
manded him to take off his hat. George replied,
"Where did ever any magistrate, king, or judge, from
Moses to Daniel, command any to put off their hats
when they came before them in their courts ? — And if
the law of England doth command any such thing — show
me that law, either written or printed." Then the judge
grew very angry, and said, " I do not carry my law
books on my back." "But," said George, "tell me
where it is printed in any statute-book that I may read
it." The judge exclaimed, " Take him away, prevari
cator ! " George adds, " So they took us away and put
us among the thieves." Presently after, he calls to the
gaoler, " Bring them up again." When they came in,
the judge said to them, " Come, where had they hats
' from Moses to Daniel' ; come, answer me, I have you
fast now." But he did not know his man — George, who
was, like ApoUos, "mighty inthe Scripture," unhesi
tatingly responded, "Thou mayst read in the third of
Daniel, that the three children were cast into the fiery
furnace by Nebuchadnezzar's command, with their coats,
their hose, and their hats on." Once more the baffled
and enraged judge cried out, " Take them away, gaoler."
On one occasion. Fox met a man whose finger had
just been cut off by an intoxicated person on horseback.
¦flie latter having been stopped, George ordered a person

AND THB BAPTISTS. 151
to get on the horse and ride on to the nearest magistrate,
remarking, ' ' that the offender would be sure to follow
lest he should lose his horse." Again, when entering
Leicester gaol, George wished to make some arrange
ments for the comfort of himself and his companions, but
first took the precaution of inquiring who was the master
there, whether the gaoler or his wife ? The latter proved
to be the head of authority, for, " although she was lame,
and sat mostly in her chair, not being able to go but on
crutches, yet she would beat her husband when he came
within her reach, if he did not as she would have him."
Accordingly, George made his negotiations with the
wife. He adds, respecting her husband, " Before we
came, when those few Friends that were prisoners there
met together (on tho Sabbath) if any of them was moved
to pray to the Lord, the gaoler would come up with his
quarter-staff in his hand, and his mastiff-dog at his heels,
and pluck them down by the hair of the head, and strike
them with his staff; but when he struck Friends, the
mastiff- dog, instead of falling upon Friends, would take
the staff out of his hand." (Journal II. 16.)
Whether we Should add to the illustrations of George
Fox's shrewdness the fact that he systematically avoided
taking physic, may be a matter for difference of opinion.
But, at any rate, he retained good health to an advanced
period of life without having recourse to doctors or medi
cine. Yet we find that he had a good opinion of the
medicinal virtues of herbs for others. In early life he had
some thought of becoming a doctor. And at his death he
bequeathed a piece of ground in Philadelphia, given him
by W. Penn, for the purpose of a botanic garden. This

152 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
is, perhaps, the first idea of a botanic garden in English
history. He also ordered another portion of his Phila
delphia land to be devoted to the purpose of a playground
for the boys and girls of the city.
William Penn calls him " a divine and a naturalist,"
and adds, " I have been surprised at his questions and
answers in natural things." He often refers in particular
to the spiritual things of which various plants and animals
are types or emblems. In this respect George Fox par
tially anticipated Swedenborg in the development of the
doctrine of "correspondences" between the material and
immaterial creation, as interpreted by the science of
symbolism. Thus, in one place he writes, " The Lord showed me
that the natures of those things which were hurtful with
out, were within, in the hearts and minds of wicked men.
The natures of dogs, swine, vipers, of Sodom and Egypt,
Pharaoh, Cain, Ishmael, Esau, &c. ; the natures of these
I saw within, thougli people had been looking without."
" I saw also how people read the Scriptures without a
right sense of them, and without duly applying them
to their own states.
" Thus I saw it was an easy matter to say, death reigned
from Adam to Moses, &c. ; but none could know how
death reigned from Adam to Moses, &c., but by the same
Holy Spirit that Moses was in." The Mosaic types, the
journeys of the Israelites, the experiences of the Jews
under Judges and Kings, the construction of the Tabernacle
and Temple, were all to be studied in the Ught of Christ
and by His Sijirit. He adds : "As man comes through,
by the Spirit and power of God, to Christ, who fulfils the

AND THB BAPTISTS. 153
types, figures, shadows, promises and prophecies that were
of Him, and is led by the Holy Ghost into the truth
and substance of the Scriptures, sitting down in Him who
is the author and end of them, then are they read and
understood with profit and great delight."
From inattention to this principle of study, the Bible is
so often a " dry" book even to professing Christians.
His judgment (at any rate after his early experiences)
was good, and commanded the respect and deference of his
coadjutors. William Penn further records of him : ' ' Though
God had visibly clothed him with a divine preference and
authority, yet he never abused it, but held his place in the
church of God with great meekness and a most engaging
humiUty and moderation. By night and by day, by sea
and by land, in this and in foreign countries, I never saw
him out of his place, or not a match for every service
or occasion." Another of his contemporaries, speaking of
his presence at the deliberations of the principal Friends,
remarked, " I observe that when George is present, the
others are mostly silent." Again, in the old records
of the London Friends we find that, at the appointment
of committees to manage various matters, the entry is
sometimes made respecting the most difficult questions,
" We wiU leave this for G. F."
We have already alluded to his courage. It was in
domitable. Wherever there was special peril George
would present himself, not in rashness, but as the leader
of his people, and that he might bear the brunt of the
hattie. Thus, when the sudden and fanatic outbreak of
the Fifth Monarchy Men occurred in London, about
1660, when the passions of the mob were especially

154 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
excited against the Friends, who were believed (without any
reason) to be connected with that mad movement, George
Fox boldly walked the streets as usual, and sought oppor
tunities of publicly showing himself, at the risk of his life,
as a peaceable and orderly citizen. Again, whenever
magistrates and constables threatened to come and break
up particular gatherings of the Friends, if he happened to
be anywhere in the neighbourhood, he took care to present
himself at the post of danger, both to confront his adver
saries and to assist his brethren. He was haled before
magistrates sixty times in thirty-six years.
Like his wife, George was of a kindly cheerful disposi
tion. He records of a very painful illness, " Yet I was
pretty cheery, and my spirit kept above it all." This was
a constant characteristic. Penn says he was ' ' even in his
spirit to the last, as if death were hardly worth notice or a
mention," and that he was through life " neither touchy nor
critical." His energy and life-long perseverance were marvellous.
These characteristics we have already alluded to. Penn
styles him " an incessant labourer." He exercised a con
stant and simultaneous care over all the companies of his
people— from Germany to Virginia. Penn adds : "He was
often where the records of the affairs of the church are
kept, and the letters from the many meetings of God's
people over all the world he had read to him and commu
nicated them to the meeting that is weekly held there [in
London] for such services." His correspondence was
immense. We have taken the trouble to count the visits to various
localities recorded in his journals. They amount to up-

AND TIIE BAPTISTS. 155
loards of thirteen hundred. Some of these visits occupied
months, or even years. They include his travels on both
sides of the Atlantic.
For matters requiring scholastic learning and research,
his own education had not qualified him ; but in these
things he had the faculty of avaiUng himself of the attain
ments of those who (like Penn and Barclay) had received
a collegiate training. He was skilful in suggesting the
services of such. For instance, when the legaUty of
Quaker marriages was first contested, George Fox promptly
wrote to one of his learned friends as follows :
" Now, dear R. R. — I desire that thou would search all
the libraries concerning marriages and what they say
of them, and the Fathers, and how they did before the
Monks first came in; and search histories and laws,
and see what thou canst bring out, both good and bad ;
and what maketh a marriage ; and do what thou canst in
this thing," &c. (MS. quoted in W. Tanner's " Three
Lectures.") One of his most prominent characteristics was his
prayerful vigilance of life and conversation, and his
avoidance of "idle words." This conspicuous trait was
an indispensable accompaniment of one who sought to be
eminently used of the Holy Spirit. In this sobriety of
soul, a ministerial qualification so repeatedly urged by the
Apostle Paul, (especially in the Epistles to Titus and
Timothy,) George Fox, his contemporaries and successors
in the ministry, have, for the most part, been very ex
emplary. One can conceive of no character more inappro
priate to a preacher than that of being conspicuous as
a jester. Seldom have Friends figured as such. On

156 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
this subject an eminent Wesleyan (Rev. Wm. Arthur, in
his " Tongue of Fire," p. 317) thus writes :
"Among the hindrances which will prevent any one
from having the ' tongue of fire,' none acts more directly
than any misuse of the tongue itself. If the door of the
lips be not guarded ; if uncharitable or idle speech be
indulged; if political or party discussion be permitted
to excite heats ; if ' foolish talking or jesting ' be a
chosen method of display, it is not to be supposed that
the same tongue will be a medium wherein the sacred fire
of the Spirit will delight to dwell. Who has ever worn
at the same time the reputation of a trifler and of a man
powerful to search consciences ? "
The writer, at a recent religious anniversary at Exeter
Hall, had the pleasure of listening to a forcible and
dignified, yet cheerful, address by the author of the above
quotation. That address and one or two others stood out
in marked and very favourable contrast, as compared with
two speeches at the same meeting, delivered by ministerial
jesters. The absurd anecdotes (several of them of gross
impropriety) and the unctuous flattery of the chairman
indulged in by these gentlemen, although they elicited
the laughter of the younger portion of the assembly,
caused evident sorrow to elder and thoughtful hearers.
Similar exhibitions on the part of some "popular"
ministers are but too frequent. But, happily, the
great body of ministers of all denominations exercise
much care in this respect, yet none more so than the
followers of Fox. These also avoid, in general, the
opposite extreme of sanctimoniousness and the affectation
of gravity by a mere empty dumbness and stolid silence.

AND THB BAPTISTS. 157
The latter weakness used to be a failing of some of the
Friends in the last century ; but has, in great degree,
now disappeared.
George Fox was so thoroughly conversant with the
Bible, that the historian Gerard Croese remarks of him :
" Having incessantly continued in the study of the Scrip
ture from his infancy to his latter end, he became so
exactly versed in them that there was no remarkable say
ing in all the Holy Writings that escaped his knowledge
or remembrance. I have heard some of his friends say,
and not those of the vulgar sort, but men of learning
and knowledge, that though the Bible were lost it might
be found in the mouth of George Pox."
In his autobiographical "Journal" alone, he quotes
from upwards of 240 chapters of the Bible. His letters
and " Doctrinals " abound everywhere with similar
quotations. The preaching of George Fox was not characterised by
eloquence (like that of Edward Burrough or James Naylor) ;
but nevertheless possessed remarkable power. It carried
with it " the demonstration of the Spirit." William Penn,
in describing it, whilst admitting that his mode of expres
sion was sometimes ' ' uncouth and unfashionable to nice
ears," adds that " his matter was nevertheless very pro
found, and would not only bear to be often considered ;
but the more it was so, the more weighty and instructing
it appeared. God sent him. No arts or parts had any
share in the matter or manner of his ministry. He much
laboured to open truth to the people's understandings,
and to ground them upon the principle and principal,
Christ Jesus, the light of the world ; that by bringing

158 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
them to something that was of God in themselves, they
might the better know and judge of Him and themselves.
He had an extraordinary gift in opening the Scriptures.
He would go to the marrow of things."
Penn, in holding up George Fox's example to other
ministers, urges upon such that it is not enough merely to
preach the Gospel verbally. He adds : " But as was the
practice of this man of God, in great measure, when
among us, inquire the state of the several churches you
visit ; who among them are afflicted or sick ; who are
tempted ; and if any are unfaithful or obstinate ; and
endeavour to issue those things, in the wisdom and
power of God, whicli will be a glorious crown upon your
ministry."

AND THE BAPTISTS. 159

CHAPTER IX.
FOX'S ADDITIONS TO THE BAPTIST SYSTEM— THE
QUAKER POLITY.
RECAPITULATION OF THE BAPTIST INSTITUTES ADOPTED BY
POX — THB QUAKER CODE OP DISCIPLINE — PRACTICAL RE
STRICTIONS OP THE MINISTRY — ALBERT FOX AND JOSEPH
STEPHENS — VALUE OP MINISTERIAL BREVITY — FEMALE
PREACHERS — POX's UNIVERSAL PHILANTHROPY  HIS PLEA
FOR SLAVES AND INDIANS — HIS LABOURS POR EDUCATION
—HIS SYMPATHY FOR THE POOR AND FOE DOMESTIC SER
VANTS — INCULCATION OP TEMPERANCE ¦ — HIS VIEWS
RESPECTING THE PENAL CODE, THE MAGISTRACY, AND
CIVIL GOVEENMENT— HIS WISE COUNSELS AS THE QUAKER
LEADER. As we have already seen, the ecclesiastical system of
Quakerism, both as to doctrine and discipUne, had been in
most respects anticipated by the General Baptists. Many
details and subsequent modifications were, liowever, added
by Fox, who rendered it a much more clearly defined and
permanently settled polity than the Baptists had ever
possessed. Besides the omission of the two visible ordi
nances, he also discontinued several other Baptist or
Puritan institutes, and added two special contributions,
which we shall presently refer to. But, after allowing for
all changes, the resemblance between the organisations of
the two sects is most striking, both in general aspect and

160 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
minute particulars. As so many of these have been con
sidered in a former chapter, we will merely recapitulate
the features of the General Baptist system held in common
with the Friends, viz. :
1. The regular holding of monthly, quarterly, and
annual or general "meetings for discipline," and the
appointment of " representatives" from the former to the
latter. 2. A careful system of inquiries or " queries" respect
ing the conduct of all the members, the doctrine of minis
ters, and the attendance of meetings for worship ; also, a
system of prompt dealing with delinquents.
3. Liberal and systematic maintenance of all the poorer
members. 4. A preference for small congregations as organised
churches of the body.
5. Recognition of the priesthood of believers as "a
society of equals," with liberty of preaching for all, and
the public congregational acknowledgment of approved
speakers. 6. Disapproval (at first) of instrumental music, and dis
couragement of singing, except by persons whose expe
riences qualified them to use the words of psalms and
hymns. 7. A mode of marriage much resembling that of the
Friends. 8. DiscipUnary treatment of persons " marrying out"
of the sect.
9. Disuse of the heathen names of months and days.
10. Disuse (by some of the early Baptists) of the pronoun
"you" to single persons.

AND THB BAPTISTS. 161
11. Rejection of infant baptism.
12. Special testimonies against " superfluity of ap
parel," Ac.
13. Scruples against oaths and tithes.
14. Objection of many Baptists to war also.
15. Objection (at first) to payment of ministers.
16. Repudiation of learning and collegiate training as
essentials for ministers.
17. Recognition of spiritual gifts, for the service of the
church, in women.
18. Objection to terms "Trinity," ''Sacrament," &c.
19. Recognition of the continuance of inward revelations
from God.
20. Denial of the authority of the civil power in matters
of conscience.
Only a portion of these have been maintained by the
modern Baptists.
Whilst George Pox improved upon the Baptist system
in some respects, he failed to imitate its thoroughly scrip
tural simpUcity in one or two other important matters ;
and hence schism and unsoundness have subsequently been
experienced by his Society, until modern Quakerism has,
by sheer force of necessity, been compelled to supply
his omissions.
The Baptist historian, speaking of the discipline of the
early members of his body, says, " Nor did they, like the
Presbyterians, who profess to condemn prescribed models,
publish a long directory, to instruct the administrator in
the due mode of discharging every part of his duty. No ;
they left their ministers and brethren to study that in
faUible directory, the Word of God, and to regulate their

162 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
procedure in all affairs of a religious nature, to the best
of their own judgments, in conformity to that sacred
standard. Happy would it have been for the cause of
truth had all Christians acted on the same principles."
Yet some of the disciplinary practices of the Friends
in Fox's days were more simple and untrammelled than
those of his modern representatives. For instance, the
exercise of ministry was more really free to every in
dividual vvho believed it his duty to preach than in the
subsequent periods of Quakerism. The early Friends had
no distinct order of ministers. They testifled against
clerical orders of every kind. They permitted any of their
members to travel as preachers without the formal, and
often very irregular, restraints of modern Quakerism.
After the establishment ofthe Society there arose a custom
of giving certificates of approval to travelling ministers ;
but these documents were not made the essential and
restrictive instruments that they have been rendered in
later times. Now-a-days Friends do not practically enjoy
liberty of ministry until they are formally ' ' acknowledged "
as such by their " Monthly Meetings." And if they
travel as preachers without having such " acknowledg
ment," or without a " certificate," they are regarded vir
tually as transgressors. This is wholly inconsistent with
Foxian Quakerism, which permitted and encouraged a
fulness of freedom in preaching not recognised by the
practice of the modern Friends. Again, the " acknow
ledged " ministers now form a distinct body having special
privileges and pre-eminence. And yet a large proportion
of the most edifying and scriptural ministry in the Society
is exercised by members who are never " acknowledged."

AND THB BAPTISTS. 163
The principle of Fox and his contemporaries was that the
appointment and call of ministers appertained to God
only, and that merely their recognition belongs to the
church. The modern Friends admit this in theory, but
often deny it in practice. They sometimes virtually im
pose restraints neither scriptural nor Friendly on their
members, and, in practice, say, " Although you may be
called of God to the work of the ministry, and although,
further, your conduct may be quite as becoming as that
of the officially "acknowledged" minister, yet, if you
happen to be in any respect the object of local or in
fluential criticism, we shall not recognise your church
serrices, and we shall place obstacles in the exercise of
yotir apprehended duty to preach the Gospel."
To adduce living instances of this exclusiveness would
be invidious ; but, for the sake of proof, some very recent
cases must be alluded to. For example, there died, in
1867, a very pious and philanthropic Friend named Albert
Fox, whose biography has just been published under the
title of the " Devout Merchant " (by Rev. John Jones,
of Liverpool). For many years this good man preached
at the Quaker meetings of London and Liverpool ; the
excellence of his doctrine and the holiness of his life were
beyond question. Meanwhile, minister after minister was
"acknowledged," with qualiflcations for gospel service in
no wise superior, if indeed equal, to those of this devoted
man, and still he remained under the disadvantage of
impUed disapproval, and received, both directly and
indirectly, frequent discouragement. There was no reason
whatever for this, except that he cared less for mere
Quaker routine than for scriptural simplicity. As soon as
M 2

164 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
he was dead the Friends widely and warmly acknowledged
his virtues.
Again, there died recently, at Thornbury, near Bristol,
a pious Friend, in humble life, named Joseph Stephens.
He had been from childhood a genuine Christian. He
was in request for miles around his dwelling as a visitor
to the sick and dying, of other denominations. His
sermons, though expressed in homely and often un-
grammatical language, possessed more fervour and life
than those of at least three-fourths of the addresses of
"acknowledged" Quaker ministers. Joseph Stephens
died as he had lived — a peculiarly exemplary Christian,
but he, too, was never " acknowledged " ; but, on the
contrary, repeatedly received the express discourage- .
ment of the Society. Like good Albert Fox, he was
simply scriptural, not traditional. We need not give
further instances of this kind, but very many similar ones
might be adduced.
Theoretically, the Friends recognise "the priesthood of
all believers," and protest against a ministerial order ;
but their practice is often and markedly inconsistent with
their theory in both respects. Many of the Friends
are now admitting this. One of their most influential
members, residing at Tottenham, has recently refused
to permit his name to be enrolled amongst the
"acknowledged" ministers, though pressed to allow
it by the congregation, because he perceives the incon
sistency of the practice of modern Quakerism with the
rules and doctrines of its first leaders. George Fox
freely encouraged the exercise of preaching by con
scientious persons, who beUeved it to be their call and

AND THE BAPTISTS. 165
duty. He was very careful not to "quench the spirit"
in any.
At the same time he repeatedly recommended order- in
the churches. This watchword is needed in modern
Quakerism, mainly by some who are apt to preach at too
great length and on many various topics at the same time.
At the meetings for worship during the Quarterly and
Yearly assemblies of the modern Friends, it is a common
thing for nearly all the time to be occupied by preachers,
whose utterances are sometimes of the most promiscuous
and unconnected nature. The old scriptural rule of " let
the prophets speak, two or three,''' might be often remem
bered with advantage. Single sermons, embracing half
a dozen unassociated .topics, followed by other sermons as
promiscuous, often characterise such gatherings. Quaker
ministers are sometimes apt to regard what they term
" the relief of their own minds " more than the edification
of their audience in these gatherings. It needs to be ever
remembered that worship — prayer and adoration — and not
exhortation or preaching should be the chief object and
exercise of every such religious gathering. It is written,
" My house shall be called a house of prayer."
In the disproportionate amount of preaching, as com
pared with prayerful meditation, the Friends' raeetings in
America are far more open to objection than those in
Great Britain. A Quaker lady — herself a preacher —
stated on her return from the United States, that the
Friends' spiritual life was almost "preached to death" in
the West. Another EngUsh Friend, after an Americaa
journey in 1867, has described some of the meetings of
the Society in Indiana as beingso slightly characterised

166 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
by silence, that the constant succession of speakers
conveys the impression of wide-spread morbid impulses
to utterance. Thus at a protracted Quakers' "meeting
for worship " in Indiana in 1867, ninety Friends preached
and prayed. Some of the American lady speakers appear
to be the most fiuent and full — deUvering addresses of
from sixty to ninety minutes' duration. Such discourses,
in addition to others, produce a sensation for which
repletion is a mild term.
It must be confessed, that in England also the lengthi-
ness and promiscuousness of discourse is chiefly indulged
in by some of the sister ministers.
George Fox, and the early Baptists before him, rightly
recognised the importance of the exercise of spiritual
gifts by women. Both the Old and New Testament
recognise the gift of ministry to these ; but they explicitly
limit the place of its exercise. Paul says : "I suffer not
a woman to speak iti the churches. There was no female
apostle, nor any female missionary sent forth by our
Saviour or by the Apostles as a public preacher. But
doubtless many good women were qualified by the Holy
Ghost to minister edification and consolation in the more
private circles of the church, and by household visitation
or family influence. The Friends (including George Fox)
appear to have greatly overlooked this scriptural limitation
of women's ministry. They have rightly permitted it a
place in the church, but have often suffered from giving
it too great liberty, beyond the biblical examples and
rules respecting it.
The two special features for which Quakerism is some
what distinctly indebted to George Fox are, first, his

AND THE BAPTISTS. 167
pecuUar enforcement of the perceptibility of the individual
ising communications or impressions afforded by the
presence of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers ;
secondly, the consequent practice of worshipping to a
considerable extent in silence, in order to facilitate the
clear perception of these spiritual impressions.
This free and perceptible access of the Holy Spirit to
the members of the church, of course also involves the
individual responsibility to God so often and specially
urged and claimed by the Friends.
But even these two special features of Quakerism were
not wholly original to Fox. We find many traces of them
in the preceding and contemporaneous history, both of the
pious Mystics (on the continent and in England) and also
in the customs of the Puritans and Baptists in their
small gatherings for solemn worship and Christian
communion. George Pox extended and intensified the Baptist system
in many departments of a philanthropic nature, and
thereby promoted the expansion and activity of the
Quaker mind. Many of the distinguishing, benevolent
movements of subsequent Quakerism were thus antici
pated, in actual effort or in suggestion, by him.
Thus, respecting the Slavery of Africans, one of the
highest authorities — Thomas Clarkson — has written in his
"Portraiture of Quakerism," that "George Fox was
probably the first person who publicly declared against
this species of slavery ; for nothing that could he deplored
by humanity seems to have escaped his eye."
When in 1671 he visited Barbadoes, he advised his
friends there ' ' to endeavour to train up their negroes in

168 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
the fear of God, that so, with Joshua, every member of a
family might say, ' As for me and iny house, we wiU
serve the Lord.' " He adds : "I desired also that they
would cause their overseers to deal mildly and gently with
their negroes, and not use cruelty toward them ; and that
after certain years of servitude they should make them
free ; and when they go and are made free, let thein not
go away empty-handed." In 1679 he wrote to the
American Friends: "All Friends everywhere that have
Indians or blacks, you are to preach the Gospel to them,
and other servants, if you be true Christians."
For the promotion of Education George Fox laboured ,
assiduously. In this respect he far surpassed the Baptists,
and added a great improvement to the discipline adapted
from them. He procured the establishment both of
boarding and day schools in connection with the Metro
politan and other meetings of the Society. He desired
that the education given in these schools should be a
Uberal and comprehensive one, embracing, to use his own
expression, " all things civil and useful in the creation."
He wrote to Friends in 1779 : " Now, you, having your
food from Christ, and God your Father, cannot you train
up your childi"en in the fear of God, and tell them from
whence you have your good things, that they may come
to receive of all these good things from the good God and
Christ, the treasure of vrisdom and knowledge?" He
also exhorted in an address issued in 1683 : " It is desired
that all Friends that have children, families and servants,
may train them up in the pure and unspotted religion,
and in the nurture and fear of God ; and that frequently
they read the Holy Scriptures, and exhort and admonish

AND THE BAPTISTS. 169
them that evet^ family apart may serve and worship the
Lord, as well as in public." On another occasion he
wrote: " Now, dear Friends, consider old EU's case, who
did admonish his children ; but because he did not restrain
them from the follies and the evils they ran into, therefore
the Lord brought his judgments upon him." Quakerism
in its subsequent course owes much of its infiuence and
exceUence to Fox's educational zeal. That zeal was the
more remarkable in a man who had himself enjoyed very
few and scanty privileges in this direction.
His inculcation of practical Sympathy for the Poor was
constant and effectual. In all the meetings of Friends he
secured a systematic attention to the necessities of the
poorj especially of orphans and "desolate widows." He
recommended almshouses for " poor Friends that are past
work," also the establishment of a large institution "where
otie hundred may have rooms ta work in, and shops of all
sorts of things to sell, and where widows and young
women might work and live." He exhorted the well-to-do
amongst his brethren to entertain the poor at their social
gatherings, reminding them that "he that giveth to the
poor lendeth to the Lord;" and that although "they
cannot recompense thee, yet thou shalt be recom
pensed at the resurrection of the just." He adds :
" So you will have the blessings of the Lord and the
blessings of the poor ; and so be of a free noble spirit,
above all the churUsh misers and niggards and narrow
spirits." He enforces the principle that over-anxiety to save
money at the expense of charity is a practical distrust of the
Lord's future care, and a faithless disloyalty to Christ.

170 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
The kindly consideration of the position and claims of
Domestic Servants was another branch of Christian charity
which he did not overlook in his exhortations. His fol
lowers have, in general, given much attention to this
important subject, and it is made one of the matters
of periodical inquiry amongst Friends.
If other Christian denominations had been as careful in
this respect, an incalculable amount of vice and crime
would have been prevented. Doubtless, at the great Day
of Judgment, many highly professing persons who, as
mistresses of servants and masters of apprentices, have
needlessly exposed their dependants to temptation, and
have neglected to extend a protecting care to their weak
ness, wiU be made awfully responsible for much of the
robbery, prostitution, and ruin which have necessarily
resulted. How many poor youths and girls have been
turned adrift, penniless and unshielded, to become the
certain prey of the spoiler, by employers holding a high
position in the reputation even of the churches. But the
final and abiding decision on this and in innumerable
other matters may be diametrically opposed to that of the
canons of "respectability" and "right" recognised by
many of our merely human and social verdicts.
Although living two centuries before the days of
Teetotalism, George Fox, viewing with sorrow the evils of
intemperance, vigorously protested against placing tempta
tions to this vice in the way of any, whether old or young.
In 1682, he issued an earnest address on this subject to
vintners and innkeepers, exhorting them not to " destroy
them that have not power over their lusts. For, when
they are overcome by strong liquors, then are they fit for

AND THE BAPTISTS. 171
all manner of wickedness." He adds : " And though you
think, by selUng or letting people have wine or strong
Uquors more than doth them good, or is for their health,
that the more they drink the more gain it brings you —
ah, poor sellers 1 do not you think that God with His
aU- seeing eye doth behold you and your actions ? God
will destroy them who destroy the earth."
The Treatment of Criminals and the Condition of Prison
Discipline were not likely to escape George Fox's attention
amid his repeated incarcerations. During one of his im
prisonments he wrote to the judges protesting against
capital punishment, and exhorting the rulers to " show
mercy, that you may receive mercy from God the Judge of
all." He says : " Moreover, I laid before the judges what
an hurtful thing it was that prisoners should lie so long in
gaol ; shovring how they learned wickedness one of another
in talking of their bad deeds, and therefore speedy justice
should be done." He advocated the adoption of the
Mosaic plan of compelling thieves to make restitution to
those they had injured.
The Friends have always been prominent in efforts for
the abolition of capital punishment and for the ameliora
tion of prison discipline. During Fox's lifetime his friend
William Penn, in founding the laws and administration of
Pennsylvania, established a system of penal treatment
which was then, and still remains, after the lapse of nearly
two centuries, unsurpassed for its combination of humanity,
vrisdom and practical efficiency. But neither Fox nor
Penn advocated any impunity to crime. When some
of the early Friends expressed scruples against serving as
constables and watchmen, and thereby associating them-

172 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
selves with the powers of the State for the forcible repres
sion of crime, George Fox issued an address containing
the following remonstrance: "If any should come to
burn your house or rob you, or come to assault your vrives
or daughters ; or a company should come to fire a city or
town, or come to kill people, won't you watch against
such evil things, in the power of God in your own way?
You cannot but discover such things to the magistrates
who are to punish such things ; and therefore the watch is
kept and set to discover such to the magistrate that they
may be punished ; and if he does it not, he bears his sword
in vain. And for this cause we pay tribute."
George Fox believed that war was incompatible with
Christianity, or at any rate with the advanced stages of it.
When his friend Penn asked him if he might continue to
wear a sword, he repUed, "Wear it as long as thou
canst;" thereby implying his assurance that Penn would
feel such a practice to be inconsistent with a decidedly
serious life. Some of Fox's coadjutors do not appear
to have altogether disapproved of war. Thus his right-
hand ally, the fervent Edward Burrough, exhorted a
troop of soldiers to fideUty and obedience, telUng them
that " perhaps the Lord might have a work for them to do
in fighting against the Pope." The early Friends also
recognised Cromwell as an instrument of good until he
yielded to the sectarian bigots who induced him to become
a persecutor. George Fox's Christian vrisdom as the chief leader
of the Friends is well illustrated by one of his pastoral
letters, respecting the management of the Society's Meet
ings for Discipline. It is dated March, 1690 (the year in

AND THE BAPTISTS. 173
which he died), and is a document containing counsel well
worthy of the attention of church-gatherings of every
denomination. " Let all your meetings be preserved by the wisdom of
God, in the unity of the Spirit, the bond of peace, and the
feUowship of the Holy Ghost, that, being ordered by the
pure, gentle, heavenly, peaceable vrisdom, easy to be
entreated, they may be holy and virtuous examples to all
other meetings, both in city and country.
" Let all be careful to speak shortly and pertinently to
matters, in a Christian spirit, and dispatch business quickly,
and keep out of long debates and heats ; and, with the
Spirit of God, keep that down which is doating about
questions and strifes of words, that tend to parties and
contention. In the church of God there is no such custom
to be allowed.
" And let not more than one speak at a time ; nor any
in a fierce way ; for that is not to be allowed in any society,
either natural or spiritual. But as the Apostle saith,
' Be svrift to hear and slow to speak ; ' and let it be in the
grace which seasons all words.
" And if there be any differences that cannot be quickly
ended in the meeting, order some Friends to hear the
matter out of the meeting without respect of persons, and
bring in the report to the same meeting, the same day if
possible, and the meeting may give judgment, that no
business be delayed from time to time.
" And so my love to you all, in the seed of life, Christ
Jesus, in whom ye have all peace and vrisdom, from Him
who is the treasure of knowledge and wisdom."
AU the philanthropic or theological additions made by

174 GEORGE FOI, THE FRIENDS,
Fox to the polity and character of the discipline and
doctrine found by him among the early General Baptists,
originated mainly in the one special addition which he
imported into the Quaker- Baptist system, viz. his intense
inculcation of religious individualism. By this term we
mean the deeper sense of individual private responsibility
to the Divine Father and King of all, and the more
profound, more practical, more defined inculcation of the
access of each Christian to the perceptible influence and
guidance of the Holy Spirit in his own heart, as his own
Divine oracle, and as his centre of responsibiUty and
authority. This principle of the perceptibility of the individualising
visitations of the Holy Spirit constitutes, especially in
connection with its encouragement of the practice of silent
worship, the root and essence of Quakerism as a particular
branch of the Church Catholic and Apostolic. But it
requires to be ever associated with the collateral and
harmonious authority of Holy Scripture as a test, and as
an accompanying blessing of richly additional efficacy.
This accompaniment (too often insufficiently urged) is of
the utmost importance. It is essential, not merely as an
accompaniment, but as a producing and developing cause of
spiritual influences.
The diligent prayerful use of Holy Scripture is, in great
degree at least, the very organ and chief channel of the
Holy Spirit. This is also the main and unbroken " channel
of apostolical succession," both to churches and individual
Christians.

AND THE BAPTISTS. 175

CHAPTER X.
LAST DAYS AND DECEASE.
THE DECLINE OF LIFE — POX WITNESSES THE CESSATION OF
STUART PERSECUTION — HIS DILIGENCE IN OLD AGE — EN
COUNTERS SOME OPPOSITION PROM HIS FRIENDS AT TIMES
— PRESENTS A MEETING-HOtJSE TO THE SOCIETY — ATTENDS
THB YEARLY MEETING OF 1690 — LABOUES TO THB LAST —
DIBS IN PEACE — HIS FUNERAL— RE-IMTERMENT — HIS SUPE
RIORITY TO ALL HIS COLLEAGUES — HIS GROWTH IN GRACE
AND IN HUMILITY — TRUTH IS MANY-SIDED — HENCE THE
ESSENTIAL FUNCTION OP SECTS — THE HARMONIOUS VARIETY
OP TRUTH — THE MISSION OF MODERN QUAKERISM.
The latter years of George Fox's life were spent chiefly
in the neighbourhood of London, or at Swarthmoor Hall,
or in comparatively quiet journeys through some of the
counties. During this period, he received the honour
and affectionate esteem of faithful adherents, wherever he
went ; for the Society was now well estabUshed through
out the kingdom. Hence the evening of life was
soothed with the sunshine of many precious friendships.
Further, a relaxation of the severe penal laws against
Dissenters, followed on the death of Charles the Second,
and during the reign of James the Second. William
Penn was high in favour at court, and enjoyed the per-

176 GEORGE POX, THE FRIENDS,
sonal friendship of the king and of his chief officers of
state. Hence the Friends obtained much toleration.
Then came the peaceful but effectual Revolution which
resulted in the accession of William of Orange and the
permanent cessation of the miseries and persecutions
which, under two centuries of Tudor and Stuart rule, had
distracted Great Britain, and involved her best and
noblest sons in almost ceaseless struggles for the rights
of conscience — struggles during which so many tens of
thousands had, jn one way or another, resisted unto
martyrdom. George Fox lived to welcome the dawning
of these peaceful and sunny years, and having witnessed
this end of strife, he passed, with the calm, assurance of
mature faith, into the invisible realities of that kingdom
where no sorrow or wrong is permitted to cloud the
everlasting brightness of its celestial joys.
To the last he maintained an affectionate superin
tendence over the numerous home and foreign churches,
estabUshed through the instrumentality of himseff and
his colleagues. He gave constant attention to the over
sight of the recoirds and registers of the Society, and
personally raaintained a vast correspondence. In these
works he was greatly aided by Ellis Hookes, the first
" recording clerk " of the Society of Friends.
During these latter years of his life, George Fox com
pleted his journals and theological works, and arranged
and endorsed the large accumulation of letters and
manuscripts now in the possession of the Society of
Friends, and in that of the various descendants of the
FeU family.
The unintermitting industry of his last days was

AND THB BAPTISTS. 177
maintained amid great and increasing infirmities. Even
his naturally powerful frame was now slowly but surely
yielding to the inevitable laws of mortality. Thus,
between 1680 and 1690, he repeatedly records such
entries as the following: " When I had stayed about a
month in London, I got out of town again; for by
reason of the many hardships I had undergone in im
prisonments and other sufferings for Truth's sake, my
body was grown so infirm and weak that I could not
hear the closeness of the city long together ; bnt was fain
to go a little into the country, where I might have the
benefit of the fresh air. At this time I went with my
son-in-law, WiUiam Mead, to his country house called
Gooseyes, iu ' Essex (near Barking), where I stayed
about two weeks." In this manner he frequently vi.sited
his friends and relatives at Gooseyes, Kingston, Winch-
moor Hill, Tottenham, Edmonton, Waltham, Shacklewell,
and other suburban spots. But even during these
periods of weakness and relaxation, he often riientions
having " good service " in holding or attending meetings,
in visiting the poor and sick, and in other branches of
Christian service. Still abiding in the eternal Vine, the
Lord Jesus, he could not but be fruitful even in the most
advanced hours of life.
A year before his decease he writes : " About the middle
of the First Month, 1689, I went to London, the Par
Uament then sitting, and being then about the Bill for
Indulgence. Though I was weak in body and not well
able to stir to and fro, yet so great a concern was upon
my spirit on behalf of Truth and Friends, that I attended
continually for many days with other Friends, at the
N

178 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
ParUament house, labouring with the members thereof
that the thing might be done comprehensively and effec
tually." The term "Truth" was frequently used by the
early Friends to signify the Christian religion in its
thorough, inward, and unconventional simplicity. We
find the same peculiar expression in use among the e^rly
Baptists. Thus, John Matthews, who is mentioned in
1647 as "a teacher in the church" of the General Bap
tists, was thus described by his friend Denne (also a
Baptist) : " He not only owned the Trnth, but likewise
preached it publicly to the world ; at which time the
Spirit and power of God was so manifested in him,
that none of the adversaries durst open their mouths to
oppose it."
The course of George Fox's declining years was not
wholly smooth, for there arose, even amongst his first
followers, some who opposed the disciplinary or other
institutes adopted by him. Many of his pastoral epistles
were issued to reprove or answer such dissentients. Some
of the latter were probably not always in the wrong,
especially when objecting to needless formalisms which
were already creeping into the young church of Quakerism.
Thus, one John Perrott was severely censured, if not
formally excommunicated, because he chose to assert his
individual liberty by wearing a beard, a custom which,
from some old Puritan and Roundhead prejudices against
the Cavaliers, appears to have been generally deemed
inadmissible by the first Friends. Even George Fox him
self was often criticised for allowing his hair to grow long.
He was more liberal than many of his contemporaries and
successors in the Society, and persisted in the obnoxious

AND THE BAPTIS'TS. 179
habit simply as a protest against bigoted and unscriptural
assumptions. Two other ' Quaker dissentients of the period were
Wilkinson and Story, who had sharply criticised the
" singings and soundings" of the early Friends in their
meetings. In those days the use of hymiis and praises
(as amongst the Baptists and other sects) was still retained
in some Quaker meetings. (Janney's "Life of Fox,"
p. 360.)
Serious charges against the theology of the Society
were brought forward by George Keith and several others.
(Keith was a prominent Quaker preacher, who eventually
became a clergyman in the Church of England, and was '
the first foreign missionary appointed by the then recently
formed "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel,"
that grand old association which, though not without
some weak points, has sent out so- many earnest Christian
ministers to evangelise the remotest regions of the earth.)'
These charges were mainly directed against defective views
respecting the Trinitj'', the Atonement, and against tho
extravagant procedure of some of the Quaker female
preachers. It has been the uniform custom of Quaker
writers to represent Keith, and other dissentients, as
being altogether in the wrong ; but those who, in an
impartial and unsectarian spirit, desire to "hear both
sides," will easily perceive that George Fox and his
foUowers did really and not unfrequently lay themselves
fairly open to the criticism of other good Christians.
The condition of English Quakerism until the end of
the eighteenth century, and in America till far on in tho
nineteenth century, was sometimes almost such as was
N 2

180 GEORGE POX, THE FRIENDS,
indicated by a Friend from the United States, who
thus described transatlantic Quakerism as it existed
previous to the Hicksite schism: "We did not hear
anything about Jesus of Nazareth in our meetings
before William Forster came over (in 1820) ; the differ
ence between you and us is just this — you beUeve in
an outward Saviour, we believe in a Saviour within."
(Letter quoted by William Ball in The Friend news
paper, January 1, 1868.) This description is, however,
an exaggerated one.
Before George Fox died he executed a deed of assign
ment, conveying to the Friends, for ever, a house and
several acres of land near Swarthmoor, for the purpose
and maintenance of a meeting-house. He says: "It is
all the land and house I have in England ; and it is given
up to the Lord, for it is for His service and for His
children." He also caused a Bible to be chained to a
desk in the meeting for reference. He sometimes
preached with a Bible in his hand, hence it is evident
that he did not practically claim the exaggerated " inspira
tion" which some of his successors of extreme views were
accustomed, till late years, to plead for, viz. an inspiration
independent of the aids of memory and bibUcal research.
In April, 1690, George Fox attended, for the last time,
the annual gathering of Friends from all parts of the
kingdom, held in London. In describing that meeting he
says : " Many useful and necessary things relating to the
safety of Friends and to the honour and prosperity of
Truth were weightily treated of and unanimously con
cluded." The summer and autumn of th.at year witnessed the last

AND THE BAPTISTS. 181
labours of this very earnest man. In September he issued
a final appeal to his fellow preachers, exhorting — "Not
to cumber yourselves nor entangle yourselves with the
affairs of this world. For the natural soldiers are not to
cumber themselves with the world, much less the soldiers
of Christ, who are not of this world, but are to mind the
riches and glory of the world that is everlasting. Do not
sit down, Demas-like, and embrace this present world
that will have an end, lest ye become idolaters. As able
ministers of the Spirit sow to the Spirit, that of the Spirit
ye may reap life everlasting. All you that preach the truth,
do it as it is in Jesus, in love. For all that be in Christ
are in love, peace, and unity."
Throughout October and November he continued td
attend meetings almost daily. On the lOtli of November,
having heard that the Friends in Ireland were undergoing
troubles and trials, he wrote them an affectionate pastoral
letter, exhorting them to turn to " His supporting hand
and power, who is God, all-sufficient to strengthen, help,
and refresh in time of need. Let none forget the Lord's
mercies and kindnesses which endure for ever ; but always
live in the sense of them." He concludes with the words,
— " So all of you live and walk in Christ Jesus ; that
nothing may be between you and God, but Christ, in
whom ye have salvation, life, rest, and peace with God."
He then added this postscript, indicating " the universal
spirit" which, as Penn justly remarks, characterised him
to the last : "As for the affairs of Truth, in this land and
abroad, I hear that in Holland and Germany, and there
away. Friends are in love, unity, and peace ; and in
Jamaica, Barbadoes, Nevis, Antigua, Maryland, and New

182 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
England, I hear nothing but Friends are in unity and
peace. The Lord preserve them all out of the world, in
whicii there is trouble, in Christ Jesus, in whom there is
peace, Ufe, love, and unity. — Amen. My love in the Lord
Jesus Christ to all Friends everywhere in your land, as
though I named them."
After writing these words of affection and heartfelt
liiety he laid down the pen for ever. The next day, being
the Sabbath, he attended a large meeting of Friends at
Graoechurch Street, where he preached for the last time
" fuUy and effectually." Presently afterward he knelt in
solemn prayer. When the meeting ended he went into
the house of a Friend close by, in White Hart Court, and
remarked that he thought " he felt the cold strike to his
heart as he came out of the meeting." But he added, " I
am glad I was here ; noio I am clear ; I am fully clear."
He at once lay down, and soon becoming worse, retired to
bed, whore, says Penn, " he lay in much contentment and
peace, and very sensible to the last."
On the Monday and Tuesday many Friends visited
him, and, although dying, the departing saint appeared
absorbed in " his interest for the welfare of the churches,
and in conversation on the promotion of the Gospel. He
sent many parting messages of love and counsel to his
beloved companions far and near. The Irish and
American communities of his brethren were speciaUy re
membered by him as being distant from the care of the
prominent English leaders of the Society. Twice did the
dying elder (a true bishop in the Now Testament sense of
the word) exclaim to his faithful coadjutors assembled
round his bedside: "Mind poor Friends in Ireland and

AND THB BAPTISTS. 183
America ! " Amongst his last words were : " AU is well
— I am weak in body, yet never heed; the power of God
is over all."
His last hours were free from any sign of pain. On
Tuesday evening, he calmly closed his eyes with his own
hands, and, in perfect repose . and peace, fell asleep in
the Lord. The chin never fell, nor needed binding up.
William Penn wrote of him, in death : ' ' One would
have thought he smiled. He was the most pleasant
corpse that I ever looked upon."
On the following Friday the funeral took place. After
a solemn meeting for worship, of two hours' duration, the
procession of 3,000 Friends walked in rows of three
abreast, from- Lombard Street to the Quaker burial-
ground at Finsbury. Each of the Metropolitan Meetings
had appointed six Friends to assist in carrying the body
of their beloved leader to its resting-place. These, in
turn, bore the coffin (which was of plain polished oak,
enclosing another of lead) on their shoulders. They used
neither bier nor pall, but, with rigid simplicity, laid the
remains of their honoured friend in the grave. The vast
eoncourse evinced, by their tears and reverent silence,
the depth of their emotion. Yet the well-grounded faith
of the departed's endless participation in celestial joys
predominated over the sense of their own present loss.
The place of his interment is now surrounded by houses
and high walls. It adjoins Coleman Street, Bunhill Row,
and is one of the shut-up burial-grounds of London.
About the year 1757, during the removal of, a wall at this
spot, the workmen came upon the coffin of George Fox.
•On it they found a plate bearing his initials, his age, and

184 GEORGE POX, THB FRIENDS,
an almost obUterated inscription. Curiosity induced them
to raise a portion of the lead, which then disclosed the
features in good preservation. But soon after the admis
sion of the air, little remained but the hair and skeleton.
The Friends had the coffin resoldered and re-interred, and
placed a small stone with the initials "G. F." in the
adjoining wall to mark the spot.
Notwithstanding his great indebtedness to the theology
.ind ecclesiastical system of which the General Baptists
had previously been the chief expositors, George Fox
was a man whose own special work was a noble and in
fluential one. He stood out amongst his coadjutors as a
marked superior. Burrough, Audland, Naylor, and Pen
ington may have equalled him in fervour of spirit, and
surpassed him in eloquence, but they lacked his shrewd
common sense, and remarkable executive capacity. In
these latter gifts Penn may have been comparable to
him, but he again fell far behind in the fire of soul and
the indomitable courage possessed by Fox.
The life of George Fox presents an instructive example
of the gradually developed ripeness of character and in
creasing freedom from error which accompany prayerful
perseverance in the Christian course. There was " first
the blade ; then the ear ; then the full corn in the ear."
His prayerful reverence, humility, and disinterested de
votedness to God's glory were his eminent characteristics.
His holiness of life was intimately associated (as all true
holiness must ever be) with a sense of his entire and
abiding dependence upon the Lord for every good gift and
qualification for service. With him, as with all true
Christians, growth in grace was a growth downioards

AND THE BAPTISTS. 185
in childlike dependence upon the Lord. His fruitfulness
in the religious life sprang (as it always must do) from an
increasing conviction of the daUy, hourly necessity of
leaning on the Lord alone, and of wholly distrusting one's
self and one's own good resolutions. His experience was
like that of Henry Venn, in after days, who records,
" True holiness is quite of another character, than we, for
a long time, in any degree, conceive. It is not serving
God without defect, but with deep self-abasement — with
astonishment at His infinite condescension and love mani
fested to sinners."
Even on some points of doctrine respecting which
fairness has compelled us to criticise George Fox, it is
right to remember that his one-sidedness, as to certain
truths, sometimes resulted from natural reaction against
opposite errors. He saw that many Christians dwelt
too exclusively on some of the offices of the Lord Jesus
Christ, to the forgetfulness or obscuration of others.
Hence he sought to invite men to honour Christ in other
of His offices, as the Sanctifier and Everlasting Teacher
of His church ; and as the Saviour, who has emphatically
laid down holiness and obedience as the indispensable
condition of the final acceptance of His people, and who
has solemnly declared of His Father, " Every branch in
Me that beareth not fruit He taheth it away ; " and " If
a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and
is withered." (John xv.)
But the most strenuous and fervent efforts to compass
all truth will ever fail of complete success on this side of
eternity. Truth is infinitely vast and many-sided. The
noblest, wisest, and best of men, can but obtain a partial

186 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
knowledge of her innumerable perfections. Even a Hum
boldt, a Newton, or a Faraday, could acquire but a
knowledge of a portion of the illimitable realms of nature.
How much more limited, then, must be the best human
conception of the Omnipotent and .Eternal God of nature
and of the universe of worlds !
Hence the function of sects and of leaders of sects is to
maintain a special watchword in respect to certain aspects
of the infinite Truth of God, which, amid the vastness and
boundless variety of its manifestations, might otherwise
ba too little heeded by creatures as finite as ourselves.
As, in a University, each great branch of knowledge has
(and needs to have) its own professor or its special
advocate, so, in the Church Universal, each of the more
prominent aspects of Christian truth may require dis
tinctive exponents for the well-balanced development of
the faith of a united Christendom.
It is but a sentimental, or at best a thoughtless, feeling
which leads to such frequently-heard exclamations as,
" Oh, what a nice thing it would be if there were no sects
amongst Christians, if all the churches were united cor-
di.ally in one communion, under one outward name, with
one doctrine, one ministry, one discipline ! " This unity,
if it is to imply uniformity, would be intolerable and
deadening. As well might one exclaim, " What a nice
thing it would be if all England were as flat as Lincoln
shire, or if every flower in every garden were a white lily,
and every tree everywhere an oak, and all the genera and
species of plants and aniraals reduced to one ! "
A uniform sameness of opinion in the churches is
similarly the wish of an idle dream, and would be incom-

AND THB B.4.PTISTS. 187
patible aUke with a healthy reciprocal action and reaction,
and with an appreciation of the vast riches of Divine
truth. Harmonious variety is the everlasting condition
of God's fair creation, both spiritual and natural. But
harmony is absolutely necessary, and happily it is per
fectly compatible with infinite variety. Its essential
source is readily recognised by all Christians — in love to
the one Divine Father, to His dear Son our Saviour, and
to His Holy Spirit, who graciously bestows on man His
outwardly-recorded revelation of the Bible, and, in con
nection with its obedient use, His inward energies and
sanctifying individualising influences. To these latter, in
particular, George Fox and the Friends have borne a
special testimony, which, both directly and indirectly, has
rendered an invaluable service to the universal church.
It should ever be remembered that the unity of the
Godhead is compatible with a triune manifestation, that
there are " seven Spirits before the throne," and that the
pure light of truth, like that of the sun and of the
celestial rainbow witnessed by the beloved Apostle in his
Apocalyptic visions, is also "sevenfold" — that is, varied
in its harmonious unity of perfection. And so, likewise,
with the light of Divine truth ; that truth is varied, yet,
if we see it aright, will ever appear harmonious. But, as
the earnest-hearted Frederic Robertson has reminded us,
the harmony and life of perfect truth are best approxi
mated, not by the isolation of its component parts, neither
by a mere middle course, but by the lively union of its
apparently opposite manifestations, and by our best efforts
to hold all its constituents in their fuU breadth and
scriptural symmetry.

188 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
A very essential element of this scriptural symmetry of
truth consists in the full practical recognition of the great
doctrine which George Fox and the Friends have specially
borne testimony to — the individualising and perceptible
guidance of the Holy Spirit. There is still an unabated
need for the continuance of this Quaker testimony. The
too gregarious characteristics of other Christian churches,
and the almost universally-diffused habit of devolving
increased responsibility upon already overburdened pastors,
call for continued zeal in the exhibition of the energising
individuality of the system of the Society of Friends.
But that Society may be now in danger of lowering its
high and noble standard. There is now a peril before it,
of seeking to assimilate its principles too much to those
of other sects for the sake of proselytism or church
extension. May this hitherto eminently-useful body be
preserved from losing its remarkable power by a vain
attempt to grasp at numerical extension ! Such an
attempt must be futile ; for Quakerism (as aU its history
and experience prove) is utterly unfit for the many. The
great mass of mankind cannot, and will not, he imbued
with it, because it is too restraining and too eclectic for
them. Its special function consists in indirectly influencing
the world for good through the medium of a comparatively
few disciplined independent spirits, calling no man master
in a religious sense, seeking the glory of God and the
welfare of their feUow-men, but relying for aid, in each
of these two objects, upon the promptings and heaven-
given power which the cultivation of prayerful individual
responsibility peculiarly cherishes by its more practical
realisation of God's own government in the soul.

AND THB BAPTISTS. 189
It would therefore appear that the Friends may with
advantage assume that their best interests and most
extensive influence in the world wiU continue to be con
tingent upon their restricting their Society to those
adherents only who can be well and cordially leavened
with this distinctive spirit of Quakerism. These wiU
necessarily be but very few, as mankind now are and
always have been constituted.
ReUgious and moral influences are always produced by
the concentrated faith and determined effort of individuals,
rather than by the mere inertia of homogeneous human
masses. For example, the intense will and feeling of
such individuals as Wesley, Wilberforce, or Pox, have
accomplished mightier good amongst mankind than all
the combined influence of the hundred millions of China,
Russia, and Hindostan. Christian power consists in
developed quality infinitely more than in numerical
quantity. The system of birthright membership is a strikingly
inconsistent anomaly, which has greatly injured the
Friends as a body. This might well be modified so far
as only to involve the retention of the children of Friends
in the Society on their making a solemn and thoroughly
cordial choice of its communion, on attaining a certain
reasonable age.
Let the disciplinary care of the Society for its members
be lovingly but effectually exercised, its thoroughness of
educational provision for all its offsprings perseveringly
continued; let its sympathy with differing sects be
charitably and judiciously exercised, in conjunction with
the needful separateness ; and, above all, let its members

190 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
cherish, with the most determined tenacity, their dis
tinctive hereditary privUege of being a theocratic
democracy, an equal Christian priesthood ; each one
zealously cultivating the sacred habits of individual access
to God through the Holy Spirit, whether in public sUent
worship, or in the privacy of domestic devotion, or amid
the activities of daily life. For it cannot be too often
remembered that hereafter " each one must give an
account of himself to God," and of his individual in
fluences upon others, irrespective of the authority and
current opinions of any human society.
As the Friends adhere to this policy of individualisation
and selection, their numbers will indeed be few, but, what
is of far greater importance, their real influence upon
mankind, their power of example, their moulding grasp
upon the civil and religious world, may be even more
remarkable and more beneficial, than, through the good
providence of God, it has continued to be for the past
two centuries.
Thus fewer proselytes will be gained, but a higher Chris
tian life will be exhibited to the world, a more jsleasant and
harmonious denominational action maintained, and the
salvation of many more souls promoted, both within this sect
and far beyond its borders, to the advantage of the other
branches of the one church of the Lord Jesus Christ — that
glorious Lord whose boundless love is the great object and
source of the Holy Spirit's influence, whether exerted upon
congregations or in the hearts of private individuals.
There never was a time when the distinctive Quaker
element of reUgious individualisation more needed recogni
tion than in the present day. For now that the population

AND THE BAPTISTS. 191
of the world has become so vast, and that both in social
and reUgious movements men act so increasingly in
numbers and in masses, the comforts and responsibiUties
impUed in the truth of the Ploly Spirit's individuaUsing
influences should speciaUy be borne testimony to.
As the modern Christian moves along amongst the crowds
of milUon-peopled cities, he is pecuUarly tempted to exclaim,
" Will God, and does He, take cognisance of me who am but
a mere unit in all this multitude ? " Or as he voyages to
India or Australia, and gazes week after week, and month
after month, upon the illimitable ocean, again the tempting
thought arises, " Am I of any account to the Creator of all
tliis profundity and vastness ? " Or when availing himself
of other facilities of travel, he visits the Alps, or Himalayas ,
the Rocky Mountains, or the boundless prairies of the Far
West, still that thought accompanies him — " What, then,
am I ? " And perhaps he feels it more strongly than ever,
when, on successive Sabbath afternoons, he pensively paces
the avenues of great cemeteries, and, for hours together,
meets an endless succession of tombstones, each one of which
records, in a line or two, the past existence of a being who
filled up twenty, or fifty, or eighty years of thousandfold
incident, joy and sorrow, and then passed away, leaving but
a little dust as his representative on earth, and an obscure
epitaph as his memorial ; then, again, as the thoughtful
visitor looks upward to the infinite expanse of heaven
beyond which he knows yet further, that countless worlds
Uke his own, extend in a universe of overpoweringly awful
subUmity, then with almost crushing force comes the
insinuating fear, " Surely my way is hid from the Lord,
and my judgment passed over from my God, surely I am

192 GEORGE FOX, THB FRIENDS,
but as the minute ephemeral insect which enjoys the sun
shine of one summer day, and on the morrow is utterly
lost to observation and existence."
And it is not sufficient to attempt to counteract such
saddening thoughts with anything but the whole remedy
of the revealed Christian system. It is not merely enough
to plead in reply that God's unlimited power of regard for
the smallest of His creatures is visibly shown in the
infinity of minute but glorious beauty revealed by the
microscope in flower and insect. Nor is it even sufficient
to remind the humiliated person that Christ died for
liim, and that he possesses the Bible and an outward
church. For he may instantly reply (or, at least keenly feel, if
he does not venture to reply) — " The Lord Jesus lived
and died far away and eighteen hundred years ago, but
what have you or others ever seen or known of Him, now,
personally, positively, perceptibly? Where now and for
myself is the hope of His coming, and where now the
promise of His appearing ? And as to the Bible, to say
nothing of the various interpretations of it by each
Christian church and sect, how often have I perused its
pages with a yearning desire to derive from it a sure and
certain hope, a vigorous and vivifying confidence — and
how often have I felt meanwhile as dead and spiritless as
thougli I mused upon the mystic hieroglyphics of Assyrian
or Egyptian sculpture ! My inmost soul craves for some
real power, some piercing light, some enthusiastic energy,
some firm ground of confidence, even additional to that
which you have kindly indicated. Has the Lord Jesus,
has the Bible, given us a hope of such completing and

AND THB BAPTISTS. 193
indispensable blessing ? Can you tell me of a source of
confidence which shall realise the apostolic definition that
' faith is the substance (or anticipative verification) of
things hoped for, the evidence (even here below, strong
and soul-satisfying) of things -not seen as yet.' How
shall I truly ascertain the actuality of God's Fatherly care
for my weak, poor, and insignificant personality, amongst
the overpoweringly vast infinities of His creation ? "
It is to this craving hunger of the soul, this peculiarly
discouraging, but too common insinuation of unbelief, that
the individualising system of the Society of Friends
specially affords a consoling answer.
For it says, in effect — Let every one who reads in his
Bible of the love of the Lord Jesus, of the great sacrifice
of His thirty-three years' Incarnation, and of His death on
the cross, of His resurrection and ascension and promised
future reappearing, let every such one also seek to realise
in himself the actuality of the glorious promise of the
Holy Ghost, in speaking of whom our Lord said : " It is
expedient for you that I go away. For if I go not away
the Comforter will not come unto you ; but if I go away,
I will send Him unto you." For our Lord also admitted
that neither the Scriptures nor the outward preaching of
the Gospel were alone sufficient to bring home to the heart
with strong faith the testimony of Jesns — inasmuch as
He declared, "He shall receive of Mine, and shall
show it unto you ;" and again, " He shall testify of
Me." And this truth abides the same. Still our correc
tive of heart-thirst', our deepest evidence of faith, our
satisfying proofs of the individuaUsing love of our

194 GEORGE FOX, THE FRIENDS,
Heavenly Father, must have their source mainly in the
felt, perceptible, manifestations of Divine love and energy
to each.
But the Bible is the essential test and indispensable
auxiliary of such inward' proofs and energies. As we
are animated by its glorious revelations of Christ's love,
of immortal joy in Hira, of the duties of obedience and
the appointed path of discipleship ; as we accorapany
these with persevering prayer, as a procuring and intensi
fying raeans — then we receive, in addition, perceptions,
energies, confidences, joys, pointings of duty, assurances
of gracious Divine regard, which, although inward, and
incomraunicable to other persons, are yet as satisfactory
and sure as our universal consciousness that we exist and
exercise our senses on outward objects.
When the strength of this certainty becomes dim, it
raust be renewed and raaintained by increased heed to the
Holy Scriptures, by raore fervent prayer, by raore faithful
obedience : and then again the Holy Light, the Divine
sunshine, brightens afresh upon the soul.
And so, as life and experience proceed, we are enabled
raore and raore clearly to trace indications of God's
spiritual interposition in our behalf. Further, we often
see it accorapanied by manifest concurrences of outward
providence attendant on our path. We perceive that in
prayers answered or withheld, in blessings bestowed, in
trials permitted, in impressions received, in the indications
of the applicability of general scripture precepts to our
own present and individual circumstances, and above all in
the heart-inspiring assurances of a joyful ImmortaUty,
through the love of Him who declared "The dead are

AND THE BAPTISTS. 195
raised," and " I am the Resurrection and the Life"— in
aU these experiences we may each reaUse, more and
more, as life continues, the preciousness, and the attain
able actuality, of that pre-eminent blessing— the indi
vidualising presence of the Holy Spirit of God and of His
dear Son our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

R. Barrett & Sons, Printers, 13, Mark Lane, London.

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