* APR 8 1909 * 
 
 Division 
 
 pan 
 Section v v 
 
THE QUAKERS. 
 
THE QUAKERS 
 
 FROM THEIR ORIGIN TILL THE PRESENT TIME : 
 
 AN INTERNATIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 * APR 8 1909 * 
 
 JOHN CUNNINGHAM, D.D., 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND," ETC. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 LONDON: 
 CRIEFF: 
 
 JOHN MENZIES & 
 HAMILTON, ADAMS & CO. 
 GEORGE M'CULLOCH. 
 
 MD.CCC.LXVIII. 
 
 CO. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Some years ago I wished to read a history of the 
 Quakers, and could find none to read. There was, indeed, 
 " Sewel's History," but it was a huge folio, and, after all, 
 brought me down no farther than 1720, when the Friends 
 were just beginning to shake themselves free from secta- 
 rianism, and to put on their harness for the world-wide 
 work which Heaven had assigned them. " Gough's 
 History" conducted me a few years further, but there it 
 left me in the dark. And so, after having read them both, 
 I knew the Quakers only as a religious sect, which had 
 struggled into existence amid hootings, imprisonments, 
 and martyrdoms ; but not as a benevolent Society which 
 had blessed the world. What remained of their story could 
 be gathered only from biographies, journals, pamphlets, 
 and tracts. So it entered into my mind that I might 
 write a short history of them ; for I felt certain if such a 
 history were only decently written, it would be widely 
 read. For who does not wish to know something of those 
 
V] 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 men and women who have led the van in almost every 
 philanthropic enterprise during the last hundred years, 
 who sit in silence when they meet for worship, whose 
 thee and tliou give piquancy to conversation, and whose 
 very attire (now too seldom seen) lends a passing pic- 
 turesqueness to our streets ? 
 
 It is said that Dr. Southey contemplated writing a 
 Histor}^ of the Quakers, but was dissuaded from it. What 
 a pity it was so. Such a master of biography and narra- 
 tive would have given to the world a work worthy of the 
 subject — a sister-book to his admirable life of Wesley. 
 And the Quakers would have shewn well by the side of 
 the Methodists. 
 
 My brief history is little more than an outline, and is 
 written more for the outside world than for the Friends 
 themselves, though I hope that even they may find it not 
 altogether unworthy of perusal. I have endeavoured to 
 do justice to their sincerity, their devotedness, their 
 unwearied zeal in doing good, though I have not always 
 been able to repress a smile at their oddities. I had been 
 a partial writer indeed had I withheld admiration of their 
 brave struggles for liberty of conscience, negro emancipa- 
 tion, prison reform, cheap education, and universal peace 
 and brotherhood. I had been blind to all that is noble in 
 man had I failed to hail as heroes their eminent worthies, 
 the long list of whom, beginning with Fox and Penn, is 
 not yet closed with Grellet and Sturge. And I had been 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 a poor student of history had I not recognised in their 
 history a religious development, most interesting, but not 
 unique, which reads us a great lesson in charity. Not 
 altogether orthodox when measured by creeds, they have 
 yet exhibited Christianity in its finest aspect, as a religion 
 of liberty, love, and good- will ; and in regard both to faith 
 and good works, can challenge comparison with any Church 
 or sect in the world. 
 
 J. C. 
 
 Manse of Crieff, 
 December J 867. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 1624—1648. 
 
 Origin of the Puritans. — George Fox's birth and boyhood. — His manhood and 
 religious melancholy. — His first revelations. — The struggles between the King and 
 his Parliament.— Religious innovations. — Troubles in Scotland, — The Long Par- 
 liament. — The Westminster Assembly. — The Solemn League and Covenant. — 
 Universal religious excitement.— Modern Revivals. — Fox's Character formed by 
 the times in which he lived. — The Civil War, the King's death, and the rise of 
 Cromwell, ....... pages 1 — 16 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 1648—1656. 
 
 Fox begins to proclaim his principles. — His appearance at Leicester. — it is re- 
 vealed to him that Christ was the true light, and that he lighted every man who 
 came into the world. — It is also revealed to him that he should render hat- 
 honour to none, and address people in the second person singular. — He has many 
 other Divine revelations. — He sets up as a religious reformer.— At Nottingham he 
 rebukes the Minister for teaching that the Bible was the standard of orthodoxy, 
 
X 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 and is cast into prison. — He converts the Sheriff. —Imprisoned at Derby. — Origin 
 of the name Quaker, — Fox applies himself to letter- writing. — Pronounces woes 
 upon Lichfield. — Cast into Carlisle jail. — Interview betwixt Fox and Cromwell. — 
 Adventures. — Tilt betwixt Fox and the Chief-Justice. — Launceston jail. — Meeting 
 of Fox and Cromwell. — Tbe Quakeress waiting-woman. — Interview betwixt Fox, 
 Pyot, Cromwell, and Dr. Owen, .... pages 17— 3b' 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 J 656-1660. 
 
 Rapid increase of Quakers. — Edward Burrough. — Francis Howgill — Miles 
 Halhead.— James Naylor. — Fox in Scotland. — Dutch Quakers. —Robinson goes 
 to Jerusalem. — Quakers appear in New England. — They are persecuted, and three 
 of them hanged. — The Quakers prophesy evil against the Protector. — Cromwell 
 dies and is buried. — Burrough testifies against his funeral pageant. — Unclean 
 spirits visit Fox. — The Restoration, .... pages 37 — 57 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 1660—1675. 
 
 Charles II.— Restoration of the Monarchy. — Seven hundred Quakers set at 
 liberty. — Fifth-Monarchy Insurrection. — The Quakers' Address. — Their extrava- 
 gances. — Nude exhibitions. — Quaker Missionaries visit the Pope, the Doge of 
 Venice, and Louis XIV. at Versailles. — Mary Fisher sets out on a mission to con- 
 vert the Grand Turk, and has an interview with him. — Persecutions in New 
 England. — Two Quaker women start for Alexandria, and are imprisoned at Malta. 
 — Baker at Malta and Gibraltar. — The Marriage Law. — Statutes against the 
 Quakers and other Non-Conformists. — The prisons crowded. — The Muggletonians. 
 — Fox in Lancaster Jail. — In Scarborough Castle. — The Plague.— Tbe Great Fire.— 
 Robert Barclay.— William Penn.— George Keith.— Isaac Pennington.— Thomas Ell- 
 wood. — Solomon Eccles; his absurd exhibitions. — Fox marries. — Act against Non- 
 Conformity. — Penn and the Jury.— Fox goes to America. — Is imprisoned on his 
 return, ........ pages 58—88 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Quaker faith is systematised by Barclay. — His Apology. — Immediate reve- 
 lation the stem doctrine of the system. — It is a form of mysticism. — Definitions of 
 
< !< >XTEXTS. 
 
 mysticism by John Stuart Mill and Victor Cousin, — Different developments of 
 mysticism. — Krisna, Origen, Gerson, Bohmen. — Quaker mysticism the result of a 
 reaction against dogmatism. — Modern mysticism.— Quaker asceticism, and Quaker 
 peculiarities. — Quaker vindication of liberty of conscience, . pages 89—107 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Quaker polity. — It is divinely revealed to Fox. — Weekly, Monthly, Quar- 
 terly and Yearly Meetings. — Women's Meetings. — Popery and Quakerism con- 
 trasted, ....... pages 108—112 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 1675—1684. 
 
 Quaker literature. — Phonography anticipated. — Quaker tournament at Aber- 
 deen. — William Sewel.— Quaker mission to Holland and the Princess Elizabeth. — 
 Pennsylvania. — Penn visits his province. — His Treaty with the Indians. — The 
 Colony prospers and is at peace, . . . pages 113 — 128 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 1683—1688. 
 
 Rebels in the Camp. — The Rye-House Plot.— Charles II. dies. — The Quakers 
 address James II. — The dispensing Power. — The King suspends all the penal 
 laws against Non-Conformists. — The Friends are jubilant and thank the King for 
 their deliverance. — The bishops are imprisoned and tried, and the Quakers com- 
 fort them.— Penn is a favourite at Court, and is suspected of Jesuistry and evil de- 
 signs. — The Revolution, ..... pages 129 — 143 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 1689-1718. 
 
 The penal laws abrogated. — Death and character of Barclay. — Death and cha- 
 racter of Fox.— Penn absconds. — Suspicions of his treason.— Keith Apostatizes 
 —The Quaker Affirmation.— Penn acquitted.— Peter the Great.— Pamphlet War. 
 — Tho Quakers welcome the Georges.— Penn's last days.— His death and cha- 
 racter, ....... pages 144—165 
 
xii 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 1718—1727. 
 
 The Quakers devote themselves to good works. — Voltaire's opinion of them. — 
 Slavery— The Slave Trade.— The Quakers, at first, are Slaveholders.— Fox's 
 words. — The German emigrants. — Penn's efforts to mitigate Slavery. — In 17-7 
 the English Quakers condemn Slavery. — The moral sense, PAGES 1GC — 179 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 1727—1783. 
 
 Pioneers in the Anti-Slavery crusade.— William Burling.— Ralph Sandiford.— 
 Benjamin Lay. — John Woolman. — Slave-dealers disowned by the English 
 Quakers. — Woolman 's death and character. — Anthony Benezet. — Granville Sharp. 
 — Many Quakers manumit their slaves. — Slave-owners disowned by the American 
 Quakers. — In 1780 not a single Slave owned by any Quaker. — The American War 
 of Independence, ...... pages 180 — 196 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 1783—1865. 
 
 The Quakers petition Parliament against Slavery. — The Slave-ship Zong. — 
 Quaker publications regarding Slavery. — Death of Benezet. — Thomas Clarkson. 
 — The middle passage. — Anti-Slavery Association. — William Wilberforce. — Slave- 
 trade declared to be piracy. — Slavery abolished in the British possessions. — The 
 American Civil War and abolition of Slavery in the Southern States, pages 197—209 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 1736—1800. 
 
 Tithes and prosecutions. — Bill for the relief of the Quakers lost in the House 
 of Lords. — A scene in Church. — The primitive Quakers all dead. — The Gregorian 
 Calendar. — The Indian tomahawk and the Quaker scalp. — A giddy Quakeress 
 disowned, and raises an action. — Noted Quakers. — Progress of the Sect. — Re- 
 proaches against it.— Quaker garb.— Joseph Gurney Bevan.— Thomas Shillitoe.— 
 Henry Tuke, ...... pages 210—225 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 xiii 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 1800—1814. 
 
 William Allan. — Joseph Lancaster. — Stephen Grellet. — Philosophy of Visions. 
 — Grellet in Canada.— Precious benefit of silence. — Grellet in France. — Thomas 
 Paine. — Grellet in England, Scotland, and Ireland. — The allied Sovereigns come to 
 England. — The Quakers address Frederick William of Prussia. — The Czar comes 
 to a Quaker meeting. — The Quakers have an interview with the Czar. — The Czar 
 in the Quaker's house, ..... pages 226—245 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 1814—1841. 
 
 Elizabeth Fjiy. — Her parentage and girlhood. — Her marriage. — Is acknow- 
 ledged a minister. — Women Preachers. — Mrs. Fry and Anna Buxton in Newgate. 
 — Second visit to Newgate. — School started. — Association for improvement of 
 female prisoners. — Wonderful Reformation. — Cruelty of the Criminal Code. — Mrs. 
 Fry presented to the Queen. — Convicts and convict ships. — Elizabeth Pryor. — Our 
 Prisons, — Work waiting to be done, , . . pages 246 — 258 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 1815-1820. 
 
 The Lancasterian School system. — The British and Foreign School Society.— 
 Mission to the Continent. — Grellet in Hayti. — Grellet in England.— Allan and 
 Grellet set out for the North of Europe. — Their Mission. — They visit Norway and 
 Sweden, and are received at Court by Bernadotte. — They arrive in St. Petersburgh, 
 and visit its public Institutions. — Their interview with the Czar. — Their second 
 interview. — Their visit to the Empress. — Their journey southwards. — The tomb 
 of Howard. — They visit Turkey, Greece, and the Ionian Islands. — Allan returns 
 home by Malta. — Grellet visits Naples and inspects its prisons. — Scene in a found- 
 ling Hospital. — He arrives in Rome. — His interview with Cardinal Consalvi.— 
 He gets admission to the Inquisition.— Has an interview with Pope Pius VII. — Gives 
 him advice and gets his blessing. — Journey back to England. — Secret of the 
 Friends 1 welcome everywhere, '. pages 25.9 — 2o0 
 
xiv 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 1822 — J 826. 
 
 Congress of Verona.— Allan wishes the Slave- Trade made piracy.— Starts for 
 Vienna to meet the Czar. — The Inspirtes. — Allan's interview with the Czar. — A 
 scene. — The Emperor and the Quaker drink tea. — Allan proceeds to Verona. — 
 Fails in his Mission. — His parting interview with the Czar. — Shillitoe's interviews 
 with the Czar at St. Petersburg!!, .... pages 281— 285 
 
 . CHAPTER XVIII. 
 1805—1840. 
 
 Polemics. — The inner and outer revelations. — The American Quakers. — Elias 
 Hicks. — Controversy regarding the heathen. — Hai Eben Yokdan. — The Disrup- 
 tion. — Creed of the Hicksites. — What is the light within? — Isaac Crewdson. — 
 " The Beacon." — Joseph John Gurney. — His" Distinguishing Views and Practices 
 of the Society of Friends.'" — Are divine thoughts distinguishable ? — The Crewd- 
 sonites Secede. — Gurney in America, . . . pages 286 — 299 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 1831—1855. 
 
 Stephen Grellet crosses the Atlantic and arrives in England.— Allan and the 
 " Colonies at Home.'" — Allan and Grellet set out on a Gospel tour to the Conti- 
 nent. — They travel through Holland, Hanover, Prussia, Saxony, Bohemia, Austria, 
 Hungary, Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Switzerland, France, and Spain. — Theirinterview 
 with Ferdinand of Spain and his Queen. — Grellet and Stacey make a tour through 
 Scotland, England, and Ireland.— The May Meeting of 1834. — Grellet returns to 
 America. — Religious Missions. — Death and character of William Allan. — Death 
 and character of Mrs. Fry. — Death and character of Joseph John Gurney. — The 
 Peace Society.— Joseph Sturge. — Peaee Congress. — 1848.— Denmark and the 
 Duchies.— The Internalional Exhibition of 1851.— The Muscovite and the Turk. 
 — The Quaker Peace Mission to Russia. — Reception by the Czar Nicholas. — The 
 Crimean War. — Protocol of Paris. — Subscription for the Fins. — Sturge dies. — 
 Death and character of Grellet, .... PAGES 300— 323 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 xv 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 1855—1867. 
 
 The Quaker Marriage Law altered. — Rules in regard to Speech snd Apparel 
 relaxed. — Present Organisation of the Society. — Ministers, Elders, and Overseers. 
 — Meetings for worship on ki first day." — Predominance of female preachers. — 
 Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly Meetings, and their work.— Queries to be an- 
 swered. — The Society supports all its own poor ; pays great attention to Educa- 
 tion ; and is remarkably exempt from crime. — General relaxation of manners and 
 customs. — They still protest against Slavery, Capital Punishments, and War. — 
 John Bright. — The number of Friends is decreasing, . pages 324 — 335 
 
THE QUAKERS: 
 
 AN INTERNATIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 Chapter L 
 
 VER since the Reformation there had been a con- 
 siderable body of men who were dissatisfied with 
 the form into which the Church had been moulded 
 by the royal hands of Henry and Elizabeth. They thought 
 that many popish practices were allowed to remain which 
 ought to be purged out; that institutions were kept up 
 which ought to be cast down ; that the very Reformation 
 required to be reformed. From their aiming at a purer 
 faith and worship they were called Puritans, but it was in 
 derision. They had amongst them many pious and learned 
 men, which gave them some hold on the people, but they 
 were kept down with a strong hand by the government. 
 Of those among them who were clergymen, many were 
 deprived of their livings, others were cast into jail, and a 
 few were hung by the neck on a gallows, and so cured for 
 ever of their troublesome scruples. Religious toleration 
 was not yet known in England, either within or without 
 the Church. The puritans, however, still continued to 
 
THE QUAKERS. 
 
 exist, and even to increase. The foolish and arbitrary at- 
 tempts of Land to lead the Church back toward Rome, 
 helped to add to their numbers and give ground for their 
 complaints. When the civil wars began they recruited the 
 army, carried their motions in the Parliament, and under 
 their pressure the proud hierarchy went to the wall. And 
 now, when there was no longer a dominant priesthood 
 backed by pains and penalties, strange manifestations of 
 religious life began to appear. Sects multiplied day by 
 day, and setters forth of new doctrines were traversing the 
 country and importuning the people to listen to their ex- 
 travagancies. The recent liberty, the religious ferment, 
 the unsettlement of men's minds consequent upon revolu- 
 tion, were all favourable to the development and diffusion 
 of disordered fancies, and accordingly sects of every con- 
 ceivable kind filled the land. Some of these were destined 
 to die with the ferment out of which they sprang ; others, 
 having within them some seeds of goodness and truth, 
 were destined to live and influence the future fortunes 
 of the country. Of these latter were the Quakers. 
 
 George Fox is regarded by the Quakers as the founder 
 of their sect with the same unanimity with which Abraham 
 is honoured by the J ews as the father of their nation. He 
 was born at Drayton in Leicestershire, in the year 1G24. 
 " His father's name," to quote his own quaint language, 
 " was Christopher Fox. He was by profession a weaver, 
 an honest man, and there was a seed of God in him. The 
 neighbours called him righteous Christer. His mother was 
 an upright woman ; her maiden name was Mary Lago, of 
 the family of the Lago's, and of the stock of the martyrs."* 
 George was a grave, quiet little fellow, like some of those 
 sedate children we sometimes see, who will rather sit in a 
 
 * Fox's Journal, p. 1. 
 
GEORGE FOX AS A YOUTH. 
 
 corner and mope than join in the romps of their mates, and 
 who are said to carry an old head on young shoulders. By 
 reason of this gravity, his relatives said, as relatives on 
 such occasions always do say, that he must be made a 
 priest. But his parents apprenticed him to a cobbler. As 
 it so happened, this son of St. Crispin not only clouted 
 shoes, but dealt in cattle and wool : and George was fre- 
 quently required to transgress the sutor's proverb, and go 
 beyond his stall into the fields, and watch over the flocks. 
 In this occupation he is said to have taken special delight, 
 and to have acquired in it considerable skill ; and some 
 authors have been at the pains to remark, that in this we 
 see a just emblem of his future ministiy and service* Al- 
 ready he began to evince his native firmness of purpose, 
 and to pick up some words from the puritanic vocabulary, 
 for it used to be remarked of him, " If George says ' verily' 
 there is no altering of him." This boy naturally developed 
 into the man whom no dread of pillory, or prison, or stripes, 
 could make swerve from his yea yea and nay nay by an 
 hair's breadth. 
 
 When he grew up to manhood he began to be haunted 
 by melancholy. He left his relatives, shunned all society, 
 moved about from place to place, seeking rest and finding 
 none. Sometimes he would retire into his room to brood 
 on his state, sometimes he would take solitary walks to 
 wait upon the Lord, sometimes he would rise from his bed 
 and wander about all night in great sorrow, and with a 
 mind full of darkness, conflict, and despair. A poor hair- 
 brained youth, but with very sad thoughts, and truly 
 anxious about his soul ! The country was at this time full 
 of serious thinking people, who were commonly called 
 " professors," and some of these seeing this lad religiously 
 
 * Sewel'a History of the Quakers, p. 7. 
 
4 
 
 THE QUAKERS, 
 
 disposed and in much tribulation, had pity upon him, and 
 sought his acquaintance ; but George saw only hypocrisy 
 under all their professions ; yea, " he looked upon the great 
 professors of the city of London, and saw all was dark, and 
 under the chain of darkness,"* How could they comfort and 
 instruct him ! After a time he returned to his relatives in 
 Leicestershire, and some of them advised him to marry — a 
 sensible advice given by sensible people ; but George would 
 not hear of it : others advised him to join the army, imagin- 
 ing, no doubt, that the change and excitement of a military 
 life — the stir of the camp and the rattle of the drum — 
 would drive away his melancholy, but George was grieved 
 that they should suggest such a thing to him. He now 
 sought the advice of the ministers of religion, and had fre- 
 quent interviews with the clergyman of his native parish ; 
 but he fancied that the subjects of their conversation during 
 the week were made the topics of pulpit discourse on the 
 Sunday, and this he did not like. He felt himself preached 
 at, which is never a very agreeable thing to bear. He there- 
 fore resorted to an old minister in Warwickshire, and opened 
 up to him his temptations and despair. The old minister 
 advised him to take tobacco, and sing psalms — just such 
 an advice as Martin Luther once gave to one in similar 
 circumstances. " Alas," says George, " tobacco was a thing 
 I did not love, and psalms I was not in a state to sing." 
 But what was worst of all, the old man told all the inward 
 troubles and griefs of the poor youth to his servants, and 
 lie now saw himself made a subject of giggling to the milk- 
 maids. To another clergyman he went, who, seeing the 
 sad plight he was in, recommended him to take physic and 
 let some blood. Still comfortless, he went to another — to 
 a doctor of divinity — to consult with him as to how troubles 
 
 * Fox's Journal, p. d. 
 
GEORGE FOX'S REVELATIONS. 
 
 were wrought in the heart of man ; but as they walked to- 
 gether in the garden, poor George, lost in his own black 
 thoughts, happened to step on one of the flower-beds, and 
 the doctor being a zealous florist, forthwith lost his temper, 
 broke off the conversation, and dismissed the youth more 
 troubled than ever. Seven miles he walked to speak with 
 another minister who had a great reputation for soul-ex- 
 periences ; but he found him like an empty, hollow cask.* 
 Miserable comforters were they all : and it now became 
 apparent to the distracted youth that it was not in such 
 quarters he could find help. 
 
 Such a morbid state of mind as is here revealed to us is 
 pretty certain to increase, and lead to hallucinations, if not 
 to madness. Fox had begun to entertain hard thoughts of 
 the clergy, or priests, as he called them. They had been 
 able to give him no comfort, no peace, no light : some of 
 them had laughed at him, others had thought more of their 
 flower-beds than of his peace of mind. When in this 
 mood the idea occurred to him that an education at Oxford 
 or Cambridge was not enough to make a man a minister 
 of God It came with the suddenness and strength of a 
 conviction He marvelled he had not seen it before ; he 
 marvelled that all others , did not see it. It was a divine 
 revelation — God had opened it to him. And he was de- 
 lighted with the discovery, for it struck at the ministry of 
 those who had so miserably disappointed him. This dis- 
 covery was quickly followed by another — that God, the 
 creator of the world, did not dwell in temples made with 
 hands. It was customary to call the churches " dreadful 
 places," " holy ground," " temples of God :" it was custo- 
 mary for the Bishops to consecrate them with processions 
 and prayers, and genuflections and psalms, and for the 
 
 * Fox's Journal, p. 4. 
 
6 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 people to believe that the Deity henceforward in some more 
 especial manner resided there ; but it was now revealed to 
 this lad, one day as he walked alone in the fields, that 
 churches were but stone and mortar — steeple-houses, as he 
 afterwards contemptuously called them — and that God 
 dwelt in the hearts of his people .* Here was the foundation 
 partly laid of his future faith. Henceforward he went no 
 more to the church, but retired with his Bible to the 
 orchards or the fields. Henceforward he cared not a pin 
 for the priest ; and when his parish minister expressed a 
 fear that he was following after new lights, he smiled with- 
 in himself, for he knew what the Lord had revealed con- 
 cerning him and his brethren, and, moreover, that he him- 
 self had been anointed with an unction from on high 
 which was far better than any university training or any 
 imposition of episcopal hands. The youth, by reason of 
 his inward revelations, had already reached a spiritual 
 elevation from which he could look down upon all the 
 doctors and learning of the church. 
 
 But notwithstanding the great openings — to use his own 
 phrase — which Fox had, he was often beset with tempta- 
 tions and plunged into the lowest depths of " the ocean of 
 darkness and death." Deep called unto deep, and all the 
 billows of the Lord passed over him. He fasted much, 
 walked about in desert places, like a troubled ghost, or 
 sought, like the owl, shelter in a hollow tree, where he 
 would muse and mope for whole days together. The night 
 brought no rest from his tormenting thoughts. He forsook 
 his parents and best friends, refused to keep company with 
 any one, lest the tenderness of his heart should be hurt by 
 worldly converse, and wandered about from place to place — 
 a spectacle of spiritual desertion and despair. The poor 
 
 * Fox's Journal, p. o. 
 
THE KING AND THE PARLIAMENT. 
 
 7 
 
 vouth was engaged in a terrible conflict with his own 
 frenzied imaginations ! Sometimes, however, he seemed 
 to get the victory — trampled the tempter under his feet — 
 and then he violently swung from one extreme to the 
 other. In such cases he was brought into such a heavenly 
 joy that he thought he was in Abraham's bosom. Gradu- 
 ally this state of mind became the prevailing one : the in- 
 ward struggle ceased ; and he felt like one who had been 
 lifted above an atmosphere of storm and thunder, into a 
 region of perfect serenity and unclouded sunshine. While 
 these things were happening, the year 1648 arrived, and 
 George Fox, now twenty-four years of age, and disciplined 
 to hardness by the soul-exercises he had gone through, was 
 ready to begin his work. 
 
 While these struggles were going on in the heart of Fox, 
 a similar, but greater and more eventful struggle was 
 going on in the heart of England. But we must go back 
 some years to find its origin. George Fox was scarcely a 
 year old — a baby on his mother's knee — when Charles I. 
 ascended the throne, and Charles, with his high notions of 
 prerogative and his love for splendour in religion, soon 
 came into collision with his reforming and somewhat puri- 
 tanical parliament. The king needed money, and his 
 faithful commons uniformly met his demands on their 
 purse by presenting him with a list of grievances which 
 they wished to have redressed. The king, in disgust, dis- 
 solved parliament after parliament, and in his dire need of 
 money resorted to unconstitutional means to obtain it. 
 This naturally increased the popular irritation. In 1628 
 the parliament wrung from the reluctant monarch his as- 
 sent to the Petition of Right, but this did not make an end 
 of strife. Charles was bent on maintaining, if not extend- 
 ing, his royal prerogative : the parliament was bent on 
 maintaining, if not extending, the liberties of the subject ; 
 
THE QUAKERS. 
 
 and ever when the royal necessities required money the 
 tug of war was renewed. In this mood the parliament 
 made speeches about popular rights and kingly tyranny and 
 the spirit of the age, and as this could not be borne it was 
 dissolved, and old precedents were hunted out, and old 
 usages resorted to, and questionable means employed, to 
 replenish the exhausted exchequer. For eleven years 
 England was without a parliament. But the arbitrary 
 exactions of the king were far from being patiently sub- 
 mitted to. John Hampden refused to pay his ship-money, 
 regarding it as an illegal imposition in time of peace ; and 
 though the judges gave their decision in favour of the 
 crown, this only increased the popular indignation, for it 
 was felt that the very courts of law had become corrupt, 
 and Hampden was everywhere regarded as a patriot, who 
 had risked the displeasure of royalty and the ruin of his 
 estate in the cause of the people. 
 
 These political discontents were greatly aggravated by 
 certain ecclesiastical innovations which were now in pro- 
 gress. The king being of a serious and somewhat monkish 
 turn of mind thought God could be worshiped only amid 
 much sacerdotal ceremonial, and he was resolved that all his 
 subjects should think the same. In carrying out this idea 
 he found a very sympathetic and zealous assistant in Laud, , 
 who was rewarded for his good service by being raised 
 from the See of London to that of Canterbury. The com- 
 munion table was removed from the centre of the church 
 to the chancel, and surrounded by a railing, and now it was 
 no longer a communion table but an altar ; the clergy were 
 compelled to be very observant of postures and vestments ; 
 the people were instructed to kneel at confession, to stand 
 up at the creed, to bow at the name of J esus, and on en- 
 tering and leaving the church to do reverence towards the 
 cast. Their devotions being done, they were encouraged 
 
RELIGIOUS INNOVATIONS. 
 
 9 
 
 to spend the rest of the Sunday with moms dances, revels, 
 church-ales, and bid-ales. To carry out these changes the 
 ecclesiastical courts were vested with new powers, and the 
 episcopal jurisdiction was stretched to the utmost. But 
 the puritans did not like the king's way of worship ; they 
 declared it unscriptural, superstitious, popish ; and became 
 more puritanical than ever. Moreover, many who were 
 not puritans before became puritans now; and some of 
 these, who were clergymen, refused to put on the vestments 
 and perform the genuflections, and for this they were 
 turned out of their parishes and left to starve. Thus poli- 
 tical and ecclesiastical causes combined to swell the tide 
 of general discontent. 
 
 The inevitable crisis was hastened by events which 
 were now going forward in Scotland. Charles had in- 
 herited from his father a strong desire to have uniformity of 
 church worship and government at both ends of the 
 island. North of the Tweed bishops had already been 
 placed over presbyters, who grudged them their pre-emi- 
 nence, and little now remained to be done but to introduce 
 the English liturgy, or one like unto it. The attempt was 
 made in July 1637, but it resulted in a serious riot in the 
 Church of St. Giles in Edinburgh, and the riot rapidly 
 ripened into something like a revolt of the whole kingdom. 
 Amid immense religious excitement the Covenant was 
 signed by all classes of the people ; and under the pressure 
 of affairs the king was obliged to call a General Assembly 
 for the ordering of ecclesiastical affairs. The Assembly 
 met, and, in defiance of the royal Commissioner, deposed and 
 excommunicated the bishops, condemned the liturgy, over- 
 threw the whole episcopal government, and restored pres- 
 bytery in its purest form. Matters were now gone to ex- 
 tremities, both parties took arms, and in 1640 the Scotch 
 covenanters entered England and took possession of New- 
 
10 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 castle, spreading a panic through the whole kingdom. In 
 this emergency the king was compelled to call a parliament. 
 
 This Parliament — ever afterwards so famous as the 
 Long Parliament — brought together all the indignation at 
 arbitrary power and all the thirst for freedom which had 
 been slowly accumulating in the country. It was no 
 sooner met than it impeached the Earl of Strafford, the 
 ablest adviser of the king, and sent him to the block. 
 Measure after measure was passed to restrain the power of 
 the crown and enlarge the liberties of the subject. The 
 Church, by preaching from all its pulpits the royal 
 doctrines of divine right and passive obedience had identi- 
 fied itself with tyranny, and become equally with the 
 court odious to the people. Petitions came pouring into 
 the parliament, some for its reform, others for its destruc- 
 tion. A monster petition came up from London, praying 
 that it should be extirpated root and branch. Baffled on 
 every hand, mobbed in his own capital, shorn of some of the 
 prerogatives on which he most prided himself, yet loath to 
 lose his supremacy, and become, as he dreaded, a mere 
 puppet king, Charles now formed the mad design of seizing 
 five of the leading commoners in the midst of the parlia- 
 ment. The design miscarried — the birds had flown — but 
 exasperation, on both sides, was now risen to such a pitch 
 that civil war was inevitable. 
 
 On the 22nd of August 1642 the king set up the royal 
 standard at Nottingham : and the parliament was not slack 
 in mustering forces and preparing for the struggle. Both 
 sides were alike anxious to secure the assistance of the 
 Scots ; and both made their suit to the General Assembly 
 of the kirk in which the real power of the government 
 was then vested. In Scotland at that time religion was 
 stronger than loyalty : and accordingly there was a univer- 
 sal inclination to take part with the parliament rather than 
 
SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. 
 
 LI 
 
 the king, for the parliament had favoured the puritans, 
 and most of the puritans were presbyterians. In truth the 
 Scots were now as anxious to have unity of faith and wor- 
 ship throughout the whole island as the king had been a 
 few years before. But it was presbytery and not prelacy 
 which they wished to see everywhere established. And 
 they had a broad foundation on which to build this lofty 
 ambition. The English parliament had already overthrown 
 episcopacy, and summoned an Assembly of Divines to meet 
 at Westminster to frame a confession of faith, a directory 
 for worship, and a form of church government. Every- 
 thing was to be modelled anew, and the Scotch never 
 doubted but that everything would be modelled after the 
 presbyterian fashion, which alone was divine. They were 
 therefore quite ready to form an alliance with the parlia- 
 ment, but it must be based on the idea of uniformity in 
 religion, and expressed in the way of a covenant. The re- 
 sult was the Solemn League and Covenant into which the 
 two nations entered with fastings and prayer, and then an 
 army of twenty thousand Scottish warriors crossed the 
 border to take part in the bloody struggle of Marston 
 Moor. 
 
 During these political and ecclesiastical contentions a 
 strong religious excitement swept like a wave over the 
 land. Every person felt it. Men, careless before, now be- 
 gan to seek the Lord with prayers and tears. Hardened 
 criminals were seized with sudden remorse and became 
 edifying examples of the power of converting grace. 
 Lieutenant-colonels and drill-sergeants began to perceive 
 they had a gift for preaching, and exercised it as opportu- 
 nity offered ; and often when the day's march was done 
 and the tents were pitched would a great crowd of fearless 
 warriors gather to hear one of Cromwell's Ironsides speak, 
 in impassioned tones, of the conquest of Canaan and the 
 
12 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 casting out of the Amalekites. By much reading of their 
 Bibles, men came to speak and think like the Hebrew 
 prophets. By much brooding on sin and salvation some 
 enthusiasts, carried farther than their neighbours by the 
 universal excitement, began to mistake their own crazy 
 thoughts for heavenly visions and divine intimations, and 
 published their revelations to the world. It is absurd to 
 .suppose, as many have supposed, that these men were mere 
 vulgar hypocrites. They may have been fanatical, but 
 they were, for the most part, not only perfectly sincere 
 but terribly in earnest. To them the Unseen was an ever- 
 present reality — they walked with God. They had such 
 an unwavering faith in Divine truth as is seldom met in 
 this more doubting age, and, as it was in the days of old, 
 the world beheld with wonder how " by faith they subdued 
 kingdoms, wrought righteousness, escaped the edge of the 
 sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant 
 in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens." 
 
 Such periods of extraordinary excitement are by no 
 means of rare occurrence in the history of religion. They 
 have not been confined to Europe, they are well kown in 
 India and the East, where the devotees are sometimes 
 raised to such a pitch of pious enthusiasm as is happily 
 unknown in the more sober West. It was under such an 
 impulse that Mahometanism started into existence, and 
 swept like a simoom over so large a portion of the world. 
 In such a time Peter the Hermit preached the Crusades, 
 and all Christendom was seized with an uncontrollable 
 frenzy to visit the scenes which had been consecrated by 
 the footsteps of the Saviour. In such a time Martin 
 Luther proclaimed the doctrine of justification by faith, 
 and made more converts to protestantism in a day than 
 have been made by three centuries of toil and trouble 
 since. In after-time when Wesley and Whitefield, by their 
 
MODERN REVIVALS, 
 
 13 
 
 impassioned preaching, had roused to a high state of devo- 
 tion the crowds who gathered around them, the contagion 
 spread fast and far, and wherever they went they found a 
 people prepared to respond to their every word by convul- 
 sive sobs and groans and swoons, till the excitement 
 reached its culminating point in the revivals at Cambus- 
 lang. We have seen the same thing repeated in our day. 
 In the cities of America the movement first began. In New 
 York thousands of merchants left their counting-houses at 
 mid-day to resort to meetings for prayer ; and apprentices, 
 who had never spoken in public before, felt an irresistible 
 desire to address their fellow-sinners regarding the salva- 
 tion of their souls. The planters of the South felt the in- 
 fluence, and revival preachers harangued deeply-moved 
 congregations in Charleston and New Orleans, while their 
 slaves, with African sympathy and warmth, sung in the 
 cotton fields their hymns about the Heavenly Canaan, or 
 gathered in those motley religious meetings of which 
 Mrs. Stowe has given us such a living picture in " Dred." 
 The excitement crossed the ocean and appeared first in 
 Ireland, just as the wave of the Atlantic first breaks upon 
 its shore. It came like an epidemic, and like an epidemic 
 it spread. From Ireland it came to Scotland, and, strange 
 to say, just as is the case with contagious diseases brought 
 into the country, it appeared first in the seaport towns. 
 It spread over the whole land, it extended to England, it 
 made its presence felt in all religious sects and among all 
 classes of society. The breath of the Lord was blowing 
 on the dry bones. Never had there been such a craving 
 for prayer meetings. Never had such multitudes met to 
 hear the message of merey, as assembled now in churches, 
 in hails, in fields, at the corners of the streets ; and when 
 a speaker came forward and declared how he had once 
 been the chief of sinners, a companion of prize-fighters and 
 
L4 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 thieves, how even the crime of murder might be laid to his 
 charge, but that he had been plucked as a brand from the 
 burning, and stood before them as a monument af saving 
 grace, the excitement of the meeting rose to its highest 
 pitch, and not only the nervous and the weak, but strong 
 men and women were stricken as by a hidden hand, and 
 sunk to the ground as dead. The return to consciousness 
 was generally accompanied by piteous cries for pardon, 
 and these again gave way to exulting shouts when pardon 
 had been found. For more than two years this state of 
 things continued, but then the tide of feeling which had 
 
 O ' CD 
 
 so mysteriously overflowed its banks gradually subsided, 
 and flowed again in its usual channels. 
 
 Scenes like these, which our own eyes have witnessed, 
 will help us to realise the fervour of the puritanic and 
 covenanting age. But that fervour generated not only 
 devotional extravagancies, but many new forms of faith. 
 Up to this time the hierarchy had sternly repressed all non- 
 conformity ; but the hierarchy was now no more. The 
 Westminster Assembly was then sitting, framing its creed 
 and other formularies, which were to bind the religious 
 thinking of future generations as in fetters of iron, and the 
 presbyterians, of which it was mainly composed, were as 
 intolerant as either prelatists or papists of other opinions 
 than their own ; but the Westminster Assembly, though it 
 had the will, had not the power to prevent the aberrations 
 of religious thought which now began. The Independents 
 were powerful both in the parliament and the army, and 
 to them we owe that measure of ecclesiastical freedom 
 which we now enjoy. The pressure was removed, and the 
 human mind at once shewed its native elasticity by think- 
 ing vigorously, if not always wisely, in regard to the deep 
 things of God. Sects sprung up in every corner. The 
 unity of the English Church was for ever gone. It was 
 
INCREASE OF SECTS. 
 
 15 
 
 like the breaking up of the Northern Seas at the return of 
 summer, when the ice rends asunder amid thundering 
 noises, and floats away in detached masses toward the 
 south. The presbyterians beheld all this with dismay, 
 and endeavoured to put the penal laws which were still on 
 the statute book in force against the sectaries, and even 
 managed to frame new ones ; but it was useless. Brownists, 
 Millenarians, Antinomians, Anabaptists, Libertines, Fami- 
 lists, Enthusiasts, Seekers, Perfectists, Antiscripturists, 
 Ranters, Bohmenists, and Socinians, abounded everywhere. 
 The unclean spirit which had been cast out, had taken to 
 himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and 
 returned, and the last state of the country was worse than 
 the first. 
 
 It was in such an atmosphere that Fox grew up. He 
 breathed it, and inhaled the contagion it contained. In 
 other circumstances, in all probability he would never have 
 left his cobbler's stall, and would have been known to his 
 neighbours only as a serious-thinking, somewhat dreamy 
 and perfectly honest man. But it was impossible for a man 
 of his mental mould to escape the spirit that was abroad. 
 At first it made him only miserable ; but ultimately it has 
 made him immortal. We shall see that many of the 
 thoughts which he regarded as divine inspirations, were not 
 even intuitions of his own, but were borrowed from his 
 compeers. The heavenly messages he had already received 
 — that churches notwithstanding their consecration were 
 but stone and lime, and that something more than a uni- 
 versity training was necessary to make a man a minister 
 of the Most High — were nothing but the staple talk of the 
 sectaries against the priesthood and the church. The 
 thought was far from being original, much less divine. 
 
 While Fox was wandering about half-crazed with his 
 distracting thoughts the fortune of war was going against 
 
16 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 the king. In the terrible charges of Marston Moor and 
 Naseby the cavalier chivalry had gone down before the 
 tierce enthusiasm of the puritans ; and the unhappy 
 monarch, defeated in battle and driven from all his strong- 
 holds, resorted to the desperate expedient of taking refuge 
 in the Scotch army. The Scotch army, after some hesita- 
 tion, delivered him to commissioners from the English 
 Parliament : and he was now, after several changes, a pri- 
 soner in the Isle of Wight, awaiting the bloody doom which 
 had already overtaken his servants Strafford and Laud. 
 The overthrow of the monarchy had led to violent disputes 
 between the parliament and the army, as both aimed at the 
 supreme power ; but the sword, as is usual, prevailed, and 
 in 1648 the government of the kingdom was in the hands 
 of a military junto of which Oliver Cromwell was the 
 soul. 
 
Chapter 55. 
 
 1648. 
 
 3X had hitherto kept his revelations to himself, or 
 communicated them only in private to persons 
 whom he chanced to meet, but now he felt himself 
 moved to go out into the world and proclaim them every- 
 where. One of Ins first public appearances was at Leices- 
 ter, and the account which he gives of it in his Journal is 
 so illustrative both of the man and the time that I shall 
 simply transcribe it. " Then," says he, " I heard of a 
 great meeting to be at Leicester for a dispute wherein 
 presbyterians, independents, baptists, and common-prayer 
 men were said to be all concerned. The meeting was in a 
 steeple-house : to which I was moved by the Lord God to 
 go, and be amongst them. I heard their discourse and 
 their reasonings, some being in pews and the priest in the 
 pulpit, abundance of people being gathered together. At 
 last one woman asked a question out of Peter, what that 
 new birth was, viz., a being born again of incorruptible 
 seed by the word of God, that liveth and abideth for ever ? 
 The priest said to her, ' I permit not a woman to speak in 
 the church though he had before given liberty to any to 
 speak. Whereupon I was wrapped up as in a rapture, in 
 the Lord's power ; and I stepped up, and asked the priest — 
 ' Dost thou call this place (the steeple-house) a church ? or 
 dost thou call this mixed multitude a church ?' For the 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 woman asking a question he ought to have answered it, 
 having given liberty for any to speak. But instead of 
 answering me, he asked, ' What a church was ?' I told him, 
 ' The church was the pillar and ground of truth, made up of 
 living stones, living members, a spiritual household, which 
 Christ was the head of; but he was not the head of a 
 mixed multitude, or of an old house made up of lime, stone, 
 and wood.' This set them all on a fire. The priest came 
 down from his pulpit, and others out of their pews, and 
 the dispute there was marred." The apparition of Fox, in 
 short, created a hubbub, and the meeting broke up ; but 
 Fox followed the clergyman to the inn and renewed the 
 dispute, but, of course, neither was convinced* 
 
 The young enthusiast, growing confident, now courted 
 opportunities of proclaiming his views. Entering the 
 churches he challenged disputation with the clergy, or 
 gathering the people about him in the street he spoke to 
 them of the true way of life. Moreover, new revelations 
 were vouchsafed to him according to his need : just as 
 yhen Mahomet required a vision, a vision always came. 
 It was at this time the Lord opened to him, that Christ was 
 the true light — the light that lighteneth every man that 
 cometh into the world. He tells us that though these 
 truths were communicated to him by immediate revelation 
 he afterwards discovered them in his Bible, and that thus 
 there was a perfect concord between the oracle within and 
 the oracle without. Antonia Bourignon, another mystic, 
 tells us, in like manner, that she knew a great part of the 
 Old Testament before she read it. No doubt the learned 
 Pundit would plead that the same circumstance explains 
 the marvellous likeness between the Koran and the Bible. 
 This inward illumination was given to every creature ; 
 
 * Fox's Journal, pp. 14-15. 
 
fox's manifold revelations. 
 
 19 
 
 and by it the highest knowledge of divine truth was at- 
 tained. They that believed in it and attended to it came 
 out of condemnation into the light of life. This principle 
 was the corner-stone of the religious system now develop- 
 ing itself in the mind of Fox : the germ of the mysticism 
 matured by his followers. But rules for every-day-life 
 were divinely intimated to the young man as well as these 
 high truths. " Moreover," says he, " when the Lord sent 
 me into the world he forbade me to put off my hat to any 
 high or low, and I was required to thee and thou all men 
 and women, without any respect to rich or poor, great or 
 small. And as I travelled up and down I was not to bid 
 people good morrow or good evening, neither might I bow 
 or scrape with my leg to any one."* 
 
 Such was the abundance of Fox's revelations, that not 
 only religious but physical truths were communicated to 
 him. As he informs us in his journal, " He knew not only 
 a renewing of the heart, and a restoration of the mind, but 
 the virtues of the creatures were also opened to him, so that 
 he began to deliberate whether he should practise physic 
 for the good of mankind. * * The three great professions 
 in the world, physic, divinity, and law, were opened to him." 
 This declaration sounds strangely in the midst of the con- 
 troversy at present raging as to whether the inspiration of 
 the Bible is confined to religious truths, or whether it ex- 
 tends to physical, historical, and even arithmetical ones. 
 
 Under this teaching his zeal daily increased. He con- 
 ceived that he had a mission to reform the manners of the 
 age, and he set himself to do it. He wrote to judges ex- 
 horting them to do justly. He visited public houses, and 
 warned those who kept them not to give their guests too 
 much drink. He testified against wakes, feasts, may- 
 
 * Journal, p. 22. 
 
20 
 
 THE QUAKERS, 
 
 o-ames, sports, plays, and shows, for these things trained 
 up people to vanity and looseness. He went to markets 
 and fairs and lifted up his voice against all cheating and 
 cozening. He was moved also to cry against music, and 
 mountebanks playing tricks on the stage, for these things 
 were inconsistent with the seriousness of life. But it was 
 the temple of God that chiefly needed purification, for it 
 had been made as of old a place of merchandise — yea a den 
 of thieves. Every time he heard the church bell toll, it 
 struck at his very life, for it seemed to him like a market- 
 bell calling the people together that the priest might set 
 forth his wares for sale. " Oh ! the vast sums of money," says 
 he, " that are got by the trade they make of selling the 
 Scriptures, and by their preaching, from the highest bishop 
 to the lowest priest."* 
 
 Now, Fox having in his youth worked in leather, knew 
 its virtues, and therefore he had made for himself a pair of 
 leather breeches, by reason that they would last for ever, 
 and stand all the tear and wear of his wandering life, and 
 he clothed himself with these, and when he appeared in 
 any village or town, the boys would gather about him and 
 cry, here comes the man with the leather breeches ! and, 
 according to his own testimony, when the priests heard the 
 shout they grew pale and hasted out of the way.i* His 
 buttons some thought were of silver and therefore savour- 
 ing of luxury, but he testifies they were but ochimy.j His 
 coat was of sober grey.§ Thus bedight a strange figure 
 must he have been as he passed along the street, with the 
 crowd following him, or suddenly appeared in some church 
 
 * Journal, p. 24. + Journal, p. 55. 
 
 X Journal, p. J 29. I find Clarkson, in his Life of Penn, calls this substance 
 alchymy. I am not learned enough in metals to know exactly what it was, but 
 suppose it was a kind of pewter, as it was mistaken for silver. 
 
 § Journal, p. 142. 
 
FOX AT NOTTINGHAM 
 
 21 
 
 to confound the clergyman by standing up on his seat and 
 defying him to prove the truth of what he taught. A tall 
 bulky man he was, with a somewhat commanding presence, 
 and a pleasant expression of countenance.* 
 
 1649.] As he wandered in this fashion about the country 
 he came to Nottingham, and espying the great steeple- 
 house, the Lord said unto him (as he tells us), " Thou must 
 go cry against yonder great idol, and against the worship- 
 pers therein." So he went, and " all the people looked 
 like fallow ground, and the priest like a great lump of earth 
 stood in the pulpit above." He gave out as his text the 
 words, " We have also a more sure word of prophecy, 
 whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light 
 that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the 
 day star arise in your hearts." He told the people that 
 by the Scriptures here referred to they were to try all 
 doctrines. " Now," says Fox, " the Lord's power was so 
 mighty upon me, and so strong in me that I could not 
 hold, but was made to cry out, ' Oh no it is not the Scrip- 
 tures, but the Holy Spirit, which gave the Scriptures by 
 which opinions are to be tried. The Jews had the Scrip- 
 tures, yet resisted the Holy Ghost and rejected Christ, the 
 Morning Star.' "*|* As he thus spake, the officers came and 
 hurried him off " to a nasty stinking prison, the smell 
 whereof," he says, " got into his nose and throat, and very 
 much annoyed him." But here was a heavy blow aimed 
 at what our modern subjective theologians call Bibliolatry. 
 
 While a prisoner at Nottingham he was sent for to the 
 sheriff's house, whose wife met him at the door with the 
 salutation, " This day is salvation come to this house ;" and 
 the sheriff himself was so affected by his conversation that 
 
 * Perm's Introduc-tion to FoxV- Journal, p. 30; and Sevvel's History, p. 636. 
 f Fox's Journal, p. 24. . 
 
THE QUAKERS, 
 
 he made restitution to a woman whom he had wronged, 
 and hurried out of the house to the market-place, in his 
 slippers, to preach repentance to the people. A strange 
 spectacle, truly, a sheriff standing slip-shod in the market 
 preaching repentance ! So soon as Fox was set at liberty, 
 he resumed his old work, and now he was enabled even to 
 perform miracles : he restored a demented woman to her 
 senses, and a hopelessly sick man to instant health * In 
 some places which he visited he was evil entreated by 
 the people, who beat him with sticks, set him in the stocks, 
 and stoned him out of their town as they would a mad 
 dog; but he bore everything with unruffled meekness. 
 And now disciples began to gather around him. There 
 was something attractive in his doctrine of the inward 
 light, by which men were rendered, in some measure, inde- 
 pendent both of Bible and teacher. And there was also 
 something attractive in another doctrine which he now 
 taught, that when a man is regenerated he is perfectly free 
 from sin. His declamations against the priesthood, and 
 the church and tithes, were simply an echo of popular feel- 
 ings, and therefore could not but take the popular ear. 
 Then he was evidently earnest, very patient under insult 
 and suffering, and had a native eloquence which told upon 
 the heart. His power in prayer was everywhere spoken of. 
 So he gained upon a people who were craving for religioun 
 excitement and change. But within a year his labours 
 were again interrupted. When in Derby he learned there 
 was to be a great religious meeting in the church, at 
 which many officers of the army, priests, and preachers, 
 were to be present, and especially a devout colonel, who 
 was to address the people. Whereupon he was moved to 
 go, and went ; and after listening for a while to the other 
 
 * Fox's Journal, pp. '2i> and '28. 
 
ORIGIN OF THE NAME QUAKERS. 
 
 23 
 
 orators, he rose to address the meeting, but he had no 
 sooner began than he was laid hold of by a constable and 
 carried before the magistrates. When there, and in a kind 
 of religious rapture proclaiming his principles, he called 
 upon the justices to quake at the Word of the Lord, and 
 one of them caught up the word, and in derision stigma- 
 tized him and his followers as Quakers, a name which has 
 stuck to them to this day* The populace, however, were 
 helped to its adoption by the fact that many of them when 
 preaching and praying shook from excitement like the 
 Delphic priestess wheu delivering her oracles. They de- 
 fended the practice of quaking, but rejected the appellation 
 scornfully derived from it, and preferred calling each other 
 by the simple name of Friends. As Fox instead of con- 
 cealing his principles gloried in them, and as some of these 
 appeared very horrible to the orthodoxy of that time, he 
 was convicted of blasphemy, and sentenced to imprison- 
 ment in the house of correction for six months. 
 
 1650.] And now the man in the leather breeches is 
 once more in prison, but he is not idle. Though almost 
 entirely uneducated, scarcely able to write legibly, inca- 
 pable of spelling, and grandly ignorant of grammar, he set 
 himself to pen letters to all who were in authority : to the 
 justices, to the clergy, to the mayor, and even to the bell- 
 man, for he had such a hatred of church-bells as a bull 
 has of a red rag. As his six months wore past, the officials 
 of the government were everywhere recruiting soldiers : for 
 Charles II. had marched with a Scotch army into England, 
 and Oliver Cromwell was at his heels, and the fight of Wor- 
 cester was near at hand. In these circumstances, the magis- 
 trates of Derby offered their prisoner a captain's commis- 
 sion, for they were anxious to stop his mouth, and direct 
 
 * Fox's Journal, p. bo. 
 
24 
 
 THE QUAKER?. 
 
 his zeal into another channel. But Fox told them that 
 fighting came of men's lusts, as saith the Apostle, and that 
 they were bound to love their enemies. Baulked in their 
 project to get rid of so troublesome a fellow, they ordered 
 him to be put into the common jail. " So I was put," 
 says Fox, " into a lousy, stinking place, without any bed, 
 among thirty felons, where I was kept almost half-a-year."* 
 Again he applied himself to letter- writing. And there was 
 sense in some of his letters. There was a young woman 
 in the jail with him condemned to death for a theft ; he 
 wrote to the judges remonstrating against this great ini- 
 quity. He was himself compelled to live with the worst 
 criminals, and felt how difficult it was to keep himself 
 pure amid impurity. He wrote to the judges regarding 
 such protracted promiscuous imprisonment, shewing how 
 prisoners learned wickedness of one another. Posterity 
 has in both cases accepted his opinion as politic and 
 humane; and a noble-minded woman, a member of his sect, 
 has carried the light of love into the darkest prison-houses 
 of Europe. 
 
 1651.] Time slipped past, the magistrates grew uneasy 
 at detaining a man so long in prison merely for his religious 
 opinions, and they ordered his discharge. He was no 
 sooner at liberty than he recommenced preaching. In the 
 course of his journeyings coming into the neighbourhood 
 of Lichfield — where Samuel Johnston afterwards learned 
 his first literature at his father's book-stall — he was moved 
 to testify against it. Proceeding over hedge and ditch till 
 he reached within a mile of the town, he came into a field 
 where some shepherds were watching their sheep. " There," 
 says he, " was I commanded by the Lord to pull off my 
 shoes. I stood still, for it was winter, and the word of the 
 
 * Journal, p. 42. Be.-se's Sufferings of the Quakers, Vol. I., p. 136. 
 
FOX AT LICHFIELD. 
 
 25 
 
 Lord was like a fire in me. So I put off my shoes, and 
 left them with the shepherds, and the poor shepherds 
 trembled and were astonished. Then I walked on about a 
 mile, and as soon as I was got within the city, the word of 
 the Lord came to me again, saying — Cry, ' Woe to the 
 bloody city of Lichfield V Sol went up and down the 
 streets crying with a loud voice, Woe to the Bloody 
 City of Lichfield ! It being market day, I went into the 
 market-place, and to and fro in the several parts of it, and 
 made stands, crying as before, Woe to the Bloody City 
 of Lichfield ! And no one laid hands on me. As I went 
 thus crying there seemed to me to be a channel of blood run- 
 ning down the streets, and the market-place appeared like a 
 pool of blood."* Having thus obeyed the heavenly im- 
 pulse, he returned to the shepherds, and being moved by 
 human as well as divine considerations, recovered his 
 shoes, and having washed his feet, put them on, and went 
 his way, meditating much on what he had done. A clear 
 madman ! the reader will say, as many said then. Yes, 
 reader, there was no doubt a streak of insanity in his 
 brain, but insanity is nearly allied to many noble qualities 
 both of head and heart. 
 
 Mad or not mad, with unwearied zeal he continued his 
 work, travelling everywhere, and proclaiming wherever he 
 went, the inward light, and the sinlessness of the converted 
 man. His followers multiplied rapidly, for it was an 
 age which itched for novelty. Though the country was 
 full of high pretenders to religion and sects innumerable, 
 Fox was pleased with none of them — hypocrites and dis- 
 semblers were they all, blind leaders of the blind. His 
 hand was against every man. And whenever he met a 
 Ranter, a Notionist, or a Fifth-Monarchy-Man, he at once 
 
 * Journal, p. 49. 
 
^6 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 fastened on him and shewed him the hollowness of his 
 pretensions and the falseness of his faith. Still he entered 
 the churches, and never hesitated to break in upon the 
 services. Once on going into a church he found the minister 
 discoursing from the text, "Ho every one that thirsteth,come 
 ye to the waters ; and he that hath no money, come ye, 
 buy and eat, yea come, buy wine and milk without money 
 and without price." Fox could not bide this, and as soon 
 as the clergyman was done, he cried, " Come down thou 
 deceiver ; dost thou bid people come freely and take of the 
 water of life freely, and yet thou takest three hundred 
 pounds a-year of them for preaching the Scriptures to 
 them ? Mayest thou not blush for shame ? Did the pro- 
 phet Isaiah and Christ do so, who spake the words, and 
 gave them forth freely ? Did not Christ say to his minis- 
 ters, whom he sent to preach, ' Freely ye have received, 
 freely give.' "* 
 
 The plain-speaking Quaker soon found that he had set 
 the whole country against him. As his hand was against 
 every man, every man's hand was against him. The 
 parish ministers and the sectaries were equally incensed. 
 Some regarded him as a sheer madman ; others as a horrible 
 blasphemer; others as a fit subject for being ducked in a 
 horse-pond, or set in a pillory. Accordingly, he was fre- 
 quently mobbed, cruelly beaten, and stoned. On more 
 occasions than one he was so shockingly abused that he 
 was left for dead. Yet he never resented this maltreat- 
 ment, but on some occasions when smitten on one cheek 
 he meekly turned the other to the smiter. Driven from 
 one town he generally proceeded quietly to another and 
 resumed his work. The very oddity of his dress and lan- 
 guage excited suspicion, and sometimes women who came 
 
 * Journal, p. 51. 
 
FOX IN CARLISLE JAIL. 
 
 27 
 
 to the door at his knock, when they beheld the strange 
 figure and heard themselves thee'd and thou'd, slammed the 
 door to in alarm. It was no rare thing for him to seek a 
 bed in the corner of a stack-yard, or under a bush in the 
 open field, or to want food for days together. 
 
 In the course of his wanderings at this time he came to 
 Carlisle, and, after sundry adventures, he preached in the 
 cathedral, and his preaching led to a riot, and he was 
 again laid hold of and thrust into jail, among moss-troopers, 
 thieves, and murderers. " A filthy, nasty place it was," says 
 he, " where men and women were put together in a very 
 uncivil manner, and never a house of office to it, and the 
 prisoners so lousy that one woman was almost eaten to 
 death with lice." * There he lay for a time, and began as 
 usual to write admonitory epistles to all and sundry. A 
 report got abroad that he was likely to be hanged for his 
 blasphemies, and great ladies then being like great ladies 
 now, visited him in his prison as one that was appointed 
 to die. The rumour, however, reached " Praise-God-Bare- 
 Bones' Parliament," which was then in power, that a 
 young man at Carlisle was to be put to death for his reli- 
 gion, and a missive was despatched to the magistrates, 
 which had the effect of setting him at liberty.*)" His death 
 could|never have been seriously contemplated. 
 
 1653.] In 1653 Oliver Cromwell clomb to the supreme 
 power, and was proclaimed Lord Protector of the Common- 
 wealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland. He had always 
 declared himself a friend of religious toleration, and the 
 Quakers naturally looked to him for protection. But it 
 was difficult to save them from the consequences of their 
 conduct without subverting half the legislation of the 
 country. They persisted in entering churches, and in- 
 
 * Journal, p. 102. 
 
 t Journal, p. 104. 
 
28 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 terrupting the service. They wrote the most defamatory- 
 letters to the most respectable people. They refused to 
 pay tithes. They declined to take any oath, even that of 
 allegiance. They would not take their hat off even when 
 standing before a bench of magistrates, and this was natu- 
 rally construed into a contempt of Court. They could 
 hardly appear in any town without exciting the populace 
 to rage or mischief, and a breach of the peace was the re- 
 sult. The law has now been gradually modified to meet 
 these peculiarities in the Quaker character and creed, but 
 it was scarcely to be expected that the Protector, with all 
 his love of toleration, should, all at once, preserve a new 
 and despised sect from the consequences of their illegal 
 conduct. But, besides this, the presbyterians were numerous 
 and powerful, and Oliver was naturally anxious to conci- 
 liate them, and the presbyterians cried out against the 
 blasphemers, and pointed to the enactments in the statute 
 book against blasphemy. The result was, that many were 
 cast into prison, fined, or set in the pillory to be pelted by 
 the mob. 
 
 1654.] In 1654 there was a rumour of a plot formed 
 against the Protector, in which it was thought the Quakers 
 had a hand, and in consequence of this Fox was seized 
 at one of his meetings, and carried a prisoner to London. 
 Captain Dury, who had charge of him, reported his arrival 
 to Cromwell, who asked him to subscribe a paper to the 
 eifect that he would never use a carnal weapon against 
 him or his government. Fox, who abjured the sword even 
 in self-defence, readily did so. Next morning he was 
 taken to Whitehall that the Protector might see him and 
 judge ol him for himself. When he arrived Cromwell was 
 still undressed, but it did not matter, he was at once ad- 
 mitted to his presence, which he entered with the priestly 
 words, " Peace be on this house," and with his hat firmly 
 
FOX AND CROMWELL. 
 
 29 
 
 fixed on his head. An interesting peep behind the scenes — 
 the meeting of these two immortals ! The great Protector 
 in his shirt receiving the humble Quaker — a man half- 
 crazed, but destined by the earnestness of his convictions 
 to found a sect which has lasted for centuries, and done 
 some £ood work in the world ! The conversation was about 
 religion, and the Quaker exhorted the Protector to live in 
 the fear of God, and order all things for his glory. The 
 Protector remarked that the Quakers quarrelled with the 
 ministers of religion. The Quaker replied that the pro- 
 phets and apostles preached not for hire, whereas the 
 priests of that day divined for money, and bartered the 
 free gospel for filthy lucre. He declared that the Spirit 
 was necessary to illuminate the mind, and that without it 
 the Scriptures were useless. As he proceeded, Oliver fre- 
 quently interjected, "It is good" — "It is truth." When 
 the poor Quaker was ready to leave, the absolute master 
 of three kingdoms took him warmly by the hand, and with 
 tears in his eyes, said, " Come again to my house, for if 
 thou and I were but an hour of a day together, we should 
 be nearer one another." As he was retiring, a servant 
 followed him, and invited him to remain and dine with the 
 Protector's attendants, but, though pleased with his recep- 
 tion, he, in a rather surly way, told the servant to say to his 
 master that he would not eat of his bread nor drink of his 
 drink.* Was it pride ? or an outburst of independence — 
 a foolish protest that he would not sell his birthright for 
 a mess of pottage, though served in a silver plate in the 
 hall of a Court ? 
 
 Fox had hitherto confined those singular epistles, in 
 which he seemed to travesty the apostles and prophets, to 
 private persons and local authorities ; but now, taking a 
 
 * Fox's Journal, p 127. 
 
THE QUAKERS. 
 
 higher aim, he directed one to the Pope and all the 
 Kings and Rulers of Europe, warning them that the day 
 of the Lord was at hand. Another he addressed " To such 
 as follow the world's fashions ; " which is so curious as to 
 be worth quoting : — " What a world is this ! How doth 
 the devil garnish himself ! How obedient are people to do 
 his will and mind ! They are altogther carried away with 
 fooleries and vanities, both men and women. They have 
 lost the hidden man of the heart, the meek and quiet spirit ; 
 which with the Lord is of great price. They have lost the 
 adorning of Sarah, they are putting on gold and gay apparel, 
 women plaiting the hair, men and women powdering it, 
 making their backs look like bags of meal. * * They 
 must be in the fashion of the world else they are not in 
 esteem ; nay, they shall not be respected if they have not 
 gold or silver upon their backs, or if the hair be not 
 powdered. But if one have store of ribands hanging about 
 his waste, at his knees, and in his hat, of divers colours, red, 
 white, black, or yellow, and his hair powdered, then he is 
 a brave man, then he is accepted, then he is no Quaker. 
 He hath ribands on his back, belly, and knees, and his hair 
 powdered. This is the array of the world. But is not 
 this from the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, or the 
 pride of life ? Likewise the women having their gold, their 
 patches on their faces, noses, cheeks, foreheads, their rings 
 on their fingers, their cuffs double under and above, like 
 a butcher with his white sleeves, their ribands tied about 
 their hands, and three or four gold laces about their clothes : 
 this is no Quaker, say they. * * And farther ; if one 
 get a pair of breeches like a coat, and hang them about 
 with points, and up almost to the middle, a pair of double 
 cuffs upon his hands, and a feather in his cap, here is 
 a gentleman : bow before him, put off your hats, get a 
 company of fiddlers, a set of music, and women to dance. 
 
ADVENTURES. 
 
 31 
 
 This is a brave fellow ! Are these your fine Christians ?" 
 
 1655.] Fox was now master of a horse, on which he 
 performed his journeys. In his wandering life he neces- 
 sarily met with strange adventures. On one occasion there 
 was a hue and cry that two men who had been seen on the 
 road clad in grey clothes and riding on grey horses were 
 highwaymen, and that they had broken into a house. 
 They were pursued, overtaken, and carried before a justice 
 of the peace. " Take off your hats," cried the justice, when 
 the supposed highwaymen were brought into his presence. 
 " I kept on my hat in the presence of the Protector," said 
 Fox, who, with a brother Quaker, was the suspected house- 
 breaker, " and he was not offended, and why should you 
 who are but his servant ?" The magistrate was convinced 
 there had been a mistake and set them at liberty. On 
 another occasion, being in a tavern, he began to speak to 
 the men who were enjoying their pot of ale, of the light 
 which lighteneth every man who cometh into the world. 
 The landlord being a facetious fellow, and seeing that this 
 kind of discourse was likely to spoil his custom, snatched 
 up a candle, and said, " Come, here is a light to light you 
 to your bed," and so marched him off to his chamber, "f 
 
 Toward the end of the same year, Fox and two Quaker 
 friends were apprehended as vagabonds and for having re- 
 fused the abjuration oath, and after lying nine weeks in 
 Launceston jail were brought before the Chief- Justice of 
 England at the assizes. When they were brought into 
 court Fox courteously said, " Peace be among you." " What 
 be these you have brought here into court ?" said the Chief- 
 J ustice, who was a Welshman, looking at the three strange 
 figures, who stood before him with their hats on their 
 
 Journal, pp. 133-4. 
 
 t Journal, p. 161. 
 
32 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 heads. " Prisoners, my Lord," said the jailor briefly. "Why 
 do you not put off your hats ?" continued the judge, turn- 
 ing to the three. They said nothing. " Put off your hats," 
 said the judge. Still they were silent. " The court com- 
 mands you to put off your hats," roared the Chief- Justice, 
 now in a rage. George was now moved to speak, and he 
 said : " When 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 the 
 law." Unable to quote a statute to the point, and quite 
 losing his temper, the Chief-Justice ordered the prisoners 
 to be removed ; but they were no sooner removed than it 
 occurred to him he might puzzle them more than they had 
 puzzled him. So having them again brought into Court, 
 he said, " Come, where had they hats from Moses to Daniel ? 
 answer me that." " Thou mayest read in the 3d of Daniel," 
 said Fox, who knew his Bible well, " that the three chil- 
 dren were cast into the fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar's 
 command, with their coats, their hose, and their hats on." * 
 The chief-Justice was foiled again. Had the thing been a 
 mere trial of wit, it must have been confessed that the 
 Quaker had the best of it. It did not, however, end so, for 
 George and his two friends were fined twenty merks a-piece; 
 and as they either could not or would not pay it, they 
 were carried back to jail to be kept there till they did so. 
 
 1656.] Up to this time they had been compelled accord- 
 ing to the cruel usage of the time to pay the jailor seven 
 shillings each a-week for their maintenance, and seven 
 shillings for their horses ; but now they sent their horses 
 
 * Fox's Journal, p. 166. Macaulay. in his History of England, does not state 
 this incident quite fairly. He says that Fox quoted the case of the Hebrew chil- 
 dren as a reason for keeping on his hat. it will be seen this was not the case. 
 
A JAIL IX 1656. 
 
 SB 
 
 into the country, and resolved not to pay the jailor a far- 
 thing more, having made up their minds that it might be 
 long before they were released. The jailor, incensed at 
 being deprived of his customary profits, thrust them into 
 an abominable dungeon, where murderers were usually put 
 after they were condemned. When we read Fox's descrip- 
 tion of it we find it difficult to believe that such places 
 of confinement once existed in England. The floor was 
 soft mire, and in some places the water was so deep as to 
 come over the shoes. There was no retreat for the sake of 
 decency, and as the room had not been cleaned out for 
 years, the stench was intolerable. The Quakers made an 
 effort to purify the noisome atmosphere by burning some 
 straw ; but the smoke unfortunately ascended into a room 
 above, where the jailor slept, and he revenged himself for 
 the annoyance by pouring down through a hole upon their 
 heads a shower of abominations, which made matters more 
 insufferable than ever. The ruffian no doubt thought it 
 was an excellent joke. In truth, the place was so bad, 
 and known to be so, that it had been remarked that 
 few who were put in there ever came out again in health. 
 What a contrast this to the well- ventilated, well- warmed, 
 comfortably furnished cells in which our worst criminals 
 now enjoy such luxurious solitude ! In this horrid hole 
 the Quakers passed the first night, without even a bundle 
 of straw to he down upon, and every step they took in 
 the slimy mud increased the sickening smell. Next day 
 the jailor allowed them to remove the filth from the floor 
 of their den, but not before he had first vented his spleen 
 by reviling them as hatchet-faced dogs.* Friends now 
 came and handed them food through the gratings of their 
 dungeon. Gradually the rigour of their imprisonment was 
 
 * Fox's Journal, pp. 172-3. 
 
 C 
 
THE QUAKERS. 
 
 relaxed. They were allowed to take exercise in the castle- 
 green; sometimes even to visit the town. Not only 
 proselytes, but many others, led by curiosity, came to see 
 them, and they eagerly seized upon such opportunities to 
 proclaim their peculiar faith. Thus months passed away, 
 and still there was no prospect of their release. 
 
 When things were in this state, a devoted Quaker pre- 
 sented himself to the Protector, and offered to go to jail in 
 Fox's stead, if Fox were set at liberty. The Protector- 
 told him that it could not be — that the law would not allow 
 it ; but, struck with this generous act of devotion, he turned 
 to the courtiers who surrounded him, and asked, which of 
 them would do so much for him. Shortly afterwards 
 General Desborough was sent down to Launceston to en- 
 quire into the matter, and, as a result of his enquiries, the 
 three Friends were soon afterwards ordered to be discharged. 
 But even still there were obstacles to their obtaining their 
 freedom, for the governor of the jail demanded his fees, and 
 they refused to pay for having been unjustly imprisoned, 
 and it was only after the governor saw that he would make 
 nothing of such inflexible men that he set them at liberty.* 
 Again George Fox was at large with his leathern breeches 
 on his loins, his hat on his head, and his tongue trained to 
 address every person in the second-person singular accord- 
 ing to the strictest rules of grammar and truth. Meetings of 
 Friends were now established in every part of the country, 
 and these he visited and refreshed by his apostolic eloquence. 
 Gainsay ers were convinced, scoffers were put to silence, dis- 
 putants were confounded by the Arch-Quaker — at least so 
 he himself tells us, but it is difficult to believe that the 
 arguments which he has handed down to us as having 
 worked such logical Avonders could have any weight with 
 
 •: Bpese'a Sufferings of the Quakers, Vol. I., pp. 113-14. Fox's Journal, p. 203. 
 
THE QUAKERESS WAITING- WOMAN. 35 
 
 » 
 
 the weakest of mankind. It is to be feared that his vanity 
 frequently suggested to him that he had put an adversary 
 to shame, when the adversary had merely turned aside to 
 laugh at his oddity and folly. Still the indubitable truth 
 remains that in a few years he made thousands of converts. 
 There must have been something about the man, of which 
 not a trace is to be found in his writings. - He was not 
 long out of jail till he was in London : and riding through 
 Hyde Park he observed a crowd collecting, and looking 
 toward it saw the Lord Protector's coach approaching. He 
 at once rode up to it. One of the life-guards was about 
 to drive him off, when Cromwell recognised him, and ordered 
 that he should be allowed to come near. So he rode by 
 the side of the chariot, and, like a Hebrew prophet dealing 
 with a Hebrew king, remonstrated with the Protector for 
 permitting the Friends to be persecuted and cruelly en- 
 treated. When they reached the gate of St. James' Park 
 the Quaker reined up his horse in order to part, but before 
 he did so the Protector bid him come and see him at hi.s 
 house. 
 
 It so happened that a young Quakeress was maid to 
 Oliver's wife — for Quakerism had already found its way 
 even into Caesar's household. " I have good news to tell 
 you," said Cromwell to her in the course of the evening. 
 u What is that ?" quoth she. " George Fox is come to town," 
 replied the Protector. " That is good news indeed," re- 
 turned she, " but I can hardly believe it." Upon which 
 the man, at times so stern, kindly told the girl how he had 
 met him and ridden with him from Hyde Park to St. James' 
 Gate. Next morning the Quakeress paid a visit to Fox 
 and related to him her conversation with the Protector. 
 On hearing this, Fox resolved to repair to Whitehall ; and 
 he took with him Edward Pyot, who had been one of his . 
 companions in tribulation in Launceston jail. When ad- 
 
36 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 mitted to the Protector's presence they found Dr. Owen, 
 the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, with him. They spoke of 
 the cruel sufferings to which the Friends had been exposed. 
 They directed the sagacious Head of the Commonwealth to 
 the light of Christ, which shone within him. " It is but 
 the light of nature, which you thus mistake for the light of 
 Christ," said Cromwell. " Nay," said Fox, " it is spiritual 
 and divine, and proceeds from Christ the spiritual and 
 divine man." As Fox spoke thus he stood by a table, and 
 Cromwell coming over to it sat down upon the edge of it, 
 remarking, in a good natured way, to the tall Quaker, 
 (made taller by his immovable hat,) that he would be as 
 high as him. Still the conversation proceeded about the 
 existence of the inward divine light ; but Cromwell, with 
 Dr. Owen at his side, refused to be convinced of its exist- 
 ence, and was even inclined to jest about it. So they 
 parted, but Fox was afterwards comforted in some degree 
 by hearing, probably through the Quakeress waiting- 
 woman, that when Cromwell was with his wife he said as 
 if in self-reproach — " I never parted so from them before."*" 
 
 * Fox's Journal, p. 208. 
 
(Chapter SH* 
 1656. 
 
 T was now eight years since Fox had begun to 
 preach that every man born into the world had 
 within him the Divine Word, which was a light 
 to illuminate his native darkness and show him the path 
 of life ; and so greedily had this mystic truth been received 
 that Quaker-meetings were already established in every part 
 of the country, and Quakers more numerous in England 
 than they are at the present day * Quakerism was rapidly 
 absorbing many of the small fanatical sects which had 
 been generated under the high temperature of the times.f 
 Fox's divining rod swallowed up the rods of the less mighty 
 magicians. Ranters came before him and danced and 
 whistled and sang, like savages under the influence of mm, 
 but George spoke to them a few grave words about the in- 
 ward light, and thev listened and were converted.^ Deists 
 
 * From the numbers which signed petitions to parliament in 1659, it has been 
 calculated that there must then have been 3O.b0O Quakers in England. At present 
 the English Quakers number only 14,000. But in America there are probably 
 150,000 members of the Society of Friends. 
 
 t Baxter's Life. Neal's History of the Puritans, Vol. II. p. "J52. 
 
 J Fox's Journal, p. 121. 
 
38 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 came and talked of the light of nature, but George rebuked 
 their profanity, and they were dumb. There must have 
 been a power in this man which is nowhere to be found in 
 his writings ; for these, though they have the form of the 
 Hebrew Scriptures, are altogether destitute of their inspira- 
 tion. But how much that is noble in man is so volatile 
 that it cannot be preserved : so incommunicable that it 
 cannot be bequeathed to posterity ! We have Demosthenes' 
 orations, but we have not Demosthenes himself! We 
 have the sermons of Whitfield, but we search them in 
 vain for the impassioned looks and resistless eloquence of 
 the great preacher. We have the epistles of Fox, but we 
 want his earnest tones and contagious enthusiasm. 
 
 According to Fox a University education was not neces- 
 sary to make a man a minister of the Word. A knowledge 
 of languages was rather hurtful than otherwise, for were 
 not men all of one speech till a confusion of tongues was 
 sent as a judgment upon the impious builders of Babel ? 
 The inward light was all that was required : and the 
 promptings of the Holy Spirit were better than all earthly 
 lore. The Quakers, therefore, had soon plenty of preachers, 
 for when a man believes himself inspired > he feels himself 
 impelled to communicate his inspirations to the world. So 
 early as 1652, there were twenty-five Quaker preachers 
 traversing the country, trembling themselves while they 
 spoke, and calling upon all others to tremble at the Word 
 of the Lord. By 1654 this number had increased to up- 
 wards of sixty. Women, too, began, like resucitated sybils, 
 to utter their oracles in public amid convulsive contortions, 
 to the great scandal of unilluminated people. It is true 
 women were forbidden by St. Paul to speak in the church, 
 but the prohibition, it was argued, could extend only to the 
 silly women of Corinth, and could never be meant to apply 
 to those who were divinely inspired; for had not Anna, 
 
EDWARD BURROUGH. 
 
 39 
 
 the prophetess, and others beside her, spoken even in the 
 temple at Jerusalem.* 
 
 Among the most famous of the early Quaker preachers 
 was Edward Burrough. Educated as an episcopalian, he 
 had become a presbyterian when the tide set in in that 
 way ; but, still disappointed of peace, he went over from 
 the presbyterians to the Quakers. For this he was turned 
 out of doors by his father, for Quakerism was enough to 
 bring disgrace upon any family. Being possessed of consider- 
 able fluency he soon became distinguished as a preacher of 
 the new sect. And a forward man was he. It was usual 
 in those days for the London tradesmen, when their day's 
 work was done, to meet in the fields of a summer evening 
 to try their skill in wrestling. Burrough once on a time 
 came upon a crowd where such athletic exercises were go- 
 ing om A stout fellow had already thrown three antago- 
 nists, and now waited to see if any other would challenge 
 his skill, when Burrough stepped into the ring. Every- 
 body gazed, for he had not the appearance of a mighty 
 man, and the champion himself was not a little disconcerted ; 
 but Burrough soon shewed what was the nature of the 
 encounter he sought, for instead of casting his coat and 
 coming to gripes with his antagonist, he opened his mouth 
 and thundered against spiritual wickednesses in high 
 places. He was as ready with his pen as his tongue, and 
 almost rivalled Fox in the abundance of his epistolary 
 writings. He assailed the Protector with letters about 
 his pride, his fbrgetfulness of his vows, and the judgments 
 which would come upon him and his house if he did not 
 repent. He favoured in a similar way his wife and 
 favourite daughter, the Lady Claypole ; for the Quakers 
 had often been very successful in gaining a hold upon the 
 
 • Jewel's History of the Quakers, p. 69-1. 
 
40 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 female heart. Thus forward in the cause of the Friends, 
 he had his share of the horse-whippings and imprisonments 
 to which they were exposed. 
 
 Another of the old worthies of the sect was Francis 
 Howgill. He had been a preacher among the independents, 
 but under a divine illumination he abandoned them and 
 joined the Quakers. Among other feats he managed to 
 get access to the Lord Protector, (for this was every Quaker's 
 ambition,) and unburdened his mind to him. But Cromwell 
 had ventured to question whether what the Quaker had 
 said was the Word of the Lord, and several days had passed, 
 and still he had not repented of his doubts, and therefore 
 Howoill was moved to write him — " Therefore hear the 
 word of the Lord : Thus saith the Lord, I chose thee out 
 of all the nations, when thou wast little in thine own eyes,, 
 and threw down the mountains and powers of the earth be- 
 fore thee, which established wickedness by a law, and broke 
 the yokes and bonds of the oppressors, and made them stoop 
 before thee that thou passedst over them, and trod upon their 
 necks ; but thus saith the Lord, now thy heart is not up- 
 right before me, but thou takest counsel and not at me ; 
 and thou art establishing peace, and not by me ; and thou 
 art setting up laws, and not by me ; and my name is not 
 feared, nor am I sought after. Therefore this is the Word 
 of the Lord to thee whether thou wilt hear or forbear : if 
 thou take not away all those laws which are made concern- 
 ing religion, whereby the people, which are dear in mine 
 eyes, are oppressed, thou shalt not be established ; but as 
 thou hast trodden mine enemies by my power, so shalt 
 thou be trodden down by my power, and thou shalt know 
 that I am the Lord."* The letter- writer who had thus 
 presumed to speak in the name of the Almighty hung 
 
 * Sewels History of the Quakers p. 
 
MILES HALHEAD. 
 
 II 
 
 about St. James' Park for a time expecting an answer, but 
 uo answer came. If there had been any, it should have 
 been a rod. In truth, one cannot help admiring the for- 
 bearance of this master of ten legions with these intruders ; 
 for though he was hiinself strongly infected with the puri- 
 tanic cant, he could not relish such a use of it. " But he 
 that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city. " 
 
 Another of the apostles of primitive Quakerism was 
 Miles Halhead. A very zealous and somewhat vitupera- 
 tive man was Miles, and therefore he had more than his 
 share of the prophet's reward. On one occasion he passed 
 on the road a lady — the wife of a justice of the peace — 
 without hfting his hat to her ; and she being indignant at 
 this want of civility, and naturally something of a terma- 
 gant, ordered the man-servant who followed her to turn 
 back and cane the rude fellow : which was accordinsflv 
 done. But in Miles she had met her match ; for he broke 
 out, " 0 thou Jezebel ! thou proud Jezebel ! canst thou not 
 suffer the servant of the Lord to pass by thee quietly." 
 This was too much to be borne, and the first instinct of 
 the lady was to smite the ill-tongued Quaker ; but, recover- 
 ing her womanhood, she stayed her hand, and spat in his 
 face. " 0 thou proud Jezebel ! " he broke out again, " thou 
 hardenest thy heart and brazenest thy face against the 
 Lord and his servant. The Lord will set in order before 
 thee the things which thou has done this day;" and 
 witli the last word he marched off. A sharp tongue like 
 this could not fail to sting people into antagonism. Both 
 at Skipton and at Doncaster he was so beaten and 
 braised that he was left for dead, but on both occasions, 
 if we may believe the Quaker authorities, his wounds 
 were miraculously healed in a few hours. Assured by 
 these two proofs, and by a vision which he enjoyed, 
 that if he stoutly did his duty the Lord would heal him 
 
42 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 again,* he went to his work with renewed vigour, and 
 was stoned and pitched over walls without being hurt, 
 or, if hurt, immediately healed, like the heroes of Val- 
 halla, who are every day hewn in pieces in mortal combat, 
 and every night able to eat of the boar soehrimnir and quaff 
 mead from their huge drinking-horns as if nothing had 
 happened to impair their appetite. He visited first Ire- 
 land and afterwards Scotland, and was pelted and laughed 
 at in both ; but he did not thus compass sea and land 
 without making proselytes. We know that in peculiar con- 
 ditions of the soil and atmosphere unknown vegetations 
 will rush up and rapidly spread over a whole district. So 
 it was with the new religion. 
 
 The women who went forth as preachers of the in- 
 ward light and the sinless life met with usage quite as 
 rough as the men. The age was shocked at females leav- 
 ing the privacy of their families and coming into crowded 
 meetings to pour out their wild rhapsodies, where, if some 
 were edified, there were more who mocked. The pious 
 were grieved at the transgression of the apostolic prohibi- 
 tion of women speaking in the church. The profane had 
 their indecent jests. The rude populace thought that 
 women who could so far forget the timidity and delicacy 
 of their sex could best be cured of their phantasy by cold 
 bathing, and therefore it was their delight to drag them to 
 the nearest pump. One Quakeress, more zealous than her 
 sisters, appeared stark naked in the chapel at Whitehall, 
 when the Lord Protector was present, as a sign to the 
 people. - )* Surely it was only a sign that she was mad. 
 
 But of all the disciples of Fox, male and female, none was 
 more famous than James Naylor, and no one brought upon 
 
 * Sewers History of the Quakers, pp. 70-7'2. 
 
 f Neai's History of the Puritans. Vol. II., p. 482. 
 
JAMES XAYLOR. 
 
 43 
 
 the sect a deeper reproach. He had unfortunately kindled 
 the admiration of some crazy women, who persuaded him 
 he was nothing less than divine ; and his judgment, already 
 disordered by fanaticism, was unable to resist the intoxi- 
 cation of female flattery. One admirer wrote him, " Thou 
 shalt no longer be called James Naylor, but Jesus." Others 
 addressed him as The Everlasting Son of Righteousness — 
 The Prince of Peace — The only begotten Son of God — The 
 fairest among ten thousand. It was famed abroad that he 
 had raised a woman from the dead. When lying in Exeter 
 jail, into which he had been cast, some female devotees got 
 admittance to his presence ; they knelt before him ; they 
 kissed his feet ; and malicious tongues whispered that their 
 too ardent devotion had melted into love. Released at 
 Exeter, it was arranged that he should enter Bristol in 
 triumph, as Christ had entered Jerusalem. A man walked 
 before him bare-headed. A woman led his horse by the 
 reins. Three others ran before and spread their scarfs and 
 handkerchiefs in the way ; and a company followed singing, 
 " Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of hosts : Hosannah in 
 the highest : Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of Israel." 
 So they entered the city ; but they were quickly laid hold 
 of and marched to the jail. From Bristol he was sent to 
 London, where he was charged before the parliament with 
 blasphemy, for assuming the names and attributes of Christ, 
 and a parliamentary committee was appointed to examine 
 witnesses in the cause. That divine honours were rendered 
 in his presence he confessed, but he pleaded that they 
 were paid not to him but to Christ who dwelt in him* 
 For ten days was the great council of the nation em- 
 ployed in deliberations as to whether Naylor was an im- 
 postor, a maniac, or a man divinely inspired.")* At last 
 
 * Neal's History of the Puritans, Vol. II., p. 483. 
 
 t Thurloe's State Papers. RusseKs History of Modern Europe, Vol. IV.. p. 230. 
 
44 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 they found him guilty of blasphemy; and, if slow in 
 coming to judgment, when they did come to it, they forgot 
 mercy. The unhappy man was sentenced to be placed in 
 the pillory at Westminster for two hours, thereafter to be 
 whipped at a cart's tail, from Westminster to the Old Ex- 
 change : two days afterwards he was to be put in the 
 pillory again, with a placard above his head stating his 
 crime, and then to have his tongue bored through with a 
 hot iron, and his forehead branded with the letter B ; and, 
 as if this were not enough, he was to be sent the following 
 week to Bristol, carried through the city on horseback 
 with his face to the tail, whipped again, and finally to be 
 brought back to London, confined in bridewell, and kept at 
 hard labour during the Parliament's pleasure. A most 
 barbarous sentence ! When he had undergone one-half of 
 it there was an effort made — and many who were not 
 Quakers joined in it — to have the remainder cancelled ; 
 but the parliament, through zeal for religion, was unre- 
 lenting, and the whole of the terrible punishment was en- 
 dured. An unflinching Friend stood by him at the pillory, 
 gently held his head while his tongue was being bored, 
 and licked his wounds to assuage the pain. The spectators 
 through pity uncovered their heads when he was in his 
 agony.* The Quakers in general were far from approving 
 these insane and blasphemous pretensions, but they com- 
 miserated him in his cruel sufferings ; and as he repented 
 in prison and acknowledged his errors, they received him, 
 on his liberation, back into their body. 
 
 Never was there a sect which exhibited more of the 
 missionary spirit than the first Quakers. Every one of 
 them was an apostle ; and it is marvellous with what de- 
 votion they gave themselves up to their work, notwith- 
 
 * Jewel's History, pp. 138-143. 
 
GEORGE FOX IN SCOTLAND. 45 
 
 standing the cruel mockings and usage they everywhere 
 received. In 1654 three Quakers perambulated Ireland, 
 preaching in the towns and villages. In the same year 
 two Quakers and two Quakeresses appeared in Scotland, 
 and roused the wrath of its stern covenanting population 
 by their contempt for the orthodoxy of the Kirk. Three 
 years afterwards, George Fox himself crossed the Tweed ; 
 but he found there a somewhat unkindly soil for his seed. 
 He managed to touch the heart of a few of the English 
 soldiers who were garrisoned in the country, but testifies 
 that the Scots were a dark, carnal people, and that they 
 scarcely even listened to what he said * Notwithstanding 
 his cold reception in the Lowlands he resolved to penetrate 
 into the Highlands. But there matters were worse ; for, 
 as he tells us, the highlanders were so devilish that they 
 attacked him and his friends with pitchforks.-)- In spite of 
 these discouragements he made some converts, and con- 
 firmed those who had been made by his forerunners. But 
 as he had been ordered by the Council to leave the country, 
 and warrants were out for his apprehension, he turned his 
 horse's head to the south, and was soon again over the 
 border. 
 
 But Quakerism was not to be confined within the narrow 
 limits of this Island : it crossed the sea and appeared on 
 the Continent. Holland was the first country in which it 
 was preached, and there a number of proselytes were made. 
 Carrying out the principle that honour was to be shewn 
 unto none, the Dutch Quakers had some books published 
 in which there was not a single capital letter to be found ; 
 for, to begin a man's name with a capital, they argued, was 
 as bad as to render him hat-honour. The Burgomasters, 
 thinking that such people must be mad, clapped a number 
 
 * Fox's Journal, p. 264. 
 
 t Journal p. 259. 
 
46 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 of them into bedlam ; and the English emissaries who had 
 turned their heads were put on board ship and sent bac k 
 whence they came. But with the pertinacity which was 
 so characteristic of the sect they soon returned, and be- 
 gan to preach at Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and other Dutch 
 towns, with as much fervour as ever, and with considerable 
 success. But if converts were made, riots also were ex- 
 cited, and the crowd would follow the strangers with the 
 cry — Quake ! Quake ! Quake ! They were again obliged 
 to leave the country, but one of them, named Ames, passed 
 into Germany, travelled through Bohemia, and even pene- 
 trated Poland, scattering broadcast wherever he went 
 Quaker seed. 
 
 1657.] About the same time another Quaker, named 
 Robinson, felt a divine impulse to proceed to Jerusalem, 
 that he might in the very city where our Saviour died 
 proclaim Him to be the true light that lighteneth every 
 man that cometh into the world. He accordingly set sail 
 for Leghorn, and after remaining there some weeks, secured 
 a passage in a French vessel bound for Acre. From Acre 
 he sailed along the shores of Palestine till he reached 
 Jaffa, the ancient Joppa. He was now within fifty 
 miles of Jerusalem, and leaving the coast he proceeded in- 
 land ; but the news of his coming had preceded him, and 
 when he reached Rama, almost within sight of the sacred 
 city which he had wandered so far to behold, he was pre- 
 vented from proceeding farther. In a few days an Irish 
 friar — one of the fraternity who had charge of the Holy 
 Places — came to him and asked if he would promise, when 
 he came to Jerusalem, to comport himself as other pilgrims 
 did — pay the usual fees, wear the pilgrim s habit, and say 
 nothing offensive to either Turks or Catholics. It is evident 
 the friars of Jerusalem had heard what manner of people 
 the Quakers were, and were resolved to be on their guaid, 
 
THE QUAKER IX JERUSALEM. 
 
 47 
 
 but surely the wandering Englishman might have been 
 allowed to preach and testify in the streets of the city — 
 for who would have understood him \ The Quaker would 
 not be bound by any such rules — for had he not come to 
 Syria to proclaim the truth, and how could he consent to 
 be gagged ? and, therefore, he was quietly conveyed back to 
 J affa, and there put on board a vessel bound for Acre : 
 and the friars thought they were rid of him for ever. But 
 they did not know the temper of the sect to which he be- 
 longed. Robinson was not long at Acre till he found 
 another ship sailing south, and taking his passage in it, 
 he was once more in Joppa. 
 
 Setting out alone and on foot toward the place which he 
 felt he must see before he died, he was encountered on the 
 way by some thievish Arabs, who presented a gun at his 
 breast and demanded his purse ; but, either because they 
 were convinced of his poverty, or miraculously restrained 
 by his meekness, from their plundering propensities, they 
 allowed him to pass. At Rama he was recognised, detained 
 again, and by a trick, which nearly cost him his life, led 
 into a Mosque, and left there. The Imams who found him 
 in the sacred place, imagined he wished to become a Mus- 
 sulman, and earnestly begged him to give them a sign. 
 But no sign would the Quaker give, his yea was yea and 
 his nay was nay ; and then they intimated to him that he 
 must for his sacrilege be burned alive in a fire of camel's 
 dung. The poor fellow was happily preserved from this 
 aromatic apotheosis, and sent to Gaza; and there the 
 Pacha took an interest in so singular a pilgrim, and had 
 him conveyed under a guard to Jerusalem. He was now at 
 last in the city of his solemnities, and lodged in the con- 
 vent ; and again the friars tried to persuade him to visit 
 the Holy Sepulchre and other sacred places as the pilgrims 
 did, offering if he did so to remit the usual fees. The 
 
48 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 Quaker stoutly told them that he could not visit these 
 places to worship them, and indeed that he did not greatly 
 care to visit them at all ; upon which the friars opened the 
 eyes of astonishment. They took him before a Turkish 
 magistrate — probably the collector of the pilgrim tribute — 
 who demanded what had brought him to Jerusalem. " It 
 is by the command" said he, "of the Lord God of Heaven 
 and Earth that I am come hither to manifest his tender 
 love in visiting you, and to intimate that he will yet 
 gather you to himself in the day of his gathering." Having 
 thus relieved his mind, he felt that his mission was done, 
 and being at liberty to return home, he reached England 
 in safety, to tell the strange story of his adventures in the 
 East* 
 
 The colony of New England, on the north-eastern shores 
 of America, though recently founded, was greatly prosper- 
 ing. It was formed almost entirely of puritans who had 
 fied from the rigour of the laws against non-conformity. 
 The misgovernment of Charles, and the mummeries of his 
 servant Laud, had sent thousands of Englishmen across the 
 sea, that they might find in another country the freedom 
 which was denied them in their own. They preferred the 
 wilderness in America, with liberty to worship their God in 
 their own way, to the cultivated fields of Old England, 
 with religious intolerance. Exiles, for conscience sake, 
 they should have known to respect in others that liberty 
 of thought for which they had struggled so bravely and 
 suffered so much themselves. But after sixteen hundred 
 years Christians had not yet learned the first maxim of 
 their religion, which requires them to do to others as they 
 would that they should do to them. 
 
 About 1656 several Quakers made their appearance in 
 
 * Sewers History, pp. 173-5, 
 
QUAKERS IX NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 49 
 
 the colony, some having apparently been drawn thither by 
 trade, and others that they might find a shelter from the 
 persecutions to which they were exposed in England. They 
 were at once recognised by their forms of speech and im- 
 movable hats, and thrown into prison ; for the puritans of 
 New England thought that the Quakers, the fame of whom 
 had come across the sea, were horrid blasphemers. Two 
 women who were of the company were suspected to be 
 witches — probably from the enthusiasm which lit up their 
 eyes, or the eloquence which distilled from their tongues — 
 and were stripped and searched for witch-marks, but 
 happily none were to be found. If there had they would 
 have been burned. It was thought best to clear the 
 colony of these intruders by sending them back to England, 
 which was accordingly done ; and ship-masters were at the 
 same time forbidden to bring any more into the country. 
 But within a year others appeared, and they also were 
 thrown into prison, and subjected to the lash. Among 
 these was a young married woman, named Mary Clark, 
 who having heard that the puritans of New England had 
 commenced a persecution, left her husband and children in 
 London, and crossed the Atlantic that she might warn 
 them of their sin. She delivered her message with the 
 heroic self-sacrifice which characterised her sect, but the 
 only reward she received was twenty lashes on the bare 
 back administered by the hangman, and imprisonment for 
 three months* 
 
 1658.] Notwithstanding these severities Quakers still 
 came into the colony, for never did a forlorn hope march 
 to death with greater intrepidity than did the members of 
 this sect. They would not fight, but they could endure. 
 Those who came, moreover, made a few converts among 
 
 * Besse'a Sufferings of the Quakers, Vol. II.. p. 181. SeweFa History. 
 
50 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 the colonists, and this led to greater severities. The whip- 
 pings were made more terrible, and in the case of notorious 
 offenders the right ear was cropped off. Still the evil did 
 not abate, and, accordingly, in a General Court held at 
 Boston on the 20th October 1658, it was made law that all 
 Quakers should be banished from the Colony, and that if 
 they returned they should be put to death* This law 
 soon found victims, for there were plenty among the Quakers 
 who were quite ready to seal their testimony with their 
 blood. 
 
 Boston was already a bustling, prosperous town, con- 
 stantly receiving new accessions to its population, and 
 giving signs of that commercial greatness to which it has 
 since attained. To this town came two Englishmen, both 
 of them Quakers. The one was William Robinson, a mer- 
 chant from London, and the other Marmaduke Stephenson, 
 a farmer from Yorkshire. When Marmaduke was follow- 
 ing his plough in pleasant York, he heard a still small 
 voice distinctly saying to him, " I have ordained thee to 
 be a prophet to the nations upon which he felt it to be 
 his duty to leave his wife and children to the care of the 
 God who had spoken to him, and sail for America. Be- 
 sides these two men there came also to Boston, from Rhode 
 Island, a Quakeress, named Mary Dyar. She was a middle- 
 aged married woman, of a very comely countenance, and 
 irreproachable character. The whole three were soon 
 seized, tried, and sentenced to be banished, under pain of 
 death, in terms of the statute recently made. Mary Dyar 
 left the province, and for the time was safe. But the two 
 men could not bring themselves to leave a country where 
 they believed the Lord had work for them to do. They 
 quitted Boston however, and visited their friends in the 
 
 * Sewers History, p. 199. 
 
EXECUTIONS IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 51 
 
 neighbouring towns. But the eye of the law was upon 
 them ; they were immediately apprehended, and brought 
 back to jail. In a month afterwards Mary Dyar re-appeared 
 in the town, for she felt an impulse to return which she 
 could not resist. She was soon recognised, apprehended, 
 and thrown into prison. In the jail of this puritan city 
 there were now lying three persons, who, by the sanguin- 
 ary law which had been made, had forfeited their lives for 
 their religion. They were soon brought to trial, and John 
 Endicot, the Governor, sat as the presiding judge — a man 
 who is pilloried in every Quaker book as a bloody persecu- 
 tor, and at whose name the mildest Friend almost spits, as 
 do the Jews at the mention of Haman. As the Quakers 
 could plead nothing in their justification but that they had 
 been moved to do as they did by the Lord, they were one 
 after another sentenced to be hanged. When Endicot 
 said to the woman, " Mary Dyar, you shall go to the place 
 from whence you came, and from thence to the place of 
 execution, and be hanged there till you are dead," she 
 meekly replied, " The will of the Lord be done/' On her 
 way back to the prison she broke out again and again in 
 expressions of praise. 
 
 The day for the execution came, and the three Quakers 
 were led forth to die. Mary Dyax walked in the middle, 
 and Robinson and Stevenson on either side. Their enthu- 
 siasm had overcome all fear of death : and with the radi- 
 ant countenances of people going to a triumph they went 
 to the scaffold. " No eye can see, no ear can hear, no 
 tongue can utter, no heart can understand," said Mary 
 Dyar, " the sweet influence of the Lord's spirit which I 
 now feel ;" and while she said so her comely face appeared 
 as if it were the face of an angel. " This is your hour and 
 the power of darkness," said Robinson, with more of the 
 defiant feelings of a man, to the officers who accompanied 
 
•52 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 them. When the procession reached the gallows, first 
 Robinson and then Stephenson were turned off, both pro- 
 testing with their last breath that they suffered for Christ 
 and for conscience sake. The woman, rising above the 
 timidity of her sex, and undaunted by the ghastly spec- 
 tacle of her two companions swinging dead before her, now 
 mounted the ladder as if anxious to follow them quickly 
 thi'ough a short pang into everlasting glory. Her feet 
 were already bound, her eyes bandaged, and the fatal noose 
 about her neck, when a cry was heard in the crowd — 
 " Stop ! stop ! she is reprieved." But Mary Dyar stood 
 still, unconscious of the stir, as if her heart were already in 
 heaven. When unbound, and invited to descend from the 
 scaffold, she only said, " I am here quite ready to suffer 
 as my brethren have unless you repeal your wicked law." 
 It was her son who had obtained her reprieve ; but such a 
 woman, though she had stood at the foot of the gallows, 
 could scarcely be said to have tasted of the bitterness of 
 death. 
 
 The authorities resolved to get rid of this inflexible 
 Quakeress as quickly as possible, and accordingly had her 
 safely conveyed beyond their jurisdiction on the way to 
 Rhode Island, where her home was. For some months she 
 remained quietly with her friends, but in the spring of the 
 following year the old impulse revived — she must revisit 
 Boston, the bloody city, and testify against it. She reached 
 it only to be apprehended and again brought to trial. Her 
 old judge pronounced again the old sentence ; upon which 
 she said, as if tauntingly, " that is no more than you said 
 before." " Ay," said Endicot, " but this time it will be 
 executed." " I came before," said the heroic matron, " to 
 testify against your wicked laws, the same is my errand 
 now, and when I am gone other witnesses will be raised 
 up." A second time was Mary Dyar led forth to execution, 
 
MARY DYAR IS EXECUTED. 
 
 53 
 
 guarded by soldiers, and with drums beating to prevent 
 her voice being heard by the pitying crowd. When come 
 to the scaffold, she was told that she might still save her 
 life. " Nay, I cannot," she said, " for in obedience to the 
 will of the Lord I came, and in his will I abide faithful to 
 the death." " Your blood is on your own head," said one 
 of the officers of the law, " for you knew the law and broke 
 it by coming into the colon}'." " Nay," said she, " I came 
 to keep you from blood-guiltiness by asking you to repeal 
 your cruel law against the innocent servants of the Lord, 
 and now my blood will be required at your hands." After 
 a little she said, " I have been in paradise for some days," 
 and while she spake she was cast off, and died as true and 
 as noble a martyr as ever suffered.* 
 
 Strange ! that men who had themselves fled from perse- 
 cution should so soon have excelled in cruelty their old 
 oppressors. No Quaker was ever put to death for his 
 religion in Enoiand. 
 
 While Quakers were thus suffering, but yet increasing, 
 in the colony, the very same thing was happening in the 
 mother country. There is, in truth, nothing more wonder- 
 ful in the whole history of religion than the rapid increase 
 of Quakerism. It was but ten or twelve years since Fox 
 began to preach — a man of mean aspect and rude speech — 
 and now his followers could be counted by tens of thousands. 
 They were to be found alike in the old world and the new ; 
 alike in Britain and in Holland ; and even in India the 
 voice of a Quaker had been heard like the voice of one 
 crying in the wilderness. It is doubtful if within the 
 same period primitive Christianity spread so fast and so 
 far. And when we search for the cause of this rapid diffu- 
 
 * Besse's Sufferings of the Quakers, Vol. II., pp. 198-206. Sewel's History, 
 pp. 226-236. 
 
54 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 sioii of the new faith it is difficult to discover it. But this 
 we can easily see, that whenever its principles were em- 
 braced and its spirit imbibed it became a real power, con- 
 verting vulgar men and women into heroes and martyrs. 
 
 The Quakers everywhere suffered with inflexible firm- 
 ness, but they were not a people to suffer in silence. They 
 proclaimed their wrongs upon the housetop. They took 
 every opportunity to cry out against the hypocrisy of 
 those who made long prayers and yet persecuted the people 
 of God. They were all deceivers, wolves in sheep's clothing, 
 having a show of godliness but ignorant of its power. In 
 one of his parliaments Cromwell made a speech, in which 
 he boasted that he knew not of one man who was unjustly 
 imprisoned in all England. A proud boast, if it were true ; 
 but he had no sooner sat down than a Quaker who had 
 got admission to the house, and who remembered the 
 hundreds of his brethren who were lying in jail, rose up 
 and began to deliver to him a message from the Lord ; but 
 the cry got up, A Quaker ! A Quaker ! and the unparlia- 
 mentary orator was put down * On another occasion, a 
 woman came into the parliament with a pitcher in her 
 hand, which she broke in pieces, and cried that so would 
 they be broken in pieces. About the same time a Friend 
 got admission to the Protector, and having failed to con- 
 vince him of his hypocrisy and injustice, he took the cap 
 
 Fisher, the Quaker here referred to, afterwards published the speech he in- 
 tended to deliver, a copy of which still exists in the Advocates' Library. It is en- 
 titled — " The scorned Quaker's true and honest account both why and what he 
 should have spoke (as to the sum and substance thereof) by commission from God. 
 hut that he had not permission from men, in the painted chamber on the 17th 
 day of the 7th month 1656, before the Protector and the Parliament then and there 
 met together, with many more of no mean account, who were not of them, yet were 
 there crowded in among them." In a long introduction Fisher gives an account 
 of his attempt to speak and of his having been put down. His speech begins — 
 " The burden of the Word of the Lord God of Heaven and Earth as it came unto 
 me," &c. 
 
CROMWELL DIES AND IS BURIED. 
 
 55 
 
 from off his head, and tearing it in twain, said, " So shall 
 the government be rent from thee and thy house." * 
 
 1(358.] These prophecies — for so they were regarded 
 by the Quakers — were soon to be realised. The vigorous 
 intellect and firm will which had so long kept in awe the 
 unruly spirits which the civil war had evoked, and made 
 England "a praise and protection" in the earth, succumbed 
 before the Monarch before whom the mightiest must bow. 
 On the 3d of September 1658 Oliver Cromwell was no 
 more. History has placed him among the Great Immor- 
 tals — the true kings of meu. The Quakers did not esti- 
 mate him so highly. They allowed that he did some good 
 work in the beginning of his career, but his head had 
 grown dizzv from the height to which he had climbed — 
 his pride had spoiled him. And what was worse, notwith- 
 standing his puiitanism and his prayers, he was a perse- 
 cutor of the saints. 
 
 According to the custom of the time, after his body was 
 quietly interred, an image of him was made, and laid in 
 state in Somerset House, and wax candles burned by it, 
 and trumpeters blew their flourishes over it, and people 
 came and gazed at it. This George Fox could not abide — 
 it was an abomination — and he wrote a letter specially to 
 say so. Then this image was borne with all imaginable 
 funereal pomp from Somerset House to Westminster ; and 
 as the sad procession was filing slowly along, there came 
 a Quaker riding to Charing Cross — it was Edward Bur- 
 rough — and he saw the immense crowds in the streets, and 
 the people in the windows and balconies, and even on 
 the housetops, and the troopers guarding the avenues, and 
 he asked what all this might mean ; and he was told it 
 was the image of the Protector being carried to West- 
 
 * Sewel's History, p. 185. 
 
56 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 minster, where the kings of England lay. And his first 
 impulse was to break through the guards, and to sound 
 the judgments of God against the idolaters. But this 
 he could not do, and so he contented himself with say- 
 ing, " Alas for him who was once a great instrument in 
 the hand of the Lord to break down many idolatrous 
 images ! Have they now made a costly image of him ? 
 And are those who were once his soldiers now guarding it, 
 and watching over it, and his children and officers follow- 
 ing it, and multitudes of the inhabitants of London won- 
 dering and gazing after it ! What a change in so short a 
 time !"* 
 
 Richard Cromwell wanted almost every quality which 
 had made his father great, and the reins of power soon fell 
 from his grasp. The parliament and the army again 
 struggled for the supremacy, and the country was torn into 
 factions, and everywhere there was heard the clash of op- 
 posing opinions. In such a state of matters the Quakers — 
 who from their numbers were now a power in the state- 
 were certain to make their voice heard. They accordingly 
 uttered prophecies and penned letters. Some of them 
 even joined in Booth's insurrection, but this gave occasion 
 to their leader to publish a paper in which he denounced 
 all wars and fightings. " All Friends everywhere," said he, 
 in language more forcible than eloquent, " keep out of plots 
 and bustling, and the arm of flesh ; for all these are among 
 Adam's sins in the fall, where they are destroying men's 
 lives like dogs, beasts, and swine, groaning, rending, and 
 biting one another, destroying one another, and wrestling 
 with flesh and blood." f 
 
 But it would appear that though Fox would not wrestle 
 with flesh and blood he had to confront at this time a 
 
 * Sewel's History, pp. 192-3. 
 
 t Fox's Journal, p. 287. 
 
FOX AND THE UNCLEAN SPIRITS. 
 
 57 
 
 more terrible foe. He tells us that by reason of the great 
 grief which came upon him on account of the troubles of 
 the country, " his countenance being altered and his body 
 become poor and thin, there came a company of unclean 
 spirits to him and told him — ' The plagues of God were 
 upon him.' " But George told them they were impostors, 
 and sent them away. Soon after this, as he informs us, he 
 improved in bodily condition, and the unclean spirits came 
 to him again and upbraided him with being fat, and even 
 envied his plumpness. Then he clearly saw that with no 
 condition of body would they be pleased ;* and resolved 
 henceforward to despise their interferences. 
 
 Meanwhile, General Monk had marched from Scotland 
 to London with the army which owned him as its master ; 
 the fate of the country was in his hands ; and seeing that 
 the people in general, weary of contention and tired of 
 presbytery, were longing for the restoration of the monarchy 
 and the church, he resolved to invite Charles II. into the 
 kingdom. Charles came, and was received with a kind of 
 drunken loyalty : and then woe to every species of dissent ! 
 
 * Journal, p, 28S. 
 
Chapter EU- 
 
 N the accession of Charles II. the hierarchy was 
 restored, but for a time the nonconformists were 
 treated with clemency. About seven hundred 
 Quakers who were lying in prison — most of them, it may 
 be supposed, for refusing to pay tithes — were set at liberty* 
 A Quaker was even admitted into the royal presence, and 
 questioned by the king, in his easy good-natured way, re- 
 garding his religion and sect. But this favourable aspect 
 of affairs was interrupted by the insurrection of the Fifth - 
 Monarchy-Men in January 1661. These enthusiasts were 
 expecting the establishment of a fifth universal monarchy 
 under King Jesus, who was speedily to appear upon earth 
 and begin his personal reign. As the restoration of the 
 Stuart dynasty interfered with this arrangement, they 
 marched out of their meeting-house, with arms in their 
 hands, resolved to subvert the government or die in the 
 attempt. They were speedily dispersed by the train bands 
 of the city, and their leader, Thomas Venner, a wine cooper, 
 was hanged, in company with one of his chief adherents, at 
 the door of the house where he had so often harangued re- 
 garding the advent of the heavenly king, and the reign of 
 the saints upon earth for a thousand years. But though 
 
 Sewers History, p. 259. 
 
ADDRESS TO THE KING. 
 
 59 
 
 the insurrection was thus easily and swiftly put down, a 
 suspicion arose that the Quakers were concerned in it, and 
 many of them were laid hold of and cast into prison. 
 George Fox was himself apprehended and carried before 
 the judges for examination, but there was not a shadow of 
 evidence against him. The indulgence which had hitherto 
 been extended to them was also withdrawn, and their meet- 
 ings were prohibited. This severity occasioned their ad- 
 dressing the king : 
 
 " Oh King Charles ! 
 
 " Our desire is that thou mayest live for ever in the 
 fear of God and thy council. We beseech thee and thy 
 council to read these following lines, in tender bowels, and 
 compassion for our souls, and for your good. 
 
 " And this consider, we are about four hundred impri- 
 soned in and about this city, of men and women from their 
 families ; besides in the country jails above ten hundred. 
 We desire that our meetings may not be broken up, but 
 that all may come to a fair trial that our innocency may 
 be cleared up. 
 
 " London, 16th day, eleventh month 166 
 
 At the same time Fox published a declaration, in which 
 he strongly repudiated the arm of flesh; and the Fifth- 
 Monarchy-Men themselves, when brought to die, freely ac- 
 quitted the Quakers of any participation in their crime. 
 Those who had been apprehended on suspicion were ac- 
 cordingly set at liberty. 
 
 But though, for a time, they were not much molested 
 by the government, their meetings were very frequently 
 disturbed by the rabble. Since the Restoration there had 
 been a violent reaction against the austerity and fanaticism 
 
 * Neal's History of the Puritans, Vol. II., p. 593. Sewel does not give this Ad- 
 dress, but another. 
 
60 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 of the covenanting period ; and to drink, whore, and swear, 
 became the badge of loyalty. The king set the example, 
 and the people followed it: the ancient may-poles and 
 morris-dances were revived, and Fox sternly told the 
 monarch that he would soon convert England into a Sodom 
 and Gomorrah* These wild roysterers thought there was 
 no better sport than to break into a quaker-meeting, or to 
 catch an unhappy Quaker and duck him in a pond. And 
 it must be confessed that the indecent exhibitions in 
 which some of the sect indulged richly deserved this rough 
 usage. They were fond of appearing as a sign to the people, 
 and nudity was their favourite mode of demonstration, as it 
 was certainly the most striking that could well have been 
 devised. Fox tells us that when he was in Skipton in 
 1660, " A Friend went naked through the town declaring 
 the truth, and was much beaten," ■(* and every one will say 
 that he well deserved it. Another Friend, who seems to 
 have been moved by the spirit of an Indian Fakeer, was 
 in the habit for three several years of paying visits to 
 courts, markets, rectories, and manor-houses, without a 
 rag on his body, and declaring to all that so should they 
 be stripped naked. " Great sufferings did that poor man 
 undergo," says Fox, pathetically, " sore whippings with 
 horse- whips and coach-whips on his bare body, grievous 
 stoning and imprisonment." J By such exploits he acquired 
 
 * Fox's Journal, p. 3 JO. f Fox's Journal, p. 310. 
 
 X Journal, p. 323. This Quaker, who was named William Simpson, obtained 
 a high reputation in his sect by these nude exhibitions. After his death a short 
 biography of him was published, to which Elizabeth Hooton, who was famous as 
 the first female Quaker preacher, added u a few lines " in praise of nakedness. 
 She states that her dear friend William Simpson, not only stripped himself naked, 
 but blackened his face, and made his appearance in that guise to the edification of 
 many. To the biography there is attached a short paper by Simpson himself, en- 
 titled " Going naked a sign," which begins thus :" Oh Church of England . . . 
 thy nakedness and shame is coming upon thee as an armed man." See " A Short 
 delation Concerning the Life and Death of that Man of God, William Simpson." A 
 
QUAKER MISSIONARIES. 
 
 61 
 
 the reputation of a saint. Another Friend, not quite so 
 shameless, about the time of the Restoration, walked into 
 Carlisle Cathedral among the presbyterians and indepen- 
 dents who were assembled there, with a white sheet about 
 him and a halter round his neck, to signify to them that 
 the surplice was about to be introduced again, and that 
 some of them were likely to be hanged. They were good 
 natured enough not to use the halter he had brought. 
 These were among the early extravagances of the sect, 
 but happily they soon disappeared. 
 
 We have already seen Quakers wandering to the ends of 
 the earth in obedience to what they conceived to be divine 
 admonitions. About this time several set out for Rome to 
 convert the Pope. One of them, on his way through Italy, 
 managed to get an audience of the Doge at Venice, and 
 put into his hand some Quaker books. On reaching Rome 
 they disseminated their pamphlets among the friars, wiio 
 probably could not read them, spoke to cardinals, who pro- 
 bably did not understand them — testified against idolatry 
 in an unknown tongue; and for their pains were cast 
 into the prison of the Inquisition, where one of them died. 
 About the same time, Hester Biddel managed to penetrate 
 into the saloons of Versailles, and commanded the Grand 
 Monarch, who was then, as usual, at war, in the name of 
 tne Great God to sheath his destroying sword* But this 
 religious knight-errantry was surpassed by a young woman 
 who travelled to Turkey to make a Quaker of the Grand 
 Sultan. Mary Fisher was the first Quakeress who visited 
 America, and we have already seen her suspected to be a 
 
 copy of this curious pamphlet is in the Advocates' Library. I have seen another 
 pamphlet, entitled, " Nakedness a Sign or Figure," puplished in 1665, in which 
 ! saiah is quoted to shew the deep significance of " making the buttocks bare.* 1 
 It is evident the Quakers were on the verge of falling into the indecent extrava- 
 gances of the Munster Anabaptists. 
 
 * Gerard Croese's History of the Quakers, p. 268. 
 
62 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 witch ; but as she happily had no spots upon her person 
 which were insensible to pain when pricked with a pin, 
 she was saved from the stake, and sent back to England. 
 She now directed her steps towards the Orient. When 
 she arrived at Smyrna, the English Consul thought it an 
 act of kindness to his countrywoman to stop her from pro- 
 ceeding further, and sent her back to Venice, from which 
 she had come. But she was not thus to be baulked of her 
 purpose, and managed to make her way, by another route, 
 to Adrianople, in the neighbourhood of which Mahomet 
 IV. was then encamped with his army. All alone she entered 
 the Turkish camp, and got a message delivered to the 
 Vizier that she had something from the Great God to de- 
 clare to the Sultan. Surprised at the arrival of an am- 
 bassador so strange, the Sultan agreed to receive her on 
 the following day ; which he did, surrounded by his great 
 officers. n Is it true," said his Majesty through an inter- 
 preter, " that you have a message to me from the Lord 
 God ?" " Yea," said the Quakeress. " Then speak on with- 
 out fear," replied the Sultan ; and the young woman, after 
 a little natural hesitation, poured out what she conceived 
 to be her commission from on high. The Turks sat and 
 listened, with their usual gravity, and when she was done, 
 Mahomet remarked that they could not but respect one 
 who had come so far with a message from the Lord ; and 
 offered her a guard to conduct her to Constantinople, 
 whither she now wished to proceed, as it was scarcely safe 
 for one like her to travel alone. She declined the guard, 
 adroitly eluded expressing any opinion of the Prophet, 
 reached Constantinople in safety, and from thence returned 
 to England ; having shewn that a Quaker could be more 
 quixotic than Cervantes could conceive.* 
 
 * Sew-el's History, pp. 257-8. 
 
PERSECUTION IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 63 
 
 While the Turks were treating this female Friend with 
 such grave courtesy, the independents of New England 
 were still signalising their zeal for religion by hanging her 
 brethren. The executions which had taken place, instead 
 of inspiring terror, had impressed many with the belief 
 that they were bound to go to Boston and lift up their 
 voice against the bloody law by which their brethren had 
 suffered. For bearing such a testimony William Ledra 
 Avas condemned and executed. While his trial was pro- 
 ceeding, another Quaker, who had already been banished, 
 appeared in the court, and declared how, in the face of 
 death, he had been constrained to come there to warn 
 them to shed no more innocent blood. He also was con- 
 demned, but before the day of his execution came, the 
 governor relented, and released him and seventy-seven of 
 the Friends who were lying in prison, but not till he had 
 whipped two of them at a cart's tail through the city. 
 Meanwhile the news of these severities reached England, 
 and Charles at once granted a mandamus to put a stop to 
 them. The royal message received additional significance 
 by being entrusted to a Quaker, who had been banished 
 from New England on account of his faith. When he 
 landed and was introduced into the governor's house, 
 Endicot ordered his hat to be removed ; but he no sooner 
 espied the parchment and the broad signet of England at- 
 tached to it, than he hastily uncovered his own head, and 
 ordered the Quaker's hat to be restored. When the man- 
 damus was read the governor and his officials were in con- 
 fusion, the prisons were emptied of their inmates in a 
 twinkling, and a deputation was despatched to England to 
 make explanations.* 
 
 After this no more Quakers were put to death in New 
 
 * Jewel's History, pp. 281-2. 
 
THE QUAKERS. 
 
 England, but many of them were still imprisoned, fined, 
 and whipped ; for the government which encouraged these 
 things at home could not forbid them abroad. But, if we 
 may believe Quaker writers, the just judgments of God 
 overtook every one of their persecutors. Some were 
 seized with loathsome diseases, some died violent deaths, 
 some went mad; and the very soil around Boston, the 
 bloody city, for twenty miles, was smitten with barrenness 
 and yielded no more its harvests of wheat.* 
 
 Of the Quakers who had proceeded to Rome to convert 
 the Pope there was one named Perrot who carried his 
 principles to greater lengths than the majority of his sect 
 approved. He would not remove his hat from his head 
 even when prayer was made to God, declaring that this 
 was but an empty form. He allowed his beard to grow, pro- 
 bably on the principle of Tertullian, that the practice of 
 shaving is a lie against our own face, and an impious 
 attempt to improve the works of the Creator. He also 
 began to innovate in regard to his signature, a thing about 
 which the primitive Quakers were rather nice. Some of 
 them, while they appended their ordinary appellation, sub- 
 joined a note in which they intimated that they had now 
 a new name given to them.-)" Perrot simply subscribed 
 himself " John," that his signature might look like that of 
 the beloved disciple ; and in one of his letters he cari- 
 catured, in endeavouring to imitate, the apostolic style, 
 by beginning thus — " I, John, the prisoner, being in the 
 sense of the spirit of life with you all.'' The Quakers 
 in general, however, did not approve of such a develop- 
 ment of their principles, and therefore they do not hesi- 
 
 * Sewers History, pp. 343-4. 
 t Thus Marmaduke Stephenson, in a letter written in Boston prison shortly be- 
 fore his execution, after subscribing his name, adds — " But have a new name 
 given me, which the world knows not of, written in the Book of Life." 
 
QUAKERESSES AT MALTA. 
 
 65 
 
 tate to tell that this fantastic zealot afterwards became a 
 renegade. 
 
 So early as 1658 two Quaker women had " drawings in 
 their mind" to proceed to Alexandria, that they might 
 in the city where Neo-Platonism had been so eloquently 
 taught by Hypatia twelve hundred years before promul- 
 gate their Neo-Christianity, and, if need were, die for 
 their mystic faith, as she had. They had husbands and 
 children, but the divine " drawings" overcame all conjugal 
 and parental instincts. The ship in which they sailed 
 touched at Malta, which was then held by the Knights of 
 St. John. The Quakeresses landed, and were kindly en- 
 tertained by the English consul, who, at the same time, 
 warned them of the danger they ran if they offended the 
 religious prejudices of the people. The governor also 
 visited them, and told them he had a sister in the nunnery 
 who greatly desired to see them. They went, but refused 
 to bow before the high altar of the convent chapel, and for 
 this no one will blame them. On another occasion they 
 went into a church — or mass-house as they called it — 
 while service was going on, and one of them knelt down 
 with her back to the altar, as a testimony against it, and 
 prayed aloud. A priest, probably struck by her fervour, 
 came up to her, and offered to slip something into her 
 hand, but she thought it must be the mark of the beast, 
 and refused it with loathing. Yet another time they 
 entered a church while high mass was being celebrated ; 
 they saw the lighted tapers, the embroidered draperies, the 
 carved crucifixes, the bowings and the kneelings ; and hor- 
 rified at the idolatrous spectacle, they stood in the midst 
 of the people weeping and trembling violently, and even 
 afterwards when they came into the street they reeled and 
 staggered as if they had been drunken, at which the poor 
 Maltese marvelled greatly. It was probably felt that such 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 exhibitions could no longer be permitted, for the two 
 Quakeresses were now removed from the consul's house and 
 lodged in the prison of the Inquisition. While there they 
 were sometimes treated with kindness, and sometimes 
 with severity : threats, promises, and arguments, were in 
 turn employed to induce them to become catholics, but 
 they continued stedfast, and after four years' incarceration 
 they were set at liberty, and sent back to England. 
 
 When they had been about three years in the prison of 
 the Inquisition, a Friend, named Baker, who had been 
 travelling in the East, came to Malta, in order, if possible, 
 to procure their release. The inquisitors at once offered 
 to set them at liberty if they would find bail never to re- 
 turn to Malta again. But this they refused even to en- 
 deavour to procure, as they knew not what the Lord 
 might require them to do. Baker now offered to be im- 
 prisoned for them, or even to die for them; but such 
 vicarious suffering did not seem good to the Roman inqui- 
 sitors. Foiled in his endeavours to procure their release, 
 this devoted Friend could do nothing more than take his 
 station near their prison, where he and the captives could 
 catch a glimpse of each other, and exchange a few words, 
 and by this their souls were exceedingly refreshed. But 
 at length he must leave Malta, and on his return home he 
 was wind-bound for some weeks at Gibraltar. When its 
 towering rock first loomed upon his view, he remembered he 
 had seen such a crag in the visions of the night, and there- 
 fore inferred that the Lord had work for him there. He 
 accordingly went ashore on a Maunday Thursday, and re- 
 paired to the mass-house. He found the priest in his 
 surplice kneeling before the high altar, adoring the host. 
 A divine indignation instantly took hold of him. He 
 therefore turned his back upon the priest and his dead 
 god, and his face toward the people who were down upon 
 
THE QUAKERS AXD THE MARRIAGE-LAW. 67 
 
 their knees ; and taking off his coat he rent it from top to 
 bottom and cast it from him, and then lifting his hat from 
 his head, where it had hitherto remained, he threw it to 
 the ground, and stamped upon it, and thrice he cried out — 
 " The life of Christ and his saints is risen from the dead !" 
 The priest and the people no doubt concluded that a furious 
 madman had found his way into the church, and instead 
 of raying hold of him, they felt relieved when he made his 
 escape and returned to the ship* 
 
 But we must now return to England, where the Quakers 
 were enjoying a temporary rest. But the marriage-law of 
 the country threatened to wound them on the most tender 
 point. From the first they had repudiated the marriage 
 ceremonies of the church, and married and were given in 
 marriage in their own fashion, without priest, altar, or ring. 
 The validity of these Quaker marriages was now called in 
 question, and the children begotten in them threatened 
 with bastardy. A suit was actually begun by the kinsman 
 of a Quaker, who had died, to prove that his child was ille- 
 gitimate. " The Quakers go together like brute beasts," 
 said the plaintiff's counsel. But the Judge held that 
 marriage was constituted by mutual consent, and remarked 
 that there was a true marriage in Paradise when Adam 
 took Eve and Eve took Adam. This is not the marriage 
 law of England now, but it was the law of all Christendom 
 before the Council of Trent, and is the law of Scotland at 
 the present day. Enough, the Quakers were saved from 
 the curse which threatened to blight their hearths. 
 
 There were already in the statute-book many laws, which 
 though not made with reference to the Quakers, had a 
 very direct bearing upon them ; but, as if these were not 
 enough, an Act was passed in 1662, entitled, "An Act to 
 
 * Sewers History, p. 321. 
 
68 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 prevent mischiefs and dangers that may arise by certain 
 persons called Quakers, and others refusing to take lawful 
 oaths." This Act provided that if any one refused to take 
 an oath before a magistrate, or persuaded others to refuse, 
 he should for the first offence be subject to a fine not ex- 
 ceeding £5; for the second to a fine not exceeding £10 ; and 
 if convicted a third time that he should be liable to trans- 
 portation to any of his Majesty's plantations. The same 
 penalties were imposed upon all who should assemble, to 
 the number of more than five, under the pretence of join- 
 ing in religious worship. This severe piece of legislation 
 was partly the result of the antipathy to non- conformity 
 which was now seated in cathedral stalls and enthroned in 
 the palace of Whitehall. But it was also partly due to the 
 dread of the Quakers and of their principles which was felt 
 by many. They were now a numerous sect. They could be 
 counted by tens of thousands. They were assuming a 
 regular organization, and were, moreover, made as one man 
 under the pressure of a white-heat sympathy. Then, their 
 principles seemed inconsistent with civil government. They 
 would not take the oath of allegiance : they interfered with 
 the administration of justice by refusing to swear. Every 
 time they came into court their hat-on-head seemed to defy 
 and insult the magistrate on the bench. And if they refused 
 to pay tithes because of their conscience, might they not re- 
 fuse to pay their taxes on the same plea? If principles like 
 these became general, it was evident the government must 
 be subverted. It was true they professed to be men of 
 peace — believers in the courtly doctrine of passive obedi- 
 ence ; they were to conquer by suffering. But their profes- 
 sions were not believed; it was not deemed possible that men 
 made of flesh and blood when smitten on the one cheek 
 would always turn the other ; and the inflexible firmness 
 with which they had endured imprisonment, scourging, and 
 
PREACHING AND IMPRISONMENT. 
 
 69 
 
 even death, rather than renounce their principles, had 
 shewn how dangerous such a sect might be if it were 
 fairly roused into resistance. It must be put down before 
 it acquired greater consistency and strength. 
 
 Under the operation of the old legislation and the new 
 the prisons were soon filled with Quakers. According to 
 a statement published at the time there were in 1662 no 
 fewer than four thousand two hundred Quakers in the 
 different jails of England. Of these about five hundred 
 were in the jails of London and its suburbs.* In many 
 eases the prisons were so crowded that men and women 
 were huddled together without regard to decency, and 
 some died from the effects of their confinement. The 
 Quaker-Meetings were now systematically broken up — 
 especially their large meeting at the Bull and Mouth in 
 London — and those who ventured to attend them hauled 
 to prison. Driven from their meeting-houses, the perse- 
 cuted Quakers assembled in the street and resumed their 
 services. When the Friend who addressed the crowd was 
 laid hold of by the constable another quietly stepped for- 
 ward and took his place, and if no man was found bold 
 enough to do so, a woman was sure to glide from the throng 
 and fill the gap. 
 
 The Quakers did not suffer alone. The Savoy Confer- 
 ence had failed to heal the wounds of the Church, and in 
 1662 the Act of Uniformity was passed by which two 
 thousand clergymen were ejected from their livings. It 
 was on the Sunday preceding St. Bartholomew's day the 
 cruel deed was consummated, and the memories which it 
 brought were in harmony with the sufferings entailed by 
 
 * Sewel's History, p. 346'. See also Life of Ellwood. EUwood— the friend of 
 Milton, and who suggested the composition of " Paradise Keyained'''' — was about 
 this time in Newgate, with many other Quakers, and gives some curious sketches 
 of what he saw there. 
 
70 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 this needless attempt to make all men think alike. Out- 
 ward uniformity was restored to the Church by many of 
 its greatest ornaments being thrown out of it ; but if there 
 was peace within its walls, there was soon heard the noise 
 of battle from without, for those who might have been its 
 defenders became its most bitter assailants. 
 
 However extravagant the Quakers were in some of their 
 opinions, there had recently arisen a sect which was much 
 more so. A tailor, named Muggleton, and a cobbler, named 
 Reeves, resolved to outstrip all the religious pretenders 
 who had gone before them, and gave out that they were 
 the two witnesses mentioned in the Book of Revelation. 
 Muggleton farther declared that he was the appointed 
 judge of all mankind, that he kept the keys of heaven and 
 hell, and that in the administration of his high office he 
 had already consigned many souls to eternal death. The 
 Quakers were quite as ready to do battle with blasphemous 
 sectaries as with orthodox churchmen, and in 1663 we 
 find one of them engaged in a hot controversy with Mug- 
 gleton regarding his powers and pretensions. The numerous 
 sect which this false prophet managed to found has happily 
 long since died out, but his odd name, more than anything 
 else, has helped to keep alive the remembrance of it. 
 
 Among those cast into prison this year was George Fox ; 
 but this was no new thing to him. It was Lancaster jail 
 into which he was cast. While lying there, as he himself 
 tells us, he was favoured with divine visions, in one of 
 which was signified the defeat of the Turks, and in another 
 the coming of the plague which a year afterwards devas- 
 tated London* When he was brought to trial, he very 
 cleverly picked out so many errors in the indictment that 
 the court were obliged to quash it ; but, unwilling to allow 
 
 * Journal, p. '675. 
 
FOX IN JAIL. 
 
 71 
 
 the Arch-Quaker to escape, the judges cruelly tendered to 
 him the oath of allegiance, and, on his refusal to take it. 
 sent him back to prison, where he had already lain for 
 nearly a year. It was a vile damp hole into which he was 
 thrust, and there he lay the whole winter, often with his 
 limbs completely benumbed from the damp and cold * 
 But George Fox could bear all this, and more if needful. 
 Notwithstanding the weak health to which he was reduced 
 by this merciless treatment, he employed his time, as usual, 
 in writing epistolary warnings to all the principalities and 
 powers of the earth. After a time he was removed from 
 Lancaster to Scarborough Castle. He records that when 
 travelling thither one of his attendants would frequently 
 give the horse upon which he rode a secret lash, to enjoy 
 the difficulty with which he kept his seat when the animal 
 sprang forward under the whip, and then would gravely 
 say, " How do you feel, Mr. Fox ?" " The Lord cut him 
 off soon after," says Fox, in his usual sternly exulting way ; 
 for he believed that Heaven was always ready to take up 
 his quarrels and avenge his injuries, and in a hundred in- 
 stances he records with evident satisfaction the divine judg- 
 ments which befel his persecutors.-f In Scarborough he 
 was no better lodged than at Lancaster, and had he not 
 been a man of very vigorous constitution he must have 
 succumbed to the rigours of his confinement. It was not 
 till 1666 that he was released, having, on this occasion, 
 been detained a prisoner for three years. 
 
 While Fox was languishing in his dungeon, hundreds of 
 his followers were sharing his fate, and others were being 
 put on board vessels to be transported to Jamaica — so had 
 the Act against conventicles ordained. But a higher 
 power than parliament had ordained that few of these 
 should ever set sail. 
 
 * Journal, p. 374. f Journal, p. 377. 
 
72 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 1665,] In the summer of 1665 the plague broke out in 
 London. It was preceded by a drought of unusual severity, 
 the fields were completely burned up, and the cattle died 
 in hundreds. A leaden coloured cloud, it was said, slowly 
 gathered over the doomed city, and underneath it the stag- 
 nant atmosphere had the stillness of death. When the 
 pestilence appeared, and its virulence became known, a 
 panic seized upon the whole population. The wealthier 
 classes fled, but the poor could only remain and die. The 
 mortality increased till it reached about eight thousand a 
 week. Every night the dead-cart went its round, and its 
 driver rung his bell, and shouted his doleful cry, " Bring 
 out your dead." Business was at a stand : grass began to 
 grow upon streets which had hitherto been busy thorough- 
 fares ; and on the doors of many houses was seen the red cross 
 with the words, " Lord have mercy upon us," the ominous 
 sign that the plague was within. It broke out in the ships 
 which lay in the river, and in one of these in which fifty- 
 five quakers were embarked, it gave the tranquil liberty 
 of death to many of the captives. It raged for about eight 
 months, and at the end of that terrible time it was calcu- 
 lated that about one hundred thousand persons had been 
 swept away * 
 
 1666.] The plague was scarcely abated when the great 
 
 * The Quakers regarded the plague as the vengeance of God upon their per- 
 secutors. In " Besse's Sufferings of the Quakers," (Vol. I. p. 40,5), we find the 
 following extraordinary Address to the king and parliament, by a fanatic named 
 Bishop, quoted as a prediction ofit:— 
 
 To the Kino: and both Houses of Parliament — 
 Thus saith the Lord ! 
 " Meddle not with my people, because of their conscience to me. and banish 
 them not out of the nation because of their conscience, for if ye do, I will send my 
 plagues upon you, and you shall know that I am the Lord. 
 
 Written in obedience to the Lord by his servant, 
 
 George Bishoi*. 
 
 M Bristol, the 15th of the 9th Month 1664." 
 
PLAGUE AND FIRE. 
 
 73 
 
 fire broke out. Beginning near the Monument, in the 
 very centre of the city, it raged for nearly four days with 
 devastating fury ; and in that short period upwards of 
 thirteen thousand houses were reduced to ashes. The 
 famous old Cathedral of St. Paul's perished in the confla- 
 gration, with many other noble edifices. But it was be- 
 lieved that the fire burned out the last traces of the pesti- 
 lence, which it probably did most effectually by destroy- 
 ing the filthy courts and lanes which were its favourite 
 haunts, and at any rate it made room for a new and nobler 
 city to rise on the ruins of the old. Two days before the 
 conflagration burst out a Quaker appeared in the streets 
 with his clothes unbuttoned, as if he had just hurried from 
 a house that was on fire, and proclaimed that the judg- 
 ments of God were about to come upon the city. When the 
 fire began, believing himself a prophet, and anxious now to 
 stay the disaster he had foretold, he went to Cheapside 
 and spread out his hands in presence of the devouring 
 flame and commanded it to subside, and so resolutely did 
 he stand that he would have been caught in the whirlwind 
 of fire had not a wiser Friend dragged him back and 
 
 C5C5 
 
 saved him from his folly * 
 
 The Society of Friends had hitherto drawn its converts 
 almost entirely from the lower orders of the people. Fox 
 himself was but a cobbler, with little education, and the 
 majority of his followers were of the same humble rank in 
 life. Some of the trading class had joined the Society, and 
 gave it the help of their wealth, but scholars mocked at 
 the rhapsodies of the uncultivated Quaker preachers, and 
 men of fashion would have deemed themselves disgraced 
 by being seen at their meetings. The very name of Quaker 
 was a byeword and a reproach. But about this time two 
 
 * Jewel's History p. 462. Fox's Journal, p. 386. 
 
74 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 men joined the sect who gave it the lustre of birth, breed- 
 ing, and scholarship, and at once raised it from the con- 
 tempt with which it had hitherto been regarded. These 
 two men were Robert Barclay and William Penn. 
 
 Robert Barclay was born at Edinburgh in the year 1648. 
 He was the son of Colonel Barclay of Mathers, the repre- 
 sentative of an ancient family, and by his mother he was 
 related to the noble and once potent house of Huntly. 
 While he was yet a boy his father sent him to France to 
 be educated under the eye of his uncle, who was Principal 
 of the Scots College at Paris. Here his natural abilities 
 rapidly developed themselves, he became a proficient in the 
 learning of the times, and not only wrote but spoke both 
 the French and Latin languages with great facility. But 
 he acquired his accomplishments at the expense of his 
 faith. He became a convert to the Church of Rome. So 
 soon as his father learned this he had him instantly brought 
 home. But while the son was become a believer in tran- 
 substantiation, the father had embraced the principles of 
 the Quakers, and now these two antagonistic systems met 
 under the same roof Happily the impressions which the 
 young man had received from the popish influences amid 
 which he had lived were not very deep ; the father, with 
 all the zeal of a proselyte, plied him with Quaker arguments, 
 filial reverence gave weight to his words, and the lad re- 
 nounced the pope and became a follower of Fox. He was now 
 nineteen years of age, and was possessed of accomplishments 
 and sense beyond his years. It was not long before he pub- 
 licly stood forth as the defender of his faith, and shewed that 
 Quakerism had at length enlisted in its cause one who could 
 bring accurate scholarship and vigorous logic to its help. 
 
 The other illustrious convert to Quakerism was William 
 Penn, eldest son of Admiral Sir William Penn. Admiral 
 Penn was one of the great sea captains who helped to lay 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 75 
 
 the foundations of the naval supremacy of England. Under 
 the Commonwealth he took part in the famous three days' 
 right, in which the maritime strength of the Dutch was 
 shattered, and their gallant admiral, Van Tromp, slain. He 
 afterwards commanded the expedition which, though it 
 failed to conquer Cuba, made J amaica a British possession. 
 After the Restoration he led the English fleet, under the 
 Duke of York, in the terrible encounter with the Dutch, 
 under Admiral Opham; and for his conduct on this occa- 
 sion he received the lasting friendship of the king and his 
 brother. The son of this distinguished seaman was edu- 
 cated as became his rank and prospects. At the age of 
 fifteen he was entered a gentleman commoner at Christ 
 Church, Oxford. He was not long there till the change in 
 the government of the country made itself felt in the uni- 
 versity. The learned Dr Owen was displaced to make 
 room for Dr Reynolds, and the liturgical worship of the 
 church was resumed. These changes naturally gave rise 
 to violent disputes among the students. While matters 
 were in this state a Quaker, named Thomas Loe, happened 
 to preach in the town, and his preaching made such a deep 
 impression on young Penn that he withdrew from the 
 regular worship in his college, and began, with some other 
 serious-minded youths, to hold private meetings for devo- 
 tion. When this became known to the heads of the college, 
 the young enthusiasts were fined for nonconformity. Not 
 long after this an order came down from court that the 
 surplice should be worn by the students, according to 
 ancient custom; but so far was Penn from complying with 
 this order, that he and some friends fell upon those students 
 who had conformed, and tore their surplices over their 
 heads. It was the fighting father blazing out in the serious- 
 minded son. For this outrage he and his associates were 
 expelled the university. 
 
76 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 The admiral was greatly distressed at the disgrace which 
 had befallen his son, and his distress was aggravated by 
 discovering that the yonth had contracted an aversion to 
 fashionable life. To cure him of this he resolved to send 
 him on his travels. Young Penn, accordingly, set out for 
 France. At Paris he was presented to Louis XIV., mingled 
 in the gay society of that ever gay capital, and showed his 
 spirit by accepting a duel, which was forced upon him on 
 the street, and disarmed his antagonist. From Paris he 
 proceeded to Saumur, and studied theology there. After 
 an absence of two years he returned with all the manners 
 of a man who had seen the world, and mingled in the best 
 society, with his French rapier at his side and his hair 
 falling on his shoulders in graceful curls. He now became 
 a student at Lincoln's Inn, for his father was anxious that 
 he should acquire a knowledge of the laws of his country, 
 and so be fitted for some public employment. When the 
 plague broke out he left London to escape its contagion, 
 and either the alarm Avhich the destroying pestilence pro- 
 duced, or disgust at the universal licentiousness, awoke his 
 old religious tendencies. When his father returned from 
 sea, fresh from his great victory, his quick eye could not 
 but detect the change in his son, and he had him despatched 
 to Ireland, where he was well received at the Viceregal 
 Court of the Duke of Ormond. The admiral had large 
 estates in Ireland, and these he committed to the care of 
 his son, in the hope that business might wean his thoughts 
 from religion. And the young man appears to have done 
 his work well, and to have made himself a favourite wher- 
 ever he went. But it so happened that Loe was at this 
 time in Ireland ; Penn heard him preach at Cork, and all 
 his boyish love for the mystic theology of the Quakers 
 revived. He began to attend their meetings, and when 
 at one of these the police broke in upon them and carried 
 
PENN IN TROUBLE. 
 
 him and some others to prison. The young courtier was 
 very unlike his companions in misfortune, for he wore a 
 huge periwig, and was otherwise dressed like other young 
 men of fashion. The mayor, before whom he was carried, 
 at once perceived he was no vulgar Quaker, and so soon as 
 he learned who he was, offered him his liberty if he would 
 give his bond for his good behaviour. Penn declined to 
 do this, for he maintained he had violated no law, but 
 wrote to the Earl of Ossory, then president of the Council 
 of Munster, who immediately ordered his discharge. This 
 friendly duty discharged, another remained to be done. 
 The earl informed the admiral of the dishonour his son was 
 bringing upon his house. He received the tidings with 
 deep grief, and immediately ordered the youth home. Al- 
 ready the jest in the fashionable world was, that Penn was 
 a Quaker, or some other melancholy thing.* The father 
 remonstrated, threatened, begged him to renounce his silly 
 vagaries, but in vain. The son remained respectful, but 
 obstinate. Distressed beyond measure that all the hopes 
 he had centred in his son should be disappointed, and the 
 reproach of Quakerism attached to his name, yet unwilling 
 to break for ever with a child whom he loved, he finally 
 told him he would trouble him no more about his religion 
 if he would only consent to remove his hat in the presence 
 of the king, the Duke of York, and himself. After a little 
 hesitation the youth told his father he could not consent 
 to do so. Unable to stand this, the admiral beat him in 
 his hot wrath, and then turned him out of doors.-f- 
 
 Cast out by his father, young Penn attached himself 
 more closely than ever to the Quakers, and soon became 
 one of their preachers. He began also to distinguish him- 
 self as a controversial writer, but his pen soon brought him 
 
 * Pepys" 1 Diary, Vol. II., p. 172. 
 
 f Perm's Travels in Holland and Germany, Vol. I., p. 92. 
 
78 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 into trouble. In one of his early works, entitled " The 
 Sandy Foundation Shaken," he attacked the orthodox doc- 
 trines, that there are three distinct persons in the one 
 godhead, that God cannot pardon sinners without a full 
 satisfaction, and that sinners are justified by an imputed 
 righteousness, for in all these points the Quakers differ 
 from the Church * In truth, it must be told that, tried by 
 creeds they are very heterodox, but somehow, in spite of 
 their heterodoxy, they have managed to practice all the 
 virtues of Christianity. The pamphlet gave great offence, 
 and Penn was apprehended and committed to the Tower. 
 While lying there he was visited by Bishop Stillingfleet, 
 who endeavoured to reason him out of the notions he had 
 formed, and pointed to the splendid prospects which he 
 destroyed. " The Tower," said he in reply, " is to me the 
 worst argument in the world." In his chamber in the old 
 fortress he composed his most celebrated work, " No Cross, 
 no Crown," adding another to the many famous works 
 which have emanated from a dungeon. After an imprison- 
 ment of seven months he was released, by an order direct 
 from the king, who was moved to this clemency by the 
 Duke of York, who had pity on the son of his friend. 
 
 The feelings of the old admiral toward his Quaker son 
 now began to relent; and at last, on the earnest interces- 
 
 * In regard to the Trinity, the Quakers say that the word 'person nowhere 
 occurs in the Bible ; and that in a subject so mysterious we should not presume 
 to be wise above what is written. In a summary of doctrine contained in Sewel's 
 History, the Quaker doctrine is stated thus : " The Father, the Word, and the 
 Holy Spirit are one, in divine being inseparable, one, true, living, and eternal God, 
 blessed for ever.'" In Howitt's sketch of the Quakers in the last edition of the 
 " Encyclopaedia Britannica," the Quaker faith is given thus — " We agree with 
 other professors of the Christian name in the belief in one eternal God, the creator 
 and preserver of the universe, and in Jesus Christ his Son, the Messiah and Media- 
 tor of the New Covenant." In regard to the atonement, the Quakers hold that 
 Christ died for all, but they repudiate the idea of a full satisfaction and of an 
 imputed righteousness. 
 
GEORGE KEITH. 
 
 79 
 
 sion of his wife, he agreed to receive him back into his 
 house. When on his death-bed, painfully aware that the 
 strong religious convictions of his son would expose him 
 to persecution, he sent a friend to the Duke of York to beg 
 of him, as his last request, that he would protect him as far 
 as he consistently could. The duke gave his promise, and 
 he more than kept it. 
 
 Besides Barclay and Penn, the Quakers about this time 
 received another proselyte, who was in some respects abler 
 than both. This was George Keith. Like Barclay, he was 
 a Scotchman, and was bred a presbyterian. When at col- 
 lege he had for a fellow student Gilbert Burnet, the future 
 historian and Bishop of Salisbury, who always speaks of 
 him with respect. He had sufficient learning, a sharp- 
 edged intellect, and a ready wit. In many respects formed 
 to be a polemic, he threw himself with natural ardour into 
 the controversies of the time, and rendered eminent service 
 to the Quaker cause. He frequently fought by the side of 
 his friend Barclay, and was universally acknowledged to 
 be one of the foremost champions of the sect. But in after 
 time he became a renegade, disowned the doctrines which 
 he had once maintained, vilified the body to which he had 
 belonged, took orders in the Church of England, and as- 
 sumed the surplice; and so he is always spoken of by the 
 Quakers with disrespect, or with the pity which belongs to 
 one who was once an angel of light, but who afterwards 
 became, like Lucifer, a fallen star. 
 
 In the ranks of the Friends at this time were also to be 
 found Isaac Pennington and Thomas Ellwood, both men of 
 good family and liberal education. Pennington had wedded 
 the widow of Sir William Springett, a distinguished captain 
 among the many great captains of the parliamentary army, 
 and had made her daughter, Gulielma Maria, his own. In 
 the quiet village of Chalfont St. Giles, situated amid the 
 
80 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 pleasant downs of Buckinghamshire, they made their abode, 
 and there Thomas Ellwood, the friend of Milton, often 
 visited them ; and there, too, during the plague, came the 
 great poet himself, and worked at his " Paradise Lost," and 
 got his first idea from Ellwood of his " Paradise Regained," 
 and listened to the music of the young Guli Springett, for 
 the girl, though reared among Quakers, had not been com- 
 pelled to stifle the warblings of nature within her. The 
 good but simple Ellwood had known the interesting orphan 
 almost from her childhood, and as she ripened into womanly 
 beauty, he half confesses in his memoirs that he loved her, 
 and perhaps his desire to be beside her had something to 
 do with his conversion to Quakerism, but he never told 
 his love ; and now William Penn came down to Chalfont 
 to visit the Penningtons, and, looking upon the maiden, 
 he loved her too, and after a time made her his wife. Thus 
 these three Quakers were linked together in relationship 
 and love.* 
 
 Though learning and rank were now helping to rescue 
 the Quakers from contempt, they had still amongst them 
 men who contrived occasionally to make them ridiculous. 
 A zealous Friend, who rejoiced in the name of Solomon 
 Eccles, about this time stripped himself half naked, placed 
 a pan of burning coals upon his head, and during the fair 
 in London appeared among the showmen and mountebanks 
 to testify against their sinful diversions. Some carters and 
 coachmen in the crowd had sense enough to apply their whips 
 smartly to his bare back, and he was glad to escape. But 
 his insanity was not cured by the whipping he had received, 
 for some time afterwards he appeared in a chapel in Ire- 
 land stripped to the waist, and with his pan of coals and 
 brimstone again blazing on his head. " Wo to you idola- 
 
 * Dixon's Life of Penn, chap. iv. 
 
FOX WEDS A WIFE. 
 
 8 1 
 
 ters," cried he to the people on their knees. a God hath 
 sent me this day to warn you, and to shew you what will 
 be your portion unless you repent," — for that was the 
 meaning of the brimstone and the coals * On another 
 occasion this Solomon went into a church in Alderman- 
 bury, and seating himself on the pulpit-cushion, in the 
 face of the congregation, began to sew, but I do not know 
 the exact spiritual significance of this act. 
 
 In 1669 George Fox fairly succumbed to the softer pas- 
 sions of our nature, and took to wife Margaret Fell, a 
 middle-aged, comfortable widow, with a good estate. 
 Margaret had been the spouse of a Welsh judge, and had 
 been early converted by the preaching of Fox, and from 
 this time forward had been one of his most ardent ad- 
 mirers and friends.")* She frequently sheltered him in his 
 times of need ; and when he was lying in Lancaster J ail 
 she travelled to London to petition the king for his release. 
 She, moreover, preached and wrote pamphlets in the 
 Quaker cause. Her first husband was now dead, and 
 what better help-meet could the apostle of Quakerism 
 find ? Fox tells us that for some time " he had seen from 
 the Lord that he was to take Margaret for his wife ; " and 
 
 when he mentioned his movements to her, Margaret con- 
 
 » © 
 
 fessed (blushingly, no doubt) that a coiTesponding illumi- 
 
 * Sewel's History, p. 486. 
 
 t The extent of her admiration may be judged of by a letter which she and 
 some other female enthusiasts on one occasion wrote to Fox. They wrote — " Our 
 dear father in the Lord. For though we have ten thousand instructors in Christ, 
 yet we have not many fathers ; for in Christ Jesus thou hast begotten us through 
 the gospel — eternal praises be to our father. We, thy babes, with one consent 
 l>cing gathered together in the power of the spirit, thou being present with us. our 
 pouls doth thirst and languish after thee. . . . O thou bread of life, without 
 which bread our souls will starve. Oh, for evermore give us thy bread. . . . 
 In thy presence is fulness of joy, and where thou dwell is pleasure for evermore. 
 O thou fountain of eternal life, our souls thirst after thee, for in thee alone is our 
 life and peace,'" &c, &c. 
 
 F 
 
82 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 nation had been given to her ;* all which heavenly admo- 
 nitions, I am afraid, can be very easily translated into the 
 language of earth. There being thus no hindrance in the 
 wav, George took Margaret to his wife, and Margaret took 
 George to be her husband, in a public meeting of the 
 Friends at Bristol. " She was a woman of a noble endow- 
 ment," says Sewel ; " and this I know not only by her 
 writings, but I have also heard her preach an hour to- 
 gether, delivering her matter compactly and orderly. "-f- 
 Fox, however, was not a man to waste his life in uxorious 
 sloth, and so, after comforting his widow- wife for a week, 
 he parted from her, and started on one of his missionary 
 tours. 
 
 The old act against conventicles having expired, a new 
 one, with clauses of additional severity, was carried through 
 parliament in 1670. Both the court and the church gave 
 it their support, though Bishop Wilkins had the generous 
 courage to speak strongly against it. By this act, if more 
 than five persons met together for religious worship, except 
 according to the forms of the Church of England, they were 
 liable to heavy fines, and these fines might be levied by 
 the seizure and sale of their goods. Informers were en- 
 couraged to industry in their infamous calling by receiving 
 one-third of the fines; and magistrates who, through a 
 mistaken humanity, shirked their duty, were made liable 
 in a penalty of £5. As if this were not enough to make 
 the wheels of this Juggernaut car go smoothly, a clause 
 was added to the effect, that the act " should be construed 
 most largely and beneficially for the suppressing con- 
 venticles, and for the justification and encouragement of 
 all persons to be employed in the execution thereof." Under 
 the kindly shadow of this law, a vile set of informers sprang 
 
 * Fox's Journal, p. 412. 
 
 f History of the Quakers, p. 488. 
 
ACT AGAINST NON-CONFORMITY. 
 
 83 
 
 up, who crept into private houses and religious meetings, 
 and lived upon the labour of conscientious industry. The 
 dissenters, who thought it their duty to worship God with- 
 out a surplice and without a liturgy, were liable any day 
 to be carried before a magistrate, and see their household 
 goods sold at the market cross to pay their fines. The 
 sharpest edge of the statute, however, was toned againso 
 the Quakers, who were not intimidated by its terrors, and 
 obstinately continued their meetings. On the very day on 
 which the law came into force, Fox repaired to the meet- 
 ing held in Gracechurch Street, in London. He found the 
 doors of the meeting-house barred and guarded by soldiers, 
 and a large crowd collected in the street. A Friend was 
 already holding forth. As soon as he had finished Fox 
 took his place, and at once gave out the defiant cry — 
 * Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ? " 
 
 It was not in London only that the fiery breath of the 
 persecution was felt. It is said that at one time in Bristol 
 every adult Quaker was in prison ; and in the same city 
 fines were levied to the amount of upwards of £16,000. 
 From the records of the Society it appears that over the 
 whole country about this period property was taken or 
 destroyed to the value of a million sterling. In 1670 
 Charles signed an order, which was countersigned by the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury and thirteen others, to Chris- 
 topher Wren, to pull down their meeting-houses at Rat- 
 cliffe and Horselydown, which was accordingly done, and 
 the materials sold. Similar devastation was wrought in 
 other places, and the Quakers could only endure what they 
 could not prevent* 
 
 In the same year a trial took place which will ever be 
 memorable in the history of the Jury. William Penn and 
 
 * Article, Quakers, in the last edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica, - ' un- 
 derstood to be written by Wm. Howitt., 
 
84 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 William Mead were indicted at the Old Bailey for having, 
 with other persons, to the number of three hundred, tumul- 
 tuously, with force and arms, assembled in Gracechurch 
 Street, and for having preached there in contempt of the 
 king's laws, and to the disturbance of the peace. They 
 pleaded not guilty. The witnesses who were called de- 
 clared that they saw William Penn speaking to the crowd, 
 but that they could not hear what he said. " We confess 
 ourselves," said Penn, " to be so far from recanting or de- 
 clining to vindicate the assembling of ourselves to preach 
 and worship the Eternal God, that we declare to all the 
 world that we believe it to be our indispensable duty to 
 meet incessantly upon so good an account, nor shall all the 
 powers of earth be able to divert us from it." "You are 
 not here for worshipping God," said one of the aldermen, 
 " but for breaking the law." " I have broken no law," said 
 Penn, " and should like to know upon what law you ground 
 my indictment." "Upon the common law," said the recorder. 
 "Where is it?" asked Penn. "The common law is lex 
 non scripta" retorted the recorder. " According to Coke, 
 common law is common right," replied Penn, not to be 
 baffled ; " and if you deny me my right, you evidence to 
 the world your resolution to sacrifice the privileges of 
 Englishmen to your sinister and arbitrary designs." " If 
 you take not some course, my lord, to stop the mouth of 
 this pestilent fellow," said the recorder, addressing the 
 mayor, " we shall not be able to do anything to-night." 
 " Take him off to the bail-dock," said the mayor. " Am 
 I to be taken away," cried the undaunted Quaker-son of 
 the undaunted old admiral, as he was being removed, " be- 
 cause I plead for the fundamental laws of England ? If so, 
 who can say he hath a right to the coat on his back ? Is 
 it so, that our liberties are to be invaded, our wives ravished, 
 our children enslaved, our families ruined, and our estates 
 
A JURY TEIAL. 
 
 85 
 
 led away in triumph by every sturdy beggar and malicious 
 informer as their trophies ?" 
 
 When Mead was left alone at the bar, he rose and said, 
 " You men of the J ury, I stand here to answer to an in- 
 dictment which is a bundle of lies, for I am accused of 
 having met vi et armis, illicite et tumultuose. Time was 
 when I had freedom to use a carnal weapon, and then I 
 feared no man ; but now I fear the living God, and dare 
 hurt no man, and therefore I demand to know upon what 
 law my indictment is founded. If the recorder will not 
 tell what makes a riot, Coke tells us that it is when three 
 or more are met together to beat a man, or forcibly enter 
 his lands, or cut his grass or wood, or break down his 
 pales." After some altercation, in which the mayor told 
 Mead that he deserved to have his tongue cut out, he also 
 was removed to the bail-dock. 
 
 After Mead was removed, the recorder began to charge 
 the jury, when the voice of Penn was heard sounding from 
 the bail-dock — u I appeal to the jury, who are my judges," 
 he cried, " whether the proceedings of the court are not 
 most arbitrary in charging the jury in the absence of the 
 prisoners." " Why, you are present; you hear, do you 
 not ?" said the recorder, with a sneer. " No thanks to the 
 court," said Penn, who was forthwith removed, together 
 with Mead, to the Black Hole, to prevent further interrup- 
 tions. The jury were then charged, with menaces, as to 
 the kind of verdict they should give, and then they were 
 allowed to retire. When they again came into court, " Are 
 you agreed upon your verdict V said the clerk. " Yes," 
 said the foreman. " Look upon the prisoners at the bar," 
 resumed the clerk. " How say you ? Is William Penn 
 guilty of the matter whereof he stands indicted, or not 
 guilty ?" " Guilty of speaking in Gracechurch Street," said 
 the foreman. u Is that all," asked the court ? " That is 
 
86 
 
 THE QUAKEKS. 
 
 all," replied the foreman. " You had as good said nothing," 
 said the recorder. "Was it not an unlawful assembly?" 
 interponed the Lord Mayor. " I have said all I was com- 
 missioned to say," answered the imperturbable foreman. 
 With threats, the jury were now sent back to reconsider 
 their verdict ; but when they returned, they handed to the 
 court a paper signed by them all, in which they again found 
 that William Penn was guilty simply of speaking in Grace- 
 church Street, and that William Mead was not guilty. The 
 court, now losing all patience, threatened to lock them up 
 without food till they brought in a proper verdict. " The 
 jury, who are my judges," said Penn, " ought not to be thus 
 menaced. The agreement of twelve men is a verdict in 
 law, and I require the clerk to record it, as he will answer 
 at his peril." Notwithstanding this remonstrance, the jury 
 were locked up for the night ; but when they were brought 
 into court the next day, which was Sunday, half-famished 
 through want of food, still their answer to the question.. 
 " How say you, guilty or not guilty ? " " William Penn is 
 guilty of speaking in Gracechurch Street." In spite of 
 their protestations, the jury were again locked up, in the 
 hope that by the following clay they would be starved into 
 submission. But when the next day came, and the old 
 question was put, "How say you, guilty or not guilty?" 
 " Not guilty," said the foreman, with a voice firmer than 
 ever. The court, enraged at their defeat, and unwilling to 
 let their prey escape altogether out of their hands, fined 
 the prisoners for contempt of court, in keeping their hats 
 on, and also the jurymen, forty merks a-piece, for giving 
 a verdict in the face of the directions they had received 
 from the court * It was a noble stand these men made, 
 for which they deserve to be for ever famous. Seldom has 
 
 * " The People's Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted," by \V. Penn. 
 
FOX IX AMERICA. 
 
 87 
 
 a court behaved worse, and never has a jury behaved 
 better. 
 
 Not contented with having traversed all England, Scot- 
 land, and Ireland, proclaiming his principles, as with a 
 trumpet, George Fox now resolved to cross the Atlantic 
 and visit America, where Quakerism was taking firm root, 
 and throwing out vigorous branches. In 1672 he left 
 England and sailed for Barbadoes. From Barbadoes he 
 went to Jamaica, and from Jamaica to Maryland, New 
 England, Virginia, and Carolina. Albeit his health was 
 now much broken by the terrible imprisonments he had 
 endured, he made long journeys through the boundless 
 forests (now cultivated fields) of the new world, and spoke 
 of the divine light not only to the colonists in their towns, 
 but to the Red Indians in their wig- warns. After wander- 
 ing about in this way for more than a year, he returned 
 home; but he had scarcely set his foot on English soil 
 again when he was apprehended and thrown into Worcester 
 Jail, for being present at a conventicle. His trial was put 
 off time after time ; sometimes he lay in jail, and sometimes 
 he was allowed to be a prisoner at large, for his health 
 would not now stand close confinement, and thus a year 
 slipped away, and his release seemed as far distant as ever. 
 In these circumstances his wife, who had herself tasted the 
 bitterness of captivity, travelled to London and obtained 
 an audience of the king at Whitehall, and begged that her 
 husband might be set at liberty. The king referred her to 
 the Lord Chancellor Finch. To Finch, therefore, the de- 
 voted woman went; but Finch told her that the king could 
 not set her husband free unless by granting him a pardon. 
 Now. George Fox knew long ago that the king was willing 
 to grant him a pardon, but he would not accept of it, for 
 he argued, that to accept of a pardon involved a confession 
 that he had committed a crime. When this was explained 
 
88 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 to the chancellor, he had respect to the scruples of the 
 great Quaker, and therefore procured a writ of habeas corpus 
 for him, that so he might be brought to London and tried 
 before the King's Bench. He stood, therefore, before this 
 high court, over which Sir Matthew Hales presided, willing 
 rather to receive the sentence of the law than the pardon 
 of the king. Happily his indictment was quashed, and he 
 was set at liberty. 
 
 His case was a hard one, to have suffered so long and for 
 no crime which the law, rigorous though it was, could take 
 hold of. But it was not harder than was that of hundreds 
 of his followers. The jails were everywhere crowded with 
 the victims of the intolerable tyranny of the church and 
 the court ; and about this time it was calculated that, 
 since the Restoration, two hundred Quakers alone had died 
 in prison from the rigours of the confinement and ill-usage 
 they had endured. If only half this number died such a 
 death, it gives us a fearful picture of the horrors of imprison- 
 ment in the seventeenth century. 
 
Chapter l\ 
 
 P to this time the doctrines of the Quakers had not 
 been digested into any system. Fox had received 
 his revelations at sundry times and in divers 
 manners. These he had communicated to his followers and 
 the world in his discourses and letters. When he preached, 
 he spoke as an oracle, and the devout listened to what he 
 said as to divine truth. When he penned his epistles in 
 the solitude of his prison, he knew they would be after- 
 wards printed, and everywhere read in the meetings of the 
 Friends. The days seemed to be revived when the epistles 
 of St. Paul and St. Peter were read in the churches. It is 
 hard for us now, when we peruse the letters of Fox, to see 
 in them anything but burlesques of the Bible, always rhap- 
 sodical, frequently obscure, without one gleam of the Bible's 
 beauty, or even of the eloquence to which Mahomet ap- 
 pealed as the proof of the inspiration of the Koran ; and 
 yet we know they produced a profound impression on the 
 Quaker community. The gifted converts, when they began 
 to preach, lit their lamps at the great central luminary, and 
 helped to diffuse its light. They also wrote letters, and 
 even pamphlets, which had less or more authority in the 
 sect. Thus a Quaker theology gradually sprang up ; but 
 as of yore, the inspirations of the sybil were written on stray 
 leaves, which were tossed about and scattered by the wind. 
 
90 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 There was needed a man who would collect the scattered 
 fragments of truth, and neatly compact them together. 
 Such a one was found in Robert Barclay, who did for 
 Quakerism what St. Paul and St. Augustine had done for 
 Christianity. In his "Apology for the True Christian 
 Divinity," published in 1675, he reduced a very unpromis- 
 ing heap of materials into a logical system, which he states 
 with perspicuity, illustrates with taste, and supports with 
 quotations from the apostles, fathers, and reformers of the 
 church. In his hands the incoherent ravings, the blunders 
 and the vulgarities of half-crazed and wholly uneducated 
 men, assumed the aspect of a mystical but not altogether 
 unreasonable piety. Indecencies were draped, rough places 
 made smooth, defects supplied, and the whole reduced into 
 an admirable method. One is tempted to think that Fox 
 himself must have been somewhat amazed when he found 
 his unlettered theology arrayed in the classical and patristic 
 garments with which Barclay had invested it. 
 
 Barclay states his creed in fifteen propositions, and his 
 book has such authority in his sect that these may be 
 regarded as the Fifteen Articles of the Society of Friends. 
 They may be briefly expressed thus : — 
 
 1. Seeing the height of all happiness flows from the true knowledge 
 of God, a right understanding of this is necessary above everything else* 
 
 2. It is only by the Spirit that the true knowledge of God can be re- 
 vealed : by Him was it revealed to the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, 
 and by Him is it in the same way revealed still. This divine inward re- 
 velation is not contrary to Scripture or reason ; but neither is it to be 
 tried by Scripture or reason : for it has a self-evidencing power, and in- 
 clines the mind to assent to it as to the natural truth, that the whole is 
 greater than the part. 
 
 3. The Scriptures are revelations of God's Spirit, and contain his- 
 tories, prophecies, and doctrines ; but as they are only a stream from the 
 fountain itself; they are not to be esteemed as the highest source of 
 divine truth, nor the primary rule of faith and manners. 
 
Barclay's apology. 
 
 91 
 
 4. All mankind are by nature fallen and dead to the inward feeling of 
 tbe divine testimony. 
 
 5. God sent His Son as a light to lighten every man that cometh into 
 the world 
 
 6. Christ's redemption is universal, and the benefit of it extends even 
 to those who know not the gospel. 
 
 7. In all who resist not the inward light, but attend to it, is produced 
 a holy, pure, and spiritual birth. This regeneration involves both 
 justification and sanctitication. 
 
 8. Those who are fully regenerated are free from sin, and in that re- 
 spect perfect. 
 
 9. It is possible for those who have made some progress in the divine 
 life to fall away ; but there may be such perfection that total apostacy 
 is impossible, 
 
 10. All who have received the gift of God, the divine light in their 
 hearts, may minister in holy things, and they must do so without hire. 
 
 11. All true and acceptable worship comes from the inward and im- 
 mediate movement of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 12. Baptism is a pure and spiritual thing, of which the baptism of 
 John was a figure, and the baptism of infants w 7 ith water is a mere human 
 tradition, with no authority in Scripture. 
 
 13. The communion of the body and blood of Christ is inward and 
 spiritual, of which the breaking of bread by Christ with His disciples 
 was a figure, which figure is now done away. 
 
 14. God is the alone Lord of the conscience, and therefore no human 
 authority has a right to force the conscience, but only to see that no 
 one under pretence of conscience does anything inconsistent with the 
 welfare of society. 
 
 15. Since the end of religion is to redeem man from the spirit of the 
 world, and to lead him to inward communion with God, all the vain 
 customs, pomps, and pleasures of the world ought to be abandoned. 
 
 The stem-doctrine of this system, out of which all the 
 others grow, is that of immediate revelation. God reveals 
 Himself in the heart of all His creatures. Christ is a light 
 which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. 
 The Holy Spirit is the great teacher. It is a mistake, say 
 the Quakers, to suppose that inspiration is confined to the 
 prophets and apostles ; it is common to all men. In some, 
 
92 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 indeed, the divine light is extinguished by the native dark- 
 ness of the human heart ; the spices exhale their perfumes 
 from the garments of the heavenly bridegroom, but there 
 is no quick sense of smell to feel them ; the voice of the 
 divine Sophia speaks within us, but there is do open ear 
 to hear it; the quickening seed drops into the soul, but 
 there is no fertile soil in which it may take root and spring 
 up. But in every case God speaks within us as truly as 
 He spoke to Isaiah or to Paul ; we have but to listen and 
 we shall hear, and we can do so if we please, for the soul 
 has spiritual senses by which it can discern spiritual truth. 
 It is not by the study of books, not even of the Bible, that 
 we shall attain to the highest knowledge of divine things. 
 God has placed His gospel in our hearts. We must abstract 
 our attention from the world ; we must turn our eye in 
 upon ourselves, and then we shall, with ecstasy, behold the 
 beams of the Sun of Righteousness brightly shining. In 
 the depths of our own nature we shall find that God has 
 opened up wells of salvation, out of which we may drink 
 and live. Nor are these divine gifts bestowed upon Chris- 
 tians only. Every rational soul is a partaker of the light 
 and life of God ; and by these, those who have never heard 
 of the historical Christ, but who have yet the Christ of God 
 formed in their hearts, may come to holiness and the 
 heavenly happiness. 
 
 With the Quakers the Holy Scriptures are not, therefore, 
 the highest source of religious truth, nor the primary rule 
 of faith and morals. They are a pure stream flowing from 
 the fountain, out of which the Christian may draw living 
 water and slake his thirst, but they are not the fountain. 
 The sam e spirit who spoke in the writers of the_Sc riptures, 
 still speaksinevery devout soul ; and if we would receive 
 the trutti in its greatestlffesnness and force, it is by humbly 
 consulting at this oracle. God has written His law upon 
 
QUAKER THEOLOGY. 
 
 93 
 
 our hearts. It is true the oracle appears, at least, to give 
 different responses in different hearts ; but the same may 
 be said of the Scriptures, which have been differently in- 
 terpreted by different men. It is true it gives no informa- 
 tion regarding the historical part of our faith; but that 
 history, though pleasant and profitable to those who know 
 it, is not at all essential to salvation * Where there is an 
 inward illumination, Holy Scripture serves as a mirror in 
 which we shall find our own inspired thoughts reflected 
 and repeated. But without the inward illumination it is 
 but a dead letter. 
 
 Those who have been thus born again by the incorrupt- 
 ible seed of God, commit no sin. All evil passion is sub- 
 dued within them; they are the immaculate spouse of 
 Christ — perfect before God. The worship of a people thus 
 lifted above human infirmities, and abstracted from sense, 
 has no need of those carnal ordinances and vain ceremonies 
 which have hitherto prevailed so largely in the church. 
 There is no need of an educated ministry, for every one 
 should speak in the church as he has been taught of God, 
 and as God may give him utterance. There is no use of a 
 liturgy, for all true prayer and praise proceed from the in- 
 ward movements of the heart ; and when there is no such 
 movement, it is the duty of all to be still, and in silence to 
 wait upon God. In a religion so spiritual as this, the out- 
 ward signs in the sacraments are of no avail. The only 
 true baptism is the baptism of the Holy Spirit ; the only 
 true communion is the communion of the heart with its 
 Maker. To shake ourselves free from the shackles of sense, 
 to rise above the world, to five near to God, should ever 
 be our great object; and, therefore, it behoves us to flee all 
 earthly pleasures, to renounce all earthly pomps, to dis- 
 
 * Barclays Apology, pp. 141-2. 
 
94 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 courage all pride, both in ourselves and others, that so the 
 soul, with its eye purged of every film, may see most clearly 
 the glory of the Lord. 
 
 Such are the religious principles which were first preached 
 by Fox, and afterwards reduced to a system by his dis- 
 ciples ; and it is not difficult to recognise in them a form 
 of that mysticism which has such deep root in the human 
 Teart/ and which " is, accor^Fmgry, as o ld as itie world. 
 " Whether in tTie"Tea^s*1in~tne rlatonists, or in the Hege- 
 lians," says Stuart Mill, "mysticism is neither more nor 
 less than ascribing objective existence to the subjective 
 creations of our own faculties, to ideas or feelings of the 
 mind ; and believing that by watching and contemplating 
 these ideas of its own making, it can read in them what 
 takes place in the world without."* " Mysticism," says 
 Victor Cousin, " consists in the substitution of direct illu- 
 mination for indirect revelation." -f* Both these definitions 
 are true, though written from different points of view. 
 The one is the sceptical, the other is the believing view of 
 the matter. Both are app licabl e to the jg rinc^les^pf^the 
 Quakers; they mistake their^ubjectivefeeliiigs for objec- 
 tive realities ; they substitute direct illumination for in- 
 direclTrev elation. " 
 
 It is marvellous how uniform in type mysticism has been 
 in all its manifold developments. We first find it in India, 
 the earliest cradle of religious thought. In the celebrated 
 " Bhagavad-Gita," Khrisna enjoins his pupil to rise to a 
 knowledge of pure being by means of contemplation. He 
 speaks with contempt of the knowledge which one can 
 acquire from books ; even the Vedas can give little insight 
 
 * System of Logic, Vol. II., p. 138. 
 
 t " Le mysticisme consiste a substituer Illumination directe a la revelation in- 
 directe. Textase a la raison, Peblouissement a la philosophies' — Fragments i'hi- 
 losophiques — Religion, Mysticisme, Stoi'cisme. 
 
MYSTICISM. 
 
 95 
 
 into the absolute and divine. He treats with ridicule a 
 religion which consists of ceremonies, and holds out to its 
 devotees the hope of rewards in the future world. It is 
 superstitious to cleave to the letter of the Vedas, and to 
 pretend that religious certainty cannot be otherwise at- 
 tained. The Holy Books, like all other books, are profitable 
 only for those who are capable of contemplation ; and when 
 one is capable of contemplation, they are, in truth, no longer 
 needed. As a cistern filled with stagnant water is useless 
 to him who has at hand a bubbling fountain, so are the 
 sacred books useless to him who is himself inspired.* Thus, 
 in the far east and in remote antiquity, we discover the 
 identical doctrines of the Quaker creed. 
 
 We find the same ideas repeated in the philosophy of the 
 west ; and, strange to say, they first appeared in Alexan- 
 dria, the city which, to this day, is the connecting link 
 between the eastern and western worlds. The Alexandrian 
 School was as much religious as philosophical in its cha- 
 racter and aspirations, and in such a school mysticism was 
 almost certain to exhibit itself, as in one of its aspects it 
 is simply a compromise- between religion and philosophy. 
 The highest religion, according- to this schoo l , is the un ion 
 of man to Uod. The nlgnest happiness is the aTSoro^ 
 of the human in the divine. This object was best to be 
 attained by mortifying the senses, withdrawing the mind 
 from all external objects, and giving it up to the contem- 
 plation of things spiritual and divine. Thus might the 
 soul at last find repose in the bosom of its God. This Pla- 
 tonic school sent forth some of the ablest apologists of the 
 Christian faith, who, of course, carried into their Chris- 
 tianity the principles of their philosophy. Among these 
 
 * The " Bhagavad-Gita 1 " 1 has been frequently translated. I have taken my ac- 
 count of it, however, from Cousin's " Cours de l'histoire de la Philosophic" He 
 follows Schegel's Latin version. 
 
96 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 Origen was the greatest. The first, and in some respects 
 the most illustrious of biblical commentators, he held that 
 the Scriptures could not be interpreted literally, without 
 the admission of incredible absurdities, and that they must 
 be explained in the same allegorical manner in which the 
 Platonists explained the history of the gods. The letter 
 itself was dead, and behind the letter a hidden and mystic 
 meaning must be sought. " The Scriptures," says he, " are 
 of little use to those who understand them as they are 
 written." " The source of many evils lies in adhering to 
 the carnal or external part of Scripture. Those who do so 
 shall not attain to the kingdom of God. Let us, therefore, 
 seek after the spirit and the substantial fruit of the word, 
 which are hidden and mysterious."* Applying this rule 
 to every part of the sacred text, he attached to it such an 
 allegorical, mystical sense, as his fancy suggested, and thus 
 constructed a Christianity which was wholly his own, or 
 rather a compromise between the philosophy of Plotinus 
 and the theology of St. Paul. 
 
 This mystical theology frequently repeated itself in the 
 future history of the church. Even among the subtle 
 thinkers of the middle ages it made its appearance. The 
 most distinguished mystic of that epoch was the chancellor 
 Gerson, who in his celebrated treatise, " Theologia Mystica," 
 not only expounded the doctrines, but, for the first time, 
 boldly adopted the name of mystic. This theology, he 
 teaches, is based upon the deep experiences of the religious 
 soul. These experiences are not fictitious but real, and 
 conduct to a system as real. The^^res^p^^U^nowledge 
 is that which rests upon the immediate intuition of God 
 b y the sou l. He who has this intuition, however ignorant 
 he may be otherwise, is at once the best philosopher and 
 
 * Stromata, Book X. 
 
GERSON AND BoHMEX. 
 
 97 
 
 the best theologian, for he reaches the truth not by the 
 round-about road of argumentation and learning, but im- 
 mediately and at once. Such a theoldgy, he argues, is 
 superior to that of the schools. It depends not upon a 
 knowledge of abstract principles, but upon an experimental 
 knowledge of God revealing Himself within us. In order 
 to its attainment, it is not necessary to be a learned man, 
 it is enough to be a good man. Without science, without 
 literature, with nothing but a devout heart, any one may 
 reach the highest steeps of tins theology, and know God 
 even as He is known. Such a divinity elevates man above 
 himself, warms his heart, and plants there the seeds of 
 peace and happiness. 
 
 When the Reformation broke upon Europe, and men 
 everywhere began to .speculate regarding the relation of 
 man to his God, mysticism appeared in several quarters, 
 .but as it io prove the 'statemenE oi Clersoni tnai a mystic 
 theology may exist without human learning, the most 
 famous mystic of the Reformation school was a poor illi- 
 terate cobbler called J acob Bohnien, a native of Gorlitz in 
 Brandenburgh. He studied nothing but nature, his Bible, 
 and his own heart ; and, as the result, published a number 
 of books, which have been called the Gospel of Mysticism. 
 Two of his chief doctrines are the essential identity of God 
 and the human soul, and the impossibility of receiving 
 truth in any way but by illumination. His works were 
 translated into many languages, and extensively read in 
 England by the religious enthusiasts of the puritanic times, 
 of whom there was a small sect called by his name. Thus 
 we ever and anon find the same doctrines cropping out, 
 shewing that they form one of the strata of religious 
 thought in the human heart. 
 
 It is easy to account for the original inspirations of Fox, 
 
 G 
 
98 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 by supposing that he had become acquainted with the 
 writings of some of the German mystics, which were well 
 known among the Seekers, Ranters, and Bohmenists. But 
 it is not so easy to explain the profound impression which 
 these mystical doctrines made upon his mind, and the 
 eagerness with which they were received by thousands of 
 his countrymen. I suspect that in this mysticism we have 
 a reaction from the dogmatism of the day. The Quakers 
 sprung up at a time when the molten religion of the 
 Reformation was beginning to harden in the moulds into 
 which it had been poured. Every part of Christianity was 
 being reduced to a fixed form. The highest mysteries were 
 made the subjects of definition. The holiest feelings were 
 encased in technicalities. Everything was made methodical 
 by the square and the plummet of human reason. In a 
 word, it was an age of councils and creeds. But there 
 were thousands who did not understand the metaphysical 
 theology which was in vogue, and longed for something 
 simpler to satisfy the yearnings of their heart. There were 
 thousands more who could understand, in some degree, the 
 dogmatic divinity, but who declared that religion did not 
 consist in scholastic distinctions, definitions, and abstrac- 
 tions, but in the inner communion of the soul with its God. 
 And there were very many who, weary of the polemical 
 strife which filled the whole country with its din, became 
 disgusted with polemics altogether, and sought for peace 
 elsewhere. In such a state of thought and feeling, a mys- 
 tical religion was almost sure to spring up. Forced to 
 renounce dogmatism, and unwilling to resign itself to scep- 
 ticism, the religious mind throws itself back upon its own 
 devotional instincts, which now appear to it in the light of 
 divine inspirations. "Mysticism," says the French phi- 
 losopher whom we have already quoted, " may be defined 
 in a general way, as the predominance accorded to senti- 
 
MYSTICISM VERSUS DOGMATISM. 
 
 99 
 
 ment."* If so, it is easy to understand the origin of the 
 mystic piety of the Quakers, and the eager welcome which 
 ifreceived, for the natural reaction from a religion purely 
 intellectual, is toward one in which feeling predominates. 
 The mind swings from one extreme to the other. We know 
 that the first Quakers complained of the lifeless forms of 
 faith which were substituted for a living faith on the Son 
 of God. The people asked for bread and they got a stone. 
 They cried for living water and they were directed to 
 drink at stagnant pools. They would believe simply in 
 Jesus, and they were commanded to believe in all the for- 
 mularies of human divines. There was no allowance made 
 for religious sentiment, for the secret struggles of the soul 
 after the infinite and divine, for the voice of God speaking 
 in the heart. Thus Quakerism was nothing else than a pro- 
 test against the dogmatic tendencies of the time, which had 
 culminated in the Confession of the Westminster Divines. 
 
 But that age was not more remarkable for its dogmatic- 
 tendencies than it was for its devotion to the letter of the 
 sacred writings. And unfortunately the Old Testament 
 was more studied than the New. Men spoke of the Jewish 
 commonwealth as a pattern for all others. Fathers called 
 their children Jeremiah and Habbakuk, Ichabod and Enoch, 
 after the names and incidents of the Jewish Scriptures. 
 The Hebrew histories, the struggles of the Israelites, Hi- 
 vites, and Amalekites, were to them the richest possible 
 record of human experience in the things of God. But 
 there were some who read these annals and yet received 
 from them no su ch enlightenment, and who believed that 
 in the struggles which went on in their own hearts, they 
 heardG^is^oica..more clearly than in the denunciations 
 of Hebrew prophets or the chronicles of Hebrew kings. 
 
 * Le mysticisrae peut etre defini (Tune maniere generale, la predominance 
 accordee au sentiment. — Coursde Philosopbie. Du Vrui, du Beau, et du Bien. 
 
100 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 When the feelings of these visionaries took shape, the}' did 
 in >t deny the inspiration of the Scriptures; they took higher 
 ground, and declared that the same spirit which spake to 
 the apostles and prophets spoke in them. They did not 
 deny that divine lessons might he learnt from the Holy 
 Scriptures, but they maintained that lessons still more 
 divine might be learned from listening to the voice of God 
 within them. Some went still farther, and held that the 
 accounts we have in the gospels of Jesus Christ do not 
 apply so much to any actual historical character as to 
 Christ formed within us. Others, though they did not 
 deny the reality of the Saviour's history, yet attributed, 
 like Origen, an allegorical meaning to every event in it, 
 and delighted to talk of the birth, life, sufferings, death, 
 and resurrection of Christ in the hearts of the faithful. 
 The whole system was an energetic protest against what a 
 modern school of theology calls bibliolatry. 
 
 Beyond the pale of the Society of Friends, their preten- 
 sions to divine illumination were treated with ridicule and 
 contempt. Scoffers said they mistook their own crazy 
 fancies for heavenly inspirations. Religious men, among 
 whom was Oliver Cromwell, said that the supernatural 
 light to which they pretended was nothing else than the 
 light of nature. But the Quakers indignantly repudiated 
 such explanations. It was not reason — it was not even 
 conscience that illuminated them in the inward parts. 
 Conscience, they said, might be a lantern, but it was a dark 
 lantern, and the candle of the Lord must be placed within 
 it that it might give light to all who were in the house. 
 Some adversaries proved, by arguments difficult to refute, 
 that their principles were simply those of natural religion, 
 and amounted in their consequences to an abandonment of 
 revelation; but the Quakers always earnestly protested 
 against this interpretation of their creed; and it must be 
 
MODERN MYSTICISM. 
 
 101 
 
 remembered that mysticism is seldom logical, and that 
 when put into a s\dlogistic crucible it quickly evaporates. 
 A faith founded upon feeling does not calculate the conse- 
 quences. 
 
 In our own day a form of religious mysticism has been 
 developed, in some of its aspects not unlike that of Fox 
 and Barclay. But it has sprung up not among illiterate 
 enthusiasts, but among some of the finest and most highly 
 cultured minds which the age has produced. The German 
 Schleiermacher may be regarded as the first and great 
 apostle of this modern mysticism ; and his school has exer- 
 cised a prodigious influence on the religious speculation of " 
 his country. Newman in England, and Theodore Parker 
 in America, are perhaps the most eminent of its more 
 recent exponents. They teach that it is in our own reli- 
 gious consciousness that we must look for the highest 
 forms .of religious truth. A subjective theology must al- 
 ways have more of a life-giving power than one which is 
 objective, and hence a book-revelation, if possible, is not 
 necessary. It lowers rather than heightens the religious 
 idea ; it may teach dogmas, it cannot breathe life. They 
 deny not inspiration ; but like the Quakers, they hold that 
 it is a divine gift bestowed upon many, if not upon all. 
 Not only St. John and St. Paul, but Dante, Shakespeare, and 
 Goethe, were recipients of this grace ; even Raffael, when 
 he drew his madonnas, and Canova when he chiselled his 
 marble into life, were under an inspiration truly divine. 
 The inspiration of the Almighty has given understanding 
 to all ; and if there be any difference, it is only in degree. 
 
 There is another school of religious thinkers which has 
 plucked from this dangerous tree of knowledge still riper 
 fruit. It is most true, they say, that in God we live and 
 move and have our being. Everything is of God. What 
 are our feelings but the divine manifesting itself in the 
 
102 
 
 THE QUAKERS, 
 
 human ? What are our thoughts but echoes from heaven ? 
 Is not the voice of nature the voice of God ? Eternal law 
 sits at the roaring loom of time and weaves the living 
 robes of deity * This is the extreme limit of mysticism, 
 and here it coalesces with a fatalistic pantheism. 
 
 The defenders of a dogmatic orthodoxy maintain that 
 every form of mysticism is bad; and they are certainly 
 able to point to many lamentable results which have sprung 
 from its aberrations and excesses, But it is certain from 
 history, that it has its root in human nature, and that it 
 will occasionally manifest itself so long as human nature 
 endures. There are many who cannot endure a religion 
 which is expressed in logical forms, arranged hi chapters, 
 and published as a thing to be learned and believed. Their 
 religion must rise out of the depths of their own souls, like 
 a majestic shade — a thing too divine to have her loose and 
 flowing robes shaped by human scissors into any fashion- 
 able mode. There must be obscurity in their religious im- 
 pressions, for obscurity generates awe, and definiteness dis- 
 pels it. It is certain that mysticism has co-existed with the 
 profoundest piety. We cannot doubt the piety of Origen, 
 of Gerson, or of Fox. There are few more interesting cha- 
 racters in French history than Madame Guyon, and she was 
 a mystic, and her mysticism had such a fascination for the 
 great Fenelon that he published a book in its defence, 
 which afterwards brought down upon him the thunders 
 of the Pope. Antonia Bourignon is another of those female 
 mystics who arose in the Church of Rome and laboured 
 unweariedly to bring back Christianity to what she con- 
 ceived to be its primitive forms ; and her pale, thoughtful 
 face and nun-like habit, are in accordance with the pure and 
 pious life which she led. Some of the sacred writers them- 
 
 * So schaff ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit, Unci wirke der Gottheit leben- 
 diVes Kleid.— Goethe's Faust. 
 
MYSTICISM AXD ASCETICISM. 
 
 103 
 
 selves approach the regions of mysticism. There are pas- 
 sages of St. Paul which appear to envelope a profoundly 
 mystical meaning ; and many have regarded the writings 
 of John as the noblest effusion of a mystical piety the world 
 has seen, rivalling, and even surpassing, in soft hazy beauty 
 the greatest of the Platonists. In truth, it seems to be 
 impossible to treat of those infinite subjects which theology 
 presents to us, without at times lapsing into mysticism* 
 
 Such is the mysticism of which the Quaker theology was 
 but a form, and which, when preached by Fox, Keith, and 
 Per m, took such a tirm hold on the imagination of prac- 
 tical matter-of-fact Enj^ncL_ 
 
 Itysticism has almost uniformly led to asceticism, and so 
 it was among the Quakers; but their asceticism is, in many 
 respects, very peculiar. From the first they had a fond- 
 ness for oral), or otherwise dingy-coloured garments, for 
 splendour of apparel, they thought, did not become men 
 who clothed themselves simply to cover their nakedness, 
 and protect themselves from the cold, and not to pamper 
 a sinful pride.-f- They rejoiced, however, in buttons, even 
 in shining metallic buttons^ and were not like the ana- 
 baptists of Germany, who repudiated such vanities as use- 
 less, and kept their habiliments from falling asunder by 
 
 * It is strange to find Cousin, when treating of mysticism, quoting the passage 
 from St. John which is usually called the Quaker text, and attaching to it a mean- 
 ing in accordance with his philosophy. — L'homme etant dans une impuissance 
 absolue de creer lui-mene Techelle qui doit e'lever jusqu' a Dieu, de la la necessite 
 d une revelation. Or cette revelation commence avec la vie dans Tindividu comme 
 dans l'espece ; le Mediateur est donne a tous les hommes ; c'est la lumiere qui 
 echure tout homme qui went en ce monde." — Fragments Philosophique — Religion, 
 Mysticism, Stoicisme. 
 
 + Barclay's Apology, p. 534. 
 
 J The Quakers were frequently twitted about their buttons. Fox was charged 
 with ostentation in wearing silver ones, but he replied they were but ochymy. 
 Ames, on the contrary, was called a deceiver because he wore pewter buttons, to 
 make people believe they were silver ones. — Sewel's History, p. 204. 
 
104 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 means of hooks and eyes. All periwigs, and powdering, 
 and plaiting of the hair, they condemned as contrary to 
 Scripture ; but Fox, to the scandal of some, wore his locks 
 long and flowing, to show that he was no vulgar, cropped 
 puritan, as, indeed, he was not. The first apostles of 
 Quakerism did not prescribe that peculiar cut of garment 
 which afterwards became orthodox among the Friends. 
 It became orthodox because it was the pattern of the time 
 when the Quakers sprung up, and Quakers did not follow 
 the changing fashions. When they followed a deceased 
 brother or sister to the grave, they did not clothe them- 
 selves in hypocritical black as the world did, for they were 
 not hired mourners, and sorrow was a thing of the heart. 
 The coffin also was left bare, that it might not, by its 
 drapery, simulate a grief which it could not feel.* 
 
 The Quakers abjured all sports and merriment as incon- 
 sistent with the seriousness and gravity of the Christian 
 life. They would not dance nor take a hand at cards, nor 
 attend the theatre, nor even sing a song, for all these 
 things they held ministered to the lusts of the eye and 
 the pride of life. To have a picture hanging on their wall 
 even was a sin. For the relaxation of the mind, however, 
 they considerately allowed Friends " to visit one anoth er, 
 
 * Antonia Bourignon, though herself a mystic, had adislike of the Quakers,and 
 mocks at many of their practices, and among others at this. "It is the custom 
 with these Quakers," she says, 11 to carry their dead to the grave in a bare coffin ; 
 and the bearers run like a dog that has got away with a bone, which is followed by 
 the other dogs that are in the streets, who run after him that has the bone. Just 
 so these Quakers do with their dead. They run in the same manner to the place 
 of burial, without putting a cloth on the coffin, or anything else that is proper for 
 a dead body, and the other Quakers follow the corpse, some with their cloaks, others 
 without them, each of them clothed as when they are at work ; one has a blue 
 cap, another white stockings, or coarse cloths, running all in confusion ; and a 
 great number of boys follow them, crying and mocking, and throwing dirt, which 
 the Quakers suffer patiently, thinking they merit by it." 1 — A Warning against the 
 Quakers, pp. 38-9. 
 
TITLES OF HOXOUR. 
 
 105 
 
 to hear or read history, to speak soberly of the "present or 
 past transactions, to follow after gardening, to use geo- 
 metrical and mathematical experiments,"* and other occu- 
 pations of a like exhilarating character. 
 
 As they strove to repress pride in themselves, they would 
 do nothing to encourage it in others. They would not 
 bow or take off their hats to the highest ; for the sinful- 
 ness o f hat-honour was d iyinfity iffi¥Pai1°'i Ea&y«<«d? 
 moreover, they were cautioned in Scripture in regard to 
 receiving honour of one another, while they forgot the 
 honour which came from God. To keep their hats on their 
 heads in ail places, and in every presence, therefore became 
 a prime part of the Quakers' religion. In like manner they 
 refused to take or to give titles of honour, and recognised 
 nothing as true but the naked name, unless it were the 
 designation of an office which any one filled. They could 
 call Cromwell protector, and Charles king, but to address 
 them as your highness, or your majesty, or even to address 
 one another as Mr. or Sir, would be highly sinful, as it 
 gave occasion to the corrupt pride of the flesh. For the 
 same reason, they abandoned the use of the second person 
 plural in addressing individuals, and employed, according 
 to its primitive intention, the second person singular. The 
 plural form, they maintained, multiplied and magnified a 
 person, and tended to vanity .+ This also was^the^ujy^ct 
 of a special revelation to Fox: but to confirm his revela- 
 tionTlie had a book published, to which his name was ap- 
 pended, in thirty different languages, (though it is certain 
 he did not know one,) to prove that in all of them the 
 
 * Barclays Apology, p. 541. 
 
 t It would appear that some people were at first much offended by the Quakers' 
 mode of address. Penn humourously satirises this. *' Thou me, thou my dog ; 
 it' thou thouest me, I will thou thy teeth down thy throat."— See his Introduction 
 to Fox's Journal. 
 
106 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 second person singular was found.* It was a needless 
 waste of learning, for no one doubts that all languages, 
 above the lowest, have a singular as well as a plural num- 
 ber. Had Fox come as the reformer of our grammar, he 
 was undoubtedly right, as the reformer of our religion he 
 was, in this matter, ridiculously wrong. 
 
 There were other forms of speech and modes of salu- 
 tation at which the Quakers also took offence. They 
 declined to say " good morning " or " good evening," for 
 that, they argued, implied that some mornings and even- 
 ings were bad, which was a wicked aspersion upon Provi- 
 dence. They refused also to call the days and the months 
 by their ordinary names ; for to call a day Monday, they 
 said, was to render an indirect act of homage to the 
 moon ; and to speak of March was to recognise the old 
 heathen god of battles. They, therefore, designated days 
 and months by their number ; or if they ventured upon 
 their names, they added " so called," to guard themselves 
 from giving any countenance to a sinful custom. A letter 
 of Perrot's is dated, "Written to you all without the 
 gates of Rome, the 2d day of the fourth month 1661." 
 And Barclay dates the introduction to his "Apology" in this 
 pleasantly quaint way — " From Ury, the place of my pil- 
 grimage in my native country of Scotland, the 25th of the 
 month called November, in the year 1675." 
 
 There was nothing in which the Quakers were more in- 
 flexible than in refusing to take an oath under any cir- 
 cumstances. When presented with the Bible to swear 
 upon it, as often happened in courts of justice, they opened 
 
 * This book was called " A Battledoor." It is designed to shew that every lan- 
 guage has its particular denomination for the singular and plural, and on every 
 page where the description begins, a battledoor is delineated. It was compiled by 
 two Quakers, called John Stubbs and Benjamin Furly, who had some skill in 
 languages, but George Fox appended his name to it as well as they, for which he 
 is not unjustly censured by Gerard Croese. 
 
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 107 
 
 it and said they found it there written, " Swear not at all." 
 They could not, they declared, swear upon a book which 
 expressly prohibited swearing ; their communication must 
 be yea yea, and nay nay. Nor would they pay tithes, as 
 they believed these were a relict of Judaism, and had no 
 place under the gospel. These opinions, unflinchingly 
 acted on, were thought to interfere with their duties as 
 citizens, and were the cause of much of their sufferings. 
 
 They have the honour of having seen clearly that con- 
 science should not be subjected to force, and that every 
 man should have the most perfect libert} T to worship God 
 as he pleased.^ When papists, prelatists, and presby- 
 terians were equally violent against religious toleration ; 
 and when even the independents forgot in America the 
 principles they had proclaimed at home, the Quakers from 
 the very first steadily maintained that God alone was the 
 Lord of the conscience. This was the first great service 
 which the Society of Friends rendered to humanity ; and 
 had they done nothing else, they would not have existed 
 in vain. But when they proceeded to teach that the civil 
 magistrate should henceforward and for ever sheath his 
 sword, and refrain from using it, not only against heretics, 
 but even against the enemies of the state ; that all war 
 was unlawful; and even self-defence inexcusable, they 
 uttered sentiments which were simply absurd, and which, 
 however fenced by texts of Scripture, are not in accord- 
 ance with the fiery light which flashes up on certain 
 occasions in the heart of even the meekest of men. But 
 though the Friends have, in this matter, by sticking to 
 the letter of Scripture, violated nature and sense, they 
 have yet done good service, by everywhere appearing as 
 the apostles of peace and good- will; and perhaps before 
 their mission on earth is fulfilled, they may see swords 
 beat into ploughshares, and spears into pruning-hooks. 
 
Chapter F3L 
 
 HI 
 
 HE ecclesiastical polity of the Society of Friends 
 was from the first very simple, and grew out of 
 the circumstances in which it was placed. But 
 Fox always declared that he was divinely moved to every 
 step which he took in building up the framework of his 
 sect. The pattern of the tabernacle he was to rear was 
 shewn him in the mount. 
 
 Wherever Quakers were they met together upon the first 
 day of the week to wait upon God, and hear any word 
 which a brother or sister might be moved to speak. At these 
 congregational meetings they not only preached as they 
 were moved, they also prayed ; but they never sung Psalms, 
 for they declared they could not use the words of David with- 
 out frequently telling lies, as his circumstances were quite 
 different from theirs. Frequently, however, the} 7 thus met 
 and parted without a single word being spoken ; but though 
 they were laughed at on this account by scoffers, they de- 
 clared there was precious benefit and even a peculiar glory in 
 such silent meetings* As Friends increased, it was deemed 
 advisable that they should have monthly and quarterly 
 
 * There is a pamphlet by George Keith, published at London in 1670, entitled, 
 " The Benefit, Advantage, and Glory of Silent Meetings." Another pamphlet on 
 the subject which 1 have seen is entitled, " Silent Meeting a Wonder to the World, 
 yet practised by the Apostles." Tt is maintained that the apostles were waiting 
 upon God in silence when the Spirit was given at Pentecost. 
 
QUAKER POLITY. 
 
 109 
 
 meetings for the management of their affairs. " And the 
 Lord appeared unto me/' says George Fox, " and bid me 
 see what I must do, and how men and women's monthly 
 and quarterly meetings should be ordered and established 
 in England and other nations."* 
 
 According to this revelation there was established in 
 every county monthly meetings varying in number with 
 the number of Friends. These meetings were charged to 
 attend to the poor and orphans, to see that the rules of 
 the Society were observed in regard to births, marriages, 
 and burials, that all the members walked orderly and ac- 
 cording to their profession, and that those who suffered for 
 their faith were sympathised with or assisted. The women 
 had meetings by themselves, with a co-ordinate jurisdicti on 
 over their own sex, and though the establishment of these 
 was in some instances warmly opposed, we may believe 
 they had a certain convenience in regard to delicate ques- 
 tions which could not be conveniently talked of in a pro- 
 miscuous assemblage. All the monthly meetings in a 
 county constituted a quarterly meeting, where the most 
 zealous and eminent of the Friends met to decide matters 
 referred to them by the monthly meetings, and otherwise 
 to legislate for the good of the Society within their bounds. 
 A yearly meeting, held in London at Whitsuntide, crowned 
 the whole. To this meeting members were deputed from 
 the quarterly meetings, and the sentiments of these 
 alone regulated the decisions of the assembly, but any 
 Friend might appear and freely speak anything which he 
 was moved to say; for, while the Quakers greatly com- 
 mended silence, they imagined it would have been impious 
 to restrain the movements of the Spirit. At these different 
 
 * Journal, p. 390. 
 
110 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 meetings no one presided, as they recognised Christ alone 
 as their president.* In this gradation of courts we have a 
 simple and natural frame of government resembling that 
 of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which has its kirk- 
 sessions, presbyteries, synods, and General Assembly. 
 
 The power claimed by these meetings over the members 
 of the Society was " to oversee, exhort, reprove, and after 
 long-suffering and waiting upon the disobedient and refrac- 
 tory, to disown them as any more of their communion. "-f- 
 They claimed, in short, an authority which every Society 
 must possess, and which churches usually call the power 
 of the keys — an authority to admit and to exclude. 
 
 Among other matters ordered in the monthly meetings 
 were marriages. No Quaker might dare under the impulse 
 of any sudden affection to solicit the hand of a maiden 
 without the previous consent of his and her parents, nor 
 might he woo any but a Quakeress, for no allowance was 
 made for the erratic tendencies of love. The consent 
 of the parents and the daughter being obtained, the 
 matter was propounded in a meeting of the Friends, lest 
 any might have something to object. This done, at the 
 next monthly meeting the parties appeared, and, if no hin- 
 drance arose, they publicly took each other as husband 
 and wife, and promised, with God's assistance, to be loving 
 and faithful in that relation till death should separate them. 
 A record of this was entered in the register of the meeting, 
 to which the couple attached their names, and there the 
 matter ended. 
 
 The annual meeting received reports from the monthly 
 and quarterly meetings of the condition of affairs within 
 their bounds, and in return addressed a pastoral containing 
 
 * See Penn's Introduction to Fox's Journal, Sewel's History, &c. &c. 
 f Penn's Introduction to Fox's Journal. 
 
POPERY AND QUAKERISM. 
 
 Ill 
 
 admonition and advice to all the meetings connected with 
 the Society. 
 
 It was not without a struggle, however, that this polity 
 was established. Some of the more consistent Quakers 
 cried out that it interfered with the free operation of the 
 Holy Spirit, and substituted the inventions of man for the 
 guidance of God. They would have no government of 
 human device. Fox and his friends, however, stood firm 
 in this matter, and the simple, yet effective, government 
 soon became famous over the world. 
 
 But though this polity was worldly-wise, there can be 
 no doubt those Quakers had the truest perception of the 
 bearings of their religion who maintained that there should 
 be no human government at all. If no one presided in 
 their meetings because Christ was the only president ; there 
 should have been no meetings for legislation for Christ was 
 the alone law-giver ; no meetings for judgment for Christ 
 was the only judge. The same free spirit which guided 
 their devotions should have been left to dictate their con- 
 duct. Men who were the subjects of a heavenly illumina- 
 tion should never have been subjected to the yoke of an 
 earthly authority. The establishment of a polity was a 
 tacit confession that a purely spiritual church was an Im- 
 possibility. 
 
 Popery is the most perfect piece of ecclesiasticism which 
 the world has seen : Quakerism is the most perfect opposite 
 of Popery, inasmuch as it is the negative of all ecclesias- 
 ticism. Many of the puritans aimed at this, but the 
 Quakers alone attained to it. Popery places all religion in 
 a dependence upon sacerdotal virtue : it has its consecrated 
 cathedrals, its apostolically-descended priests, its liturgical 
 services, its gradation of ranks from the humble chorister 
 to the sovereign pontiff. Quakerism abjures all this. It 
 has no churches, no ordained ministry, no forms of worship, 
 
112 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 not even any sacraments. It rejects the shadows and 
 seeks for the substance. It covets a purely spiritual wor- 
 ship — prompted by the Holy Spirit — addressed to the 
 Great Spirit. Every man must be his own priest, under 
 Christ the great High Priest, and present his own sacri- 
 fices of prayer and praise. 
 
 There can be no doubt the Quakers have reached the 
 highest idea of worship, if such a worship be possible. 
 The more man's intellect is developed and cultivated, the 
 more will he prefer a spiritual to a symbolical religion. 
 But I am afraid that after all religious worship must clothe 
 itself in some forms. Man is not a purely intellectual being. 
 He ever must, in some measure, be dependent upon symboli- 
 cal representations. He ever must be affected by objects 
 of sense. Religion stripped of all form must ever end in 
 mysticism, if it does not evaporate altogether. Coleridge 
 advocated such a religion — a religion which would mainly 
 consist in the intellectual contemplation of Deity — but 
 however suited such a religion might be for angels it is 
 plainly unsuited for men. It is impossible for the outside 
 world to understand how the Quakers feel when they re- 
 tire within themselves for silent worship and waiting upon 
 God ; but I am afraid their thoughts must very often be 
 shrouded in mist, if they are not wandering away upon the 
 mountains of vanity. Their establishment of a human 
 polity is an acknowledgment that the measure of illumina- 
 tion we receive is not enough to guide us in all our ways. 
 
Chapter UIL 
 
 HE Society of Friends had now, like other religious 
 communities, a creed and a polity. They did 
 not, however, exact from their members any sub- 
 scription to their articles of belief, for that would have 
 been an interference with the freedom of immediate reve- 
 lation ; but they insisted on a rigid adherence to their rules 
 of conduct. There must be no lifting of the hat under any 
 circumstances, no swearing, no tampering with tithes, no 
 conversation but in the second person singular, no music 
 or dancing, no marrying or giving in marriage, but accord- 
 ing to their own fashion, which was frequently opposed to 
 the waywardness of young desires. The doctrines of the 
 Quakers naturally gave rise to fierce controversy. They 
 were charged with despising the Scriptures, repudiating the 
 atonement, and even denying the resurrection of the dead ; 
 and it is certain that some of their principles tend to these 
 conclusions. But they vehemently denied that they held 
 any such opinions; and it must be remembered that a 
 religion founded upon feeling is never logical. Perhaps no 
 religion is altogether so. Both the Calvinist and the Ar- 
 minian may be driven by their own principles, rigidly 
 pushed, to conclusions from which they recoil with horror. 
 
 The Society of Friends was beginning to accumulate a 
 literature. The writings of Penn, Barclay, and Keith, were 
 
 H 
 
114 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 read, not only by the Quakers themselves, but by all who 
 took delight in religious controversy, and they helped to 
 redeem the body from the general contempt with which it 
 was regarded. Though not particularly distinguished by 
 elegance or wit, they are in a great measure free from 
 rhapsody and bad taste, and may still be regarded as the 
 classics in this department of literature. But the great 
 majority of the Quaker pamphlets issued at this time were 
 widely different from the productions of these three, who 
 were scholars and gentlemen, albeit they were members of 
 the Society of Friends. In many of these we find such 
 delirious raving, as reminds us that we have at present in 
 our asylums some thousands of religious lunatics who would 
 write such pamphlets too were they free. Their predeces- 
 sors, two centuries ago, had no such restraints upon their 
 liberty, and accordingly swelled the ranks of religious dis- 
 sent. It is probable that with the rise of asylums new 
 religions will cease. These pamphleteers, of whom I speak, 
 usually assume the name and attributes of Deity; and 
 with no niggard hand dispense His judgments upon the 
 inhabitants of the world. They call upon the heavens and 
 the earth to be still while they speak* Sometimes they 
 
 * Examples of what I here state might be cited in any number. Thus there is 
 a Quaker sheet, dated 1664, which begins thus: — "Heaven and earth, sea and 
 dry land, bear the word of the Lord sounded through an earthen vessel, who hath 
 seen, heard, felt as lie doth declare. I have seen Ariel, the city of abominations, 
 cast as a stone into the midst of the sea. Amen, hallelujah, glory, glory, for ever to 
 the lamb." There is another by the same author, which opens thus — " To the 
 inhabitants of the whole earth, I thus write in the name and power and dread of 
 the Lord God." A pamphlet by a man named Taylor begins thus — " Hear, O 
 earth, and hearken ye heavens, for the Lord hath spoken, even the Lord God 
 mighty in power, and excellent in wisdom." Another is prefaced in this way — 
 " The word of the Lord to his beloved city, New Jerusalem, come from God, 
 clothed with the excellency of the glory of His love, and is the bride, the Lamb's 
 wife, with the flowings of the tender compassionate bowels of the Lord Jesus." 
 In a pamphlet by Fox we have this parody of the beginning of St. John's gospel — 
 " In the beginning was the Word, and none knows this Word but who are come 
 
PHONOGRAPHY ANTICIPATED. 
 
 115 
 
 burst forth into verse, but their ardent piety kindles no 
 glow in their poetry, and proves itself impotent to give 
 dignity to doggerel. With all their inspirations they had 
 not that of poesy. 
 
 We have already seen the Quakers endeavouring to 
 reform our grammar, and making a due observance of the 
 singular number a point of piety. A member of the sect 
 proceeded still farther in the same direction, and attempted 
 to remodel our spelling ; and though his system of ortho- 
 graphy never received the sanction of religion, he has the 
 undoubted merit of having anticipated phonography.* The 
 author of this invention subscribes himself " John, the 
 servant of the most high God, the former and upholder of 
 all things, (who weigheth the mountains in scales and the 
 hills in a balance, and taketh up the isles as a very little 
 thing.)'' He tells us that he wrote from a place called 
 " Great Gomara, on a certain island in Hungary," where he 
 was a prisoner ; and his pamphlet, which is entitled " The 
 Arraignment of Christendom," is declared on the title-page, 
 with a sublime generality, to have been " printed in Europe 
 in year 1667." In the preface to this production, we are 
 told that the author had endeavoured to spell as people 
 speak ; and three advantages are pointed out as likely to 
 result from this improved orthography — children would 
 learn to read more readily ; all would learn to write more 
 correctly; and foreigners would acquire our pronunciation 
 more certainly; the very arguments which are used by 
 
 to the beginning," &c. In the same production there is the following rough imi- 
 tation of the denunciatory prophets—'* I'll break into pieces ; Til make nations 
 like dirt ; I'll tread them into mire ; I'll make religions, professions, teachings. 
 
 time-servers, callers upon me with their lips, and hearts afar off ; I 'll make 
 
 mire of them ; T "11 make mortar ; Til make dirt of them ; the wrath of the Lamb 
 is risen upon all apostates who are gathered in the apostacy." 
 
 * Sir John Cheke in 1540, and Bishop Wilkms in L668, are usually mentioned 
 as the pioneers of phonography. 
 
THE QUAKERS. 
 
 plionographers at the present day. As an example of his 
 meaning, he points out that " righteousness " has four 
 superfluous letters,* which, after all, do not represent the 
 sound, and therefore he strikes them out, and spells it 
 "ryteosnes." The man and his pamphlet are full of ex- 
 travagance, but here there is a gleam of sense. Had the 
 Quakers consecrated the idea, and made it a matter of con- 
 science to spell as they spoke, they might have relieved 
 overburdened memories from the "letter which killeth." 
 
 We have seen that when Fox and his apostles first 
 visited Scotland, they did not receive a very hearty wel- 
 come. Presbytery and the Covenant were then dominant, 
 but now all things were changed. With the restoration of 
 the monarchy had come the restoration of the hierarchy, 
 and the covenanters were a persecuted remnant in the 
 western counties, holding out valiantly against any attempt 
 to dragoon them into episcopacy. Still Quakerism had not 
 thriven greatly in the north ; but two of the ablest of the 
 sect, Barclay and Keith, were Scotchmen, and some of the 
 students of the University of Aberdeen, in 1675, challenged 
 them to a discussion. They were not unworthy antago- 
 nists for the keenest wits of any university, and, in the 
 contest which followed, if they did not defeat the univer- 
 sity champions, they at least made converts of four students, 
 who had come to hear the debate. A war of pamphlets 
 followed the platform encounter. The students published 
 a treatise entitled " Quakerism Canvassed," and Barclay 
 and Keith retorted in another, entitled, " Quakerism Con- 
 firmed," Both sides handled their rapiers very cleverly. 
 The rumour of the strife spread far and wide, and when 
 Fox heard that converts had been made, he rejoiced greatly. 
 The students of Oxford and Cambridge had already sig-. 
 
 * The word is spelled righteousnesse by the Quaker phonographer, as was 
 common in his day, and therefore he enumerates five superfluous letters. 
 
WILLIAM SEWEL. 
 
 117 
 
 nalised their antipathy to Quakerism, and their zeal for 
 orthodoxy and the church, but it was in a somewhat differ- 
 ent fashion. They hooted, pelted, and ducked every 
 Quaker who came within their reach, stank them out of 
 their meetings, and threw nut-shells in their face " to make 
 the spirit speak." Other scapegraces, of a different tem- 
 perament, took a delight in kissing by stealth the demure 
 Quaker- women, to see if any seed of sin remained in them.* 
 The Quakers had for some time been making consider- 
 able progress in Holland. Among the English settlers there 
 who attached themselves to the sect, were the parents of 
 William Sewel, who afterwards became the historian of 
 Quakerism, and in many ways rendered eminent service to 
 the cause. Once when at a meeting in London, as he him- 
 self relates, his mother attracted attention by her Dutch 
 costume, and a constable said with surprise — " What, a 
 Dutch woman among the Quakers ?" Barclay had met 
 with a celebrated Dutchman called Adrian Paets, who had 
 served his country as ambassador to Spain, and was dis- 
 tinguished alike in politics and letters, and he had entered 
 into conversation with him regarding the Quaker faith, 
 and Heer Paets had frankly acknowledged that he found 
 more could be said in its favour than he had imagined. 
 To follow up his supposed advantage, Barclay afterwards 
 wrote a long letter to him in Latin, in which we have one 
 of the best expositions of the Quaker doctrine of immediate 
 revelation ; but the Dutch statesman made no reply. He 
 
 * There was a curious pamphlet published in 1659 by John Peace, entitled " A 
 discovery of the education of the scholars of Cambridge, by their abominations and 
 wicked practices, acted upon and against the despised people in Sion called 
 Quakers, brought forth by the young ministers at several times in the said town, 
 whereby all men may see the un-Christian breeding, and the horrible fruits of the 
 university men, and how that the spirit of the whore and the false prophets, and 
 the remainder of the dregs of Popery, boils up in them, in persecution, and mad- 
 ness, and ignorance. And this is written for all sober people to read and con- 
 sider." See also Bowel's History, pp. 90-1. 
 
118 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 was too much of a politician to become a polemic, and the 
 Quakers were disappointed of a proselyte * 
 
 In 1677, Fox, Penn, Barclay, and Keith, (all who were 
 great among the Quakers,) started for the Continent. In 
 Rotterdam the rich and the noble nocked to their meetings. 
 In the city of the erudite Erasmus, crowds came to learn 
 religion from the lips of the illiterate Fox. At Leyden, at 
 Haarlem, at Amsterdam, they were welcomed by disciples 
 who listened to them as oracles. But a still loftier ambi- 
 tion had concurred to bring them across the German Sea. 
 They were hopeful of gaining to their cause the Princess 
 Elizabeth of the Palatinate, for Barclay and Penn had 
 already conversed with her regarding the faith, and thought 
 that the soil was ready for the seed. This royal lady was 
 daughter of Frederick, King of Bohemia and Prince Pala- 
 tine of the Rhine, and sister of Sophia, the Duchess of 
 Hanover, the progenitrix of our present reigning family. 
 From Amsterdam George Fox sent her an epistle, of which 
 three Quakeresses were the bearers. The messengers were 
 courteously received, and the epistle of the great apostle of 
 Quakerism kindly answered. Encouraged by this, Penn 
 and Barclay, the most courtly of the band, started for Her- 
 werden, and were welcomed by the princess and her guest, 
 the Countess of Horn, the bearer of a name illustrious in 
 the annals of political martyrdom. The next day was 
 Sunday, and the princess called together not only her 
 domestics, but the people of the town, that they might 
 hear the renowned Quakers preach. At the close of the 
 meeting she took Penn by the hand, and declared how 
 deeply she had been moved by what she had heard, and 
 then her emotions completely overmastering her, she sobbed 
 out, " I cannot speak to you, my heart is full." From this 
 
 * This letter was afterwards rendered into English by Barclay, and published. 
 Sewel gives it entire in his History. 
 
FOX CATECHISES THE POPE. 
 
 119 
 
 time onward she maintained a very friendly correspond- 
 ence with Perm, but she never openly threw in her lot with 
 the despised sect. 
 
 Perm and Keith penetrated still farther into Germany, 
 visiting Frankfort and several towns on the Upper Rhine. 
 They spoke to the crowds who came to hear them preach, 
 not only of the unknown land beyond the grave, but of the 
 great country beyond the sea, where multitudes were al- 
 ready finding a refuge from political and religious oppres- 
 sion ; for American colonisation was now filling the mind 
 and firing the imagination of Penn. Some words were 
 spoken at Kirchheim, which led some peasants to emigrate 
 from that district, whose children be^an that agitation 
 against slavery which has recently culminated in every 
 slave being set free. The work of the embassage been 
 accomplished, the Quakers returned to England. 
 
 In 1679 Fox was moved to pose the pope in regard to 
 several matters, but more especially in regard to religious 
 persecution, and therefore he framed a number of queries, 
 which were to be answered by his Holiness. These Sewel 
 translated into Latin, and forwarded, with a letter, to 
 Innocent XL, but there is no record of the manner in which 
 the holy father got through his catechism.* 
 
 But the Quakers were now destined to become the found- 
 ers of a great state in the New World. The government 
 was owing Pemi a considerable sum of money for services 
 rendered by his father, and was ill able to pay it. Dreams 
 of founding a colony in America had for long been con- 
 stantly floating before the mind of Penn ; and now, on his 
 petition, the king, after some hesitation, agreed to give in 
 lieu of the money a large tract of crown land, with a patent 
 under the great seal, to him and his heirs for ever. The 
 
 * Jewel's History, pp. 57C-2. 
 
120 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 bargain was concluded, and a patent drawn, conferring 
 upon Penn a district on the Delaware, stretching three 
 hundred miles in length and a hundred and fifty in breadth, 
 touching the bay of Delaware on the south-east, and ex- 
 tending to Loch Erie on the north-west. This vast tract 
 was then covered with dense forests of oak, chestnut, and 
 hickory, mingled with myrtle, Cyprus, and cedar, except 
 where, here and there, a wide prairie opened up its bosom 
 to the sun. In these great solitudes the Indians trapped 
 the beaver and hunted the deer, and listened with wonder, 
 as they sat at their camp-fires, to the strange stories which 
 were now being told of the white strangers who had come 
 across the sea in ships. By the king's command it was 
 henceforward to be called Pennsylvania, in honour of its 
 possessor, and in commemoration of its being then almost 
 entirely covered with wood. In this great country Penn 
 was empowered to erect a colony, to sell lands, create 
 magistrates, make laws with the consent of the freeholders 
 of the territory, and both punish and pardon crime. In 
 the character of a trustee he had already, for four years, 
 managed the thriving colony of West New Jersey, to which 
 many Quakers had emigrated ; and the experience which 
 he had thus gained, had led him to turn his thoughts to- 
 ward the valley of the Delaware, and to petition the king 
 that his debt should be paid in American soil rather than 
 in sterling gold. It had occurred to him that in this vast 
 unoccupied region a safe asylum might be found for his 
 persecuted co-religionists ; and that if they carried thither 
 their piety and industry, they might become a great and 
 flourishing people. 
 
 When his charter was completed, he drew out, with the 
 assistance of Algernon Sydney, a constitution for his yet 
 unformed settlement, of which the first and fundamental 
 article was, that liberty of conscience and worship should 
 
PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 121 
 
 be accorded to every settler. " In reverence/' says he, " to 
 God, the Father of hght and spirits, the Author, as well as 
 object of all divine knowledge, faith and worship, I do, for 
 me and mine, declare and establish for the first funda- 
 mental of the government of my province, that every per- 
 son that doth and shall reside therein, shall have and enjoy 
 the free profession of his faith, and exercise of worship 
 toward God, in such way and manner as every such person 
 shall, in conscience, believe is most acceptable to God. 
 And so long as every such person useth not this Christian 
 liberty to licentiousness or the destruction of others, that 
 is to say, to speak loosely and profanely, or contemptuously 
 of God, Christ, the Holy Scriptures, or religion, or commit 
 any moral evil or injury against others in their conversa- 
 tion, he shall be protected in the enfoyment of the foresaid 
 Christian liberty by the civil magistrate." Penn, as will 
 be seen from this last clause, had not yet reached the con- 
 ception of that perfect liberty of religious thought at 
 which we have now arrived, when Jew and Gentile, sceptic 
 and believer, are placed on the same political level ; but 
 his ideas were vastly a-head of his age* He had not the 
 honour, however, of being the first Christian ruler of a 
 country where liberty of conscience was secured to all. 
 That honour, strange as it seems, belongs to a Roman 
 Catholic. Shortly before this, Lord Baltimore, a member 
 of the Catholic Church, had founded the colony of Mary- 
 land, and had guaranteed to every one who settled in it, 
 the free exercise of his religion. After all, this is not to 
 be wondered at. The founder of a new country, anxious 
 to attract emigrants from every land, who may convert his 
 
 * " Cette loi," says Voltaire, " est encore plus indulgente, plus humaine que 
 celle qui fut donnee aux peuples de la Carolina par Locke, le Platon de PAngle- 
 terre, si superieur au Platon de la'Grece. Locke n'a permis d'autres religions pnb- 
 llques que celles qui seraient approuvees par sept peres de farnille. C'est une autre 
 sorte de sagesse que celle de Penn.'" — Questions sur FEncycloptdie. 
 
122 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 wilderness into a well- cultivated field, will look upon reli- 
 gion in a different light from the ruler of an old country, 
 with a large population born upon the soil. For such an 
 one to insist upon every new comer subscribing a creed, 
 were almost as absurd as for a merchant to exact of his 
 customers obedience to his faith before selling to them his 
 goods. 
 
 Penn offered his land for forty shillings the hundred 
 acres, with an annual quit-rent of one shilling, secured to 
 himself and his heirs for ever. A considerable number of 
 persons were ready to accept terms so favourable, and to 
 bid farewell to home and poverty and persecution, that in 
 the glades of Pennsylvania they might enjoy freedom, 
 plenty, and a future gilded with hope. Accordingly, to- 
 wards the end of 1681, three ships laden with emigrants, 
 the most of whom were Quakers, set sail for the promised 
 land. These were the first English settlers in that vast 
 forest, now the seat of great cities, and an abounding popu- 
 lation. But besides the uninhabited and uncleared tract 
 of land which Penn received from the crown, he had ob- 
 tained from the Duke of York a similar tract — now the 
 state of Delaware — which lay contiguous to it, and com- 
 manded the mouth of the river, and which had already a 
 sparse population of between two and three thousand, 
 mostly of Swedish and Dutch extraction ; for, first of all, 
 the Swedes had possessed the land, and then the Dutch 
 had overcome them, and, last of all, the English had made 
 themselves masters of both. Thus, through war and con- 
 quest, these Swedes and Dutchmen had become the sub- 
 jects of a man of peace* 
 
 In the autumn of 1682 Penn himself set sail for America, 
 that he might see with his own eyes the great country of 
 
 * Clarkson's Life of Penn, Vol. 1. 
 
ENLIGHTENED LEGISLATION. 
 
 123 
 
 which he had become the proprietor, and arrange its affairs. 
 Upon his arrival one of his first cares was to call a general 
 assembly of all the 'freemen, that by the universal suffrage 
 of these, laws might be made for the government of the 
 country. The foreigners were naturalised, and placed upon 
 the same level as the English with respect to rights and 
 privileges. Two offences only were made capital, murder 
 and treason ; whereas in England at that time a man might 
 be hanged for stealing a sheep. The prisons were to be 
 considered as workshops and reformatories, where offenders 
 were to be weaned from their evil ways, and trained to 
 industry. The whole code, both civil and criminal, shews 
 that Penn had legislative talent, and was, in many respects, 
 far in advance of his time.* 
 
 Penn was particularly anxious to secure the good wishes 
 of the Indians ; and the Quakers who had already settled 
 in New J ersey, had shewn that this was perfectly possible. 
 u Ye are our brothers," said the Sachems to them, " and we 
 will live like brothers with you. We will have a broad 
 path for you and us to walk in. If an Englishman falls 
 asleep in this path, we will pass him by and say it is an 
 Englishman, he is asleep, let him alone. The path shall 
 be plain ; there shall not be a stump in it to hurt the 
 feet/'f 
 
 * "Locke,'' says Clarkson in his Life of Penn, " drew up, at the request of 
 Lord Shaftesbury, a form of government for Carolina, which then comprehended 
 both the northern and the southern districts of that name. It happened that he 
 and W illiam Penn and Mr. (afterwards Sir Isaac) Newton, and others, were in 
 company, and that the conversation turned upon the comparative excellence of the 
 new American governments, but particularly of those of Carolina and Pennsyl- 
 vania. The matter was argued at length in the presence of the two legislators, 
 when Locke ingenuously yielded the palm to Penn." — Vol. II., p. 409. The two 
 constitutions were diametrically opposed. Locke's was feudal and aristocratic 
 Penn's was purely democratic. 
 
 t Smith's History of New Jersey, p. 100. Bancroft's History of the United 
 States, p. 332. 
 
124 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 The proprietor of Pennsylvania was resolved that the 
 same state of feeling should exist on the opposite bank of 
 the Delaware. To protect the simple aborigines from the 
 violence and fraud which the more astute colonist was so 
 prone to practise on him, he had already provided that all 
 barter between the Indians and planters should be carried 
 on in the public market-place ; that if any one wronged an 
 Indian, he should incur the same penalty as if he had 
 wronged a fellow-planter, and that all disputes between 
 Indians and planters should be determined by a jury of 
 twelve, of whom six should be Indians and six planters. 
 
 Though he himself had received the land in purchase 
 from the English government, he felt it would be wrong 
 to overlook the rights of the native tribes who, from time 
 immemorial, had hunted in the woods, and properly re- 
 garded the country as their own. He resolved to buy a 
 title to the soil from them too ; and for this purpose had 
 despatched, with the first emigrants, commissioners who 
 might negotiate with the natives regarding a transference 
 of their rights, and make with them a league of eternal 
 friendship. This had been satisfactorily accomplished, and 
 now Penn, as proprietor and governor of the province, 
 arranged that the treaty should be publicly ratified in pre- 
 sence of the assembled tribes. Accompanied by a number 
 of his Quaker friends, he proceeded to Coaquannoch, the 
 Indian name for the place, where Philadelphia now stands. 
 The Indians were already assembling. In every opening 
 in the woods their swarthy skins and gay head-dresses of 
 feathers, could be seen. They came armed with bows and 
 arrows, after the manner of their tribes, but the Quakers 
 came unarmed, as men of peace. At Shakamaxon, where 
 Kensington, a suburb of Philadelphia, is now built, there 
 stood an elm of gigantic size. Under its branches Penn 
 and the Indian Sachems met. He wore his usual plain 
 
TREATY WITH THE INDIANS. 
 
 125 
 
 clothes, but he was distinguished from his followers by a 
 sky-blue sash tied round his waist. He held in his hand 
 a roll of parchment, containing the confirmation of the 
 treaty of purchase and amity. Before him were borne 
 various articles of merchandise, the price of the province of 
 Pennsylvania. The chief of the Sachems, when everything 
 was arranged, placed on his head a kind of crown, from 
 which their jutted a small horn, an emblem of his kingly 
 power. The ground where they met was now sacred, and 
 the persons of all were inviolable. The Indians, therefore, 
 threw down their bows and arrows, and seated themselves 
 round their respective chiefs in the form of a half moon. 
 This done, the great Sachem announced to Penn, through 
 an interpreter, that the nations were ready to hear him. 
 
 The Quaker chief declared that the Great Spirit, who 
 searched the innermost thoughts of the heart, knew that 
 he and his friends desired to live in peace with them. 
 They came to do them no harm, but rather good. He 
 then unrolled the parchment, and by means of the same 
 interpreter, read it to them clause by clause. According to 
 the treaty they were not to be molested in their lawful 
 pursuits, even in the territory they had alienated, for it 
 was to be common to them and the English. They were 
 to have the same rights and privileges as the strangers ; 
 and any disputes which arose, were to be settled by a jury, 
 chosen equally from both. When the parchment was read, 
 Penn paid the stipulated price, and made many presents 
 to the chiefs. He then spread the roll upon the ground 
 to indicate more clearly to the simple Indian intellect, that 
 the soil was to be common to both. Then taking it up, 
 he presented it to the horned Sachem, and desired him to 
 see that it was preserved for three generations, that their 
 children and their children's children, might know what 
 had passed between them, and their covenant might never 
 
126 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 be forgotten. The Indians, in return, solemnly vowed, ac- 
 cording to the customs of their country, to live in love 
 with William Perm and his children so long as the sun and 
 moon should endure. So the treaty was concluded, and 
 the gray Quakers and red Indians buried the hatchet and 
 smoked the pipe of peace.* " This," says Voltaire, with a 
 concealed sneer, " was the only treaty between these people 
 and the Christians that was not ratified by an oath, and 
 that was never broken." " The simple Sons of the Wilder- 
 ness," says Bancroft, " returning to their wigwams, kept 
 the history of the covenant by strings of wampum, and 
 long afterwards in their cabins would count over the shells 
 on a clean piece of bark, and recal to their own memory, 
 or repeat to their children or to the stranger, the words of 
 William Penn."t 
 
 The next care of Penn was to found a metropolis for his 
 province. He fixed upon a spot at the confluence of the 
 Skuylkill and Delaware ; had plans of streets and squares 
 prepared, and named his Quaker city Philadelphia, in token 
 of the brotherly love which he hoped would prevail in the 
 land. Within a few months many houses were erected by 
 the eager settlers; and in less than two years the city 
 could boast of a population of two thousand five hundred 
 persons. In three years from its foundation it had gained 
 more than New York had done in half a century. { 
 
 The colony throve wonderfully. Within a short period 
 twenty-three vessels arrived in the Delaware, bringing 
 with them two thousand colonists, the majority of whom 
 were Quakers. While a population was thus flowing into 
 the country, Penn was busy dividing it into counties and 
 
 * Dixon's Life of Penn, pp. 267, 72. Clarkson's Life of Penn, Vol. I. The 
 scene here described is made the subject of a picture by West, 
 t History of the United States, p. 342. 
 $ Bancroft's History of the United states. 
 
THE COLONY PROSPERS. 
 
 127 
 
 townships, and marking out the lots which had been as- 
 signed to the planters. He thought it right that a portion 
 of the land to which the Quakers were fleeing, as to a 
 home, should be assigned to the founder of the sect, and 
 therefore he reserved for George Fox an allotment of a 
 thousand acres. Everything went well with the hardy 
 adventurers. They had, indeed, come to a land flowing 
 with milk and honey. The forests fell before their axe. 
 The fields yielded such crops as they had never seen before. 
 The Indians were friendly. They met for worship, and 
 were silent or poured forth their inspirations, and none 
 jeered at them or forcibly broke up their meetings, and 
 dragged them to jail. But amid their toils and hopes, 
 they could scarcely dream of the greatness to which the 
 province has since grown. These humble settlers on the 
 banks of the Delaware were laying the foundations broad 
 and deep of a mighty state ; and from their loins were to 
 come a people, as the stars of heaven innumerable, who 
 were to preserve for ages their manly virtues. In Penn- 
 sylvania, notwithstanding the changes which time has 
 wrought, the genuine descendants of the Quaker pilgrims 
 are still to be found. 
 
 After a residence of two years in America, Penn returned 
 to England. He left the colony flourisliing, and already 
 possessed of a population of about seven thousand persons. 
 Just before setting sail, he addressed a letter to the council 
 appointed to conduct the government during his absence, 
 and of which a Quaker preacher was the head. " My love," 
 he wrote, " and my life is to you, and with you, and no 
 water can quench it, nor distance wear it out, or bring it 
 to an end. I have been with you, cared over you, and 
 served you with unfeigned love ; and you are beloved of 
 me, and near to me beyond utterance. I bless you in the 
 name and by the power of the Lord ; and may God biess 
 
128 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 you with his righteousness, peace, and plenty, all the land 
 over. * * And thou Philadelphia, the virgin settle- 
 ment of this province, named before thou wert born, what 
 love, what care, what service, and what travail has there 
 been to bring thee forth and preserve thee from such as 
 would abuse and defile thee !"* &c, &c. 
 
 It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the constant feuds 
 between the other colonists of the New World and the 
 aborigines, Quaker blood was never shed by an Indian. 
 On one occasion friendship was for a moment interrupted, 
 and it was reported that the Indians were assembling on 
 the Brandywine for massacre. Immediately Caleb Pusey 
 and five unarmed Friends hastened to the scene. The 
 Sachem indignantly repelled the report that he had con- 
 templated a butchery of the children of Penn, and the 
 complaints of the tribe were heard and redressed. " The 
 Great God," said the Quaker, " who made all mankind, 
 extends his love to Indians and English. The rain and 
 the dews fall alike on the ground of both; the sun shines 
 on us equally, and we ought to love one another." The 
 King of the Dela wares replied — " What you say is true. 
 Go home and harvest the corn God hath given you. We 
 intend you no harm."-f- 
 
 After this sketch of the rise of the Quaker state, we 
 must return with its founder to England, and follow the 
 fortunes of the Quakers there. 
 
 * ClarksoiTs Life of Penn, Vol. 1. 
 
 t Bancroft's History of the United States, p. 349 ; also ProucTs History. See 
 also Caspipina's Letters. 
 
Cftaptrr Fill. 
 
 .UCH was the veneration with which Fox was 
 regarded by the Quakers, that he had hitherto 
 ! ruled them with almost absolute authority. But 
 in 1(383 a spirit of insubordination broke out. There were 
 some who were not yet reconciled to the polity which Fox 
 had framed for the body. They thought there was no need 
 for a polity at all. Meetings were useless, they said, 
 every one should be guided by the Spirit of God, and not 
 by the rules of men. These mutineers were especially 
 violent against the women's meetings : at which, they 
 declared, subjects were talked of which it was not proper 
 for young women to hear. In some places a schism took 
 place, separate congregations were formed, and the battle- 
 cry of the separatists was, that every one having received 
 a measure of the Spirit of God ought to follow that leader 
 without regard to any rules prescribed by others. The 
 result of all this was much bitterness and bad blood, which 
 vented itself both in prose and verse. But gradually the 
 cause of order prevailed, and the separatists, as Sewel tells 
 us, vanished like snow in the fields* 
 
 The year 1683 was famous for the Bye-House Plot, 
 which brought Lord Russel and Algernon Sidney to the 
 
 * Sewel's History of the Quakers, p. 534. 
 
 I 
 
130 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 block. The suspicions and alarms it created in the govern- 
 ment increased the severities used against the Quakers, 
 which led them to present an address to the king, in which 
 they declared that they owned magistracy to be an ordi- 
 nance of God, and all plotting to be a work of darkness 
 and the devil. 
 
 1685.] In less than two years from this time Charles 
 II. was dead. He has the reputation of being a good- 
 natured man, and yet, during his reign, there was more 
 suffering for conscience-sake, both in England and Scot- 
 land, than at any other period of our history. Of no reli- 
 gion himself, or, if of any, a non-conformist, he has not 
 even the excuse of bigotry for the misery he caused. A 
 secret dissenter, a disguised papist, he might have honoured 
 in others those scruples which he felt, though somewhat 
 feebly, himself, and allowed in public that liberty of 
 thought which he enjoyed by stealth. He was not alto- 
 gether to blame for the inconsistency. He did not so much 
 persecute himself, as allowed others to do so. The church 
 was intensely intolerant, and the king would rather be 
 left to toy with his mistresses in peace than bring a nest 
 of hornets about his ears, for the sake of sectaries whose 
 vulgarity he despised. It was not possible for such an 
 easy profligate as Charles to feel the dark passions which 
 drove St. Dominic and Philip II. to persecute ; but, as a 
 man of the world, he could laugh at conscience, and leave 
 those who felt its qualms to pay for the luxury. He could 
 not hate dissent like a churchman, but he disliked it as a 
 gentleman ; and, at least, connived at its oppression. The 
 church was soon to be taught toleration, by being herself 
 called to suffer. 
 
 Charles II. was succeeded by his brother, James II., an 
 avowed and bigoted papist. Nevertheless the clergy, and 
 the universities, hastened to the foot of the throne to assure 
 
THE FRIENDS ADDRESS JAMES II. 
 
 131 
 
 hiin of their unlimited obedience * The Quakers, in their 
 humble address, spoke more wisely and honestly. " Where- 
 as it hath pleased Almighty God, by whom kings reign," 
 said they, " to take hence the late King Charles II., and to 
 preserve thee peaceably to succeed, we,thy subjects, heartily 
 desire that the Giver of all good and perfect gifts may 
 please to endow thee with wisdom and mercy in the use 
 of thy great power, to His glory, the king's honour, and 
 the kingdoms good."-|- They farther presented a petition 
 to the king and both houses of parliament, in which they 
 stated that there were fourteen hundred of their number 
 lying in prison at that time ; and that since 1660 three 
 hundred and twenty had died in jail, of whom, the}' be- 
 lieved, more than a hundred had died entirely from the 
 effects of their confinement. This is in itself a sufficiently 
 sad picture, but it is only a veiy small part of the fearful 
 sum of suffering endured by the dissenters of England 
 during the last twenty-live years. No fewer than sixty 
 thousand persons are said to have suffered, in some way. 
 on account of their religion, and from six to eight thousand 
 to have perished in prison. J In Scotland hundreds were 
 hanged or shot, besides a multitude, whom no man can 
 number, who were fined, imprisoned, or banished to the 
 plantations. 
 
 The king was not long upon the throne till the Duke of 
 
 * deal's History of the Puritans, Vol. II., p. 747. 
 
 t Xeal gives quite a different address. " We are come,"" said the Quakers, ac- 
 cording to Neal, " to testify our sorrow for the death of our good friend Charles, 
 and our joy for thy being made our governor. We are told thou art not of the 
 persuasion of the Church of England, no more than we, therefore we hope thou 
 wilt grant us the same liberty which thou allowest thyself.'' Neal quotes Sewel 
 and Eachard as his authorities for giving this address, but it is not to be found in 
 Sewel, who gives the one I have quoted in the text ; and Cough declares it is 
 fictitious. It has certainly a strong fragrance of Quakerism about it, and is an 
 admirable mimicry of what a Quaker might say. 
 
 ^ Neal's History of the Puritans, Vol. II., p. 759. 
 
THE QUAKERS. 
 
 Monmouth's unhappy insurrection prepared a field in the 
 West of England for the judicial butcheries of Jeffreys, 
 whose name is still remembered there with hereditary ab- 
 horrence. The non-conformists, though not involved in 
 the rising, felt the anger of the king; and for a time the 
 tires of persecution in Scotland burned as fiercely as ever. 
 But a change for the better was now happily at hand. The 
 papists, according to the laws of the country, were subject 
 to pains and disabilities as much as the other dissenters 
 from the church. The king wished to free his co-religion- 
 ists from these ; he even wished to raise them to places of 
 trust and honour, from which they were at present de- 
 barred. But he could not with any show of decency 
 tolerate the papists without also tolerating the non-con- 
 formists ; in truth, it was only under colour of shewing 
 kindness to the la.tter that he could, in the face of a nation 
 still jealous of popery, shew favour to the former. He 
 therefore resolved to become the advocate of universal 
 toleration. Had he been honest in his intentions, he would 
 have deserved the eternal gratitude of the country, and 
 the Revolution would have been a crime ; but it was justly 
 suspected that he merely meant, by means of toleration, to 
 bring into power his own intolerant church. 
 
 James was only two months upon the throne when he 
 issued a proclamation, throwing open the doors of the 
 prison-house to all who had been sent there for refusing 
 to take the oaths of allegiance or supremacy, absenting 
 themselves from church, or neglecting to take the sacra- 
 ments* In the course of the same year he set at liberty 
 all the Quakers who were lying in prison, except those who 
 were imprisoned for non-payment of their tithes. We 
 need not wonder that they felt grateful to the man who 
 
 Sewel's History, p. 594. 
 
THE DISPENSING POWER. 
 
 had allowed them to breathe the fresh air of freedom ; and 
 that, in the midst of their exultation, they did not construe 
 harshly the motives which had procured for them so great 
 a blessing. Some of them hastened into the king's pre- 
 sence, and thanked him for their deliverance ; and he, on 
 the other hand, received them most graciously, and assured 
 them of his desire to bring about a complete liberty of 
 conscience ; words which were like music in a Quaker's 
 ears. It was not long, however, before he betrayed his 
 designs, by forcing Roman Catholics into the honours and 
 offices of the universities, contrary to their privileges ; 
 and it was remarked, not without a sneer, that Oxford, 
 which had four years before in a solemn decree, pronounced 
 all resistance to the kingly power damnable, was the first 
 body in the kingdom to resist the encroachments of J ames. 
 So does Providence slowly, but surely and sternly, teach 
 wisdom. 
 
 The king knew that be need not ask the parliament to 
 abrogate the penal and test laws, which had been written, 
 as with blood, on the statute-book. There was not only a 
 universal dread of popery, but a strong antipathy to dis- 
 sent in every shape in the legislature. If presbyterians, 
 baptists, and Quakers, were imprisoned and lined till thev 
 were ruined, it was only what they deserved. The idea 
 of a universal religious toleration had not yet found a 
 resting-place on English soil The great majority of Eng- 
 lish gentlemen, and almost all English priests in that daw 
 shrunk with abhorrence from the very thought. James, 
 therefore, resolved to do by means of his own royal dis- 
 pensing power what he knew the parliament would not 
 do for him ; and the judges had pronounced such a dis- 
 pensing power part of his prerogative. On the 4th of 
 April 1687 he published his Declaration for Liberty of 
 Conscience, in which he declared it to be his royal will 
 
THE QUAKERS. 
 
 and pleasure, that all penal laws for non-conformity to the 
 established religion should be immediately suspended. In 
 compliance with this proclamation, the jails were emptied 
 of their captives for conscience-sake, all ecclesiastical pro- 
 cesses were stopped, and every place of trust and emolu- 
 ment opened to dissenters, whatever their religious creed. 
 At the same time, instructions were given to magistrates 
 not to press oaths upon Quakers, or, at least, not to fine 
 them if they refused to swear. 
 
 Here, then, after centuries of struggle, and rivers of tears 
 and blood, was complete toleration at length proclaimed ; 
 such a toleration as the Quakers had, through good report 
 and bad report, unwaveringly preached, and which every 
 dissenter in the kingdom at present enjoys. No marvel 
 they believed the year of jubilee was come, and that the 
 millennium was not far off. With many other non-con- 
 formists the London Quakers, without waiting for the 
 annual meeting of the whole Society, hastened to thank 
 the popish king who had rescued them from the house of 
 bondage. " Though we are not the first in this way," said 
 they,* " we hope we are not the least sensible of the great 
 favours for which we are come to present the king our 
 humble, open, and hearty thanks, since no people have 
 received greater benefits, as well by opening our prison- 
 doors, as by his late excellent and Christian declaration 
 for liberty of conscience, none having more severely suffered, 
 or stood more generally exposed to the malice of ill men 
 on account of religion ; and though we entertain this act 
 of mercy with all the acknowledgments of a persecuted and 
 grateful people, yet we must needs say, it doth the less 
 surprise us, since it is what some of us have known to be 
 the declared principle of the king, as well long before as 
 
 * The Anabaptists had been before them ; the Independents, the Presbyterians, 
 and the Roman Catholics, followed. 
 
THE FRIENDS ARE JUBILANT. 
 
 135 
 
 since he came to the throne of his ancestors. And we 
 rejoice to see the day that a king of England should, from 
 his royal seat, so universally assert this glorious principle, 
 that conscience ought not to be constrained, nor people 
 forced for matters of religion." 
 
 The toleration, as we learn from this address, had not 
 come upon the Quakers "by surprise ; they had known 
 what was coming from Penn, who had been on intimate 
 terms with the king when he was Duke of York, and who 
 now was to be seen constantly in the ante- chambers of 
 Whitehall. But the Quakers did not think the London 
 address sufficient to evince their universal gratitude, and 
 accordingly, when they met in their annual meeting in the 
 month of May, they drew up another address to the king, 
 which was to be considered as expressing the sentiments 
 of the whole Society. Penn, with some other Friends, was 
 deputed to present it. So joyful were they in their de- 
 liverance, that they actually left their hats behind them in 
 the ante-chamber, and appeared before the king uncovered* 
 In presenting the address the Arch-Quaker said — " That 
 the king had relieved his distressed subjects from their 
 cruel sufferings, and raised to himself a new and lasting 
 empire, by adding their affections to their duty. And we 
 pray God," he proceeded, " to continue the king in this 
 noble resolution, for he is now upon a principle that has 
 good nature, Christianity, and the welfare of civil society 
 on its side; a security to him beyond all the little arts of 
 government. I would not," he continued, " that any should 
 think that we came hither with the design to fill the 
 Gazette with our thanks. But as our sufferings would 
 have moved stones to compassion, so we should be harder 
 than stones if we were not moved to gratitude." This 
 
 * Bariiion to Louis, May 12. Quoted by Dixon in bis Life of Penn, p. 318. 
 
136 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 speech shews that Penn could be a courtier as well as 
 a Quaker ; but there can be no doubt he was sincere in 
 all that he said. In the address, the Society of Friends 
 declared, " We cannot but bless and praise the name of 
 Almighty God, who hath the hearts of princes in His hand, 
 that He hath inclined the king to hear the cries of his 
 suffering subjects for conscience-sake ; and we rejoice that, 
 instead of troubling him with complaints of our sufferings, 
 he hath given us so eminent an occasion to present him 
 with our thanks." 
 
 When the address was read, the king said, — " Gentle- 
 men, I thank you heartily for your address. Some of you 
 know (I am sure you do, Mr Penn) that it was always my 
 principle that conscience ought not to be forced, and that 
 all men ought to have the liberty of their consciences. 
 And what I have promised in my declaration, I will con- 
 tinue to perform as long as I live ; and I hope, before I 
 die, to settle it so that after ages shall have no reason to 
 alter it."* 
 
 One should imagine from this royal speech, that the 
 popish monarch had become a convert to the Quaker doc- 
 trine of universal toleration. No wonder that Penn was 
 proud of his pupil ; no wonder that every Quaker was loud 
 in praises of the king. It is true there was a wide-spread 
 uneasiness about the dispensing power which the king had 
 claimed. If he could thus suspend the penal laws, he 
 might, by a nod of his imperial head, at any time over- 
 throw the whole constitution of the country, and render 
 himself irresponsible and supreme. But why should the 
 Quakers love laws which had been made to crush them ? 
 Why should they kiss the rod which had so sorely smitten 
 them ? Legislation had not been for them; and now, when 
 
 * Sewel's History, pp. C06-8. 
 
UNIVERSAL TOLERATION. 
 
 1ST 
 
 twelve hundred of them were free from their sickening- 
 prison holes, and when they could meet and worship as 
 they pleased, "none daring to make them afraid," and 
 even aspire to places of trust and power* no wonder they 
 should think the king better than the law. The royal 
 sceptre stretched out in mercy, was naturally more plea- 
 sant to them than parliamentary statutes, which breathed 
 forth cruelty. But was not this toleration of the protest ant 
 non-conformists only a pretext for tolerating the papists ? 
 No doubt it was, and the Quakers partly knevr this, but 
 they always held that toleration should be universal, and 
 should include papists as well as protestants. None had 
 protested more strongly than they against the mummeries 
 of Romanism, but they had constantly maintained that no 
 man should be deprived of his civil rights on account of 
 his religious belief, much less should he be subjected to 
 pains and penalties. The royal Declaration of Liberty of 
 Conscience was, therefore, no more than a proclamation of 
 the principles which they had always maintained. 
 
 As James was very anxious to conciliate the favour of 
 the dissenters, that they might balance the power of the 
 church, he did ever}i:hing he could to encourage these 
 friendly sentiments of the Quakers. Penn was always a 
 welcome visitor at the palace, and was known to have a 
 large share of the royal confidence. Great nobles were 
 kept waiting in the ante-room while he was closeted with 
 the king. Other Friends were also admitted into the royal 
 presence with their hats undisturbed, and that was always 
 the point of honour with them. On this matter the grim, 
 monkish monarch, even ventured on a joke. A rustic 
 Quaker had been admitted to an audience with Iris majesty, 
 and of course kept his hat on his head; but the king 
 
 * It was debated at their meeting whether they should not now accept magis- 
 tracies. — Records in Devonshire House, quoted by Mr. Dixon. 
 
138 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 pulled olf his own beaver and held it under his arm while 
 the Quaker spoke. The man, in his simplicity,' thought 
 this was doing him too much honour, and ventured to say, 
 " The king needs not keep off his hat for me." " You 
 don't know the custom," replied his majesty, no doubt with 
 a hardly repressed smile, " for that requires that but one 
 hat must be on here."* 
 
 In the spring of 1688 the king published anew his 
 Declaration for Liberty of Conscience. It was immediately 
 followed by an Order of Council, requiring it to be read in 
 time of divine service in all churches and chapels throughout 
 the kingdom ; and in order to this, the bishops were enjoined 
 to have it distributed throughout their respective dio- 
 ceses. Some of the bishops at once complied, and some of 
 the clergy intimated their willingness to do anything they 
 were asked by the king. The great majority, however, 
 were of a different mind, for their idea,s of the kingly 
 power were now undergoing a rapid change, and they 
 resolved that they would not be parties to the contempt of 
 law which the dispensing power implied. The bishops, in 
 this crisis of the country's fate, resolved to bear the brunt 
 of the battle, and so earned for ever the country's gratitude. 
 Seven of them met at Lambeth and drew up an address to 
 the king, in which they declared that they could not give 
 their sanction to a dispensing power which might set aside 
 all law, civil and ecclesiastical, by causing the declaration 
 to be read during divine service in church ; but they, at 
 the same time, protested that they were ready to render 
 all dutiful obedience to his majesty, and to exhibit all 
 tenderness toward dissenters when the matter came to be 
 debated in parliament. 
 
 * Sew-el's History, p. 609. Mr. Dixon makes this scene take place between 
 King Charles and William Perm when he was getting his great charter signed, 
 but I think it safer to follow Sewel. 
 
THE BISHOPS ARE TRIED. 
 
 139 
 
 The king was startled by the bishops' address, and said 
 so to those who presented it. He had been encouraged in 
 his course by the doctrine which had so often been ex- 
 pressed in episcopal pastorals, and demonstrated in a thou- 
 sand pulpits, that the people ought, in all things, to yield 
 to the king as unto God. And now all things were changed ; 
 it was the law and not the king that must be supreme. 
 After some hesitation he ordered the bishops to be prose- 
 cuted ; and they were accordingly brought before the 
 King's Bench in Westminster Hall, but after a long trial 
 « >f ten hours they were acquitted, to the immense joy of 
 the nation, which regarded them as the champions of its 
 liberty. 
 
 While these things were in progress, the annual meeting 
 i >f the Quakers was held in London, and they resolved again 
 fee thank the kin^ for the deliverance which he had wrought 
 for them. "We bless God and thank the king," said they, 
 u the jails are everywhere clear, except in cases of tithes, 
 and the repairs of parish churches, and some few about 
 oaths. We think ourselves deeply engaged to renew our 
 assurances of fidelity and affection, and, with God's help, 
 intend to do our part for the perfecting so blessed and 
 glorious a work, that so it may be out of the power of any 
 } arty to hurt another on account of conscience. And as 
 We firmly believe that God will never desert this just and 
 righteous cause of liberty, nor the king in maintaining of 
 it, so we hope, by God's grace, to let the world see we can 
 honestly and heartily appear for liberty of conscience, and 
 be inviolably true to our own religion, whatever the folly 
 or malice of some men may suggest to the contrary."* 
 
 Such were the different views which different men took 
 i >f the same conduct. The churchmen saw in the king's 
 
 * Sevvel's History, p. 611. 
 
140 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 dispensation the overthrow of the laws, the coming in of 
 popery as a flood, and the ruin of the country. The 
 Quakers, and many of the other non-conformists, saw in 
 it the beginning of a new era of religious liberty and uni- 
 versal toleration. It is certain the church had hitherto 
 preached the doctrine which the king now practised ; and 
 had, in its day of power, laid intolerable hardships upon 
 the dissenters. But it did not like its doctrines to be 
 turned against itself. What was the dispossession of a few 
 fellows at Magdalene College, or the comfortable confine- 
 ment of seven bishops for a week in the Tower, to the 
 cruel scourging and life-long imprisonments, and ruinous 
 finings, to which the non-conformists had been exposed, 
 while priests and prelates looked on with an approving 
 countenance, if they did not lend a helping hand ! The 
 dissenters could not, all at once, forget this ; and when the 
 bishops lay in the Tower, they talked of how the perse- 
 cutors were now, in their turn, persecuted. Robert Barclay 
 even managed to get access to the incarcerated prelates, 
 and soothed their captivity by laying before them evidence 
 that, by the orders of some of them, Quakers had been 
 kept in prison till death released them. Their address 
 was at the same time. published, with a satirical para- 
 phrase, in which it was set forth that hitherto they had 
 shewn no bowels of mercy for the dissenters, though now 
 they promised to love them like brothers, and that they 
 had applauded arbitrary power when it was used to oppress 
 those who differed from them, though now they condemned 
 it when it was exercised for the common good. 
 
 Though the church did not like dissent, and would rather 
 be rid of it, it must be acknowledged that at this crisis it 
 was not the puritans but the papists which it dreaded. 
 This feeling was almost universal. The laity felt it as 
 strongly as the clergy — the populace as much as the gentry. 
 
SUSPICIONS AND ALARM. 
 
 141 
 
 Even many of the most eminent non-conformists, while 
 they could not but exult in their deliverance from oppres- 
 sion, suspected the designs of the king, and feared lest a 
 worse tiling should come upon them. They blamed the 
 very exercise of the royal power by which they had been 
 emancipated from suffering. People could not believe that 
 the man who had persecuted so fiercely in Scotland, and 
 had shewn his taste for blood by encouraging the hangings 
 in Somerset, could be so humane as he now pretended to 
 be. They could not believe that a bigoted papist had 
 embraced the tolerant principles of the Quakers. The 
 heart of the nation had instinctively seized upon the truth, 
 for it believed that after the toleration of all religions, 
 there would come the supremacy of one, and that the one 
 which it most dreaded and abhorred. It feared the king 
 even when bringing gifts ; for under the Quaker's beaver 
 it discerned the triple crown. The excitement and alarm 
 increased daily. The dissenters, who were joyful in their 
 deliverance from pains and penalties, were regarded as 
 traitors, and the prelates, who had been a week in the 
 Tower, were hailed as the defenders of religion and liberty. 
 
 In these circumstances William Penn became an object 
 of violent suspicion. He was almost daily at Whitehall. 
 He was sometimes closeted with the king for hours. It 
 was rumoured that he was the prime instigator of the 
 arbitrary proceedings of the court. Some said that he was 
 willing to ruin the nation to get a toleration for his sect. 
 Others declared that he was a Jesuit in disguise, and had 
 been educated at St. Omers.* This put him on his defence, 
 
 * Among those who were led away by these rumours, was Dr. Tillotson, (after- 
 wards Archbishop.) who had been on terms of intimacy with Penn. A corres- 
 pondence took place betwixt them on the subject, in which Penn not only denied 
 the truth of the accusations, but shewed their absurdity, and Tillotson was con- 
 vinced. The mistake about St Omers arose from his having studied at Saumur. 
 
142 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 and he made his apology in a very spirited way. " Is 
 anything more foolish," said he, " as well as false, than that 
 because I am often at Whitehall, therefore I must be author 
 of all that is done there which does not please abroad ? 
 But supposing some such things to have been done, pray 
 tell me if I am bound to oppose anything I am not called 
 to do. I never was a member of council, cabinet, or com- 
 mittee, where the affairs of the kingdom are transacted. I 
 have had no office or trust, and consequently nothing can 
 be said to be done by me ; nor, for that reason, could I be 
 under any obligation to discover my opinion of public acts 
 of state, and therefore neither can any such acts, nor any 
 silence about them, in justice, be made my crime. Volun- 
 teers are blanks and cyphers in all governments. I am 
 not without apprehensions of the cause of this behaviour 
 toward me. I mean my constant zeal for an impartial 
 liberty of conscience. But if that be it, the cause is too 
 good to be in any pain about it. I ever understood that 
 to be the natural right of all men, and without it religion 
 is impossible."* 
 
 Meanwhile things hurried rapidly towards a crisis. The 
 birth of a prince, which rumour declared to be suppositi- 
 tious, put an end to the hopes that the danger would cease 
 with the king's life. Protestant England appeared doomed 
 to be governed for ever by a popish dynasty. The only 
 succour for the nation was in the Prince of Orange, whose 
 wife was heir to the throne had that suspicious babe not 
 made its appearance so inopportunely at Whitehall. The 
 prince had calculated upon the crown in the usual course 
 of succession, but now there was small chance of that. 
 What he could not obtain by inheritance, he resolved to 
 have as the gift of the people ; and the people were as 
 
 * Letter to William Popple. See Penn's Works. 
 
THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 14-3 
 
 anxious to give as he was to receive. The malcontents 
 were begging him to come and save them. With a small 
 fleet, accompanied by transports, freighted with fourteen 
 thousand men, he sailed from Holland ; and though at first 
 driven back by violent contrary winds, he ultimately 
 effected a landing at Torbay on the 5th of November 1688. 
 The people, the troops, the generals, even the Prince and 
 Princess of Denmark, flocked to his standard ; and James, 
 seeing himself abandoned by all, even by his own family, 
 sought safety in flight. His experiments in the way of 
 universal toleration had come to this ; but happily, when 
 he was gone, there reigned a prince in his stead whose 
 motives the people did not fear, and who laid deep in the 
 constitution the foundations of our present religious liberty. 
 The Quakers are not without a share of the glory, though 
 in the days of James they had a large share of the blame. 
 
1689. 
 
 HE Quakers might now rejoice and be glad, for the 
 days of their sufferings were ended. A prince 
 was upon the throne whose great honour it was 
 to give to the country the blessings, not only of civil, but 
 of religious liberty. The convention which had declared 
 the throne vacant, and then called William and Mary to 
 till it, was no sooner converted into a parliament by the 
 presence of royalty, than it took into consideration the 
 state of the penal laws. These were so modified, that all 
 dissenters from the Established Church, who took the oath 
 of allegiance, were allowed the free exercise of their wor- 
 ship ; and that the toleration might extend to the Quakers, 
 a declaration of fidelity was in their case accepted in place 
 of the oath. The Quakers might now assemble in their 
 meeting-houses, and be either silent or speak as they chose, 
 without fear of the constable. The parliament had made 
 that law which the king had conferred contrary to law, so 
 that the Friends could henceforward enjoy their freedom 
 without the reproach that their liberty was the country's 
 slavery. In one important respect, indeed, William's legis- 
 lation fell short of James's dispensation. The penal laws 
 were abrogated, but the Test Acts were allowed to remain 
 on the statute-book, and are not even yet entirely removed- 
 
DEATH OF BARCLAY. 
 
 145 
 
 1690.] This happy result was scarcely accomplished 
 when Robert Barclay died. He had done more than any 
 other man to develop and systematise the Quaker mysti- 
 cism, and to make it respectable in the eyes of scholars and 
 divines. He found his " City of God " of brick, and he left 
 it of marble. His " Apology " will always be ranked as 
 his greatest work, but he published many other treatises, 
 among which, his treatise on " Universal Love," written in 
 Aberdeen Jail, was greatly admired for the spirit of uni- 
 versal beneficence which it breathed. Though all his life 
 engaged in polemical controversy, he was no polemic. His 
 temper was particularly sweet, and his conversation pleas- 
 ing, without any trace of that dictatorial tone which too 
 often characterizes controversialists. He was universally 
 beloved. Possessed of an ample fortune, and happy in a 
 wife and numerous family, he spent the greater part of his 
 latter years on his patrimonial estate, but he was always 
 at the service of the Society of Friends when occasion 
 required. Notwithstanding his gentle breeding and cul- 
 tured mind, he was thoroughly obedient to the spirit of 
 his sect, insomuch that on one occasion, feeling an impres- 
 sion which he conceived to be from God, to pass through 
 the streets of Aberdeen in sackcloth and ashes, and preach 
 repentance to the people, he did not hesitate to do so, and 
 was miserable till it was done. He died young. In his 
 forty-second year, at Ury, in Aberdeenshire, " the place of 
 his pilgrimage," as he quaintly called it, he breathed his 
 last. The whole Quaker community united in lamenting 
 his irreparable loss. Many beyond the pale of the Society 
 bore testimony to his eminent virtues and many accom- 
 plishments. His writings rapidly acquired a universal 
 reputation. Gerard Croese, in his " History of the Quakers," 
 always speaks of him with respect. The author of the 
 " Histoire des Trembleurs," supposed to be a learned Jesuit, 
 
 K 
 
146 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 declares that the " Apology " is written with elegance, 
 purity, and an appearance of truth. And Voltaire, who 
 had in general little reverence for sacred things, admits 
 that the book is as well executed as the subject would 
 allow. 
 
 The grass was not green upon Barclay's grave when 
 George Fox, after his stormy and eventful life, sank to his 
 rest. For many years his health had been somewhat broken 
 from the terrible hardships to which he had been exposed; 
 but still, though now sixty-seven, lie was ever at the post 
 of duty, and only two days before his death he preached 
 at Gracechurch Meeting-house. His last words have the 
 strong odour of his Quaker piety. Being asked how he 
 did, he replied, " The power of the Lord is above all sick- 
 ness and death, the seed reigns, blessed be the Lord/'* 
 His life may be pronounced happy, if it is to be judged by 
 comparing its former with its latter end. He began life 
 as a cobbler, and ended it as the leader of a great sect, 
 which had its thousands and tens of thousands in both the 
 old world and the new. Cruelly persecuted in the begin- 
 ning of his career, he had the blessedness to live till his 
 religion was recognised by law, and his followers freed from 
 pains and penalties. He did not die before his time : and 
 the firmament brightened rather than darkened as the day 
 of his departure drew near. 
 
 In his youth we can recognise little more than a hair- 
 brained enthusiast, who had moped and mused upon 
 divine things till his own disordered fancies took the 
 shape of heavenly visions, or sounded within him like the 
 echo of voices from above. But united with his enthu- 
 siasm there was a terrible energy, a dauntless courage, a 
 resolution which never once faltered or failed. As he ad- 
 
 * Sewel's History, p. 637. 
 
PORTRAIT OF FOX. 
 
 147 
 
 vanced in years his character mellowed, many of his early 
 extravagances evaporated like impure fames, and there 
 was left a residuum of solid worth and wisdom. He no 
 more entered churches and disturbed the service. He no 
 more went bare-foot crying, " Woe! w >e! to the inhabitants 
 of the world." Sound sense gradually asserted its supre- 
 macy over absurd revelations ; and he finally sat in the 
 midst of his community " clothed, and in his right mind.'' 
 The polit}* which he trained for his Society was prudently 
 planned ; and even the pretence that it was divinely re- 
 vealed to him, betrayed that wisdom of the serpent which 
 has made so many legislators declare that their laws were 
 given them from heaven. We may safely say, that he 
 could not have governed his Society with such absolute 
 sway as he did unless he had had b «th sagacity and tact. 
 Like other men, he had his alloy of human weakness. A 
 ridiculous vanity continually peeps out from behind his 
 piety; for he ever imagines that the most learned divines 
 could not withstand the wisdom of his words, and he had 
 but to speak to put them to shame. More unfortunately 
 still, a fierce vindictiveness too often reveals itself in his 
 Journal. Whenever he heard of distress or death over- 
 taking any one who had enforced the laws against his 
 sect, he instantly attributed it to the just judgments of 
 God, and had generally some fabulous story to relate of 
 supernatural horrors and the agonies of remorse. Though 
 he had endured much, it is evident he was not the meekest 
 of men; he had a strong spice of that rebellious human 
 nature which has exhibited itself so strongly in so many 
 of his folio wers, whose very, " The Lord rebuke thee/' has 
 been a form of cursing. 
 
 He was a tall man, of a goodly size, especially in his 
 latter years, and of a pleasant countenance, but no writer 
 I have seen has told us exactly what that countenance was 
 
148 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 like; and how much would the world not now give to 
 have a photograph of George Fox ? I have searched in 
 vain to discover in his life or writings the elements of 
 greatness, and yet he was undoubtedly one of the world's 
 great ones. He who can found a great religious sect can 
 scarcely be a mean man. He who could command the 
 obeisance of a keen-witted man like Keith, a scholar like 
 Barclay, a courtier like Penn, could not be a mere vulgar 
 fanatic. It is certain he was not made of the fine porce- 
 lain of human clay ; he was rather fashioned out of some 
 stuff as tough as the leather in which he had worked when 
 a boy. Without genius, without taste, without literature, 
 there was yet something colossal in his character, which 
 reminds us of those rude but giant forms which figure as 
 the deities of the Scandinavian world. 
 
 It was at ten o'clock at night on the 13th day of January 
 1691 that he died. On the 16th of the same month he 
 was buried near Bunhill Fields. A vast concourse of 
 Quakers followed him to the grave. They were not clothed 
 in the weeds of woe, but their serious aspect testified to 
 their grief. Many others joined in the procession, for Fox 
 had his friends and admirers everywhere. At the open 
 grave Penn pronounced his funeral oration, and told how 
 a great man had fallen in Israel. But though Fox was 
 laid in the grave, he could not, in a sense, see corruption. 
 His spirit still lives in his sect ; and his image is stamped 
 deep upon the heart, and often upon the very face, of his 
 followers to this day. 
 
 Penn had no sooner performed the 1 last duties to his 
 creat leader and friend than he absconded. And it was 
 time; for a warrant was already out to apprehend him. 
 It seems to be too true that ever since the Revolution Penn 
 had been plotting and conspiring for the overthrow of the 
 government and the return of James. He was personally 
 
PENN UNDER A CLOUD. 
 
 149 
 
 attached to the late king, and grateful for the toleration he 
 had given to his sect ; and though William and Mary had 
 not withheld what James had given, he could not forget 
 an allegiance which was strengthened by love. In the pre- 
 vious year there is some ground to believe that, altogether 
 forgetful of his Quaker creed, he had advised a Jacobite 
 invasion ; and a rumour of this having reached the govern- 
 ment he was examined by the Privy Council, but fortu- 
 nately escaped for want of proof. Not long afterwards a 
 letter from the exiled monarch to him was intercepted, and 
 he was again examined, but pleaded that he was not re- 
 sponsible for what people might write to him — a plea 
 which might bar judgment, but could not allay suspicion. 
 Once again, in the month of December, he was engaged in 
 a Jacobite plot; and on this occasion one of his accom- 
 plices informed against him.* A warrant was instantly 
 issued to apprehend him ; but the funeral over, and the 
 solemn words of farewell spoken, he had sought safety in 
 concealment. From his place of hiding he wrote to Lord 
 Sidney, begging for an interview, with free liberty to return 
 to his retreat, and this request was granted. In this inter- 
 view, in his anxiety to clear himself, he " departed," says 
 Lord Macaulay, " from his yea, yea, protested by God, and 
 told lies to the horror of the minister." After this he lay 
 
 * Burnet's History of his Own Times. Macaulay "s History. Clarkson's Life 
 of Penn. I think that Mr. Hepworth Dixon, in his supplementary chapter to his 
 Life of Penn, entitled, " The Macaulay Charges," has very successfully rebutted 
 the charges against his hero there referred to, but those mentioned in the text are 
 quite different. It is true that Fuller, the informer, upon whose evidence the war- 
 rants for Penn's arrest were issued, at the time he escaped from the funeral, was 
 afterwards proved to be a perjurer ; but, taking all the circumstances into ac- 
 count, and Penn's future history, I am inclined to believe there was some ground 
 for his testimony in this case. There seems reason, however, to believe that it was 
 arranged he should be allowed to escape. He knew the warrants were out, and 
 yet went to the funeral, and the officers conveniently came too late. 
 
150 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 hid in London for some time, and afterwards escaped to 
 France.* 
 
 This is certainly a sad story regarding a man who has 
 been in many ways a benefactor of his race. But there is 
 much to explain, if not to excuse, such a course of conduct. 
 King James had been his father's patron, and his own in- 
 timate friend. He had adopted, moreover, a principle very 
 dear to Penn, and had granted to every non-conformist in 
 the kingdom a complete toleration. Penn could not all at 
 once forget this. He would have been a bad-hearted traitor 
 if he had. In all probability he believed the king sincere 
 in his professions, and had not, at any rate, the same rea- 
 sons to desire a revolution which many of the nobles and 
 clergy had. The Revolution accomplished, we may easily 
 understand how his heart would revolt against it. All his 
 sympathies were with the exiled dynasty ; his faith had 
 been plighted to it, though no oath of allegiance had been 
 sworn ; and, with many others, he could not help regard- 
 ing William and Mary as unnatural usurpers. J oyful in 
 the results of the Revolution, let us yet confess that such 
 feelings could be cherished without sin. But though Penn 
 took a part in the dark counsels of conspirators and plot- 
 ters, and even wished to bring a civil war on his country, 
 the Friends were in no way involved in these proceedings. 
 As a body, they were loyal to the new government, and 
 justly thankful for the liberty of worship which they 
 enjoyed. 
 
 The Quakers were now rapidly losing their great leaders. 
 Fox was dead, and Barclay was dead, and Penn was not 
 to be found. Keith alone remained, and Keith was bring- 
 
 * Lord Macaulay says he fled to France, but Clarkson, his biographer, says be 
 remained concealed in London ; and from certain letters and tracts written by 
 Penn at this time, he seems to have lain, for a considerable period at any rate, 
 concealed in the city, where he was even visited by some of his confidential friends. 
 
KEITH APOSTATISES. 
 
 151 
 
 ing upon the sect the grief and disgrace of apostacy. This 
 able, but somewhat changeful man, was at this time resid- 
 ing in Pennsylvania, and there the waters of bitterness 
 first broke out. He charged some of the American Friends 
 with teaching that the light within was sufficient for sal- 
 vation, and even with reducing the whole gospel narrative 
 of Christ's life and sufferings upon earth to a pictorial 
 representation of a Christian's experiences and duties. 
 He was a hot-tempered man, and would not administer his 
 rebukes in the most loving spirit. Others, on the contrary, 
 charged him with believing in two Christs; as he had 
 preached the necessity of faith in Christ within and Christ 
 without — the heart Christ and the historical Christ. As 
 Keith could not admonish with tenderness, much less could 
 he bear to be admonished with meekness, Quaker though 
 he was. The Pennsylvanian Friends were divided, and 
 wrath reigned. Forgetting his principles, and letting loose 
 his tongue, Keith called one of the magistrates " an im- 
 pudent rascal," and even ventured to say to the deputy- 
 governor that " he was unfit to be a governor, and his 
 name would stink." * By this energetic way of speaking, 
 and by a pamphlet which he published, upbraiding the 
 government for slackness in the discharge of duty, he 
 made the country too hot for him ; he was prosecuted and 
 fined, and finally he returned to England to make his com- 
 plaints known there.-f* 
 
 * SewePs History ; also Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, with Maclean's Notes. 
 
 t Voltaire seems to have got very bad accounts of Keith from the Quakers he 
 met with in London. He says he wished to introduce intolerance into Pennsyl- 
 vania, and was possessed by a devil. " 11 n'y a q'un seul exemple," says he, speak- 
 ing of Pennsylvania, " d"un homme banni du pays. 11 le meritait bien ; c'etait 
 un pretre Anglican qui s'etant fait Quaker, fut indigne de Petre. Ce malheureux 
 fut sans doute possede du diable ; car il osa precher Pintolerance ; il s'appellait 
 George Keith ; on le chassa ; je ne sais pas ou il est alle, mais puissent tous les 
 intolerans aller avec lui." — Questions sur I'Encyclojiedie. 
 
152 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 He made his appearance before the annual assembly at 
 London in 1694, and the points in dispute were debated. 
 He had no match in the meeting in acuteness and learning, 
 but probably this made him overbearing to the more illi- 
 terate members of the sect. They complained that he was 
 passionate and boisterous, and that so it was impossible to 
 heal the breach. The meeting broke up and nothing was 
 done. But Keith was not allowed to stand alone. Many 
 of his Quaker brethren rallied around him ; some of the 
 other non-conformists in London joined these ; he opened 
 a separate meeting-house, and it was crowded with wor- 
 shippers. The unity of the Quaker Church was likely to 
 be destroyed, and now there was no Fox, with his tradi- 
 tionary authority, or Barclay with his sweet temper, to 
 compose the differences. Keith charged his former brethren 
 with holding most horrible heresies — with virtually repu- 
 diating the Christ of history, and denying the resurrection 
 of the dead. They replied, and vindicated their orthodoxy. 
 He challenged them to a public discussion, but they de- 
 clined, saying, they were afraid of his fiery temper, and 
 dreaded a popular commotion might be the result of a 
 meeting. Still he did not altogether renounce his Quaker- 
 ism ; for years he kept his separate meetings, and declared 
 that those who differed from him were apostates, but he 
 gradually got tired of his isolated position, and at last 
 fairly threw up the opinions he had so long and ably 
 defended, and received priests' orders in the Church of 
 England. 
 
 1696.] Though the Quakers had now for many years 
 enjoyed complete liberty of worship, they were still liable 
 to be harassed for refusing to take an oath in a court of 
 justice ; and, on the other hand, the course of justice had 
 been frequently disturbed by their conscientious obstinacy 
 in refusing to comply with the requirements of the law. 
 
AFFIRMATIONS AXD OATHS. 
 
 153 
 
 In 1693 they petitioned parliament that their solemn de- 
 claration should be taken instead of an oath. The com- 
 mons referred this petition to a committee, and the com- 
 mittee reported that, upon the whole, they were disposed 
 to recommend that its prayer should be granted; but no- 
 thing was done. In 1695 the matter was revived; a bill 
 was brought into parliament, the king gave it his earnest 
 support, and in the beginning of 1696 it was carried. Ac- 
 cording to the provisions of this bill, " the solemn affirma- 
 tion and declaration of the people called Quakers was to 
 be accepted, instead of an oath in the usual form ; " but if 
 a Quaker made a false affirmation, he was to be punished 
 as for perjury. The Friends were thus relieved by a 
 generous legislation from another of the hardships which 
 their interpretation of Scripture had evoked ; the law 
 bowed itself to meet their scruples. At the same time it 
 is worthy of remark, that though the country is not likely 
 soon to adopt the Quaker creed and abolish all swearing 
 in courts of law, the tendency of modern legislation has 
 been to substitute, in many cases, an affirmation for an 
 oath. 
 
 The only grievance of which the Quakers had now to 
 complain was the payment of tithes ; and it was evident 
 the legislature could not relieve their pockets in this matter, 
 as it had their consciences in others, without beggaring the 
 church, and endangering the whole rights of property in 
 the kingdom. If to be a Quaker was not to pay tithes, 
 what tithe-holder would not be a Quaker ? The parlia- 
 ment, however, in the same act in which an affirmation 
 was substituted for an oath, gave what relief it could. It 
 made more easy than before the methods by which payment 
 was to be enforced in cases of recusancy. 
 
 Penn's reputation had been irreparably damaged among 
 the people, not only by the wide-spread suspicion that he 
 
154 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 was a papist, but by the still stronger and better-founded 
 suspicion, that he was a conspirator. When he absconded 
 the feeling spread to the Quakers, and his protestations of 
 innocence did not help him* He had still, however, his 
 admirers and friends. When Locke was living a political 
 exile at the Hague, Penn offered to procure for him the 
 pardon of James. Locke declined the offer, on the ground 
 that to receive a pardon would be tantamount to an ac- 
 knowledgment that he had committed a crime. Locke 
 now offered to use his best offices to procure a pardon for 
 Penn ; but Penn, in turn, declined the proposal, and for the 
 same reason which Locke had assigned. He appears, 
 however, before this time to have returned to England, but 
 he was still skulking from justice. In 1693 he was de- 
 prived by the king of his government of Pennsylvania, and 
 both his fortunes and reputation were at the very lowest 
 ebb. But, notwithstanding this, it would appear he could 
 not refrain from conspiring ; for in this very year one of 
 the agents of James in France reported to his master that 
 Penn had given it as his opinion that there had never been 
 such a favourable opportunity for a descent upon England."!* 
 Happily this was unknown to the government, and in the 
 same year in which this treasonable advice was given he 
 was acquitted of all treason by the king. The proofs of 
 his guilt in the hands of the government were not conclu- 
 sive. He strongly protested his innocency in the presence 
 of the Council; he had confessedly been a self-denying, 
 devoted man, and William, with his usual clemency, let 
 him go free. In the following year the large-hearted 
 Dutchman shewed his royal generosity still further, by re- 
 storing to him the government of Pennsylvania, where, 
 
 * Clarkson's Life of Penn, Vol. II. 
 
 t Nairne State Papers. See also Lord Macaulay's History of England, and 
 Clarkson's Life of Penn. 
 
PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 155 
 
 unfortunately, affairs were not proceeding so smoothly as 
 they had done at first. By degrees Penn regained the 
 esteem and confidence of his brethren, and took an active 
 part in the measures which led to the law accepting 
 a Quaker's affirmation in place of his oath. 
 
 At this time Peter the Great was in England, He was 
 generally to be found working busily as a ship-wright in 
 the dockyards at Deptford. But he had a house in London — 
 the residence of Prince Menzchikoff — to which he some- 
 times came, and from which he and his suite proceeded 
 to court, or to visit the nobility, in more than barbaric 
 splendour. The Quakers were always ambitious of making 
 proselytes of princes, and two of them managed to get 
 access to this wonderful man, in whom the highest genius 
 was grafted on the most savage stock. They explained to 
 him, through an interpreter, the principles of their religion, 
 and presented him with a copy of " Barclay's Apology," 
 and with some other books bearing on their faith. He 
 asked if the books were not written by a Jesuit — a ques- 
 tion which we can explain only by supposing that he had 
 heard something of the charges brought against Penn. The 
 Quakers, of course, protested that it was not so. The Czar 
 next inquired why they did not pay respect to the great 
 when they came into their presence by removing their 
 hats, and of what use they could be in any kingdom see- 
 ing they would not bear arms ? The Friends answered 
 the searching questions of the great savage as they best 
 could. 
 
 It was the Latin edition of " Barclay's Apology" which 
 had been presented to the Czar. But his majesty did not 
 know a word of that tongue. When this became known, 
 William Penn, attended by George Whitehead and a de- 
 putation of Friends, sought a second interview with Peter ; 
 for they knew if they could only make him a Quaker, he 
 
156 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 held in his hand the religion as well as the government of 
 the great Muscovite Empire. The idea, though it seems 
 absurd to us, was by no means so to them. The audience 
 was granted, and Penn presented the Czar with some 
 Quaker books which had been translated into German, and 
 entered into conversation with him in that language. 
 Peter, full of inquisitiveness, and anxious to know every- 
 thing, was so interested in this peculiar people, who had 
 twice sought his presence, that more than once afterwards 
 he went into the Quaker meeting at Deptford to see how 
 their worship was conducted. It is even related, that six- 
 teen years afterwards, when he was at Frederickstadt in 
 Holstein, at the head of five thousand men, to assist the 
 Danes against the Swedes, he inquired whether there were 
 not any Quaker meeting in the place ; and, on learning that 
 there was, he proceeded to it, attended by a brilliant reti- 
 nue. A Quaker, named Philip Defair, rose up to preach. 
 As all the Muscovite nobles did not understand the lan- 
 guage of the preacher, the Czar occasionally interpreted, 
 and at the close is said to have remarked that whoever 
 lived according to the principles they had heard must be 
 happy * Alas ! for Peter, it may have been the passing 
 sentiment of his heart, but he would have made a strange 
 member of the Society of Friends. 
 
 In 1(397 the terrible war which had been so long raging 
 on the Continent, and in which the English had played so 
 conspicuous a part, was happily brought to a close by the 
 Treaty of Ryswick, in which Louis XIV. acknowledged 
 William as King of Great Britain. When all the public 
 bodies in the kingdom were hastening to the foot of the 
 throne with their congratulations, the Quakers were not 
 behind. They presented an address, in which they declared 
 
 * Clarkson's Life of Penn, Vol, II. 
 
WAR OF PAMPHLETS. 
 
 157 
 
 their thankfulness that his majesty had escaped the dangers 
 of war, and their fervent hope that he would long live to 
 reign over them and enjoy the blessings of peace. 
 
 In 1698 a bill was introduced into parliament " for re- 
 straining the licentiousness of the press/' which justly ex- 
 cited the jealousy of the Quakers and other non-conform- 
 ists, who dreaded that if the bill were made law it might 
 seriously curtail the religious liberty which they had, after 
 a hard struggle, secured. The Friends, therefore, drew up 
 in the form of a memorial their objections to the bill, and 
 had them circulated among the members of parliament. 
 " To limit religious books," said they, " to a license, where 
 the tolerated persons are many, seems altogether unsafe to 
 all, but those of whose opinion the licenser is, who by this 
 bill has power to allow what he shall judge sound and 
 orthodox, or reject what he shall construe to be either 
 heretical, seditious, or offensive. History and experience 
 have taught how the obscure term of heresy has been turned 
 and stretched against primitive Christians, martyrs, and 
 famous reformers. Nor is it forgotten for what reasons the 
 writ De Heretico Comburendo was abolished," &c. The 
 bill was dropt. 
 
 Now that the Quakers were safe from pains and penal- 
 ties, they were attacked through the press with double 
 energy. At this time a virulent pamphlet, entitled, " The 
 Snake in the Grass," was published, the object of which 
 was to strike, like a two-edged sword, against the Quakers 
 and Bourignons, though these two sets of mystics had waged 
 war with one another from the first. A certain apostate, 
 Francis Bugg, also fastened upon his former friends with 
 instinctive ferocity. When travelling in Ireland, Penn 
 had visited the Bishop of Cork, and presented him with 
 one of his tracts, entitled, "Gospel Truths held by the 
 people called Quakers," and the Bishop had afterwards 
 
158 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 written him a letter, in which he remarked that a sect 
 which held so meagre a creed could scarcely be called 
 Christians. This led Penn to write " A Defence of a Paper 
 called Gospel Truths against the Exceptions of the Bishop 
 of Cork's Testimony." But the most formidable opponent 
 of the Quakers was Keith, who, from a defender of the 
 faith, had become an accuser of the brethren. He published 
 in 1699 a work, entitled, " The Deism of William Penn and 
 his Brethren destructive to the Christian Religion, exposed 
 and plainly laid open.' 1 Penn was a ready writer, and was 
 not slow in replying to these charges, and maintaining 
 that by diverging from modern a man might adhere all 
 the more closely to ancient Christianity. When Keith, 
 in 1700, took orders in the Church of England, the Quakers 
 had their revenge for the indignities he had put upon 
 them, by publishing some of his former sentiments and 
 presenting them to the Bishop of London * 
 
 In 1701 the exiled King James died at St. Germains, and 
 next year William HI. followed him to the grave. When 
 Queen Anne ascended the throne the London Quakers 
 hastened to address her, and assure her of their loyalty. 
 In answer to their address she assured them of her pro- 
 tection. Shortly afterwards, in proroguing the parliament, 
 she declared her intention of maintaining inviolable the 
 Act of Toleration, which filled all the non-conformists 
 in the kingdom with joy and gratitude. When the Quakers 
 assembled in their annual May-meeting they drew up a 
 second address to the queen, expressive of their loyalty 
 and thankfulness. W illiam Penn might now again venture 
 to appear at court, and therefore he was placed at the 
 head of the deputation appointed to present the address. 
 When it was read, the queen turned to him and said, " Mr. 
 
 * Jewel's History, p. 6/2. 
 
THE FIRST GEORGES. 
 
 159 
 
 Peiin, I am so well pleased that what I have said is to 
 your satisfaction, that you and your friends may be assured 
 of my protection."* This language, however formal, gave 
 the Quakers assurance that the liberty which they had re- 
 ceived in the last reign would not be wrested from them 
 in this. 
 
 The Quakers had now entered the haven of peace, and, as 
 usually happens, their history, for a time, declines in interest. 
 They had no longer severe trials to bring into display heroic 
 virtues. They held their meetings, and religiously adhered 
 to their principles, and stood out before the public as a 
 distinct people, but their outside history consisted in little 
 more than in their appearing at court at appropriate times 
 to present, with others, dutiful addresses. When England 
 and Scotland were united into one kingdom; when a 
 threatened invasion came to naught ; when the queen de- 
 clared anew to the parliament her resolution to maintain 
 liberty of conscience; when peace was proclaimed, the 
 Friends hastened to the foot of the throne to say how 
 glad they were. But loyal addresses and royal replies 
 are not profoundly interesting to the world at large. 
 The presentation of the stereotyped address, however, to 
 George L, when he came to the throne in 1714, was so 
 Quaker-like that it deserves record. When the address 
 was read, and the king's answer made, George Whitehead, 
 who was at the head of the deputation, and was indeed 
 one of the most eminent Quakers of the day, stood forward 
 and said — 
 
 " Thou art welcome to us, King George ; we heartily 
 wish thee health and happiness, and thy son the prince 
 also. King William III. was a happy instrument in put- 
 ting a stop to persecution, by promoting toleration. We 
 
 * Jewel's History, p. 6i>b' . 
 
IGO 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 desire the king may have farther knowledge of us and our 
 innocency, and that to live a peaceable and quiet life, in all 
 godliness and honesty, under the king and his government, 
 is according to our principle and practice." 
 
 When this speech was spoken, the deputation desired 
 they might be permitted to see the Prince of Wales. The 
 request was at once granted, and they were conducted to 
 the prince's chamber, when the Quaker, George, again stood 
 forward and said — 
 
 " We take it as a favour that we are thus admitted to 
 see the Prince of Wales, and truly are very glad to see 
 thee; having delivered our address to the king, thy royal 
 father, and being desirous to give thyself a visit in true 
 love, we very heartily wish health and happiness to you 
 both ; and that, if it should please God, thou shouldst sur- 
 vive thy father and come to the throne, thou mayst enjoy 
 tranquillity and peace. I am persuaded that if the king, 
 thy father, and thyself, do stand for the toleration for 
 liberty of conscience to be kept inviolable, God will stand 
 by you. May King Solomon's choice of wisdom be thy 
 choice, with holy Job's integrity, and compassion to the 
 distressed," &c* 
 
 In this wise did the Quakers welcome the house of 
 Hanover to the British throne, and pay their respects to 
 the first two Georges. 
 
 The whole interest of the Quaker history at this period 
 centres in William Penn, and William Penn was hurrying 
 to the grave with shattered fortunes and a broken heart. 
 Almost from the beginning affairs had gone badly in Penn- 
 sylvania. Jealousies, heart-burnings, and quarrels, had 
 reigned between the deputy-governors, the assembly, and 
 people ; the quit-rents were unpaid ; and that great country, 
 
 * Sewers History, pp. 710-11. 
 
penn's last days 
 
 161 
 
 instead of being a source of wealth, had been a cause of 
 poverty to its proprietor. In 1699 he had crossed the 
 Atlantic and visited it for the second time, and his pre- 
 sence had helped to allay disputes ; but the fire was 
 smothered rather than quenched. He penetrated into the 
 boundless forests, and visited the Indians in their wig- 
 wams, ate their venison and cakes ; and, forgetting he was 
 a Quaker, beheld them with pleasure dancing their wild 
 dances on the green. In return, he invited them to his 
 house, and treated them with such kindness, that for 
 generations they spoke to their children of the good Onas 
 — the word in their language which signifies a pen, and by 
 which their benefactor was known to them. In 1701 
 he returned to England and resumed his labours as a 
 writer and preacher in the Quaker cause ; but affairs in 
 America again became worse than ever. In 1707 he was 
 involved in a law-suit with the executors of a man who 
 had once been his steward, and to whom he appears to 
 have incautiously signed some papers. The decision went 
 against him, and unable to meet the pecuniary demands 
 now so unexpectedly made upon him, he was obliged to 
 seek a lodging within the Rules of the Fleet, a distressed, 
 bailiff-hunted debtor. Two years afterwards his embar- 
 rassments were so great that he was compelled to mort- 
 gage his province of Pennsylvania for £6,600.* 
 
 His public career was now nearly run. He was creeping 
 into old age, for he was now threescore years and ten. He 
 was harassed by money obligations, which he was unable 
 to discharge, though the annual value of his property in 
 England and Ireland was still considerable. His first wife, 
 the good and romantic Guli Springett, was long since dead. 
 He left London and took a country house at Rushcomb in 
 
 * Clarkson's Life of Penn, Vol. II. 
 
 L 
 
162 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 Berkshire. In 1712 he had made up his mind to part with 
 his province of Pennsylvania to the government, and the 
 government had agreed to give him £12,000 for it. But 
 before the bargain was concluded he had three several 
 attacks of apoplexy, and was no longer able to transact 
 business. Providence so ordered it that he was to die lord 
 of Pennsylvania. From this time he was a wreck, still 
 able to converse occasionally with his friends, but distress- 
 ing them by his frequent obliviousness, his absence of 
 mind, and the difficulty with which he could so collect 
 himself as to utter his thoughts. The memory had lost its 
 grasp. But in most such cases nature is kind. It was 
 merciful' that many things were plunged in forgetfulness, 
 which, if constantly remembered, would have embittered 
 the old man's last days ; and that the very blunting of his 
 intellect rendered him incapable of feeling, so sorely as he 
 otherwise would, the pangs of disappointed hope. The 
 mind, by breaking down, had escaped from its persecutors, 
 and yet it was not incapable of a tranquil happiness, nor 
 untrue to its former religious impressions. So he lingered 
 till 1718, when he died. 
 
 With William Penn departed the last of the great 
 Quakers. He undoubtedly rendered in his day eminent 
 service, not only to his sect, but to society. In his early 
 youth he made a noble struggle for the independence of 
 the jury, in defending from intimidation the jury who 
 tried him ; and the jury, in turn, shewed they were worthy 
 of his defence by the verdict which they gave in the face 
 of a menacing recorder and judge. As the founder of 
 Pennsylvania, he will ever be remembered as one of the 
 <rreat colonisers of the New World. To convert the wil- 
 derness into a garden ; to lay, in the midst of a vast soli- 
 tude, the foundations of a mighty state, is no mean honour. 
 The wisdom of his legislation is not disproved by the 
 
ESTIMATE OF PENN. 
 
 163 
 
 jars and ingratitude of the colonists; and the saying of 
 Benjamin Franklin, that he began his government as a 
 man of conscience, proceeded in it as a man of reason, and 
 ended it as a man of the world, has more point than 
 truth in it ; for no one is to be blamed for a reasonable 
 attention to his own interests. The fruit of his kindness 
 to the Indians was seen in the peaceable way in which 
 they lived with the men of peace even after he was in his 
 grave ; while they were harassing, by their murderous ex- 
 cursions, the other British settlements. They loved, and 
 wished to live in peace with the children of Onas. But 
 his greatest service to the world was his persistent, life- 
 long defence of liberty of conscience. For this we can 
 almost excuse him for his blinded attachment to James, 
 whom, he fondly imagined, he had made a convert to his 
 creed ; though it is not so easy to excuse or explain his 
 repudiation of his principles, in advising an invasion of 
 his country. But let those who are without sin cast the 
 first stone at him. 
 
 That he was a thoroughly sincere, unselfish man, with 
 strong religious instincts, admits of no doubt. His throw- 
 ing in his lot with the despised Quakers, and thereby sac- 
 rificing all his hopes of worldly promotion and splendid 
 living, is the best proof of this. From the moment he 
 joined the Quakers he gave himself up to them soul and 
 body, and worked unweariedly in their cause. He became 
 a voluminous writer ; and it is difficult to know how he 
 found time to write so much, when we consider the multi- 
 tude of his avocations. Though reared among the proud 
 English aristocracy, he had no trace of arrogance or pride. 
 He was simply a Quaker with the Quakers ; and it is still 
 told in Pennsylvania how, on one occasion, riding into 
 Haverford, he overtook a young girl wearily walking to 
 the same place, and kindly took her up on the saddle, and 
 
164 
 
 THE QUAKEKS. 
 
 rode into the town with the little bare-Ieggecl lassie behind 
 him. 
 
 His intellect was not of the highest order, and, of course, 
 it was not expanded by the religion which he had em- 
 braced. But he frequently writes with vigour, though not 
 with brilliancy or wit. When he was attacked he could 
 reply in a way which shewed that the spirit of the old 
 admiral, his father, was in him. Bishop Burnet, who did 
 not like him, says he was a vain man, and had a luscious, 
 tedious way of speaking in conversation ; * of which, I 
 think, it is possible to detect a slight tincture in his writ- 
 ings. But the man who could number among his acquain- 
 tances Dr. Tillotson and John Locke, and of whom Dean 
 Swift said, " that he talked very agreeably and with much 
 spirit," must have been much above the common, even in 
 that age of exceeding intellect. 
 
 He was a tall man, and in the latter part of his life some- 
 what portly. It is a curious circumstance, that the only 
 genuine portrait of this apostle of peace and good-will 
 exhibits him clothed in armour ; for, in his youth, he had 
 served as a volunteer at Carrickfergus ; and with the usual 
 vanity of the young soldier, he had himself painted in his 
 coat of mail. His regular features, full, round eyes, and 
 well-formed mouth, constitute a pleasing, and even hand- 
 some countenance. A bust of him was made after his 
 death, in which we can trace a thoughtful eye, and an ex- 
 pression of much benevolence. Years, no doubt, had worked 
 a change. Though his sect exacted plainness of attire, he 
 was always particularly neat in his person, for this he had 
 
 * " He was a talking, vain man, who had such a high opinion of his own elo- 
 quence, that he thought nothing could stand hefore it ; and a tedious, luscious waj 
 of talking, that was not apt to overcome a man's reason, though it might tire hia 
 patience.'"— History of his Own Times. 
 
A CLOUDED SUNSET. 
 
 165 
 
 learned from his gentle breeding. He generally carried a 
 cane, which he sometimes took even into his study ; and, 
 as he walked up and down dictating to his amanuensis, 
 gave emphasis to his sentences by striking it on the floor. 
 He reached the long age of seventy-four ; but his life can 
 scarcely be called a happy one. He was constantly assailed 
 by suspicions and aspersions; he had to drink the cup 
 of bitter disappointment in regard to America; and his 
 mind, harassed by pecuniary difficulties, broke down just 
 before he had signed away the province which was his 
 pride. 
 
(CJjapter 
 
 HE Society of Friends had now reached a testing- 
 point in their history. Their principles were fully 
 developed, the days of their suffering over and 
 gone, their great men dead, and it was now to be seen 
 whether they were to become like those many religious 
 sects which existed merely to perpetuate dissension. If 
 it had been so, their history would henceforward have lost 
 all interest to others, however engaging it might have been 
 to themselves. But they were born for better things. 
 Having " been illuminated, and endured their great fight of 
 afflictions," they entered upon a God-given work, and hence 
 they still live and are honoured, while other sects, which 
 at one time promised as fairly, have sunk into obscurity 
 and contempt. In truth, their history from this period is 
 worthy of record only so far as they took part in schemes 
 of general philanthropy; and hence it becomes not so much 
 a history of Quakerism as of what Quakers did beyond 
 the narrow circle of their peculiar religion. During the 
 whole of the eighteenth century the Quaker faith and man- 
 ners remained as changeless as those of the Chinese. No 
 prophet arose among them who inherited the mantle of 
 Fox or Penn. No madman found his way into the sect to 
 shock or amuse the outside world by his extravagances. 
 These days were past for ever, and everything connected 
 
WORK TO BE DONE. 
 
 167 
 
 with the Friends wore an aspect as sober as the drab of 
 their garments. They had their weekly, monthly, quar- 
 terly, and yearly meetings, with perfect regularity, and 
 sometimes they were silent, and sometimes they spoke; but 
 a chronicle of their doings and sayings in this way would 
 not greatly edify the uninitiated. They must go beyond 
 themselves and do some work in the great world, if they 
 were to shew that they had not struggled into existence in 
 vain. 
 
 There was plenty of work waiting to be done, for the 
 system of things was not perfect in the eighteenth century. 
 Might not the Quakers bear their part in the regeneration 
 of the age ? Their religion was emphatically one of peace 
 and good- will. It had, moreover, consecrated in England, 
 before it was spoken in France, the idea of liberty, equality, 
 and fraternity. Their first leaders were living epistles of 
 their religion. George Fox was without doubt a great- 
 hearted man. He was no narrow sectarian though he dis- 
 sented from the church ; his dissent was in some respects 
 a protest against the narrowness of the church. He wished 
 broader ground, a more unfenced field on which to build 
 his hopes of heaven. Robert Barclay was conspicuously 
 gentle, loving, and loveable. William Penn shewed his 
 benevolence and humanity by refusing to follow in the 
 bloody tracks of Cortes and Pizarro, and so gained for him- 
 self the lasting veneration, not only of the artless Indians, 
 whom he had used kindly, but of all mankind. These 
 three men could scarcely fail to leave the stamp of their 
 own loving-kindness on their followers ; and thus, both by 
 precept and example, the primitive Quakers w-ere trained 
 for their future work. 
 
 In the early part of the eighteenth century the Quakers 
 were already known as a benevolent sect. One of our 
 testimonies to their worth comes from a quarter from which 
 
us 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 we should hardly have expected it. Voltaire, still a young 
 man, was at this time residing in England, having expatri- 
 ated himself on account of a brutal assault made upon him 
 by one of the blackguard nobles, who were then slowly 
 rilling up to the brim the cup of their order's iniquity. He 
 came in contact with some of the Quakers in London, and 
 was attracted by their simple manners, their benevolent 
 dispositions, their zeal for universal toleration, and their 
 attempt to lead Christianity back to its first forms. He 
 has left an account of them, which though in many points 
 embellished by imagination, and contrary to fact, is written 
 with his usual elegance and wit. " I love the Quakers," 
 he exclaims, and somewhat comically proceeds, "were it 
 not for the horrors of sea-sickness, would cross the Atlantic 
 and end my days in Pennsylvania."* Pity that so small a 
 matter should have prevented him. Like the Muscovite 
 Peter, he would have been a strange member of the Society 
 of Friends. 
 
 One of the great evils of the eighteenth century was 
 slavery and the slave-trade, and men did not see that it 
 was an evil. The most pious persons took part in the in- 
 famous traffic. To be the owner of a slave-vessel, and 
 make rich by the tears and blood of unhappy Africans, 
 violently reft from their homes and carried into captivity, 
 brought no slur upon the fairest fame. The thing had be- 
 come customary, and custom had given a false consecration 
 to the great crime. The Quakers were not so much superior 
 to their age as to have washed their hands of the accursed 
 thing from the first. Those of them who had settled in 
 America and the West Indies had slaves like their neigh- 
 bours. Slaves were even imported into Pennsylvania, and 
 
 * « Je vous dirai sans me repeter que j'aime les Quakers. Oui, si la mer ne me 
 faisait pas un mal insupportable, o e serait dans ton sein, O Pensilvanie ! que j 'irais 
 finir le reste de ma carriere, s'il y a du reste." — Questions sur VEncycloptdie. 
 
SLAVERY. 
 
 169 
 
 sold like cattle in the streets of Philadelphia, and no one 
 saw that it was a sin. Here there was a subject upon 
 which the Quakers might receive a ray of the true light, 
 and do some useful work. 
 
 Let us shortly glance, then, at the origin of a system, 
 the tearing down of which was to give work to the Quakers 
 during the eighteenth century. Slavery is nearly as old as 
 the world. It is the natural product of the state of things 
 where might is right. All the nations of antiquity had 
 their slaves, these being generally captives taken in war. 
 The Jews, in this respect, were not better than the Gentiles. 
 They had their bondsmen and their bondswomen, and 
 slavery was incorporated in the code of law given by God 
 to Moses amid the thunders of Horeb. After the breaking 
 up of the Roman Empire under the pressure of the hordes 
 of Huns, Goths, and Franks, who poured down upon the 
 southern and western countries of Europe and possessed 
 them, slavery again arose, and out of similar circumstances. 
 The conquered races became the slaves of the conquerors. 
 The serfdom which perished in Russia, only a few years ago, 
 prevailed over all Europe during the middle ages. The 
 population was bought and sold with the soil upon which 
 they resided, and which they were compelled to till. Some- 
 times they were even sold, or given in gift, apart from the 
 soil, but this was of comparatively rare occurrence. The 
 church was implicated in the universal sin ; and bishops 
 and monasteries had their slaves, who were sometimes be- 
 queathed to them as an act of piety, or in payment of 
 masses to be said for souls in purgatory. Gradually, how- 
 ever, and without any convulsion, in most cases even with- 
 out any new legislation on the subject, the hardy bondsmen 
 regained their independence, and by the beginning of the 
 fifteenth century the system of villanage had everywhere 
 died out in the west of Europe. 
 
170 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 The system of African slavery which sprung up in 
 America was of a different type from any which had pre- 
 viously existed in the world, and rose out of widely differ- 
 ent circumstances. When the Spaniards took possession 
 of the New World, which the genius of Columbus bestowed 
 upon them, not content with depriving the natives of their 
 cities and gold mines, their forests and fields, they reduced 
 them to the condition of slaves, and treated them with the 
 most inhuman cruelty. Under this barbarous usage the 
 population rapidly diminished. Small-pox and other deadly 
 diseases broke out amongst them, and carried thousands to 
 the grave. The gums of the forest and the gold of the 
 mine were like to be lost for want of labourers to gather 
 them. In these circumstances it occurred to some specu- 
 lators that the sturdy African race might be substituted in 
 the place of the sickly Indians. The Portuguese had already 
 settlements on the west coast of Africa ; and from these, so 
 early as 1503, a few negroes were carried across the Atlantic 
 and sold to the American planters as slaves. The experi- 
 ment succeeded beyond expectation. It was found that 
 one negro did the work of four Indians, and that while the 
 Indians were fast becoming extinct, the negroes were mul- 
 tiplying and giving promise that they would soon replenish 
 the land. 
 
 But one is surprised to find the benevolent Bartholomew 
 Las Casas, who had heroically devoted his life to mitigate 
 the sufferings of the Indians, appearing as the earnest ad- 
 vocate of the infamous traffic now fairly begun. The truth 
 is, the good priest had fixed his eyes so intently on the 
 woes of the Indians, and was so bent on delivering them 
 from the yoke of their oppressors, that he was ready to 
 embrace any project which would accomplish this result. 
 He laid before the Cardinal Ximenes, who at that time held 
 in his hands the government of Spain, a proposal to estab- 
 
THE SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 171 
 
 lish a regular system of traffic in negroes between Africa 
 and America. The statesman rejected the proposal of the 
 philanthropist, on the ground that it was wrong to deliver 
 the inhabitants of one country from bondage by consigning 
 those of another to its horrors. But, notwithstanding the 
 opposition of Ximenes, the trade increased, for nothing 
 could resist the lust for gold which had seized upon the 
 Spanish adventurers. When Charles V. ascended the 
 throne he took the traffic under his royal protection, and 
 in 1517 granted a patent to one of his Flemish favourites, 
 conferring upon him the exclusive right of importing 4,000 
 negroes into America. The favourite sold the monopoly 
 to some Genoese merchants for 25,000 ducats, and these 
 organised and extended the trade, so that vessels were now 
 continually crossing the ocean with their freights of hapless 
 victims, carried away from country and kindred to toil for 
 the Spaniards. At first they fetched a very high price in 
 the market, but they multiplied so rapidly, and were im- 
 ported in such numbers, that their value gradually fell, and 
 it was not long before there was a negro for every Spaniard 
 in the colonies. 
 
 In 1562, when Elizabeth was upon the throne, the trade 
 was recognised by the English Government, and a captain 
 so distinguished as Sir J ohn Hawkins engaged in it. But, 
 as the English had as yet no colonies in America, they had 
 only a small share of the piratical trade. It was 1616 be- 
 fore negroes were imported into Virginia, and these were 
 brought by a Dutch trader ; but as the experiment suc- 
 ceeded there as it had previously done in Hispaniola and 
 Mexico, the demand for more African slaves soon created 
 the means of supply, and the English entered upon the 
 trade with as great eagerness as ever the Spaniards had 
 done. As it was remunerative beyond any other, every 
 seafaring people soon became partners at once in its profits 
 
172 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 and its guilt. Nations, like individuals, struggled for the 
 largest share of its unholygains, and at the peace of Utrecht, 
 Great Britain, as part of the price of her victories at Mal- 
 plaquet and Blenheim, obtained the execrable privilege of 
 supplying slaves to Spanish America for thirty years, at 
 the rate of 4,800 annually, and, at the peace of Aix-la- 
 Chapelle, bargained for a continuation of the unblessed 
 monopoly. 
 
 Still no one rifted up his voice against the great sin, for 
 no one thought it a sin; and negroes were carried away 
 captive, and kept in captivity, with none to plead for them. 
 The Great Father, however, had "opened" very clearly to 
 the Quaker mind that " He had made of one blood all na- 
 tions to dwell on the face of the earth," and from this they 
 began very early to have a glimmering perception that they 
 ought to use the negroes like brothers, and not like brutes. 
 When George Fox was in Barbadoes, in 1671, he spake to 
 his brethren in this wise — " Consider with yourselves, if 
 you were in the same condition as the poor Africans are, 
 who came strangers to you, and were sold to you as slaves. 
 I say, if this should be the condition of you or yours, you 
 would think it a hard measure, yea, and very great bondage 
 and cruelty. And, therefore, consider seriously of this, and 
 do you for them, and to them, as you would willingly have 
 them or any others do to you, were you in the like slavish 
 condition, and bring them to know the Lord Christ." Fol- 
 lowing up these Christian principles, he exhorted the plant- 
 ers to charge their overseers to deal gently with their negroes, 
 and after a season of servitude to set them free. George 
 was thinking, no doubt, of the year of jubilee among the 
 Jews, and wishing to see it realised in Barbadoes. Here, 
 then, Fox himself deposited in the soul of his sect the small 
 seed, which was afterwards to be fruitful of such blessed 
 consequences. We need not wonder that the followers of 
 
THE QUAKERS HAVE SLAVES. 
 
 173 
 
 this man did so much in after years for the suppression of 
 the slave-trade. 
 
 The Quaker planters in Barbadoes acted upon the advice 
 of their venerated leader. They instructed their slaves in 
 the principles of Christianity, and even admitted them to 
 their religious meetings. The other planters instantly took 
 alarm. If the negroes, they said, imbibed the religion of 
 their masters, they could no longer be slaves. They would 
 rise in revolt, cut the throats of their owners, and spread 
 devastation over the whole island. The safet}^ of the island 
 must not be jeoparded for a religious whim. The slaves 
 must be kept in ignorance if they were to be kept in sub- 
 ordination. In accordance with these sentiments an act 
 was passed in 1676, prohibiting the Quakers from admitting 
 their negroes into their religious meetings.* Some of the 
 Quakers ventured to disregard this prohibition, and two of 
 them were severely fined for having had meetings at their 
 house at which negroes were present. But this severity 
 was not enough to deter this resolute people from doing 
 what they conceived to be their duty, and, accordingly, in 
 1680 the governor prohibited all meetings of the Society. 
 The same course was pursued in other islands, and the 
 Quakers were thus gradually expelled, and the African left 
 there to bear his fetters, for more than a century longer, 
 without a friend, f 
 
 Slavery had got a footing in Pennsylvania, and there 
 slaves were to be found tilling Quaker soil, and drudging 
 in Quaker houses ; but it was not suffered to exist long 
 without being questioned. Some German emigrants from 
 Kircheim, not far from the Rhine, who had adopted the 
 principles of Penn, and followed him to his promised land, 
 
 * Sewers History, p. 535. Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave- 
 Trade, Vol. I., p. 134. 
 
 t Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave-Trade, Vol, L, p. 135. 
 
174 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 have the high honour of having been the first to lift up 
 their voices against it. In the yearly meeting of the Society, 
 in 1688, they boldly proclaimed their opinion that the buy- 
 ing, selling, and holding men in slavery was inconsistent 
 with the principles of their religion. * Here was a blow 
 struck at the universal opinion of the day, which, in course 
 of time, must tell; for these Germans had seen the true 
 light more clearly than Fox, or any other man of their 
 time, and uttered a great truth which could not die. Once 
 spoken it was certain to become a power in the world. It 
 was eight years before it had quickened into sensitiveness 
 the Quakers of Pennsylvania ; but after eight years some 
 fruit of it was seen ; for, in the annual meeting of the pro- 
 vince in 1696, the subject of slavery was taken up as one 
 of public concern, and the brethren were warned to have 
 no hand in the future importation of African slaves, and to 
 be kind to those already in their possession, f They were 
 beginning to feel ill at ease, or, according to their own 
 dialect, "tender" in regard to their slaves. 
 
 When Penn visited the province in 1699 he took the 
 condition of the slaves into earnest consideration, for the 
 friend of the Indian could scarcely fail to take an interest 
 in the oppressed African. He began by recommending to 
 his sect that the proper treatment of their negroes should 
 be made a matter of Christian duty, and, as such, incorpo- 
 rated with the discipline of the Society. His persuasions 
 prevailed, and accordingly a minute was passed by the 
 monthly meeting of Philadelphia, and properly registered 
 there, by which a religious meeting, more particularly for 
 the negroes, was appointed to be held once every month. 
 Once every moon, then, the slave might meet and worship 
 with his master. It was but a small crumb of comfort 
 
 * Claikaon's History, Vol. I , p. 136. 
 
 t Ibid. 
 
PENN AND SLAVERY. 
 
 175 
 
 which was thus thrown to the dogs; they were to be 
 recognised as having souls to be saved, but still they were 
 to be detained in the house of bondage. Still, for that day 
 it was much, for it was the day of small things. Having 
 succeeded thus far with his sect, Penn next ventured upon 
 state legislation. He introduced into the assembly a bill 
 which was designed to protect the negroes from mal-treat- 
 ment, by appointing fair trials and legal punishments in 
 cases of alleged misconduct, and also to regulate their 
 marriages, and save the province from the sin and shame 
 of their promiscuous concubinage. But the legislators of 
 Pennsylvania were not so enlightened as its governor, and 
 the bill was thrown out* They were resolved to pre- 
 serve the proud privilege of whipping their niggers as they 
 pleased. Even among the Society of Friends the cause of 
 the slave made slow progress. For after the matter had 
 been allowed to rest for many years, the annual meeting 
 in 1711 did nothing more than repeat the advice which 
 had been given in 1696, that Friends should not import 
 negroes, and should treat tenderly those whom they had. 
 But let us be thankful that a gleam of light had broken 
 in upon the thick darkness; that some words had been 
 spoken which declared that to be wrong which every per- 
 son practised as right. 
 
 Such was the state of matters when William Penn 
 closed his troubled life, and bereft the Society of Friends 
 of the interest attaching to his great name. 
 
 The Quakers in England maintained a close correspon- 
 dence with their brethren in America. Reports of every- 
 thing of consequence which befell the Society on the one 
 continent, were rapidly transmitted to the other. The 
 struggles, the temptations, the backslidings of the Friends 
 
 * ClarksorTs Life of Penn, Vol. II , p. 473. 
 
176 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 in Philadelphia, were discussed at the annual meeting of 
 the Friends in London, and advice and encouragement sent 
 to them according to their need. When slavery began 
 gently to agitate the Quaker conscience in America, intelli- 
 gence of it reached the mother country, but it was some 
 years before it produced any visible effect. The question, 
 however, was discussed in private, information was slowly 
 accumulated, and at length the decision came. In 1727 
 the yearly meeting in London entered the following reso- 
 lution in their minutes : — " It is the sense of this meeting 
 that the importing of negroes from their native country 
 and relations by Friends is not a commendable nor allowed 
 practice, and is therefore censured by this meeting."* 
 
 It was a holy resolution. One body of Christians had 
 now branded the slave trade with infamy, and no Quaker 
 could henceforward engage in it without incurring the 
 censure of his Society. The trumpet had been sounded, 
 and it had given no uncertain sound; though, after all, it was 
 but a feeble blast. But from this time we date the com- 
 mencement of the Quaker crusade against slavery. From 
 the year of grace, 1727, every Quaker child would be 
 reared in an abhorrence of the traffic in which the most 
 pious of all other sects engaged. The Society had assumed 
 the attitude of protesters against the crime, and their pro- 
 test was sure to awaken doubts and alarm in consciences 
 not only within but beyond their pale. A few enlightened 
 and humane individuals had indeed before this time denied 
 the right of man to buy and sell his brother man, but their 
 individual voices had scarcely been heard. No church had 
 pronounced its anathemas on the sin. The Society of 
 Friends, though they cursed not at all, first pronounced its 
 solemn censure on it. And they were in many respects 
 
 * Extracts from the Minutes and Epistles of the Yearly Meeting of the Religious 
 Society of Friends, p. 113. 1861. 
 
THE QUAKER PHALANX. 
 
 177 
 
 well qualified for the work upon which they were almost 
 unconsciously entering, led by a higher than human hand. 
 They formed a compact band, bound to one another by 
 closer ties than those of a mere common Christianity. 
 " They were a chosen nation, a royal priesthood, a peculiar 
 people'' — feeling as the Christians must have felt toward 
 one another, and toward the world, during the first three 
 centuries. The very persecutions they had endured had 
 made them cling more closely together; they had been 
 welded into one in the fire. The wide Atlantic had not 
 been suffered to divide their sympathies or lessen their love, 
 and whatever affected one member of the body was in- 
 stantly felt by all the others. If they were comparatively 
 weak in numbers and influence, they could yet enter the 
 field of fight firm and compact as the Macedonian phalanx. 
 We cheer them and bless them as they march to the battle. 
 
 But while we admire the Quakers for having seen the 
 truth a little clearer than their neighbours, and bid them 
 God speed in the struggle upon which they are entering, 
 let us not too severely condemn those who did not see as 
 they did. All history teaches us to be charitable in our esti- 
 mate of the morals of a past period. While good and evil, 
 abstractly speaking, are immutable and eternal, the moral 
 sentiment of mankind has undergone many great revolu- 
 tions; it is, in truth, never fixed, it is continually fluctuating; 
 and as we differ from those who have gone before us in our 
 moral judgments, so will those who follow differ from us. 
 Accordingly, we must not judge the people of one age by 
 the standard of right and wrong set up in another, or we 
 shall judge unjustly. Utility, no doubt, lies at the bottom 
 of much virtue, if not all, and we are ever prone to exalt 
 into a virtue that which is simply useful to ourselves. So 
 the planters and slave-traders deceived themselves. The 
 slave-trade was believed to be beneficial to America and 
 
 M 
 
178 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 the whole civilised world ; it was particularly profitable to 
 those who were engaged in it, and the wrongs of Africa 
 and the sufferings of the slave were never taken into ac- 
 count. By the prevalence of this opinion a moral atmo- 
 sphere was created in which slave-holding and slave-deal- 
 ing, if not regarded as virtues, were neither condemned as 
 crimes. Before self-interest had created this state of feel- 
 ing men saw the truth more clearly, and were shocked at 
 practices to which they were afterwards reconciled. Car- 
 dinal Ximenes clearly saw the injustice and inhumanity of 
 the slave-trade. Queen Elizabeth, when her government 
 sanctioned the traffic, expressed, in her ignorance, a hope 
 that no negro would be carried off without his consent, as 
 nothing could be more sure to draw down the vengeance 
 of Heaven. Even Charles V., before he died, appears to 
 have repented of the sanction which he gave to the trade 
 in the commencement of his reign. Eighty years after this 
 no such qualms arose in either royal or priestly bosoms. 
 Unchallenged custom had sanctioned the trade. To think 
 it a crime now was to rise superior to the age — to throw 
 off the fetters of universal opinion. This is an achieve- 
 ment more difficult than we think, and even when a man, 
 by his superior moral stature, towers above his compeers, 
 and sees farther and clearer than they can, the chances are 
 that he has not the courage to fly in the face of society, 
 and make a martyr of himself for the sake of truth. 
 
 The difficulty of forming our moral judgments in such 
 cases is increased by the fact, that virtue, as well as vice, 
 sometimes springs from selfishness — like twin saplings from 
 the same root, though destined to bear such different fruit. 
 How much do we do from the hope of reward, and how 
 much do we not do from the dread of punishment, and how 
 entirely are we preserved in the path of rectitude by the 
 pressure on the one side and the other of these two opposite 
 
MORAL ANALYSIS. 
 
 179 
 
 and opposing forces ! Yet hope and fear are selfish, both 
 in their origin and end. It is probable we cheat even our- 
 selves in regard to this, for there is no such arrant impostor 
 as self, and what we call a man's character is generally the 
 product of a strange mixture of motives. The chemist 
 often startles us by his analysis, proving that substances 
 which we had fancied were simple are really composite, and 
 that elements which we could not have dreamt of enter 
 into their composition. But a careful mental analysis brings 
 to light facts quite as wonderful, and shews how many 
 opposing elements go to make up the man. Strange ! that 
 honour and honesty, that justice and truth, and even an 
 apparent piety, should spring from selfishness; that the 
 virtues should be so closely allied to the vices ; and that 
 here, as in the physical world, the fairest flowers and rich- 
 est fruits should grow from rank putridity. 
 
Chapter 3C£ 
 
 E must again cross the Atlantic, for after the Society 
 of Friends in London had pronounced its censure 
 upon the slave-trade, it sunk into silence, and 
 continued silent for many years. Still, its censure remained 
 to scare from the traffic any Quaker greedy of gain. 
 
 In America the system of slavery was ever present. The 
 rakish-looking slaver might be seen any day entering the 
 harbour, and, if you walked on board, the stench which rose 
 from between the decks, where hundreds of human beings 
 were stowed, was worse than that of any dog-kennel. You 
 could scarcely go to the market-place without seeing men 
 and women offered for sale, soul and body, to the highest 
 bidder. You could not ride into the country without see- 
 ing slaves at work in the sugar plantations and cotton fields, 
 jesting and frolicsome, perhaps, but still slaves. You might 
 avoid thinking about slavery in England, but you could 
 not do so in America. There it w^as constantly staring you 
 in the face, and asking your opinion of it ; demanding if it 
 was right that your fellow-creatures should be bought and 
 sold like brutes, and deprived for ever of that heritage of 
 liberty which is so dear to all ? The Quakers, who were 
 anxious to keep their consciences "tender," could not help 
 hearing these questions echoing everywhere. Hence the 
 
THE PIONEERS. 
 
 181 
 
 subject of slavery was much more agitated in Pennsylvania 
 than in Middlesex. It was never allowed altogether to 
 rest. From the day the German emigrants had pronounced 
 slave-keeping to be inconsistent with religion their voice 
 had never died away. 
 
 There were reformers before the Reformation — menwh;> 
 sowed the good seed, though they did not live to reap the 
 bountiful harvest. So there were slavery abolitionists be- 
 fore abolition had become a great public question — men 
 who have sunk into obscurity, but who were, nevertheless, 
 the pioneers in a glorious cause. Let us piously preserve 
 the names at least of the good Quakers who had the clearest 
 illumination on this subject, and the truest courage to fol- 
 low the light which God had given them. Among the first 
 of these was William Burling, a Quaker of Long Island, 
 who published several tracts upon slavery, and every year, 
 in the meeting of his Society, gave his testimony against 
 it. Next to him comes Ralph Sandiford, a merchant of 
 Philadelphia, This true Philadelphia^ published, in 1729 ; 
 a work upon slavery, entitled, the " Mystery of Iniquity," 
 in which he denounced the institution in energetic language, 
 and supported his conclusions by a multitude of facts. He 
 devoted a large part of his life to the cause which he ad- 
 vocated in his work, and went about urging upon all with 
 whom he came into contact the emancipation of their slaves. 
 Next to Sandiford, in this list of forerunners, stands Benja- 
 min Lay, a man of Abington. This Quaker, when in Eng- 
 land, was known to the royal family, and had the honour 
 of private access to its sacred circle. He was an eccentric 
 and hot-tempered, but. withal, benevolent man, and the 
 abolition of slavery was his hobby, and he rode it hard. 
 He published on the subject, and talked on the subject 
 wherever he went, and if any one ventured to say a word 
 in favour of the accursed thing, his terrible wrath was in- 
 
182 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 stantly kindled, and woe betide the man who had spoken 
 the apologetic word. 
 
 These men were like voices crying in the wilderness — 
 they were little heeded, for self-interest closes men's ears, 
 and shuts their eyes ; but there now arose a man who was 
 destined to make his opinions felt not only in his Society 
 but beyond it, and to inflict wounds upon the system of 
 slave-keeping which are open and bleeding to this day. 
 This was John Woolman, whose life and labours deserve a 
 fuller record. 
 
 John Woolman was born at Northampton in New Jersey, 
 in the year 1720. A Quaker by birth, the training which 
 he received increased his natural religious though tfulness ; 
 and even as a boy he was particularly solicitous to have a 
 conscience void of offence; he was even anxious, as he tells 
 us, to rival the good men, of whom he had read, who had 
 lived in the olden time, when " people walked in upright- 
 ness before God in a degree exceeding any that he knew or 
 heard of then living." To earn his bread he took employ- 
 ment from a shopkeeper. When in this situation his master 
 sold a negro woman, whom he chanced to have, and desired 
 him to write out a bill of sale; and the thing must be done 
 instantly, for the man who bought the woman was waiting 
 for the document. The duty which young Woolman was 
 thus called to discharge took him by surprise, and while he 
 wrote he could not help feeling what a horrid thing it was 
 for him to be writing an instrument of slavery for one of 
 his fellow-creatures. The thought haunted him afterwards, 
 and he could not help debating within himself whether he 
 should not in such a case have disobeyed his master, and 
 risked all rather than do what was wrong. Not long after 
 this he was subjected to a second temptation, and on this 
 occasion he triumphed over it. A young Quaker friend 
 asked him to write out for him a conveyance of a slave. 
 
JOHX WOOLMAX. 
 
 183 
 
 He at once replied that " he was not easy to write it," and 
 begged to be excused ; for though many of the Society kept 
 slaves, he thought it wrong. The acquaintance frankly 
 confessed that he had his misgivings too, but that as the 
 negress was a present to his wife he could not refuse her. 
 
 At the age of twenty-two Woolman was recognised as 
 a preacher in the Society of Friends, and he may be re- 
 garded as a good specimen of the best type of the American 
 Quaker of last century. He had learned in his youth 
 tailoring as well as shop-keeping, and, being a handy fellow, 
 he could draw a will for a friend, and even on occasion let 
 blood. Starting a store on his own account, his trade 
 quickly increased, but this only increased his distress, for 
 he thought his mind was thus being weaned from its in- 
 ward exercises ; and, moreover, that the trimmings which 
 he sold encouraged female vanity, and the rum and mo- 
 lasses were the produce of slaves. He therefore shut his 
 shop, and resolved to rely upon his thimble and needle 
 alone for support. Like other Quakers, he was favoured 
 with visions. On one occasion the true light appeared to 
 him, and twice he heard the words — Certain evidence of 
 Divine Truth. The light was "about nine inches diameter, 
 of a clear easy brightness, and near its centre most radiant." 
 His asceticism was curious. His conscience would upbraid 
 him for entering a carpeted room, and when he came to 
 England he took a steerage passage because he observed 
 some " carved work and imagery, and superfluity of work- 
 manship" about the cabin. When some drink was offered 
 him in a silver cup he burst into tears, and begged that a 
 plainer vessel might be given him. No dyed stuff was 
 allowed to form part of his clothing, as he thought dyeing 
 was designed not to remove dirt but to conceal it. But 
 notwithstanding his oddities and whims he was, no doubt, 
 a good and honest man. In 1746, in accordance Avith "draw- 
 
184 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 ings" which he had, he made a journey through Maryland, 
 Virginia, and North Carolina, where slaves were very 
 numerous; and at the different preaching-stations he gene- 
 rally resided with members of the Society, of whom many 
 were slave-owners. As he sat at their tables and partook 
 of their bounty, and reflected that it was wrung out of 
 slave labour, his conscience was offended — it was worse 
 than eating meat which had been offered to idols. "When 
 I ate, drank, and lodged free-cost," says the conscientious 
 Quaker, "with people who lived in ease on the hard labour 
 of their slaves, I felt uneasy ; and as my mind was inward 
 to the Lord, I found this uneasiness return upon me at times 
 through the whole visit. Where the masters bore a good 
 share of the burden, and lived frugally, so that their ser- 
 vants were well provided for, and their labour moderate, I 
 felt more easy. But where they lived in a costly way, and 
 laid heavy burdens on their slaves, my exercise was often 
 great, and I frequently had conversations with them in 
 private concerning it." These private conversations of the 
 earnest Quaker-preacher, no doubt, had their effect, for " a 
 word in season how good it is ! " 
 
 In 1753 Woolman published a book entitled "Considera- 
 tions on the Keeping of Negroes," which helped to leaven 
 the public mind with a sense both of the injustice and im- 
 policy of the system. He had soon several opportunities 
 of practically showing his consistency. Being a good pen- 
 man, and something of a lawyer, he was frequently asked 
 to write wills for the members of his sect, and on such 
 occasions he was always well paid for his work. About 
 this time a man came to him and asked him to write out a 
 will for his brother,, who lay sick ; but when Woolman 
 learned that he wished to bequeath his slaves to his chil- 
 dren he declined to do it. On two subsequent occasions, 
 shortly afterwards, he was solicited to do the same duty, 
 
EPISTLE ON SLAVERY. 
 
 185 
 
 and refused for the same reason; and he had his reward, for 
 in both cases the persons were so impressed by what he 
 said that they bequeathed liberty to their slaves, * and, no 
 doubt, died happier for having done so. 
 
 The Quaker-conscience was now beginning to be awakened ; 
 many Friends had emancipated their slaves, and others 
 were tormented by the struggle between interest and duty. 
 In this state of matters the yearly meeting of the Society 
 for Pennsylvania and Jersey ventured upon a fuller decla- 
 ration of its sentiments. It addressed a letter to all the 
 members of the Society within its jurisdiction, expressing 
 concern that any of them should be still implicated in a 
 system so contrary to religion and humanity. "Now, dear 
 Friends," says the epistle, " if we continually bear in mind 
 the royal law of doing to others as we would be done by, 
 we should never think of bereaving our fellow-creatures of 
 that valuable blessing — liberty; nor endure to grow rich by 
 their bondage. To live in ease and plenty by the toil of 
 those whom violence and cruelty have put in our power, 
 is neither consistent with Christianit} r nor common justice; 
 and we have good reason to believe draws down the dis- 
 pleasure of Heaven ; it being a melancholy but true reflec- 
 tion, that where slave-keeping prevails, pure religion and 
 sobriety decline.""!" The letter did not insist upon imme- 
 diate and unconditional emancipation, but it exhorted the 
 Quakers to desist from the importation and purchase of 
 negroes, to use kindly those whom they had, and to consider 
 how far they were at liberty to retain fellow-creatures in 
 bondage. Following up the opinions expressed in the let- 
 ter, the meeting of the Societ} r , in 1755, came to a resolution 
 
 * I have taken these particulars from Woolman's Journal — a book written with 
 much quaint simplicity, and betraying in every line an honest, conscientious, kind- 
 bear ted man. 
 
 t Clarkson's Abolition of the Slave Trade, Vol. l.,pp. 137-43. 
 
186 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 that if any of their members imported or purchased slaves, 
 the overseers should report them to their respective monthly 
 meetings, that "these might treat with them as they might 
 be directed in the wisdom of truth." * 
 
 By 1758 the Quakers in England had acquired fuller in- 
 formation regarding the slave trade, and the more they 
 knew of it the more they detested it; and, accordingly, they 
 at once placed themselves in the van of the movement 
 which had sprung up in the Society against it, and issued 
 a warning to all" their members against being implicated in 
 its unrighteous gains. "We fervently warn," said they, 
 " all in profession with us that they be careful to avoid 
 being any way concerned in reaping the unrighteous pro- 
 fits arising from the iniquitous practice of dealing in negroes 
 and other slaves ; whereby, in the original purchase, one 
 man selleth another as he doth the beast that perisheth, 
 without any better pretension to a property in him than 
 that of superior force, in direct violation of the gospel rule, 
 which teacheth all to do as they would be done by, and to 
 do good to all ; being the reverse of that covetous disposi- 
 tion which furnisheth encouragement to those poor ignorant 
 people to perpetuate their savage wars, in order to supply 
 the demands of this most unnatural traffic, by which great 
 numbers of mankind, free by nature, are subject to inex- 
 tricable bondage. * * We therefore can do no less than, 
 with the greatest earnestness, impress it upon Friends 
 everywhere that they endeavour to keep their hands clear 
 of this unrighteous gain of oppression." f 
 
 The English Quakers vigorously followed up the blow 
 which they had struck by striking another heavier still. 
 They had been behind their American brethren in begin- 
 ning the battle ; but, having fairly begun it, they fought it 
 
 * Clarkson's Abolition of the Slave Trade, Vol. I., p. 144. 
 
 t Extracts from the Minutes and Epistles of the Yearly Meeting, pp. 113-4. 1861. 
 
SLAVE-DEALERS DISOWNED. 
 
 187 
 
 more vigorously. They were not held back by the sight 
 of negroes in the houses of their wealthiest members. 
 Hitherto they had only warned those under their care of 
 the sin and shame of the slave-trade, but in 1761 they 
 resolved to disown any who should persist in it. " This 
 meeting" — such was their noble resolution — "having reason 
 to apprehend that divers under our name are concerned in 
 the unchristian traffic in negroes, doth recommend it ear- 
 nestly to the care of Friends everywhere, to discourage, as 
 much as in them lies, a practice so repugnant to our Chris- 
 tian profession; and to deal with all such as shall persevere 
 in a conduct so reproachful to Christianity ; and to disown 
 them if they desist not therefrom."* It was a memorable 
 resolution ! The Quakers were again a-head of all the 
 churches of Christendom, for not one of these had yet 
 dreamt of casting slave dealers out of its communion. But 
 henceforward no English Quaker could be a trafficker in 
 slaves. Verily these Friends seem to have had more of the 
 true light than was vouchsafed to others. 
 
 In 1763 they issued another exhortation to their mem- 
 bers, warning them against aiding or abetting the trade in 
 any shape. "We renew our exhortation," said they, "that 
 Friends everywhere be especially careful to keep their 
 hands clear of giving encouragement, in any shape, to the 
 slave-trade, it being evidently destructive of the natural 
 rights of mankind, who are all ransomed by one Saviour, 
 and visited by one divine light, in order to salvation ; a 
 traffic calculated to enrich and aggrandize some upon the 
 misery of others; in its nature abhorrent to every just and 
 tender sentiment, and contrary to the whole tenor of the 
 gospel." " By the minute which was made on this occasion," 
 says Clarkson, " I apprehend that no one belonging to 
 
 * Extracts from the Minutes and Epistles of the Yearly Meeting, p. 114. 1861. 
 
188 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 the Society could furnish even materials for a slave 
 voyage." * 
 
 Meanwhile, John Woolman was pursuing his philan- 
 thropic work on the other side of the Atlantic. In 1757 
 he travelled over Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, 
 for the express purpose of denouncing slavery in its strong- 
 hold. Like many other ardent reformers, however, "he 
 found that old Adam was too strong for young Melancthon." 
 He discovered it was no easy matter to convince men 
 against their own interests and wishes, and that conscience 
 is, in a marvellous degree, kept in leading-strings by selfish- 
 ness. " Soon after I entered this province," he says, in his 
 Quaker dialect, "a deep and painful exercise came upon me, 
 which I often had some feeling of since my mind was 
 drawn toward these parts. "+ Had he been lifted up, as 
 Fox often was, in a prophetic rapture, and seen these same 
 provinces a century afterwards deluged with civic blood 
 on account of that very institution which he then denounced 
 as sinful, his exercises would have been deeper and more 
 painful still. 
 
 In 1758 Woolman attended the yearly meeting of the 
 Society at Philadelphia, and urged upon his brethren that 
 it was high time they should take some more decisive steps 
 in regard to slavery, and " deal" with those who should 
 thereafter become purchasers of slaves. He had the satis- 
 faction of seeing a minute drawn up on the subject, and a 
 committee appointed to advance the cause which he had so 
 much at heart. Still the American Society hesitated to 
 cast out of their community all who persisted in the sin ; 
 but we shall applaud their courage for doing so much, rather 
 than blame their cowardice for doing so little, when we 
 remember how many sins are tolerated at this day by all 
 
 * Clarkson's Abolition of the Slave-Trade, Vol. I., p. 115. 
 f Woolman 's Journal, p. 137. 
 
ANTHONY BENEZET. 
 
 189 
 
 the churches in the world, because they are sanctioned by 
 custom and practised by all. For several years after this 
 Woolman devoted himself almost entirely to the anti- 
 slavery mission, for he felt that this was the work which 
 God had given him to do. He visited the different states, 
 and everywhere unburdened his mind to the planters and 
 the people. The good man had little genius, and only the 
 influence which a Quaker preacher may be presumed to 
 have ; but he had his " painful exercises," his deep convic- 
 tions, his earnest reasonings, his unfaltering persistency, 
 and 111th and truth on his side, and by these he conquered. 
 It is marvellous how much may be accomplished by such 
 humble instrumentalities ; how strongholds of error will 
 yield to them; just as the proudest cities and highest battle- 
 ments must ultimately fail before lines of ditches dug in 
 the earth. 
 
 Another Quaker now arose who was destined to have a 
 wider if not a more powerful influence than Woolman in 
 preparing the way for the abolition of slavery in his sect. 
 Anthony Benezet was born at St. Quentin, in Picardy, in 
 1713. While he was yet an infant, his father, who was a 
 Protestant, fled from the persecutions which followed the 
 revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and, after a short stay 
 in Holland, settled with his family in London. Anthony 
 there served his apprenticeship in an eminent mercantile 
 house, and in 1731 emigrated to Peimsylvania, where he 
 joined the Society of Friends. Instead of devoting him- 
 self to mercantile pursuits he became a schoolmaster, as he 
 imagined that in this way he would do most good ; and to 
 do good, rather than to make rich, he resolved should be the 
 object of his life. He early contracted a hatred of slavery, 
 and he lost no opportunity of inoculating his scholars with 
 his views. He seized upon other means of diffusing his 
 sentiments more widely. Almanacs at that period were 
 
190 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 more important publications than they are now ; besides 
 the days of the month and the eclipses of the moon, every 
 kind of information might be found in them; and the 
 reader, who probably never saw a newspaper, carefully 
 spelled through every page of these great depositaries of 
 wisdom and truth. Benezet managed to get articles calling 
 in question the justice of slavery and the slave-trade in- 
 serted in those published at Philadelphia. He made a still 
 larger use of the public press, which was now slowly rising 
 into power. He wrote in the newspapers as opportunities 
 of saying something in season occurred ; and published 
 tracts in which he denounced the trade in human beings 
 as iniquitous and accursed. 
 
 As his sentiments matured, and his stores of information 
 increased, he resolved upon a more ambitious work than 
 any he had yet attempted, and in 1762 published a treatise, 
 entitled, " A short account of that part of Africa inhabited 
 by the Negroes." Five years afterwards he published " A 
 Caution and Warning to Great Britain and her Colonies, 
 on the calamitous state of the enslaved negroes in the British 
 Dominions ;" and not long afterwards appeared his ablest 
 work — "An Historical Account of Guinea; its situation, 
 produce, and the general disposition of its inhabitants ; 
 with an Inquiry into the rise and progress of the Slave 
 Trade, its nature and calamitous effects." This treatise is 
 said to have produced a greater effect than any book on 
 the subject hitherto published in America. Woolman had 
 confined his attention principally to slavery as it existed 
 in their midst, as a " domestic institution ;" Benezet struck 
 his blows chiefly at the slave-trade, as he regarded it as the 
 root of the evil, and as it presented the system in its most 
 painful aspects. 
 
 But about this time an event occurred in England which 
 had a prodigious effect upon the fortunes of slavery. It 
 
GRANVILLE SHARP. 
 
 191 
 
 was not unusual for American and West Indian planters, 
 when they visited England, to bring a negro servant with 
 them. Some of these had absconded, and in several cases 
 had been seized again, and carried back to captivity. But 
 this had given rise to much questioning as to whether or 
 not slavery could exist on British soil. In 1729 the attor- 
 ney and solicitor-general for the time, had unfortunately 
 given it as their opinion that a slave, by coming into Great 
 Britain or Ireland, did not become free, and was still the 
 property of his master, even though he had been baptized ; 
 but many believed that this opinion was contrary to the 
 most fundamental principles of English law. Among these 
 was Granville Sharp. He had studied law for the very 
 purpose of satisfying himself on this point, and published 
 a book on the subject, entitled, " A Representation of the 
 injustice and dangerous tendency of tolerating Slavery in 
 England/' and had been the means of saving from slavery 
 several run-away negroes. Still the broad question, whether 
 a slave, by coming into England, became free ? had never yet 
 been authoritatively settled. Mr. Sharp resolved to have this 
 question tried before the highest tribunal in the kingdom, 
 and a case was soon found for trying it. James Somerset, 
 an African slave, had been brought to England by his 
 owner in 1709, and, after a while, absconded. His master, 
 however, took an opportunity of seizing him, and had him 
 put on board a vessel to be carried to Jamaica ; but before 
 the vessel set sail he was brought back by a writ of habeas 
 corpus, and his case was to decide whether or not slavery 
 could exist in England. In 1772 the case was tried; the 
 eloquence of the greatest luminaries of the English bar 
 was exerted on behalf of the oppressed Africans, and the 
 memorable decision of Lord Mansfield was, that as soon as 
 a slave sets his foot on English soil, that moment he is free. 
 In the year in which this celebrated trial occurred 
 
192 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 Woolman was in England. He did not find slaves in York- 
 shire as he had found them everywhere in Maryland and 
 Carolina ; but he could not forbear from speaking of that 
 which was ever present to his mind, and had formed the 
 labour of his life. At the quarterly meeting of the Society 
 of Friends for that county he addressed his brethren upon 
 slavery, and earnestly urged them to do all in their power 
 to have it abolished everywhere and for ever. It was his 
 last testimony on behalf of the oppressed, for a few days 
 afterwards he was seized Avith small-pox — a disease which 
 had not yet been deprived of its sting — and died in York 
 in the house of a Friend. His humble labours deserve a 
 perpetual record. He is one of the many examples which 
 history affords of men with but slender talents and small 
 means accomplishing much through the mere power of 
 perseverance. He had little eloquence, and less learning, 
 but he saw clearly and felt profoundly, and did more than 
 perhaps any other man to lead the American Quakers to 
 wash their hands of the guilt of slavery. He died in the 
 faith, not having yet received the promises, but he saw 
 them afar off. 
 
 Though Woolman now rested from his labours, Benezet 
 continued the good work. He entered into a correspon- 
 dence with Granville Sharp, who had obtained a world- 
 wide celebrity for having preserved England from the 
 taint of slavery ; and also with George Whitefield and 
 John Wesley, both of whom had, when in America, ex- 
 pressed their sympathy with the suffering slaves. On the 
 recommendation of Whitefield, the Countess of Huntingdon 
 had founded and endowed a college, called the Orphan 
 House, near Savannah, in Georgia, to furnish a good educa- 
 tion to the poor, and train those who had talents and piety 
 for the ministry. Whitefield, in his large-heartedness, had 
 even dreamed that negroes might some day be educated 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF MANUMISSION. 
 
 193 
 
 there. But soon after his death the trustees for the col- 
 lege purchased a large number of slaves to extend the rice 
 and indigo plantations belonging to the college. Benezet, 
 indignant at this perversion of the gift of a religious lady, 
 wrote to the countess, pointing out the misery she was 
 unwittingly causing in Africa by allowing the managers of 
 her college in Georgia to give encouragement to the slave- 
 trade. The answer from the countess was such as we 
 would expect from her. She said that such measures for 
 enriching the orphan-house would never have her sanction, 
 and she would take care to put a stop to them* 
 
 The yearly meetings in America had hitherto shrunk 
 from the decisive step of casting out of their communion 
 all who had property in slaves. But matters were gradu- 
 ally ripening toward this consummation. The number of 
 Quakers who had slaves was daily growing less. Many 
 were setting the noble example of liberating those whom 
 they had. And emancipation was no easy matter. It was 
 not only the loss of property — and some men's principal 
 wealth consisted in slaves — but the hardship of complying 
 with the requirements of the law in regard to manumission. 
 The legislation of the States had been studiously framed 
 to prevent the liberation of slaves by liberal-minded 
 masters. In Pennsylvania, where the law was least rigid, 
 the man who manumitted a slave was obliged to enter 
 into a bond for the payment of £30, in case the slave be- 
 came liable to the state for his maintenance. In New 
 Jersey the owner was liable for all the consequences which 
 might result from the misconduct of a liberated slave, and 
 even for the misconduct of his posterity. In the more 
 Southern States the conditions were so hard as to amount 
 
 * Clarkson's Abolition of the Slave- Trade, Vol. I., pp. 171 -2. 
 
 N 
 
194 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 to prohibition. The presence of a liberated slave was felt 
 to have a bad effect upon all the slaves in the district ; it 
 created a feeling of restlessness amongst them; and the 
 planters were resolved that there should be no negroes in 
 America but those in bondage. ^Notwithstanding these 
 difficulties, the Quakers were not deterred from doing 
 what was right. They sacrificed their property, and risked 
 the penalties of the law. There were examples of still 
 nobler disinterestedness. One man, Warner Mifnin by 
 name, with a generosity almost Quixotic, not only manu- 
 mitted his slaves, but paid the wages which were due to 
 them from the first day of their servitude, according to 
 the award of arbiters mutually chosen. 
 
 Such was the state of matters when the yearly meeting 
 of the Society for Pennsylvania and the Jerseys resolved 
 to take the decisive step. The pear was ripe. In 1774 it 
 was agreed that any member who took part in importing, 
 buying or selling negroes, or keeping them in slavery be- 
 yond the term of servitude allowed in the case of white 
 persons, should be disowned. Two years afterwards the 
 good work of emancipation among the Quakers was com- 
 pleted by a resolution, that the owners of slaves who 
 refused to execute proper instruments for manumitting 
 them should be cast out of the Society* Every Quaker 
 must now part with his slaves, or part with his religious 
 profession. The Friends in America, amidst innumerable 
 difficulties, had at length reached the same point as the 
 Friends in England, and declared that no slave -owner 
 could be one of their Society. It was nobly done ! These 
 men, whose grandfathers many thought were fit only for 
 bedlam as religious enthusiasts, had set such an example 
 
 * Clarkson's Abolition of the Slave-Trade. Vol. I., pp. 144-5. 
 
THE QUAKERS LIBERATE THEIR SLAVES. 
 
 195 
 
 of philanthropy, and of devotion to the principles of their 
 faith, as the world has seldom seen. 
 
 Pennsylvania and Jersey had set the example, and it 
 was soon followed by the other sections of the Society of 
 Friends scattered over America. The yearly meetings of 
 New England, New York, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, and 
 the Carolinas, entered similar resolutions in their minute- 
 books, and slavery was everywhere cast out, like another 
 Cain, with the brand of murder on its brow. There were 
 still a few Quakers "who had slaves, but these resolutions 
 of their Society quickened the work of emancipation, and 
 by 1780 there was not a single slave in the possession of 
 an acknowledged Quaker. We may say, and that truly, 
 that there is no other instance on record of religion having 
 obtained so decisive a victory over selfishness. It is diffi- 
 cult to point to any church which has used its power for 
 the attainment of an object so truly humane. 
 
 While the Friends in Pennsylvania and Jersey were 
 framing their first decisive resolution for ejecting all slave- 
 owners from their communion, the English colonies in 
 America were in a state of violent agitation. The British 
 government had claimed the power of taxing the colonists 
 for imperial purposes, and had, in fact, imposed taxes on 
 many articles imported into the colonies, but the descend- 
 ants of the puritans, who had overthrown the English 
 monarchy and brought the king to the block, declared that, 
 seeing they had no share in the government, they would 
 not submit to be taxed for its support. In 1775 war broke 
 out between the colonies and the mother countiy, and raged 
 with various success for eight years : but the Quakers had 
 no liberty to use a carnal weapon, and therefore they stood 
 aloof from the struggle. In 1783 the independence of the 
 United States was fully acknowledged by Great Britain, 
 
J 06 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 and the people of peace gladly saw their brothers sheathe 
 their swords and resume the labours of the plough. When 
 the new republic was proclaimed, it was based on the es- 
 sential equality and natural liberty of all men; t but the 
 Quakers alone saw the applicability of this great truth to 
 the slaves. 
 
Chapter IH\ 
 
 HE Quakers had now washed their hands clean of 
 the guilt of slavery. But the Quakers were a 
 speck in Christendom, and every other church 
 and sect took slave-dealers to their bosom, and freely ad- 
 ministered to them the holiest rites of religion without a 
 word of censure. To buy and sell human beings, and per- 
 petrate upon them all unheard of horrors, was not thought 
 deserving of the anathemas which were pronounced so 
 freely upon those who could not believe all the clauses of 
 the Athanasian creed. But there were symptoms of a 
 moral awakening on this matter beyond the pale of the 
 Society of Friends. Some enlightened men had raised 
 their voices against the universal wrong, and the number 
 of these protesters was increasing every day. Adam Smith 
 and William Paley, in their respective moral systems, 
 had declared slave- dealing and slave-owning to be a sin : 
 Bishops Warburton and Porteous had denounced the system 
 from the pulpit ; Cowper had done the same in his boldest 
 verse ; and Granville Sharp had already begun the work 
 of emancipation. The moral sense of the community was 
 gradually being purged of the film which had for so long 
 a period prevented it from knowing good and evil. Still 
 the evil continued to gain strength every year, and to strike 
 its roots deeper into the social system of the Xew World. 
 
THE QUAKERS. 
 
 It was already becoming plain that it could not be removed 
 without kingdoms being convulsed. 
 
 Having cleansed their own house the Quakers began to 
 counsel others to do the like. They had long ago ceased to 
 be zealous propagandists of their peculiar faith ; they now 
 became the earnest apostles of negro-emancipation. They 
 did not call upon others to believe as they believed, but to 
 do as they had done. They thus ceased to be sectarians, 
 for their appeal was to the universal conscience of mankind. 
 It was nobler work ; and they exhibited the same courage, 
 devotedness, and perseverance in performing it, which their 
 grandfathers had exhibited in preaching the inward light 
 and the sinless life. They were in many ways fitted for 
 the work. The whole generation of Quakers then living 
 had been educated in an abhorrence of slavery, for it was 
 more than half a century since the Society had entered 
 upon its minutes an energetic condemnation of the system. 
 They, moreover, occupied a position from which they could 
 assail it with advantage. Most of them belonged to the 
 trading classes, and at that period these classes were 
 rapidly rising into importance. Moreover, it was the 
 trading classes who were chiefly implicated in the crime: 
 and when the Quakers attacked it their conduct could not 
 be imputed either to class jealousy or to indifference to the 
 interests of trade. In all lawful ways they were as keen 
 traders as any, and many of them had made rich by their 
 enterprise. 
 
 In June 1783, a bill had been brought into the House of 
 Commons to regulate the African trade, and the Quakers 
 seized upon this occasion to bring their views before the 
 legislature, by petitioning it to abolish the slave-trade 
 entirely. 
 
 " Your petitioners/' said they, " met in this, their annual 
 assembly, having solemnly considered the state of the en- 
 
THE QUAKERS PETITION PARLIAMENT. 
 
 199 
 
 slaved negroes, conceive themselves engaged, in religious 
 duty, to lay the suffering situation of that unhappy people 
 before you, as a subject loudly calling for the humane in- 
 terposition of the legislature. 
 
 "Your petitioners regret that a nation professing the 
 Christian faith should so far counteract the principles of 
 humanity and justice, as by the cruel treatment of this 
 oppressed race to fill their minds with prejudices against 
 the mild and beneficent doctrine of the gospel. 
 
 " Under the countenance of the laws of this country 
 many thousands of these our fellow-creatures, entitled to 
 the natural rights of mankind, are held as personal property 
 in cruel bondage; and your petitioners being informed that 
 a bill for the regulation of the African trade is now before 
 the house, containing a clause which restrains the officers 
 of the African Company from exporting negroes, your 
 petitioners, deeply affected with a consideration of the 
 rapine, oppression, and bloodshed attending this traffic, 
 humbly request that this restriction may be extended to all 
 persons whomsoever, or that the house would grant such 
 other relief in the premises as in its wisdom may seem 
 meet." 
 
 Such was the first petition for the abolition of slavery 
 and the slave-trade, ever presented to the British House of 
 Commons. Here, as elsewhere, the Quakers led the van. 
 Sir Cecil Wray, on presenting the petition, expressed his 
 respect for the Society of Friends, and said he hoped he 
 would see the day when there would not be a slave in the 
 British dominions. In the course of the debate Lord North 
 said that the object which the petition had in view ought 
 to recommend it to every humane heart, that it did credit 
 to the most benevolent Society in the world ; but that the 
 session was too far advanced to take the subject into con- 
 sideration; and, moreover, that the slave-trade, against 
 
200 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 which the petition was so justly directed, had become, in a 
 commercial point of view, necessary to almost every nation 
 of Europe.* So it was then thought. To such a height, 
 indeed, had the trade grown, that sagacious statesmen and 
 calculating merchants firmly believed that if it were stop- 
 ped, the commerce and the mercantile marine of Great 
 Britain would be ruined, grass would grow on the streets 
 of Liverpool and Bristol, and the wealthiest traffickers be 
 reduced to beggary. Such being the state of feeling, the 
 Quakers' petition was ordered to lie upon the table, not- 
 withstanding the handsome things which were said about 
 it. The fate of the Bridgewater petition, which was pre- 
 sented two years afterwards, was the same. " There did 
 not appear," wrote the members for Bridgewater to their 
 constituents, " the least disposition to pay any further at- 
 tention to it. Everyone almost says that the abolition of 
 the slave-trade must immediately throw the West Indian 
 Islands into convulsions, and soon complete their utter 
 ruin."-f- 
 
 The very year in which the Society of Friends presented 
 their petition, a case was tried in which facts were brought 
 to light which made a profound impression on the public 
 mind. The underwriters of the slaver-ship Zong alleged 
 that her captain and officers, during a voyage, had thrown 
 overboard one hundred and thirty- two slaves alive into the 
 sea. In the course of the trial it came out that the slaves 
 on board the Zong were very sickly; that sixty had already 
 died, and more were likely to follow ; when the captain 
 proposed to his mate to throw a number of them overboard, 
 remarking, "that if they died a natural death the loss 
 would fall upon the owners of the ship, but that if they 
 were thrown into the sea it w^ould fall upon the under- 
 
 * Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave-Trade, Vol. I., pp. 119-20. 
 f Clarkson's Abolition of the Slave-Trade,Vol. I, p. 107. 
 
THE SLAVE-SHIP ZOXG. 
 
 201 
 
 writers." The diabolical plea was approved of, and a 
 hundred and thirty-two of the most sickly slaves were 
 selected as the victims. Fifty-four of these were imme- 
 diately consigned to the waves, and forty-two more on the 
 following day. Still the hecatomb was not complete, and 
 the heart of the skipper, accustomed to such horrors, did 
 not relent. Three days afterwards the remaining twenty- 
 six were brought on deck to share the fate of their com- 
 panions. Sixteen of these were laid hold of and swung 
 overboard, when the remaining ten, with the spirit of heroes, 
 escaped from their murderers by themselves leaping into 
 the sea. So the Atlantic waves closed over these one 
 hundred and thirty-two sickly negroes that the under- 
 writers might, peradventure, pay their price to the owners 
 of the ship ; and yet no gallows was erected for the men 
 who did the deed. But the heart of the nation was touched 
 with pity when it thought of the scene on board that ship 
 far out at sea. 
 
 The yearly meeting of the Society, in 1783, not only 
 resolved to petition the legislature against the slave-trade, 
 but referred the consideration of the whole matter to the 
 " Meeting for Sufferings " — a committee first appointed 
 when the Quakers were themselves in the furnace of afflic- 
 tion. This committee resolved to publish an address, en- 
 titled, " The case of our fellow-creatures, the oppressed 
 Africans, respectfully recommended to the serious considera- 
 tion of the legislature of Great Britain." Two thousand 
 copies of this pamphlet were printed, and copies of it sent 
 to the king and queen, to all the great officers of state, and 
 to every member of both houses of parliament. Two years 
 afterwards the same committee recommended the quarterly 
 meetings to distribute a work on slavery by Benezet, en- 
 titled, "A Caution to Great Britain and her Colonies." The 
 book was accordingly widely circulated among the clergy, 
 
202 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 and justices of the peace, and also in several of the great 
 public schools, as it was thought important to leaven the 
 minds of the young with information on the subject. * 
 
 Not content with acting through their Society at its 
 usual meetings, a number of Quakers resolved to form 
 themselves into an association to promote the abolition of 
 slavery. One of these was William Dillwyn, a pupil of 
 Benezet, who had learned in his school at Philadelphia the 
 iniquity of the slave system. So some seed always falls 
 on good soil, and brings forth its fifty-fold. The first 
 meeting of the association was held on the 7th of July 
 1783, when the fearful revelations regarding the ship Zong 
 were still fresh in every mind ; and, according to their 
 minute, "they assembled to consider what steps they should 
 take for the relief and liberation of the negro slaves in the 
 West Indies, and for the discouragement of the slave-trade 
 on the coast of Africa." They were wise enough to see 
 that the first thing to be done was to enlighten the public 
 mind, and so bring the force of a regenerated opinion to 
 their help. The newspaper press was then rapidly rising 
 into power, and they sought its aid. Before the close of 
 the year they had secured a place in the columns of the 
 General Evening Post, Lloyd's Evening Post, and the Nor- 
 wich, Bath, York, Bristol, Sherborn, Liverpool, Newcastle, 
 and other provincial papers. To these they sent original 
 contributions, and such extracts, both in prose and verse, 
 from esteemed authors, as they thought would interest and 
 instruct the popular mind. In the following year they 
 extended their operations by printing a treatise, entitled, 
 " Thoughts on the Slavery of the Negroes," which they dis- 
 tributed at their own cost. Such, then, was the first asso- 
 ciation ever formed for the abolition of slavery, and every 
 
 * Clarkson's Abolition of the Slave- Trade, Vol. I., p. 122. 
 
DEATH OF BEXEZET. 
 
 203 
 
 member of it was a Quaker. The broad-brims were still 
 in the fore-front of the battle. 
 
 The news of this association having been formed, that it- 
 had already done some good work, and that William Dill- 
 wyn was an active member of it, had time to reach America 
 to gladden an old faithful heart before it ceased to beat. 
 
 o 
 
 The long career of Anthony Benezet was now drawing to 
 a close. When the American war ceased, in 1783, the 
 venerable man wrote a letter to Queen Charlotte, in the 
 hope that he might interest her in the suppression of the 
 slave-trade. " I hope," says he in his concluding sentence, 
 " thou wilt kindly excuse the freedom used on this occasion 
 by an ancient man, whose mind, for more than forty years 
 past, has been much separated from the common intercourse 
 of the world, and long painfully exercised in the considera- 
 tion of the miseries under which so large a part of man- 
 kind, equally with us, the objects of redeeming love, are 
 suffering the most unjust and grievous oppression." For 
 the last two years of his life he had been principally occu- 
 pied in superintending a school for negroes, which he had 
 founded a.t Philadelphia, and to which it was discovered, 
 after his death, that he had bequeathed his all — the hard 
 savings of fifty years pedagogic toil. After a few days' 
 illness, in the spring of 1784, he rested from his labours. 
 Several thousand Philadelphian citizens followed his re- 
 mains to the grave, and the procession was closed by a long 
 train of negroes, who had been personally benefitted by his 
 kindness and his toils. A good man was that day laid in 
 the dust. 
 
 Up to this time the agitation for abolition had been 
 carried on almost entirely by the Society of Friends. But 
 now the lead was to be taken by others. In 1785 Dr. 
 Peckhard, the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, 
 prescribed, as the subject of a Latin prize essay, " Anne 
 
204 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 liceat invitos in servitutem dare ? " * Thomas Clarkson 
 competed for this prize and obtained it, and this circum- 
 stance was to alter the current of his life, prevent him be- 
 coming a priest of the Church of England, and make him 
 an apostle of abolition. Rightly regarding the question as 
 referring to African slavery, he had, while preparing his 
 essay, purchased Benezet's "Historical Account of Guinea," 
 to obtain information from it, and, from the moment he 
 read it, his mind was haunted with visions of negro suffer- 
 ing, aud with the conviction that he was bound to do what 
 he could to bring the sore evil to an end. - !* Meditating 
 much upon what a young David like him could do against 
 the great Goliath, and with what weapons he could fight, 
 he thought he might at least translate his prize-essay into 
 English, and publish it. At this juncture he was fortu- 
 nately thrown into the company of some Quakers, who 
 encouraged his design ; for, quick of hearing in matters of 
 philanthropy, they had heard of the essay and were most 
 anxious it should be published. Published it accordingly 
 was by an eminent Quaker bookseller named James Phil- 
 lips ; and Clarkson, as much by the new associations he had 
 now formed, as by the sentiments he had given to the world, 
 was gradually led to devote his life to an agitation for the 
 abolition of the slave-trade. 
 
 The traffic in negroes had by this time risen to an enor- 
 mous height, and slave factories had been planted along 
 the whole western coast of Africa, from Cape Verd to the 
 equator, by the English, Dutch, French, and Portuguese 
 traders. To these great droves of slaves were brought 
 down from the interior by slatees, or native slave-mer- 
 chants, and bartered for articles of European merchandise. 
 Having thus changed hands, like so many head of cattle, 
 
 * " Is it right to devote persons to slavery against their will ? " 
 t Clarkson's Abolition of the Slave- Trade, Vol. 1., p. 207. 
 
THE MIDDLE PASSAGE. 
 
 205 
 
 they were kept at the factory till a slaver appeared in the 
 offing. They were then hurried on deck, thrust down into 
 the hold, crowded and crammed there, like herrings in a 
 barrel, to be carried across the Atlantic and sold into per- 
 petual servitude. At the time I speak of, nearly one 
 hundred thousand negroes were thus annually carried away 
 from their native country, and consigned to bondage in the 
 plantations of America. Of these, about 38,000 were taken 
 in British vessels alone. Here was a sore evil under the 
 sun. 
 
 But this was not the whole evil. When the abolitionists 
 began to trace the traffic back to its first ramifications, they 
 discovered that the supply of these hundred thousand 
 negroes for exportation kept a large portion of the conti- 
 nent of Africa in a state of constant war. Chiefs made 
 war upon one another merely for the purpose of making 
 captives and selling them. One village made a sudden and 
 unprovoked raid upon another, carried away one-half of its 
 sleeping population, and disposed of them for a few yards 
 of red cloth to the passing slatee. Reprisals were certain, 
 and thus the whole country was a scene of bloody feuds. 
 
 The sufferings which were endured by the captives on 
 their voyage across the Atlantic — " the horrors of the 
 middle passage," as it was called — formed another terrible 
 ingredient in this cup of anguish, which the Africans were 
 called upon to drink. A comparatively small vessel would 
 carry away five or six hundred negroes. The space between 
 decks, where they were stowed, was sometimes not more 
 than two and a-half feet. Chained together two and two, 
 they were packed so close that they had scarcely room to 
 sit, much less to stand. The stench became intolerable. 
 No pandemonium which the human imagination has con- 
 ceived could equal that which was constantly realised be- 
 tween the decks of the slave ship, as, with double-reefed 
 
206 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 sails, she rode the storms of the Atlantic. Disease infallibly 
 broke out in its most virulent forms, and, not unfrequently, 
 of five hundred miserable human beings shipped, two 
 hundred had died in agony, and been consigned to the deep 
 before the vessel reached its port. On an average, twelve 
 and a-half per cent, died on the passage; four and a-half per 
 cent, while the ship lay in the harbour, and before its sickly 
 cargo could be sold ; and one-third more before they were 
 seasoned ; so that out of every hundred healthy negroes 
 carried away from Africa, not more than fifty lived to be 
 useful labourers in America. 
 
 Such was the state of matters when Clarkson resolved 
 to organise an association for the abolition of this diabolical 
 trade. He and some like-minded friends accordingly met, 
 formed themselves into an association, and appointed a 
 committee to carry out their views. At the head of the 
 committee the venerable Granville Sharp was placed, and 
 he well deserved the honour. Of the eleven others, nine 
 were Quakers, for the Friends were quite ready to co- 
 operate with men of a different creed and a different church 
 in so holy a cause. Clarkson instantly began to collect 
 evidence in regard to the traffic, and wherever he went he 
 received the hearty co-operation of the members of the 
 Society of Friends. While others were, in general, igno- 
 rant or indifferent, if not hostile, they, to a man, sympa- 
 thised with him, and were ready to give him a helping 
 hand; for they and their fathers before them had been 
 trained in a hatred of slavery in all its forms. It was in 
 1787 that Clarkson began his labours, under the auspices 
 of the association he had formed, and in little more than a 
 year the cause had arrested the attention of leading men 
 both in France and Germany ; it had been brought under 
 the notice of the British Government, and, less or more, of 
 the whole British people. Of the success of the association 
 
WILLIAM WILBERFORCE. 
 
 207 
 
 Clarkson himself remarks — " No better proof could be 
 offered, than that even bishops condescended to address an 
 obscure committee, consisting principally of Quakers, and 
 that churchmen and dissenters forgot their difference of 
 religious opinion, and joined their hands, all over the king- 
 dom, in its support."* 
 
 A leading man in parliament was needed, for parliament 
 only could put down the cruel trade; and William Wilber- 
 force was early enlisted in the cause. So early as 1787 he 
 solemnly resolved to make the abolition of the slave-trade 
 one of the great objects of his life ; and in that same year 
 he brought the matter before parliament, and obtained the 
 appointment of a committee to collect evidence. For the 
 next twenty years the war raged with little intermission ; 
 for it required a conflict of twenty years to tear down a 
 system so gigantic, and so firmly based on human selfish- 
 ness. But in 1807 a bill was carried through both houses 
 of parliament declaring the traffic illegal, and punishable 
 by fine and forfeiture. Four years afterwards an act was 
 carried by Lord Brougham, making it felony, and punish- 
 able by transportation for fourteen years. But even this 
 was found to be insufficient to check a trade of which the 
 profits were so enormous, and, accordingly, in 1824, a bill 
 was passed declaring it to be piracy, and its punishment 
 death. Other countries followed the noble example which 
 Britain had set. 
 
 But though the slave-trade was thus declared to be 
 piracy by the British government, slavery still existed in 
 the British possessions — in Jamaica, in Antigua, in Bar- 
 badoes, and the other West Indian Islands subject to the 
 British sway. But the agitation against it now acquired 
 additional strength from the whole force of public opinion 
 
 * Clarkson's Abolition of the Slave-Trade, Vol. I., p. 572. 
 
208 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 being directed against it alone. The Quakers were still 
 in the front of the movement — ever ready with their purse, 
 or influence, or eloquence, to aid the cause to which their 
 Society was so deeply pledged. In 1833 righteousness 
 prevailed, and slavery was abolished in all the British 
 possessions ; and, after an apprenticeship of four years, every 
 slave within the reach of English law was free. Thus had 
 the truth, which was first spoken in the meetings of the 
 Friends, under an illumination truly divine, grown and 
 still grown, till it was able to grapple with the most gigan- 
 tic evil of the day and overthrow it. 
 
 But after all, though the victory appeared great, how 
 little was done. In the course of the contest slavery had 
 indeed been driven from the Northern States of the Ameri- 
 can Union. It had long ago disappeared from New England 
 and Pennsylvania, where it would undoubtedly have taken 
 root had not the Quakers lifted up their voice against it. 
 It was now driven from all the British possessions, and 
 twenty millions cheerfully paid as the ransom of the slaves 
 who were set free. But, speaking of Christendom alone, 
 it still existed in the Southern States of America, in Cuba, 
 in Brazil, and in other countries besides. Nor had the 
 slave-trade been put down, though it had been declared 
 piratical by almost every civilised country in the world, 
 and though a line of British cruisers were constantly main- 
 tained on the African coast to capture vessels engaged in 
 it. On the contrary, it became more prosperous and more 
 cruel than ever. About twenty years ago it was calculated 
 by Sir T. Fowell Buxton that at least one hundred and fifty 
 thousand negroes were annually carried to Brazil, Cuba, 
 and other slave-holding countries, which was fifty thousand 
 more than were ever known to have been taken before 
 Clarkson and Wilberforce began their labours. Moreover, 
 the horrors of the middle passage were doubled by the 
 
THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. 
 
 209 
 
 trade being made contraband. Larger numbers were stowed 
 into smaller vessels, the death-rate was fearfully increased 
 by the additional torment endured; and sometimes, when a 
 slaver was chased, the officers on board the cruiser in pur- 
 suit could see through their glasses hundreds of negroes 
 remorselessly pitched into the sea in their irons to lighten 
 the ship. Thus it would seem that all that had hitherto 
 been done to destroy the great evil had, in some respects, 
 only aggravated it. 
 
 But righteousness must in the end prevail, and there is 
 reason to think that the day of doom for slavery, in Chris- 
 tendom at least, is now drawing nigh. The terrific civil 
 war through which the United States have passed, has 
 resulted in the emancipation of every slave on North 
 American soil. The negro bondsman has been redeemed 
 with the blood of hundreds of thousands untimely slain ; 
 and the infection of freedom will spread. When the hired 
 labourer has taken the place of the "chattel" in the cotton 
 fields and sugar plantations of Carolina and New Orleans, 
 it will be difficult to maintain slavery in Cuba and Brazil ; 
 the whole system will topple to its fall ; and when slaves 
 are no longer sought for on shore, slavers will cease to sail 
 the sea. Thus it appears to have been ordained, that the 
 men of war are to finish the work begun by the men of 
 peace. 
 
 And so it generally happens. It is humiliating to think 
 how little is effected by argument — how much by violence. 
 Notwithstanding the preaching of the Quakers, it is pro- 
 bable that slavery would have existed in America for 
 centuries to come had not the civil war broken out ; and, 
 notwithstanding the preaching of the apostles, it is probable 
 that Paganism might have been found in many parts of 
 Europe at the present day had it not been for the edicts 
 of Constantine and the sword of Charlemagne. 
 
 o 
 
Chapter IEEE 
 
 AVING followed the Quakers thus far in their efforts 
 to emancipate the slave, we must retrace our 
 steps, and see what other work they had on hand 
 during the eighteenth century. 
 
 The benevolent legislation of William had left them only 
 one grievance, and that was the payment of church rates 
 and tithes. Now the Quakers believed that one of the 
 great ends for which they had become a peculiar people 
 was that they might bear testimony against a hireling minis- 
 try. They would rather die than pay the vicar his dues. 
 For this reason hundreds of them had been cast into prison, 
 and lain there for years, and hundreds more had been 
 ruined by the forcible seizure and sale of their goods. Still 
 they were as inflexible as ever; and there was no pro- 
 bability of their conscientious stubbornness ever being 
 subdued. It was hardly to be expected that the whole pro- 
 perty of the kingdom should be disturbed, and the church 
 beggared, on account of the scruples of a small sect of dis- 
 senters ; but the enormous expenses which were incurred 
 under the existing state of the law to recover a few shillings or 
 a few pence, and the long imprisonment which some Quakers 
 had to endure because they could not yield up their con- 
 victions, gave to a matter of justice, in some instances, an 
 appearance of persecution, and made many desire that some 
 
TITHES AMD DISTRAINTS 
 
 211 
 
 remedy should be found The legislature, therefore, ex- 
 tended what was called the 40s. Act to £10, in cases of 
 Quakers' tithe. It was now law that all Quakers' tithes 
 and other church rates, amounting to not more than £10. 
 might be detemrined in a summary manner by two justices 
 of the peace, and levied by their warrant. 
 
 It was thought this change in the law would benefit both 
 parties in this unhappy contest — the clergy would recover 
 their dues move easily, and the recusant Quakers would 
 not be ruined by expensive suits, or left in prison till they 
 died. And so it did to a very great extent, and the Quakers 
 were thankful that the fingers of the law could now more 
 dexterously take hold of their goods. But the law was 
 only permissive. The act contained no clause to prevent 
 the clergy from applying to the old and ruinous prosecu- 
 tions in the exchequer and ecclesiastical courts ; and, un- 
 happily, some of them, hating the Quakers as heretics, and 
 irritated at their refusal to acknowledge the sacred obliga- 
 tion of tithes, resorted to the ancient expedients for enforcing 
 payment. 
 
 In 1736 the Quakers laid a paper before parliament, in 
 which they stated that, in the course of twenty years, 
 eleven hundred of them had been prosecuted before the 
 exchequer and ecclesiastical courts ; that of these three 
 hundred had been committed to prison, and that several of 
 them had died there. They, moreover, stated that the costs 
 were so enormous that in three cases where the sums sued 
 for amounted to £15, they reached up to £800. The griev- 
 ance was so obvious that a bill was introduced into the 
 House of Commons to redress it. The Quakers were quite 
 willing that their goods should be taken to pay their 
 church-rates, only they were anxious that the thing should 
 be done without an expence which was absolutely ruinous. 
 Unfortunately the church took alarm, and a war of pamph- 
 
212 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 lets was begun. The clergy challenged the production of 
 cases of oppression, and the Quakers produced enough to 
 awaken profound pity for them. They told of one poor 
 widow and her son who were imprisoned for eleven months 
 for tithe- wool rated at a penny. They told of another man 
 who lay seven years in prison for a demand of £1, 19s. 6d. 
 They narrated the case of another who was prosecuted for 
 fourpence, as Easter offerings, and the charges of the prose- 
 cution amounted to £80. Unable or unwilling to pay this, 
 he was excommunicated, and lay for nineteen months in 
 Bedford jail, when he was set at liberty by an act of grace. 
 In another instance, for a demand of eight shillings, £23, 16s. 
 was wrung out of the unhappy recusant. In short, 1,180 
 persons had been prosecuted ; 302 of these had been sent to 
 prison ; nine had died while in durance ; the sums sued for 
 were frequently only a few shillings or even pence ; yea, 
 Quakers had been excommunicated and imprisoned for a 
 demand of a farthing; and, in many instances, the expenses 
 of the prosecution had been more than fifty times the 
 amount of the original sum demanded. * 
 
 With such facts to back it, the bill passed the House of 
 Commons ; but it was opposed in the upper house by the 
 whole influence of the episcopal bench, and cast out, on the 
 second reading, by a majority of fifty-four to thirty-five. 
 So the Quakers were left for another century to pay very 
 smartly for their scruples; but the exposure which had been 
 made, and the sympathy which had been awakened, did 
 much to prevent such cases of wanton oppression as had 
 occurred occurring again. In 1836 the well-known act was 
 passed for the commutation of all tithes in England and 
 Wales into a tithe rent-charge. This act, by abolishing the 
 jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts, and appointing a 
 
 * Gough's History of the Quakers, Vol. IV. 
 
A SCENE IN CHURCH. 
 
 213 
 
 direct and cheap method of recovering all ecclesiastical 
 demands, relieved the Friends from many of their old hard- 
 ships. Still, they continue to give testimony against a 
 hireling ministry, and about £3,700 is annually taken from 
 them by distraint. * 
 
 But again we must retrace our steps. Toward the end of 
 1745, when England was recovering from its panic, caused 
 by the inroad of Prince Charles and his Highlanders, a 
 young Quakeress, named Risdale, of the humble condition 
 of a servant, felt herself called upon to give a public testi- 
 mony in church. Such exhibitions were very common in 
 the days of Fox; but, by the strong arm of the law, they had 
 been entirely put down. It is probable this enthusiastic- 
 serving woman had been reading the lives of some of the 
 ancient worthies, and fancied she was commissioned to do 
 like them, and play the part of a prophetess. She, accor- 
 dingly, persuaded her mistress and some other Friends to 
 accompany her to the steeple-house, and, when the sermon 
 was ended, she stood up and said — ? Neighbours, I am sent 
 with a message froni the high priest of our profession to 
 desire you to turn the eye of your mind inward and ex- 
 amine yourselves, and to come to true repentance and 
 amendment of life." Then turning to the officiating clergv- 
 man, she said — " You must come down from your high 
 place, and bow at the footstool of Christ, before you can 
 teach the people the way to the kingdom of heaven." The 
 astonished parson called to the churchwarden to put the 
 intruder out, but the churchwarden was as one amazed, 
 and did nothing ; whereupon the parson himself descended 
 from the pulpit, and in wrath thrust her to the door. But 
 this was not alL The poor woman was fined £20 for her 
 
 * Extracts from the Minutes and Epistles of the Yearly Meeting. 1861. Ex- 
 tracts from the Minutes and Proceedings of the Yearly Meeting of Friends, held 
 in London, 1866. 
 
214 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 misdemeanour ; and, not being able to pay it, was thrust 
 into jail. ^ 
 
 The Quakers who had assisted in laying the foundations 
 of Quakerism were now almost all gone. In 1713, Thomas 
 Ellwood, the friend of Milton, had gone to his rest. In 
 1723, George Whitehead — a man famous in his day — had 
 died ; and the next year Richard Claridge, a name well 
 known in Quaker literature, had followed him to the grave, 
 Of the old worthies who still lived were Benjamin Bangs, 
 James Dickenson, Thomas Story, John Fothergill, Evan 
 Be van, and Samuel Crisp; but, by the middle of the century, 
 all these too had died. They had preserved, with little 
 diminution, the zeal of the founders of their sect, Twelve 
 times did Dickenson visit Ireland ; once he travelled over 
 Holland and Germany; and thrice he crossed the ocean and 
 did the work of an evangelist in America. On one of his 
 voyages he was pursued by the French, but he fasted and 
 prayed, and a thick mist, as we are told, came down and 
 wrapped up the ship in which he sailed, so that she escaped 
 from the hand of the spoiler, f Three times also did Fother- 
 gill visit the New World, and, indeed, every one of the men 
 I have mentioned ; and there were women as worthy of 
 mention — were like St. Paul — "In journeyings often, in 
 perils of waters, in perils by their own countrymen, in. 
 perils by the heathen, in perils among false brethren." 
 
 In 1748, the war which for nine years had been devas- 
 tating Europe was brought to a close by the treaty of Aix~ 
 la-Chapelle; and the Quakers, who were always anxious to 
 speak a word in season, thought this a favourable oppor- 
 tunity to impress upon the assembled plenipotentiaries the 
 blessings of peace. They therefore resolved to present to 
 each of them a copy of Barclay's Apology, in his own 
 
 * Gough's History, Vol. IV., pp. 339-40. 
 
 t Kuttv'a History of the Quakers iu Ireland. 
 
THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR. 
 
 215 
 
 tongue, together with a special presentation epistle. [A 
 Dutch Quaker, Jan Vander Werf, of Amsterdam, was com- 
 missioned to wait upon the negotiators with the gift. They 
 all received it courteously but the French, who, when they 
 learned that the Apology related to religion, sai d they had 
 no need of such books.* 
 
 In 1751 the parliament adopted the Gregorian Calendar 
 enacting that henceforward the year should begin on the 
 1st of January instead of the 25th of March, and that 
 eleven days should be struck out of the following Septem- 
 ber. The Society resolved to accept the new almanac, for 
 it would have been folly to have made war against the sun 
 in its circuit through the heavens, but they seized upon the 
 opportunity to impress upon Friends the sin of calling the 
 months and days by the names of heathen gods. They, 
 moreover, had now a new argument against the common 
 nomenclature; for, to speak henceforward of September, 
 October, November, or December was to utter a falsehood, 
 as these were to be no longer the seventh, eighth, ninth, and 
 tenth, but the ninth, tenth, eleventh, aud twelfth months 
 of the year. In spite, however, of the logic and arithmetic 
 of the Quakers, the people persist in calling the months by 
 their old names, without imagining they tell a he or do 
 honour to the Pagan deities. 
 
 Though the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle gave peace to 
 Europe, it did not remove the ancient enmity of the English 
 and French, and their animosity had now begun to break 
 out in America. The Indians were making incursions on 
 the English colonists along the Delaware, and the French 
 were accused of exciting them to their bloody work. Under 
 the alarm which was created a militia law was passed. 
 Now the Quakers were still numerous in Pennsylvania, 
 
 * Gough's History, Vol. IV., pp. 362-5. 
 
216 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 and had a considerable share in its government. But the 
 Quakers deemed it wrong even to defend themselves. If 
 the Indians insisted on scalping them, it was their duty to 
 submit with the best grace they could. They would not, 
 therefore, take arms ; nor would they pay any war taxes ; 
 nor would they give any countenance to those who did. 
 The rest of the colonists did not quite agree with these 
 pacific principles, and, having English blood in their veins, 
 they were not disposed to sit still while red savages burned 
 their houses, and ravaged their wives, and tomahawked 
 themselves. And their hot anger blazed out against the 
 men who said that this should be done; and they declared 
 that such men should have no place in the legislature, and 
 ought to be compelled to do their duty for the defence of 
 the state. 
 
 This feeling reached its height in 1756, when the bodies 
 of three colonists, who had been murdered by the Indians, 
 were brought into Philadelphia in a waggon and exposed 
 to the people to excite their indignation. Still the Quakers 
 held fast by their principles ; but they generously raised 
 subscriptions for those who had suffered, and used their 
 ancient influence with the tribes to bring about peace. 
 After a time a treaty was made, but animosities had been 
 kindled which were not easily allayed, and along the fron- 
 tier instances of outrage continued to occur. * 
 
 While these things were occurring in the back woods of 
 America, a cause had arisen in the law-courts of England 
 which threatened to bring the Quakers to grief. A Quaker- 
 ess had succeeded to considerable property, and the abun- 
 dance of her good things had generated a lightness of mind 
 inconsistent with the gravity of the sect to which she be- 
 longed. She was remonstrated with by the elders and 
 
 * Gough's History, Vol. IV. Clarkson's Life of William Penn. 
 
THE GAY QUAKERESS. 
 
 217 
 
 overseers; but it was of no avail, she was as giddy and gay 
 as ever. In these circumstances the Friends thought it 
 necessary to bear what they called " a testimony of their 
 disunity with her sentiments and conduct." This testimony 
 was read by the clerk at the close of one of their meetings, 
 and so the gay Quakeress was cast out of the Society as a 
 reprobate. Full of wrath at this public profanation of her 
 name, the lady preferred an indictment for a libel against 
 the clerk; the matter went to trial, and the jury found the 
 clerk guilty as accused. The Friends were everywhere 
 filled with alarm at the result, for they clearly saw that if 
 this were the law their discipline was at an end. They 
 could not disown an offending brother or sister without 
 being mulcted in damages. They, therefore, moved the 
 Court of King's Bench for a new trial, which was granted ; 
 but the irate lady, now somewhat appeased, and, perhaps, 
 fearful of the result of a second trial, intimated to the 
 Friends that if they did not trouble her, she would not 
 trouble them any more. So the matter ended, and the 
 Society had peace. * 
 
 Among the most noted Quaker preachers about the middle 
 of the century were Samuel Bownas, Mungo Bewley, J ohn 
 Dobbs, George Pooke, and Samuel Fothergill. On one 
 occasion when Samuel Bownas was praying in the market- 
 place of Jedburgh the constable came and laid hold of him ; 
 but, as he was being led along the street toward the gaol, 
 he continued to pray aloud as if nothing had happened, 
 to the wonder of many.-f" Among the more faithful women 
 were Catherine Peyton and Mary Peisley, who both visited 
 America on a religious mission. But, in some respects, the 
 most eminent of all was John Gough, the author of the 
 " History of the People called Quakers." In four large 
 
 Cough's History, Vol. IV., pp. 534-38. 
 
 t Ibid, pp. 3 l J7-U. 
 
218 
 
 THE QUAKEES. 
 
 volumes he has told the story of his sect with sufficient 
 candour, but his minuteness is tedious to most readers, who 
 feel that he drags from their obscurity too many persons 
 Avho were simply born to die and be forgotten. But there 
 may be a celebrity in a sect which is unknown to the world. 
 In America there were the more celebrated Quakers, Wool- 
 man and Benezet ; but I have already referred to their la- 
 bours in connection with the abolition of the slave-trade 
 and slavery. 
 
 During the eighteenth century the Quakers had been 
 prosperous as individuals, but, as a sect, they had not 
 increased in numbers. When they first sprung up they 
 multiplied with amazing rapidity, but their recruits came 
 principally from the lower orders of the people. Their 
 powers of propagation had ceased, but a tide of general 
 prosperity had set in upon them, and those, whose fathers 
 had joined the Society as poor weavers or ploughmen, were 
 now opulent tradesmen. So successful in trade had the 
 Quakers been that they began to be reproached for worldly- 
 mindedness. They follow riches, it was bitterly said of 
 them, " with a step as steady as time, and with an appetite 
 as keen as death." Without imputing to the Quakers more 
 avarice than falls to the lot of ordinary men, it is easy to 
 understand why they should devote themselves to business 
 with more than usual energy, and make rich with more 
 than average rapidity. Their asceticism excluded them 
 from every other source of excitement but the pursuit of 
 wealth, which is, perhaps, the most exciting of all. All 
 previous ascetics had denied themselves the pleasure. The 
 Indian Fakeer went naked and lived on charity. The 
 Egyptian anchorite shut himself up in a cave, or perched 
 himself on a pillar, and despised pelf. The monk took a 
 vow of voluntary poverty. But the Quaker, cut off from 
 all the ordinary amusements and enjoyments of life, was 
 
REPROACHES. 
 
 219 
 
 left free to make money, and he did it with all his might. 
 No ball-room or theatre could divide the thoughts of the 
 young Quaker, or allure Mm from his counting-house and his 
 ledger. Isolated from other sources of enjoyment, he was 
 left to pursue with singleness of purpose the gains of mer- 
 chandise. The same accommodating asceticism which al- 
 most necessarily led the Quaker to make money, compelled 
 him to keep it. Though he was rich, he could not indulge 
 in luxury or ostentation. He could not build himself a 
 splendid mansion, or start a high- paced equipage, or regale 
 his friends with the rarest vintages, or send his wife to 
 make calls arrayed in satin. The only outlet for his wealth 
 was his benevoleoce, and all men are not naturally benevo- 
 lent, and even Quakerism will not always make them so. 
 While, therefore, other men were prodigally spending their 
 money at routs, and race-courses, and balls, the Quakers 
 were religiously hoarding it, and, as a matter of necessity, 
 they were often first in the race for wealth. This money- 
 making spirit, apparently so opposed to asceticism, led some 
 to apply to them the famous couplet of Butler — 
 
 " Compound for sins they were inclined to, 
 By damning those they had no mind to." 
 
 But it must be confessed, I think, the censure was unjust, 
 and that, as their money-making was a result of their re- 
 ligious self-denial, there was nothing unworthy in it. It 
 must be acknowledged that the rules laid down by the 
 Society for the regulation of trade all "lean to virtue's side;" 
 that many members of the body have made, in matters of 
 merchandise, great sacrifices for conscience-sake; and that 
 others have given the highest examples of disinterested 
 benevolence. 
 
 But before this time the Friends had been accused not 
 only of greed, but of cunning. Pope had penned the fine — 
 
 M The Quaker sly, the Presbyterian sour ; w 
 
220 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 and pointed poetry is too frequently received as axiomatic 
 truth. But, in reality, there does not appear any more 
 ground for the charge of Quaker-cunning than of presby- 
 terian-acerbity. The whole Quaker- discipline tended to 
 make the members of the Society still in their manners, 
 and wary in their words, and this might be mistaken for 
 slyness, though it is very far removed from it. It is certain 
 there is nothing in the peculiar principles of the Society to 
 encourage cunning, unless in so far as religious pretensions 
 in a body have a tendency to encourage hypocrisy in its 
 members, and hypocrisy and cunning are nearly allied. No 
 doubt there have been sly Quakers, and the sin of the in- 
 dividual is too often unjustly charged upon the sect to 
 which he belongs. But, I think, we may safely conclude 
 that there is not more cunning in the Society of Friends 
 than in any other religious community. I think it must 
 even be confessed that the Quakers have striven more than 
 most to keep their consciences "tender," and conscientious- 
 ness is destructive of cunning. 
 
 The Quakers were now more distinguishable from the 
 general community by their dress than they originally were. 
 At the first they dressed simply like the more sober portion 
 of the community; but no peculiar cut of garment was 
 authoritatively prescribed, and Fox's leathern breeches 
 were wisely eschewed by his followers. They declined, 
 however, to change their garb with the change of fashion, 
 as they thought this also was vanity, and, therefore, they 
 soon became, in outward appearance, a peculiar people. A 
 Quaker or Quakeress could at all times be easily recognised 
 on the street. Their dress was always of some dingy colour 
 — drab, grey, or snuff-brown. The men wore plain, round 
 hats with broad brims, and, in some cases, with stays and 
 loops; and plain-breasted coats. The women generally 
 wore black hoods, close-fitting caps, stuff gowns, and green 
 
QUAKER ATTIRE. 
 
 221 
 
 aprons. No jewellery was tolerated, nor lace (so dear to 
 the female heart), nor plaiting of the hair, nor embroidery; 
 and if any wanton Quakeress had indulged in these, she 
 would at once have been exposed to the discipline of the 
 Society. But the Society was not able altogether to resist 
 the encroachments of fashion and the tendency to change. 
 The younger members of the Society had always some 
 anxiety to make themselves smarter than their elders, and 
 even to conform themselves to the ways of the world. 
 Hence there arose a distinction between those who were 
 called "plain" or "consistent" Quakers, and those who 
 were considered not quite so. By the beginning of the 
 nineteenth century the black hoods and green aprons had, 
 in a great measure, been laid aside ; but still the distinction 
 in dress between the Friends and the outside world was 
 clear and well marked. And perhaps there was some ad- 
 vantage in this, as wherever a Quaker went he was at once 
 recognised, and allowance made for his peculiar principles 
 and practices. The clergy well know how their clerical 
 garments often save them from being exposed to unpleasant 
 encounters. "Friend George," said a Quaker to Whitefleld, 
 "if thou wilt not quarrel with me about my hat, I will not 
 quarrel with thee about thy gown." Let us not quarrel 
 with either the one or the other. 
 
 Though the Friends had greatly distinguished themselves 
 during the whole of the eighteenth century by their bene- 
 volent exertions to abolish the slave trade, it would appear 
 that they acted from philanthropy as much as from religion. 
 The religious spirit had declined amongst them, and they 
 were less or more affected by the latitudinarian temper of 
 the age.* They cannot boast of many men at this period 
 
 * See Journal of John Griffith. Traces of this may also be found in the early 
 life of Mrs. Fry and Joseph J. Gurney, and the glimpses we get there of society 
 and conversation in their father's house. 
 
222 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 eminent for their genius or piety. The latter half of the 
 century, however, witnessed the conscientious worth and 
 respectable abilities of J oseph Gurney Be van, who was one 
 of the greatest luminaries of the sect at this time. Born 
 a Quaker, he had while a youth, in spite of his birth, lively 
 spirits and an inclination to wit and mirth, but this he was 
 soon taught to suppress as inconsistent with the seriousness 
 of life. He soon became clothed with the Quaker spirit. 
 Bred as an apothecary and chemist, he retired from trade 
 without having increased his wealth, because conscience 
 was continually standing in the way of interest. He could 
 not furnish ships of war with drugs ; he could not allow 
 any one to take an oath for him to obtain the usual draw- 
 backs ; he could not prosecute for debts contracted abroad. 
 William Allan, of whom we shall afterwards hear some- 
 thing, had previously entered his establishment, and now 
 succeeded to his business. 
 
 Bevan's Journal, which, unlike most journals, seems to be 
 an honest one, allows us to look in as through a window at 
 a pious Quaker's mind : — 
 
 " 1791. 9 mo. 14. Disturbed by hearing of the death of 
 a man by boxing, on account of a fear that I saw the 
 tumult in the morning, and was unwilling to interfere. 
 
 * 15, Learned the man was not killed ; saw him, to my 
 great relief. 
 
 " 18. Morning meeting, roving thought ; afternoon, some 
 of it appeared like rest to the mind. 
 
 " 28. Condemned myself in the evening for recurring to 
 a loose passage, for proof of the Latinity of what I had 
 written on a sacred subject. 
 
 " 10 mo. 6. Let temper rise in the morning, which occa- 
 sioned repentance. 
 
 " 14. A gleam of tenderness in the evening, on consider- 
 ing the situation of a poor family. 
 
JOSEPH GURNEY BEVAN. 
 
 223 
 
 " 16. Quickened in the street, at a constable's overturning 
 a poor woman's basket of fruit, which occasioned in my 
 mind something like an intercession for her; not only 
 that she might be cared for as poor, but brought to saving 
 knowledge. 
 
 "11 mo. 17. Much exercised, with some remission. 
 
 "12 mo. 7. In the afternoon attended the close of poor 
 Hannah Birkbeck, whereat I apprehended my mind bent 
 more to affection than to grace. 
 
 " 1792. 5 mo. 26. The joint meeting of the Yearly Meet- 
 ings' Committee, and Meeting for Sufferings, closed with 
 sweetness." * 
 
 The life of Bevan extended into the nineteenth century, 
 and he was the author of several works of considerable 
 merit ; the chief of which are a " Life of Isaac Penington," 
 and a "Life of the Apostle Paul." He was justly mourned 
 in his death as a good man. 
 
 The early life and labours of Thomas Shillitoe also be- 
 long to the eighteenth century, though they extended well 
 into the nineteenth. Born in London in 1754, young 
 Shillitoe was educated in the Church of England, but when 
 he was little more than twenty years of age he forsook the 
 faith of his fathers and joined the Quakers. Through the 
 interest of a Quaker lady, he was now taken from behind 
 the counter in a grocer s shop, and placed in an eminent 
 Quaker banking establishment in the city. But the raw 
 proselyte soon discovered that his fellow-clerks, notwith- 
 standing their demure looks while at the desk, were as fond 
 of a frolic in the evening as any other young fellows about 
 the town. He was shocked at this, and resolved to leave 
 the bank and learn shoemaking, that he might be able, 
 while he sat solitarily upon his stool, to commune with 
 
 * See Extracts from the Letters and other writings of the late Joseph Gurney 
 Bevan, preceded by a short Memoir of his Life. London, 182J. 
 
224 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 himself, and, perhaps, think himself like Fox, who had also 
 started life as a cobbler. Through time he learned his 
 craft, and became a master in it, and, being patronized by 
 his sect, began to accumulate money. But so soon as he 
 found himself worth a hundred pounds a year independently 
 of his trade, he determined to give up his shop-keeping that 
 he might devote himself entirely to missionary work. And 
 a most energetic missionary he became, performing most of 
 his journeys through England and Ireland on foot, with 
 his coa/t slung over his arm in hot weather, and preaching 
 with a stentorian voice and great earnestness wherever he 
 came. He was one of the first pioneers of the temperance 
 cause, being not only a total abstainer and vegetarian him- 
 self, but a great enemy of drinking. He made a regular 
 raid upon the public-houses of Ireland, entering them at 
 all hours, and remonstrating with their landlords and their 
 drunken guests. Though entirely ignorant of all the con- 
 tinental languages, he twice made a continental tour, and 
 reached as far as St. Petersburg, where he had an interview 
 with the Czar. To America also he went, as we shall learn 
 at a subsequent part of our history. Like other Quakers, 
 his great ambition was to address crowned heads. In 
 1793 he managed to attract the notice of George III. in the 
 stable-yard at Windsor, and for twenty minutes together 
 he addressed him, while the monarch stood and respectfully 
 listened. In 1813 he presented a written address to the 
 Prince Regent at Brighton, setting his sins before his face; 
 and eleven years afterwards he obtained a short interview 
 with him in Windsor Park, when he had now come to the 
 throne. Good Quakers tell that the first address had evi- 
 dently touched the prince's conscience, as, after receiving 
 it, he countermanded a great banquet which had been 
 arranged for the following day; and, on his death-bed, was 
 heard to mutter, "Oh ! that Quaker! that Quaker !" 
 
THOMAS SHILLITOE. 
 
 225 
 
 Thomas Sliillitoe was a dapper little man, with a some- 
 what remarkable head and face — a prominent brow, deep 
 set eyes, shaded by shaggy eye-brows, a hooked nose, and 
 a strong under jaw, which bespoke determination. His 
 nervous temperament was dangerously morbid. He heard 
 voices speaking to his inward sense. For weeks together 
 he fancied liimself a tea-pot, and was in dread when people 
 came near him lest they should break him. In another fit 
 of hypochondria he would ran across London Bridge, lest 
 it should break down under his weight. His imagination 
 was so impressed by a shocking murder which had been 
 committed, that he concealed himself for weeks lest he 
 should be taken for the murderer. The sight of a mouse 
 would make him take to his bed. He often went about 
 f frightened for fear of being frightened," to use his own 
 description of his own sad state; and yet this man, in other 
 circumstances, could be as dauntless as a hero. It is with 
 such men our asylums are filled, and it is also out of such 
 men that some of our greatest geniuses and benefactors 
 have been formed. A single hairsbreadth to the one side 
 or the other makes all the difference.* 
 
 Another eminent Quaker who flourished toward the close 
 of this century was Henry Tuke, whose "Principles of Re- 
 ligion as professed by the Society of Christians usually 
 called Quakers," is highly esteemed by his sect. It is 
 written in a simple style, and urges the orthodox argu- 
 ments for the orthodox doctrines. Altogether the century 
 had not been fruitful of great Quakers, though it had seen 
 the commencement of great labours. But there were now 
 growing up in the Society, though as yet unknown, men 
 who were to play a more prominent part in the world, and 
 revive the apostolic zeal of the first days. 
 
 * Thomas Shillitoe, the Quaker Missionary and Temperance Pioneer, by Wiliiaui 
 Tallack. 18G7. 
 
 P 
 
Chapter JIF. 
 
 HE latter part of the eighteenth century gave birth 
 to several individuals who were destined to act a 
 great part in the Society of Friends, and even to 
 form its history during the century following. 
 
 The first of these who saw the light was William Allan. 
 He was born on the 29th of August, 1770, and was a Quaker 
 from his birth, as both his father and mother, Job and 
 Margaret Allan, were members of the Society of Friends. 
 He accordingly acquired, from the atmosphere in which he 
 grew up, the ways of speaking and thinking prevalent in 
 the Society; but it is evident he was naturally of a serious 
 turn of mind. When a lad he took a profound interest in 
 the battle of giants going on in the House of Commons in 
 regard to slavery ; and as he listened to the brilliant 
 orations of Pitt, Fox, and Wilberforce, he tells us, he could' 
 scarcely help feeling that these men belonged to an order of 
 beings superior to himself. His father, Job, was a Spital- 
 fields silk manufacturer, and was anxious that he should 
 succeed him in the business, but his inclinations were all 
 toward chemistry ; and this led him to enter the chemical 
 establishment of Joseph Gurney Bevan, of whom we have 
 already heard something. He soon reached to eminence in 
 this walk of science; gave lectures at Guy's Hospital; made 
 the acquaintance of Sir Humphrey Davy, Sir J oseph Banks, 
 
WILLIAM ALL AX. 
 
 227 
 
 Dr. Babington, and other men of like celebrity; and, in 1807, 
 was unanimously elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. * 
 Allan's scientific pursuits, and distinguished associates, 
 neither lessened his devotion to his religious Society, nor 
 damped the benevolent instincts of his heart. In Spital- 
 fields and its neighbourhood, in 1797, some thousands of 
 industrious families were reduced to great destitution from 
 the failure of their branch of trade, and the enormous price 
 of provisions consequent on the European war then raging. 
 William Allan, and some of his Quaker friends, holding 
 that a supply of nutritious food was of the first conse- 
 quence, resolved to open a soup-kitchen, where the starving 
 operatives, without being pauperised, might receive a quart 
 of rich soup for a penny. The experiment succeeded beyond 
 expectation — three thousand quarts were distributed daily, 
 and a mode of charity introduced which has often since 
 been resorted to in pinching times with the greatest ad- 
 vantage, "f 
 
 A little later than this the efforts of J oseph Lancaster to 
 introduce education among the neglected poor, began to 
 attract attention. This celebrated Quaker commenced his 
 work in a shed on his father's premises; but, even there, he 
 was visited by the Duke of Bedford, Lord Somerville, and 
 other benevolent men, and by their liberality he obtained 
 a building, with rooms capable of accommodating 1,000 
 scholars. Here the enthusiastic Quaker had gathered to- 
 gether a crowd of children from the streets and from the 
 haunts of poverty, ignorance, and crime, and was training 
 them to habits of subordination and usefulness, as well as 
 giving them a sound education. But though Lancaster 
 was favoured with both royal and ducal patronage, and 
 honoured by frequent interviews with the king, he was 
 
 * Life of William Allan, Vol. I. f Ibid, pp. 33-4. 
 
228 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 soon involved in great pecuniary embarrassments. In 
 truth, a good deal of opposition had already been raised by 
 his undertaking, for though the Bible was read and taught 
 in his schools, he refused to give admission to the creeds or 
 catechisms of any particular church, and this excited sec- 
 tarian jealousy and alarm. Then, as now, men could not 
 1 e got to unite in a measure for education, apart from their 
 own Articles of Faith. 
 
 In 1808, Lancaster, in his extremity, resigned his 
 affairs into the hands of trustees, who undertook to carry 
 on and extend the system of education which he had com- 
 menced. 
 
 A Quaker named Joseph Fox, a dentist in Lombard 
 Street, with a benevolence and courage rarely equalled, sold 
 out funded property of his own to the amount of £2,000, 
 to meet the most importunate of Lancaster's creditors, 
 against whom writs were already out ; and made himself 
 responsible for £4,000 more. Another Quaker, named 
 William Corston, in order that this arrangement might be 
 carried out, accepted of bills drawn upon him by Fox for 
 nearly £4,000; and so Lancaster was saved from bank- 
 ruptcy, and his school-system from becoming an utter 
 wreck.* After this, who shall say that the Quaker heart 
 could not devise liberal things ? William Allan was placed 
 on the committee of six appointed to superintend the work- ' 
 ing of the plan, and he devoted himself to it with all his 
 heart. It was feared that difficulties might arise, for Lan- 
 caster, with all his zeal for good, was a somewhat eccentric 
 and rather irritable man ; but by the law of kindness 
 everything was made to go smoothly, for a time at least, 
 and the benefits of his educational system were soon ex- 
 tended far and wide. I think it must be confessed that 
 the Friends had a wonderful instinct for finding out useful 
 
 * Life of William Allan, Vol. T., pp. 96-7. 
 
PUNISHMENT BY DEATH. 
 
 229 
 
 work. It almost deserved to be called a divine illumi- 
 nation, 
 
 Sir Samuel Romilly had by this time begun his labours 
 for the reformation of our criminal code; and, in 1808, 
 Allan was present at the formation of a Society, composed 
 chiefly of Quakers, to assist him in his much-needed work. 
 It was called — "A Society for diffusing information on 
 the subject of punishment by death."* It is difficult now 
 to believe that at that time a man might be hanged for 
 stealing property amounting to a few shillings. 
 
 In 1810 Allan was made clerk of the Committee of 
 Sufferings, which is the main-spring of the whole Quaker 
 Society ; and, in the following year, his monthly meeting 
 appointed him one of their overseers. In reading his diary 
 at this period, his life appears to have been an incessant 
 whirl of work. He had his extensive business to attend 
 to ; but it did not prevent him either from prosecuting his 
 scientific researches, or engaging in philanthropic schemes. 
 At one hour we find him engaged in burning diamonds, 
 or fusing platina; then he hurries to a meeting of the Lan- 
 caster schools, or of the slavery abolition committee ; or he 
 keeps an engagement with Henry Brougham and William 
 Wilberforce. At another time he is preparing a paper to be 
 read before the Ro} r al Society ; at another he is attending 
 the monthly or yearly meetings of his religious Society, and 
 taking an active part in their business. As if the work he 
 had already on hand were not enough, he about this time 
 entered into Robert Owen's speculation to buy the cotton 
 mills at New Lanark, as Dale's philanthropic plans regard- 
 ing the workmen and their families were to be carried out 
 there ; and every philanthropic project had a peculiar fas- 
 cination for him. His very correspondence with all kinds 
 of persons, from royal dukes down to run-away negroes, 
 
 * Life of William Allan, Vol. L, p. 104. 
 
230 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 must have seriously occupied his time. He was never idle; 
 always active, always in earnest. He was a man who 
 gathered up the fragments of time, so that nothing 
 was lost. But we must leave him here, in the midst of his 
 usefulness, and retrace our steps to find a companion for 
 him in some of his future work. 
 
 In the year 1773 there was born in the city of Limoges, 
 in France, a second son to Gabriel Marc Antoine De Grellet, 
 and his wife, Susanne de Senamaud. The boy, thus nobly 
 born, was named Etienne, and was trained in the faith of 
 the Church of Rome. But even when under its authority, 
 and in early youth, he had " religious openings," and even 
 visions. On one occasion, he says, "I thought I saw a large 
 company of persons, or rather purified spirits, on one of 
 those floating vessels which they have at Lyons, on the 
 Rhone, occupied by washerwomen. They were washing 
 linen. I wondered to see what beating and pounding there 
 was upon it, but how beautifully white it came out of their 
 hands. I was told that I could not enter God's kingdom 
 until I underwent such an operation — that unless I was 
 thus washed and made white I could have no part in the 
 dear Son of God." In 1789 the French revolution broke 
 out, and soon afterwards the nobility began to emigrate. 
 Young Etienne and his brother fled to Coblentz to join the 
 allies, and were admitted into the king's horse-guards, which 
 consisted almost entirely of the members of the nobility. 
 Both brothers were taken prisoners, and ordered to be shot; 
 but they managed to escape to Holland, and from Holland 
 they sailed to Demerara, and, after a short stay there, pro- 
 ceeded to New York. For some years past young Grellet, 
 like other young Frenchmen, had been a disciple of Voltaire, 
 but he was now favoured with a second vision. "One even- 
 ing," he says, "as I was walking in the fields alone, my mind 
 being under no kind of religious concern, nor in the least 
 
STEPHEN GRELLET. 
 
 231 
 
 excited by anything I had heard or thought of, I was sud- 
 denly arrested by what seemed to me an awful voice, pro- 
 claiming the words — Eternity ! Eternity ! Eternity ! It 
 reached my very soul — my whole man shook — it brought 
 me, like Saul, to the ground." This proved the turning- 
 point in his history. He happened to have beside him 
 William Penn's Works, and began to read his " No Cross, 
 no Crown," with the help of a dictionary, and this again 
 led him to think of going to a Quaker meeting to seek 
 peace for his now troubled soul. As wave follows wave, 
 he tells us, so were his exercises. At length in an inward, 
 silent frame of mind, seeking for the divine presence, he 
 was favoured to find within him, what he had so long, and 
 with so many tears, daily sought for without. Soon after 
 this he heard a voice proclaiming — "Thy sins are forgiven, 
 thy iniquities are pardoned." His full heart now found 
 vent in a flood of tears, and his happiness was increased 
 when he learned that his brother had been a partaker of 
 the heavenly visitation. 
 
 Etienne, or Stephen Grellet, (as we shall henceforward 
 call him,) was now twenty-two years of age ; and soon 
 afterwards he removed to Philadelphia, where he supported 
 himself by teaching French, and was admitted as a member 
 of the Society of Friends. " O the depths of my baptisms 
 in those days !" he exclaims. He had long felt an earnest 
 desire to stand up and speak in the meetings of the Society, 
 and at length did so. " For some days after this act of dedi- 
 cation" — as he records his feelings in his autobiography — 
 " my peace flowed as a river, and mine eyes were like foun- 
 tains of tears of gratitude."* In all this, it may be said, we 
 see only the excitable Frenchman, but before we have traced 
 Stephen Grellet's life to a close we shall think better of him. 
 
 * Memoirs of Stephen Grellet, Vol. I. 
 
232 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 When he was twenty-four years of age he was acknow- 
 ledged as a minister within the Society, and soon after- 
 wards set out upon a religious mission. He was not long 
 absent, however, when he heard that the yellow fever had 
 broken out with great virulence at Philadelphia, and he 
 felt it to be his duty to return to assist the sick and dying. 
 This resolution taken, "as I was sitting in a room," he says, 
 " with my mind retired before the Lord, I was seized with 
 a violent pain in my back, head, and bones, accompanied 
 with a great shaking ; but my mind continued perfectly 
 calm in the Lord's presence. After having remained some 
 time in that state, considering why it was so with me, a 
 secret language was proclaimed — ' This is the manner in 
 which those who are seized with the yellow fever are 
 affected ; thou must return to the city and attend on the 
 sick ; and thus also shall the disease take hold of thee ' or 
 words very similar. My spirit bowed in prostration before 
 the Lord, and said, ' Thy will be done.' Then I felt again 
 free from pain. I proceeded immediately to Philadelphia, 
 keeping these things, however, to myself." When he 
 reached the city, so lately full of inhabitants, he found it 
 almost deserted, and the few individuals he met in the 
 streets had a look of unusual seriousness. He instantly 
 began his work of visiting the sick and assisting in bury- 
 ing the dead. He saw some of the plague-stricken wretches 
 expiring in horror, throwing out their arms to take hold of 
 him as a living object which might still connect them with 
 the world, and crying out — " I cannot die ! I cannot die ! " 
 and others departing joyfully and smilingly. One night 
 after he had laid himself down to rest after a fatiguing 
 and anxious day, "his spirit being," as he tells us, "gathered 
 in the Lord's presence," he felt himself seized with the 
 same kind of pains he had felt in New Jersey; and a voice 
 said to him, " This is what I told thee thou must prepare 
 
GRELLET DEAD AND ALIVE AGAIN. 
 
 233 
 
 for." "My soul," says he, "was as it were swallowed up in 
 the love of God, and perfectly contented in his will, though 
 I did not see the end of this dispensation." He rapidly 
 sunk under the violence of the deadly disease ; his extremi- 
 ties became cold"; it was thought his death was at hand : 
 his coffin was ordered ; and he was even returned among 
 the daily deaths to the board of health as a " French 
 Quaker." He felt himself ready to breathe his last, but 
 encircled with the angelic host in the Heavenly Presence ; 
 and then in powerful language it was proclaimed to him, 
 w Thou shalt not die, but live ; thy work is not yet done/' 
 From that hour he began to recover, and was soon after- 
 wards able to resume his philanthropic work.* 
 
 In 1799, Stephen Grellet removed to New York, and 
 began business with his brother. But he was not a man 
 to be bound to his desk and his ledger when duty called. 
 An English Quaker, named Hall, arrived in New York on 
 a religious mission to the Southern States, and it was 
 "borne in upon his mind" that he must stand prepared to 
 accompany him. In fulfilment of this, Hall no sooner saw 
 him than he took him aside and told him he was the 
 identical person he had seen while at sea, prepared of the 
 Lord to be his companion. They accordingly started to- 
 gether, and refreshed the meetings of the Friends in the 
 South by their apostolic presence. They spoke to the 
 poor slaves of the Heavenly Canaan, and, as occasion offered, 
 remonstrated with their masters on their sin. They even 
 penetrated into the territories of the Indians, and spoke to 
 them of the universal Saviour. Once in the midst of the 
 great pine forests of North Carolina Grellet had a peculiarly 
 joyful divine visitation ; but, on his return northwards, at 
 Chichester, he was suddenly plunged into the ab}^ss of un- 
 
 * Memoirs of Stephen Grellet, Vol. I., pp. 48-52. 
 
2U 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 belief, and was unable to travel for several days by reason 
 of bis doubts and darkness. Gradually he recovered his 
 faith, and discovered afterwards that his temporary in- 
 fidelity was caused by the black shadow thrown upon his 
 mind by a Quakeress, who had lapsed into scepticism. 
 After an absence of thirteen months, Grellet returned to 
 New York, having travelled about five thousand miles, 
 in many parts through dense forests little trodden by 
 human feet.* 
 
 How are we to account for these visions enjoyed by the 
 enthusiastic Frenchman — the angels doing the work of 
 washerwomen on the floats of the Rhone — the voice pro- 
 claiming Eternity! three different times — the intimations 
 regarding the plague — the divine visitations in the woods 
 of Carolina ? He was too honest a man to cheat us ; we 
 must believe what he says, and try to account for it. There 
 can be little doubt we must refer the visions he speaks of 
 to the usual source of such illusions. Of a very excitable 
 temperament, his own thoughts had assumed the guise of 
 sights and sounds, and had deceived him. Our ideas, which 
 are but the marks left in our minds by our sensations, often, 
 from peculiar circumstances, acquire such force as to be 
 mistaken for sensations ; and we imagine we see and hear 
 when nothing but our own thoughts are present to us. 
 This is unquestionably the explanation of most spectral 
 appearances ; it is the explanation of Grellet's visions, and 
 of many stories of a similar kind to be found in the legends 
 of the saints, which we are too apt to ascribe to pure fable. 
 Two centuries ago the servants of God very generally 
 believed that the powers of darkness assailed them in a 
 bodily shape. They firmly believed that they had carnal 
 contests with the devil. They saw him — they heard him 
 
 * Memoirs of Stephen Grellet, Vol. I., pp. 58-73. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF VISIONS. 
 
 235 
 
 — they fought with him ; and, by opening a Bible or pro- 
 nouncing a sacred name, they conquered him. Old Martin 
 Luther, in one of the many mental agonies he endured, 
 fancied that the black fiend stood before him ready to de- 
 vour him, and the stout Reformer hurled his ink-bottle at 
 his head. Bang went the bottle against the wall, leav- 
 ing its mark there to the present hour, and the devil was 
 gone ! Many besides Luther believed they had engaged in 
 a hand-to-hand conflict with Beelzebub, the prince of devils. 
 These were no idle stories trumped up just to deceive the 
 people. They were founded upon a terrible reality. These 
 men, in the solitude of their closets, and perhaps in the 
 darkness of the night, when a deep awe creeps over the 
 soul, had felt a deadly struggle going on within them till 
 their own thoughts assumed a darker and darker hue, and 
 appeared to put on an embodied form, and they believed 
 they actually saw before them the enemy of their souls. 
 So it was with Grellet — only his visions were not generally 
 of so dark a type. But we must return and resume our 
 travels with him. 
 
 Next year the indefatigable Quaker started on a mission 
 to the Northern and Eastern States. When he returned, he 
 settled down to business for more than a year, and found 
 time to woo and wed a wife. But again the spirit of wan- 
 dering came upon him ; he traversed the north, passed the 
 St. Lawrence, and stood upon Canadian soil, and not only 
 refreshed the meetings of the Friends by his presence and 
 counsels, but preached to all who would come and listen to 
 him. It often happened, however, that when a crowd had 
 gathered to hear him preach his lips were sealed ; he could 
 only sit in silence, and the people went away in disappoint- 
 ment, if not in disgust. They had not yet learned, as he 
 remarks, the precious benefit of silent meetings. 0 Silence ! 
 thou art indeed divine, and in thee there is, beyond all 
 
236 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 doubt, most precious benefit. How often in the midst of 
 babblers and prattlers have we longed for thy presence ! 
 How often even when a man of apostolic lineage, but of no 
 illumination, was wearying us with his empty din, have 
 we prayed that thou wouldst come and seal his lips and 
 end his talk, that we might be left in God's house to our 
 own holy thoughts ! And even thou, Oh Eloquent Speech I 
 whatever be thine advantage, thou art a sad destroyer of 
 our individuality, and even a disturber of our very identity. 
 Thou injectest into our minds another man's thoughts, it 
 may be for hours together, and so interruptest the sweet 
 outflowings of our own fantasies. We are no longer our- 
 selves, for a stranger has taken possession of our very con- 
 sciousness, and is turning it whithersoever he wills. When 
 thou art in the pulpit and we in the pew we are thy slaves, 
 and if any good be in us, it is thine and not ours — for our 
 very thoughts are not our own. Wilt thou not cease and 
 leave us to ourselves, that we may commune with our own 
 hearts and be still ? Verily the Quakers have brought 
 their wisdom from the Orient, for have not the wise men 
 of the east said — " Speech is silver, but silence is golden ? 
 
 In 1807 Grellet resolved to visit his beautiful France, 
 and, after a rough voyage and a narrow escape from pirates, 
 which had both been prophetically foreshadowed to his 
 mind, he landed at Marseilles. The once gay lad, the son 
 of the French noble, now stood once more on his native 
 soil, a man of thirty-three, and an American Quaker. 
 The changes which had swept over his mind were as 
 violent and complete as those which had swept over his 
 fatherland. At Congenies he met with a small sect who 
 for one hundred and twenty years had maintained the 
 principles of Quakerism without having heard, till very 
 recently, of the existence of Quakerism in America and 
 England. They testified against war, refused to take an 
 
GRELLET IX FRANCE. 
 
 237 
 
 oath, and knew the preciousness of silent worship and a 
 heaven-anointed ministry. Stephen's heart was greatly 
 gladdened to find this little flock in the midst of the 
 wilderness. At Brives he embraced his mother, after a 
 separation of seventeen years. His father, after having 
 miraculously escaped the edge of the guillotine, had died 
 some years before, partly from the sufferings he had en- 
 dured during the fury of the French Revolution, and him 
 must Stephen visit in his grave. Grellet was now in the 
 midst of papists, and was a spectacle to them. His very 
 mother had been taught by the priests to regard him as a 
 heretic, and had been paying for masses and prayers to be 
 said for his return to the true fold. He had many oppor- 
 tunities, however, of meeting with priests, monks, and nuns ; 
 and when they spoke to him of the traditions of the 
 Fathers and the authority of the Church, he directed their 
 minds to the true light which lighteth every man that 
 cometh into the world. In several places he met with 
 Friends — solitar}^ lights in the midst of the darkness — and 
 managed to have meetings, which were frequently attended 
 by great crowds, attracted by curiosity to see the Ameri- 
 can Quaker, about whom the strangest reports were spread ; 
 for it was even said that Napoleon had brought him from 
 the ends of the earth to overturn the Church. After an 
 absence of nine months he returned to America. 
 
 After little more than a year of rest he set out on a long 
 religious tour to the Southern States of the Union. His 
 wife was still in very delicate health, as she had been 
 when he went to France, and he might never see her 
 again, but the " drawings of the Spirit" might not be re- 
 sisted. Quakers were not numerous in countries where 
 slave-owners were omnipotent ; but, in most places, there 
 were a few broad-brims to bear witness to the truth. 
 Grellet's soul was everywhere disquieted within him at 
 
238 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 the oppression which he beheld ; but, with true Quaker 
 courage, he testified to the slave-owners of the sorest evil 
 under the sun. In some cases, he tells us, his hearers 
 were melted into tears at his words ; and, in others, " the 
 balm of divine consolation flowed like oil towards his 
 tribulated ones."* 
 
 There is a little incident connected with this journey 
 which is worth recording. Grellet had been living at 
 Greenwich, in the suburbs of New York, and there also 
 was living at the same time Thomas Paine, the author of 
 " The Age of Reason," and " The Rights of Man." Before 
 starting for the South, Grellet heard that Paine was ill, and 
 destitute, and went to see him. He found him in a 
 wretched condition, abandoned by those who had once 
 been loudest in his praise, and took care to provide him 
 a nurse, and supply him with some comforts. After 
 Grellet was gone Paine sent for him. A young Quakeress 
 who was living with the Grellets went in his stead. She 
 repeated her visit, and was always welcomed ; and not 
 only carried cordials to the dying man, but spoke to him, in 
 her simple Quaker fashion, of the way of life. He asked 
 her if she had read his " Age of Reason." She said she had 
 begun it, but was so distressed by what she had read, that 
 she had thrown it in the fire. " I wish," said the dying man, 
 " that others had done the same." It is strange to think of 
 this kind-hearted Quakeress ministering by the bed-side 
 of the old apostle of infidelity and democracy, and not only 
 soothing his last moments, but, with unquestioning faith, 
 pointing Ins thoughts to the true light, which alone could 
 lighten him through the dark valley of the shadow of 
 death. 
 
 In 1811 Grellet's restless spirit again impelled him 
 
 * Memoirs, Vol I, p. 159. 
 
GRELLET IX ENGLAND. 
 
 239 
 
 across the sea to Europe. He says that ever since his re- 
 turn from France, he had been under " a continual pressure 
 of mental exercise" to return to the Old World, where he 
 saw much work was to be done. He sought England this 
 time, and arrived at Liverpool. He instantly began his 
 work of visiting the churches. He went in a pilgrim 
 spirit to Swarthmore, where George Fox had lived, entered 
 the meeting-house he had built, and the plainly furnished 
 room he had provided for itinerant preachers, and saw his 
 great Bible fastened with a chain to the rail of the minis- 
 ter's gallery. From the North of England he passed into 
 Scotland, but he found that Quakers were not numerous 
 north of the Tweed. Everywhere, however, the people 
 came in crowds to hear him preach, or see him sit in silence ; 
 and oftentimes, as he tells us, a holy solemnity was over all. 
 At Aberdeen it was different. " I feel myself," he says, " in 
 this place of high religious profession as in a prison-house, 
 encircled with darkness; my way is entirely closed up 
 from having a meeting among the inhabitants, over whom 
 I mourn silently ; and I rind no place for the rest and re- 
 lief of my exercised spirit."* From Scotland he crossed to 
 Ireland, and recrossmg the channel he was in London in 
 time for the yearly meetings of his Society in May 1812. 
 
 The meetings over, he set out once more to traverse the 
 country as a preacher of the truth; but in 1813 he was 
 again in London, and we find him and William Allan now 
 met in the same field of labour. The weavers of Spital- 
 fields were out of work, and, consequently, bordering on 
 starvation. The good Quakers not only furnished them with 
 soup for their families, as had been previously done, but held 
 religious meetings amongst them, and told them of the 
 bread of life. Grellet's mind was now brought under deep 
 
 * Memoirs, Vol I, p. 178. 
 
240 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 exercise on account of the pick-pockets and prostitutes of 
 London. He managed to gather a great number of them 
 together in the Quaker meeting-house in St. Martin's Lane, 
 and there, amidst many tears, he preached repentance to 
 them, and then sat with them in deep silence, interrupted 
 only by the sobs of the penitent. He thought next of 
 visiting the prisons, where he would find the most des- 
 perate criminals brought together as in a focus. After 
 seeing the Compters — prisons since abolished — he pro- 
 ceeded to Newgate. There he found several men who were 
 appointed to die, and spoke to them some words of conso- 
 lation. He found mere boys who had been convicted of 
 theft, for the first time, mingling with the most inveterate 
 criminals, and learning their ways as in a school for crime, 
 and he at once remonstrated against the impolicy of such 
 promiscuous imprisonment. When he proposed visiting 
 the female department, the jailor advised him not to think 
 of it. He said he would not be responsible for what 
 might happen, and the least he might expect was that his 
 clothes should be torn from his back. But Grellet was not a 
 man thus to be deterred from going where he thought he 
 could do good. When he entered, he found the foulness 
 of the air almost insupportable, and the most shameless 
 effrontery only too visible in the faces of the crowd of de- 
 praved women who stood before him. He spoke to them 
 of the love of Christ and the forgiveness of sins, and their 
 proud looks, he tells us, were somewhat brought down, 
 and tears were seen to start in the eyes of some of them. 
 He next went to the room where the sick and diseased 
 women were gathered together, and a shocking mass of 
 misery confronted him. Some were lying on the bare 
 floor, some on a bunch of old straw, with little or no 
 covering; and some children who had been born in the 
 prison were all but naked, though it was then the depth 
 
THE ALLIED SOVEREIGNS. 
 
 241 
 
 of winter. Distressed beyond measure at what be had 
 beheld, he hurried to the house of Mrs. Elizabeth Fry and 
 told her what he had seen, and awakened in her womanly 
 heart feelings of pity, which led to her life-long work for 
 the improvement of our prison discipline.* 
 
 From England Grellet passed over to France; from France 
 he went to Switzerland ; from Switzerland to Italy ; and 
 from Italy to Germany. He went not as a tourist seeking 
 pleasure, but as an apostle proclaiming the truth. On his 
 way he crossed the path of the allies, as they were pouring 
 into his native country to hurl Napoleon from the throne, 
 and he seized the opportunity to speak to some of them of 
 the Prince of Peace. When he addressed a meeting he 
 had a marvellous power over his audience. "I have never," 
 said a lieutenant of police to the Prefect, before whom he 
 had reluctantly carried Grellet, " heard any one speak in 
 such a manner before ; the whole meeting was melted into 
 tears." f In the summer of 1814 he was again in London. 
 
 The Friends had long mourned because of the terrific 
 war which had raged for so many years, and they well 
 might, for it was desolating Europe. In 1812 they had 
 presented to the Prince Regent an address, in which they 
 declared their principles as to the unlawfulness of war, and 
 the deputation who went to court to present it, at the head 
 of which was William Allan, was graciously received by 
 the Prince and Lord Sidmouth. Now, at length, there was 
 a prospect of peace, for the allies had entered Paris. Na- 
 poleon had abdicated, and Louis XVIII. had been called to 
 the throne as the representative of the Bourbons. When 
 the Quakers were holding their yearly meetings in May 
 there was some talk of the allied sovereigns visiting Eng- 
 land, and Grellet suggested that this would be a favourable 
 
 * Grellefs Memoirs, Vol. I., pp. 224-5. f Ibid, Vol. I., p. 257. 
 
 Q 
 
242 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 opportunity of impressing upon them that the kingdom of 
 Christ was a kingdom of righteousness and peace. The 
 matter was referred to the Committee of Sufferings. A 
 few days after this the Grand Duchess of Oldenburgh, 
 sister of the Emperor Alexander, and the young Duke of 
 Wurtemburg, appeared at one of the Quaker meetings in 
 London, and behaved in a most edifying manner, at which 
 the hearts of the Friends rejoiced greatly. * 
 
 In the month of J uly, the Emperor Alexander of Russia, 
 and King Frederick William of Prussia came to London ; 
 they came flushed with conquest, and they were received 
 with feasting, military displays, naval reviews, and the 
 huzzas of the crowd. The Committee for Sufferings in- 
 stantly employed the pen of J oseph Gurney Bevan to draw 
 up an address to the two illustrious potentates, if perad- 
 venture, in the midst of the adulation they were daily re- 
 ceiving, they would listen for a moment to the voice of 
 truth. A deputation, consisting of William Allan, Stephen 
 Grellet, John Wilkinson, and Luke Howard, proceeded to 
 St. James's Palace to present their address to the Majesty of 
 Prussia. When they had waited for some time, they were 
 told that the king had been up all night, and was so hurried, 
 that the only chance they had of seeing him was by stand- 
 ing in the passage through which he had to pass to his 
 carriage. The benevolent broad-brims accordingly did so, 
 and, when Frederick William approached, Grellet stepped 
 forward, presented the address, and said a few words in 
 French. The king replied that he had some members of 
 their Society in his dominions, and they were excellent 
 people, but that war was necessary to the attainment of 
 peace; and with scarcely another word he passed on.f It 
 
 * Grellet's Memoirs, Vol. I., p. 313. Allan's Life, Vol. I. 
 
 f Life of Allan, Vol. I., pp, 192-3. Grellets's Memoirs, Vol. I., pp. 314-5. 
 
THE CZAR AT A QUAKER MEETING. 
 
 243 
 
 was evident he had treated them with bare civility ; but a 
 greater man and monarch than he was to receive them in 
 a widely different manner. 
 
 Three days after this was Sunday, and the Czar Alexander, 
 accompanied by his sister the Grand Duchess of Olden- 
 burg, the young Duke of Oldenburgh, the Duke of Wur- 
 temburg, Count Lieven, and others, under the guidance of 
 William Allan, suddenly appeared at a Quaker meeting, 
 which caused no little nutter among the Friends. Worship, 
 however, proceeded as usual. There was a season of silence ; 
 then three Friends rose in succession, and spoke as they 
 were inspired; and, finally, there was a prayer. "I think," 
 says Allan, " I may say Friends were evidently owned in 
 this their strait, and that nothing could have answered 
 better if it had been ever so well contrived." The imperial 
 party conformed themselves in all tilings to the Quaker 
 worship, and the Czar, when on his way to his carriage, 
 shook hands with all the Friends who were near him ; a 
 condescension of which the good men were, no doubt, proud 
 to their dying day, notwithstanding their ideas of human 
 equality, and the sinfulness of hat-honour. 
 
 On the Tuesday following, Stephen Grellet, William Allan, 
 and John Wilkinson went by appointment to the Pulteney 
 Hotel to present their address to the Czar — the man of 
 whom Napoleon had said, " If I were not Napoleon, I 
 would be Alexander," and who yet seemed to be half a 
 Quaker. He received the Friends with the greatest kind- 
 ness, taking them by the hand as if they were brothers. 
 They put the address into his hands, and then presented 
 him with some books, which he merely glanced at, as he 
 appeared anxious to engage at once in conversation. The 
 Ruler of Muscovy, tall and handsome, stood in the centre 
 of the room, and the humble Quakers stood around him. 
 He asked them about their religious opinions, their wor- 
 
244 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 ship, their ministry, and many things beside. As William 
 Allan explained to him the principles of the Society, he 
 frequently said, " these are my sentiments also." " Wor- 
 ship," said he, "must be spiritual to be acceptable, and out- 
 ward forms are but of secondary importance." " I pray 
 myself," he continued, " every day, not in a form of words, 
 but according to the impression I have of my wants at the 
 time. I once used a form of words, but abandoned it as 
 frequently inapplicable to the state of my feelings." The 
 Quakers spoke to him of war, of slavery, of what the 
 British and Foreign School Society was doing, and of what 
 he might do in his great kingdom. When Grellet ventured 
 to speak to him of his responsibility as the absolute ruler 
 of so great a country, tears sprang into his eyes, and, taking 
 the Quaker's hand in both his, he said, " these words of 
 yours will long remain graven on my heart." The inter- 
 view lasted for an hour, and the emperor assured the depu- 
 tation that he agreed with them in most of their opinions, 
 and that though, from his peculiar position, his practice 
 must be somewhat different, he was united with them in 
 the spiritual worship of Christ.* 
 
 The Quakers had almost made a convert of Peter the 
 Great, and now Alexander declared that he was in reality 
 one with them. Nor is there any reason to think that this 
 was merely imperial politeness and Muscovite hypocrisy. 
 Alexander was undoubtedly a man of profound religious 
 convictions. All his proclamations spoke of the great God, 
 the ruler of the universe ; and his armies, when marching 
 on France, were animated by him with the religious enthu- 
 siasm of the crusaders. There was one act of his life which, 
 of itself, was enough to evince his piety. When the senate 
 
 * Grellet's Memoirs, Vol. I., pp. 313-16. Life of William Allan, Vol. I., pp. 
 194-201. 
 
THE CZAR ALEXANDER. 
 
 245 
 
 of St. Petersburg voted him a monument, he directed that 
 on its summit there should be placed, not a statue of him- 
 self, as was proposed, but a statue of Religion, holding out 
 her hands and blessing the people. Yet such are the 
 strange contradictions of human nature — this man, though 
 deeply religious, was not always moral ; but morality was 
 not then thought to be a necessary virtue of kings. 
 
 Fairly interested in the Quakers, the Czar had expressed 
 a desire to see one of their houses, but this was quite im- 
 possible amid the whirl of London life. Arrangements 
 were, however, made for him to visit a Quaker at Brighton, 
 but there the crowd was so great that the design was aban- 
 doned. As the cortege, however, proceeded towards Dover 
 the Emperor caught a glimpse of a Quaker and his wife 
 standing at their gate to witness the passing pageant. The 
 horses were pulled up, the Czar and his sister alighted, and 
 begged to be allowed to see the interior of the house. They 
 were accordingly shewn through the principal apartments, 
 and accepted of the refreshments which were offered them 
 in the parlour. At parting the Duchess " kissed the Quaker's 
 wife," and the emperor ventured no further than to kiss 
 her hand.* 
 
 Life of William Allan, Vol. I., pp. 204-5. 
 
Chapter 
 
 E have seen Stephen Grellet, after he had witnessed 
 the wretchedness and degradation of the female 
 prisoners in Newgate, going to Mrs. Elizabeth 
 Fry and relating to her the sickening tale. The life and 
 labours of this remarkable woman are worthy of being 
 remembered for ever. 
 
 Elizabeth Gurney, or Fry, was born at Norwich on the 
 21st of May, 1780. She was the third daughter of John 
 Gurney, of Earlham, in Norfolk, and of his wife, Catherine 
 Bell. The ancestor of her father had joined the Quakers 
 in the days of Fox, and her mother was a great-grand- 
 daughter of Robert Barclay, the Apologist, so that she was 
 of the very purest Quaker blood. Mr. Gurney, of Earlham, 
 was, however, by no means a strict professor of the Quaker 
 faith, and in his house there was sometimes music, and even 
 dancing; and in these amusements none of the sisters took 
 greater delight than Bets}^ How, in truth, could the girls, 
 in the joyousness of their young hearts, refrain from some- 
 times bursting into song, when all the birds were singing 
 around them, without knowing they did anything wrong, 
 or skipping on the floor with their fairy feet, as they 
 might any evening in spring see the lambs bounding on 
 the lea. But we are more scandalised to hear that Miss 
 Elizabeth sometimes went to the meeting in pink boots, 
 
ELIZABETH FRY. 
 
 247 
 
 laced with scarlet, and might even be seen scampering over 
 the country on horseback, arrayed in a scarlet riding-habit. 
 We are still more concerned to learn that when she grew 
 up to budding womanhood, she went to London during the 
 season, and attended balls and other fashionable places of 
 folly and amusement.* Alas ! Elizabeth; it would appear 
 that in thy early youth thou hadst, like other young 
 women, a vain, joyful, little heart within thee ; and that 
 pink boots, and scarlet riding-habits, and balls and con- 
 certs found a place in thy affections, and were tolerated in 
 a Quaker family. 
 
 These vanities, however, were soon laid aside, not all at 
 once, but gradually and with some internal struggles; 
 and before the happy young girl had escaped from her 
 teens she had given up music and dancing, thrown away 
 her finery, and arrayed herself in the close-cap and hand- 
 kerchief of the Friends. At the age of twenty she was 
 married to Joseph Fry, and removed with him to St. Mil- 
 dred's Court, London, where his business was carried on. 
 Almost all her husband's relatives were strict Quakers, and 
 the young wife, who had been the plainest in her father's 
 family, found herself comparatively gay amid her new con- 
 nexions. Her first great trial in house-keeping was during 
 the fortnight of the yearly meeting in May. According to 
 custom, she must then keep open house for the Friends 
 who had assembled from every part of the kingdom ; and 
 every day from sixty to eighty guests sat down at her 
 bountiful board, which groaned with joints of roasted meat 
 and colossal plum-puddings ; for Friends are happily not 
 called by their asceticism to renounce the pleasures of the 
 table. Her company included both the strictest and most 
 orthodox in garb, and some who could scarcely be recognised 
 
 * Memoirs of Elizabeth Fry, by her Daughter, Mrs. Francis Cresswell. 
 
248 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 as belonging to the Society. Among the ladies there were 
 still a few who tenaciously adhered to the plain closely- 
 fitting cap, with the black hood, and almost all wore drab- 
 coloured camlet gowns, with long-peaked waists and volu- 
 minous folds, contrasting strangely with the fashions of 
 the day. * 
 
 Elizabeth Fry was blessed in her marriage, and in course 
 of years eleven olive plants surrounded her table. The 
 death of her father, to whom she was tenderly attached, in 
 1809, made a deep impression on her mind ; and at his 
 funeral, after her uncle had addressed those present at the 
 grave, she could not resist the impulse to speak, and falling 
 down on her knees, she exclaimed — "Great and marvellous 
 are Thy works, Lord God Almighty ; just and true are all 
 Thy ways, Thou King of saints: we give Thee thanks." 
 Having uttered these words she rose up, and all was calm 
 within her. In about a year and a-half afterwards she was 
 publicly acknowledged by the Society of Friends as one 
 of their ministers. •(• 
 
 Few people can reconcile themselves to the idea of women 
 being public ministers of religion. They say that home life 
 and home duties is their proper sphere, and that they may 
 find abundant opportunities of doing good in imbuing the 
 minds of their children with the love of virtue and piety. 
 They think it is destructive of female delicacy for a woman 
 to stand up in a promiscuous assembly and harangue. The 
 Quakers, however, have ever thought differently, and from 
 the very first they have encouraged their women to speak 
 in their churches. The Methodists have copied their ex- 
 ample. With such instances as that of Mrs. Fry before us, 
 it is impossible to censure very strongly a system which 
 developed her talents, and prepared the way for her useful- 
 
 * Memoirs of Elizabeth Fry, by her Daughter. + Ibid. 
 
WOMEN PEEACHERS. 
 
 249 
 
 ness ; and it must be acknowledged that Quaker women 
 have not been found to be more immodest, or even more 
 masculine, than the rest of the sisterhood, though they 
 preach and take a part in managing the affairs of their 
 Society. Is it possible that the Quakers have in this, as in 
 other respects, anticipated the age ? It is certain that at 
 this moment a host of women — honest women, too — are 
 clamorous to break down the barriers which shut them out 
 from public employment, and jostle the men in all the three 
 professions of law, physic, and divinity. Are we wrong in 
 our traditions ? Have they come from the East ? Are 
 they the last shred of the opinion that women should be 
 shut up in a seraglio, and allowed to look out upon the 
 world only through the wires of their cage, or the meshes 
 of their veil ? Should we not remember that in science 
 and religion there is neither male nor female, as there is 
 neither bond nor free ? All this may be, but I am afraid 
 that after all we shall think that the proper place for the 
 woman is the hearth rather than the altar. 
 
 In February, 1813, Mrs. Fry heard from Stephen Grellet 
 and William Foster of the miserable condition of the women 
 in Newgate, and she lost no time in gathering together a 
 quantity of clothing, and hastening to the grim prison with 
 it.* Anna Buxton was her sole companion. All the female 
 prisoners were then confined in the part of the quadrangle 
 now known as the untried side. There, in four rooms, 
 nearly three hundred women, with their numerous children, 
 were huddled together — the tried, and the untried, those 
 committed for trivial offences, and those convicted of the 
 most atrocious crimes. When a visitor appeared in the 
 prison they assailed him with the most clamorous impor- 
 tunities for money, and then they flew to a tap which was 
 
 * See Grellet's Memoirs, and Mrs. Fry's Memoirs. Mrs. Fry's Biographer does 
 not specially mention Grellet. 
 
250 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 kept in the prison, and purchased spirits with what they 
 had obtained. Having no regular employment, they spent 
 their time in drinking, swearing, fighting, fortune-telling, 
 card-playing, and the most shameless talk. Everything 
 was filthy and disgusting. Even the governor visited this 
 portion of the prison with reluctance, and when Mrs. Fry 
 would not be dissuaded from going amongst these aban- 
 doned outcasts of society, he advised her to leave her watch 
 and her purse with him. " I thank thee," said Mrs. Fry, 
 confident in the power of loving-kindness ; " I am not 
 afraid; I do not think I shall lose anything."* When she 
 was shut in, with Anna Buxton at her side, the women 
 gazed at them with amazement. "You seem unhappy," 
 said the Quakeress, in her soft, gentle voice. " You are in 
 want of clothes ; would you be pleased if some one would 
 come and relieve your misery ? " " Nobody cares for us," 
 said one of the women, somewhat sulkily. " I am come," 
 said Mrs. Fry, " with a wish to serve you, and, I think, if 
 you second my endeavours, I may be of use to you." More 
 also she said to them of the love of Christ, and the forgive- 
 ness of sins. Anna Buxton knelt down and prayed ; Mrs. 
 Fry did the same ; the wretched women knelt down around 
 them, and, as the voice of tender, pitying supplication went 
 up to heaven, weeping was heard, and the sacrifice of a 
 broken heart offered to God.f Before the ladies left the 
 prison they distributed the clothing they had brought, and 
 promised that they would return. It was nearly three 
 years, however, before the promise was redeemed, but then 
 it was redeemed with usury. 
 
 We have already had a glimpse of the prisons of England 
 in the days of George Fox; but since his days John Howard 
 had lived — the great prison reformer — and had made his 
 
 * Timpson's Life of Mrs. Fry, pp. 32-3. f Memoirs by Daughter, p. 84. 
 
MRS. FRY IX NEWGATE. 
 
 251 
 
 name a syiionyme for philanthropy. But many of his re- 
 forms had never been carried out ; acts of parliament had 
 been allowed to go asleep ; and most of the jails were 
 nearly as bad as ever. Of 518 prisons in the United King- 
 dom to which 107,000 persons were committed in one year, 
 there were only 23 in which the inmates were classified 
 according to law ; 59 had no separation between male and 
 female prisoners; 136 had only one division for that pur- 
 pose ; and 68 had only two. In 445 no work of any de- 
 scription was provided, so that the prisoners were left to 
 idleness and vice. Besides, many of the jails were notori- 
 ously unhealthy, and no agency was provided for the moral 
 and religious discipline of those whom crime had placed in 
 them.* Such was the state of matters when Mrs. Fry 
 began her reform — such was the Augean stable she had to 
 cleanse. 
 
 It was not till about Christmas, 1816, that Mrs. Fry was 
 able to revisit Newgate; but, then, she systematically began 
 her work of reform. On this occasion, at her own request, 
 she was left alone with the women for some hours. She 
 read to them the parable of the Lord of the vineyard, 
 spoke to them of Jesus the Saviour, and proposed, if she 
 had their hearty approbation, to establish a school, to be 
 taught by one of themselves, for the education of their 
 children. The women promised everything that was asked, 
 and before Mrs. Fry's next visit had chosen as school- 
 mistress a young woman named Mary Connor, who had 
 been committed for stealing a watch. The sheriffs of London 
 and the governor of the prison gave their ready concur- 
 rence to the experiment, though they considered it Utopian 
 and hopeless, and allowed an unoccupied cell to be fitted 
 up as a school-room. These arrangements being made, Mrs. 
 
 * Report of the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline. Timpson'a 
 Life of Mrs. Fry, p. 34. 
 
252 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 Fry and a young Quaker friend, Mary Sanderson, pro- 
 ceeded to the prison to see the school opened. When they 
 entered, the railing was crowded with half-naked women, 
 struggling with one another for the front situations with 
 the utmost violence, and begging most clamorously. Mrs. 
 Fry's companion afterwards wrote to Sir T. F. Buxton, 
 "that she felt as if she were going into a den of wild beasts, 
 and could not help shuddering as the door closed upon her 
 and she found herself locked in with such a herd of novel 
 and desperate companions."* Notwithstanding these un- 
 promising appearances, the school was opened for all under 
 twenty-five years of age, and the work begun. 
 
 Mrs. Fry's plans began to enlarge themselves with her 
 success, and she now conceived it possible to improve the 
 worst criminals by introducing order and industry amongst 
 them. Acting on this idea, in the spring of 1817, eleven 
 members of the Society of Friends and the wife of a 
 clergyman formed themselves into "An Association for 
 the Improvement of the Female Prisoners in Newgate." 
 The object they had in view was "to provide for the cloth- 
 ing, the instruction, and the employment of the women ; 
 to introduce them to a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, 
 and to form in them, as much as possible, those habits of 
 order, sobriety, and industry, which might render them 
 docile and peaceable whilst in prison, and respectable when 
 they left it." The consent of the prison authorities was 
 obtained, a matron was appointed, work was procured, 
 rules were laid down, (to which the women promised a 
 willing obedience,) and in a short month the improvement 
 was so marked that the magistrates were amazed, and 
 adopted the whole plan as part of the system of Newgate. 
 
 A great deal of the success of the project, however, 
 
 * Memoirs of Mrs. Fry, p. 115. 
 
REFORMATION OF NEWGATE. 
 
 253 
 
 undoubtedly resulted from the daily visits and constant 
 superintendence of the good Quaker ladies, who had de- 
 voted themselves to this benevolent work. Some of these 
 frequently spent a whole day in the gloomy prison-house, 
 carrying their dinner with them in a basket. Among the 
 most unwearied was Elizabeth Pryor, who, though less 
 known than Mrs. Fry, emulated her in every labour of love, 
 and did almost as much for the reformation of our prison 
 discipline. Her record is on high. The news of this spread, 
 the example became infectious, and the most illustrious 
 ladies in the land were smitten with a desire to visit jails, 
 and do something for their inmates. Newgate itself, notwith- 
 standing its sad associations and dreary corridors, became 
 a kind of show-place, and noblemen and clergymen came 
 to visit it, and see the change which had been wrought by the 
 gentle omnipotence of woman's love ; and they certainly 
 beheld the thieves and harlots, formerly so shameless and so 
 wild, like the maniac out of whom the whole legion of devils 
 had been cast, employed, clothed, and in their right mind. 
 
 Mrs. Fry had able coadjutors in her own family circle. 
 One of her sisters was married to Mr. Buxton, (afterwards 
 Sir Thomas Fowel Buxton,) and another to Samuel Hoare, 
 and both these benevolent men had even before this turned 
 their attention to our criminal population, and had been 
 making exertions to save juvenile depredators — our city 
 Arabs, as they are now called — from their career toward 
 the gallows, and to reclaim, when possible, more hardened 
 offenders. Her brother, Joseph John Gurney, who was 
 now, like herself, a minister of the Society of Friends, was 
 equally earnest in the same work. Accompanied by him, 
 she set out in the autumn of 1818 to visit Scotland, partly 
 to minister to the Quaker meetings scattered over the 
 country, but much more to inspect, and, if possible, reform 
 the prisons. Many of these the travellers found in a state 
 
254 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 of extreme filthiness; but they were surprised beyond 
 measure to find in many not a single prisoner, which they 
 attributed to the almost universal religious education of the 
 people — a matter in which Scotland was more pre-eminent 
 then than it is now.* In every case she left behind her hints 
 for the improvement of the buildings and the prison dis- 
 cipline, which were very generally attended to. 
 
 The criminal code of England was at this time most 
 sanguinary. Theft, to no great amount, was punishable by 
 death. Forgery, or the uttering of forged notes, was enough 
 to bring a man to the scaffold. It was calculated that if 
 the law, as it stood, was in every case carried into effect, 
 twelve hundred executions would have taken place every 
 year. The Old Bailey alone would have furnished a hun- 
 dred. But a law so rigorous could not be executed; it was 
 evaded in a hundred ways. The very police connived at 
 the escape of criminals, who, they knew, might pay with 
 their lives for a paltry fraud. The juries, if they could, by 
 any apparent flaw in the evidence, soothe their consciences, 
 brought in a verdict of " Not Guilty ;" they would rather 
 do violence to their convictions than have the guilt of blood 
 resting on their head. The prosecutors frequently accepted 
 a plea of guilty on " the minor count," and the criminal 
 escaped with banishment for life. If all these failed, there 
 was still a chance of a reprieve from the crown. But, not- 
 withstanding all these different doors of escape, executions 
 were painfully frequent, and shop-lifters, sheep-stealers, 
 forgers, and utterers of base money were not unfrequently 
 to be seen dangling on a gibbet. The consequence of this 
 was that felons condemned to die regarded themselves as 
 martyrs, murdered by the state, and the public, in some 
 respects, looked upon them in that light too. 
 
 * Life of Joseph John Girrney, Vol. 1. Memoirs of Elizabeth Fry. 
 
THE CRIMINAL CODE. 
 
 255 
 
 For the last ten years Sir Samuel Romilly had been 
 striving to ameliorate the criminal code, and we have seen 
 William Allan and other Quakers banding themselves to- 
 gether to promote the same object. Mrs. Fry's contact with 
 the female prisoners, in Newgate and elsewhere, had strongly 
 convinced her that the law was unnecessarily harsh, and 
 that human life was held too cheap. u I feel life so strong 
 within me," said a poor woman to her the day before her 
 execution, "that I cannot believe that this time to-morr< m 
 I am to be dead." She accordingly, on several occasions, 
 exerted herself to obtain a pardon for the unhappy women 
 who were doomed to die ; and, in the case of a woman 
 named Skelton, who had been condemned for uttering some 
 forged notes at the instigation of a man whom she loved, 
 she urged the matter with such importunity that it led to 
 unpleasant words between Lord Sidmouth, the prime minis- 
 ter, the directors of the Bank of England, and herself.* The 
 woman was hanged. But the work begun by Sir Samuel 
 Romilly, who died untimely in 1818, was taken up by Sir 
 James Macintosh and Mi*. Buxton, and the criminal law 
 was gradually deprived of its blood-thirstiness and ferocity. 
 
 It was on the very day on which she left the Home Office, 
 deeply wounded by what had passed in the case of Skelton, 
 that Mrs. Fry proceeded, in the company of the Countess 
 Harcourt, to the Mansion-House, by command of Queen 
 Charlotte, to be there introduced to her Majesty. A great 
 number of children from different schools were assembled 
 in the Egyptian Hall in order to be examined, and, when 
 the examination was concluded, the Queen advanced to the 
 Quakeress and addressed her with the utmost frankness 
 and cordiality. The vast company witnessed the spectacle, 
 and a murmur of applause ran through the crowd, which 
 
 * Memoirs of Elizabeth Fry, pp. 143-4. 
 
256 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 immediately afterwards burst into a rapturous clapping of 
 hands. " It was royalty," says Mrs. Fry's daughter and 
 biographer, " offering its meed of approval at the shrine of 
 mercy and good works." * 
 
 The same loving-kindness which prompted Mrs. Fry to 
 visit Newgate led her to take an interest in the convicts 
 who were sentenced to transportation. In company with 
 a party of these she went to the ship which was to bear 
 them across the sea, then lying in the Thames till its cargo 
 of crime was complete. She found that no provision what- 
 ever was made for their employment or superintendence 
 during the voyage. They were to be left very much to the 
 care of the rough sailors, and were to spend their time just 
 as they pleased. She instantly set about procuring rem- 
 nants of cotton cloth to be made by them into patch-work 
 quilts, and these, she arranged, were to be sold in New 
 South Wales, and the price given to the makers on their 
 landing in the colony. She also began to agitate in high 
 quarters to have a responsible matron in every female con- 
 vict vessel to superintend the women, and keep them at 
 work. Her constant coadjutor in this work was Mrs. 
 Elizabeth Pryor. These two devoted Quaker women might 
 often be seen by the Thames watermen proceeding to 
 Gravesend, to visit the convict ships lying there; gathering 
 the off-scourings of the streets of London around them on 
 the deck, and reading to them, in their silver tones, some 
 chapter of Holy Scripture ; or kneeling down with them, 
 and earnestly praying the Great Judge for repentance and 
 pardon. There were not unfrequently sorrowful partings 
 between these two pure-minded women and the harlots 
 and thieves, whose hearts had been melted by the power 
 of their love. 
 
 * Memoir, p. 146. 
 
OUR PRISONS. 
 
 257 
 
 " The British Ladies' Society for the Eeformation of 
 Female Prisoners " now began to enter upon this field of 
 usefulness. The members of the society visited the vessels, 
 supplied the convicts with many little comforts, and even 
 made arrangements for their reception and superintendence 
 at the antipodes. Mrs. Pryor having entered upon the 
 work, visited every convict ship, save one, which sailed 
 from England, till her death in 1841.* 
 
 Mrs. Fry's work as a prison reformer was life-long. All 
 her spare time was devoted to it. She visited Ireland, 
 she revisited Scotland, she travelled to Prance, Holland, 
 Germany, Denmark, and everywhere she carried the lamp 
 of Christian love into the dark prison-houses and hospitals. 
 Her influence was felt everywhere : nowhere more than in 
 the heart of the great Eussian empire, where prisons were 
 modelled after her advice. Kings and queens invited her 
 to their tables : the highest in rank and intellect did obei- 
 sance to her virtue. To her and her Quaker coadjutors we 
 undoubtedly owe the thorough reform of our prisons and 
 our prison discipline. They began the movement which 
 has led to such results. Our jails are now patterns of 
 healthfulness, cleanliness, and order. They are well ven- 
 tilated, well warmed, well drained. The prisoners are 
 separated, but not kept solitary ; they are employed, but 
 not over -tasked. They have their chaplains and medical 
 attendants, their turnkeys and matrons to minister to both 
 their physical and spiritual wants, and maintain them in the 
 most perfect health. The question now is, whether this 
 system of coddling and sympathising with our worst crimi- 
 nals has not been carried too far : whether the tide of 
 generous feeling awakened by the generous deeds of the 
 two Elizabeths has not led many to waste upon worthless 
 
 * Memoirs of Mrs. Fry, p. 201. 
 
 R 
 
253 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 vagabonds compassion which had far better have been 
 bestowed upon the honest and industrious poor ? It has 
 been said there is now a premium upon crime; that to 
 excite pity you must become a criminal : that the struggles 
 and sufferings of the labouring poor are too commonplace 
 to excite the sympathy of the age, which delights in horrors 
 and tragedies, and takes the greatest villains under its 
 special care. The reproach is not altogether unjust. Our 
 criminals are certainly better housed, better fed, and in 
 every way better cared for than many among our labouring 
 population, which, is neither expedient nor right: but, 
 instead of plunging our prisoners back into their former 
 filth and wretchedness, it would surely be better to ame- 
 liorate and elevate the condition of the poor. And the 
 task, though Herculean, is not altogether hopeless. In this 
 field there is still work for some philanthropist to do, and 
 it must be done patiently and quietly, away from the ex- 
 citement of prison horrors; but in the doing of it, it will be 
 found that in the silent endurance and unmurmuring sub- 
 mission of the neglected and needy there is the very highest 
 tragic interest. 
 
Chapter 
 
 HAVE already narrated how the young Quaker, 
 Joseph Lancaster, originated the school-system 
 which is still called by his name. It consisted 
 chiefly in the employment of monitors, so that the children 
 assisted one another ; in teaching masses simultaneously, so 
 that one teacher and one set of lessons educated hundreds ; 
 and in using the Bible as a text-book, but no catechism, so 
 that religion and morality were taught, while all sectarian • 
 ism was excluded. By this means education was made 
 cheap, and brought within the reach of the lowest. And 
 there was great need for something being done ; for, while 
 Scotland had her parish-schools, which placed a good edu- 
 cation within the power of the children of the labouring- 
 man, no such institution existed in England; and the 
 working-classes were in woeful ignorance, and it was al- 
 ready plain to thoughtful men that their degradation might 
 become an element of danger to society and the State. 
 There might be Goths not without, but within the gate. 
 
 Lancaster was eccentric and extravagant, and as we have 
 seen, got involved in pecuniary difficulties, and some bene- 
 volent members of his Society, to save Ms enterprise from 
 shipwreck, stepped forward and took his liabilities upon 
 their own head, and henceforward his schools were carried 
 on by trustees. For a while this plan worked tolerably well, 
 
260 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 but at length Lancaster became recalcitrant and unmanage- 
 able, and it was found necessary to break off from him 
 altogether. The British and Foreign School Society was 
 thereupon instituted to diffuse education among the poor 
 on Lancaster's system. It consisted of all classes of people, 
 from royal dukes downwards; but the members of the 
 Society of Friends were among the most zealous. William 
 Allan and Joseph Fox were especially so. The Duke of 
 Kent, the father of our Queen, corresponded with Allan on 
 the subject, and adopting the Quaker style, addressed him, 
 "Dear Friend Allan;" and when Fox died in 1816, he 
 declared, in a letter of condolence, that he "felt his loss 
 most deeply, both as a private friend and a public philan- 
 thropist." * 
 
 With such patronage to shine upon it, and such energy 
 to carry it on, the Lancasterian system quickly spread. 
 Schools, based on the model, sprang up in every part of 
 England and even Scotland. In 1815 there were five- 
 schools on the Lancasterian plan in Paris, placed under the 
 protection of the Prefect of the Seine, and there was the 
 prospect of other twelve being soon established. In North 
 America the system had taken firm root ; and in Calcutta 
 there was a large school for the half-caste natives of Hin- 
 dustan. About the same time both the negro king of the 
 northern part of Hayti and the mulatto president of the 
 republic, which had been established in the southern por- 
 tion of the island, begged that teachers might be sent to 
 them from England, to introduce the system among their 
 people. - !* 
 
 The yearly meeting of 1816 appointed William Allan to 
 visit the little Quaker communities at Pyrmont, Minden, 
 
 * Life of William Allan, Vol. I., p. 266. 
 t Life of Allan, Vol. I., pp. 253, 299, 311. 
 
ALLAN AND GKELLET. 
 
 261 
 
 and other places in Germany and France. He was accom- 
 panied by his -wife, Mrs. Fry, Mrs. Piobson, Cornelius Han- 
 bnry, and Francis Martin. In passing through Belgium 
 and Holland they visited the prisons, hospitals, and schools, 
 anxious both to gain information and to do good. At 
 Minden and Pyrmont they saw their friends, a little flock 
 scattered in the wilderness, and comforted them by their 
 presence and their words. Proceeding southwards, they 
 reached Geneva, and there Allan had to endure the agony 
 of seeing his wife sicken and die. She was quietly laid, in 
 Quaker fashion, in the cemetery of Sacconet. Before the 
 end came, Mrs. Fry, Mrs. Piobson, and Martin had pursued 
 their journey toward the south of France ; and now, when 
 the last rites of love were rendered, Allan, accompanied by 
 Hanbury, began his sorrowful journey home.* 
 
 \Yhile these things were going on in England, Stephen 
 Grellet had resumed his wandering life in America. After 
 little more than a year of rest, he found himself compelled, 
 by a divine impulse, to visit the island of Hayti. He 
 went, and everywhere preached to the negroes, who, with 
 their grinning faces, gathered around him. At Port-au- 
 Prince he was kindly received by the mulatto president of 
 the republic, who begged him to preach in the Eomish 
 cathedral. \Yhen Grellet suggested that his doing so 
 might give offence, the president replied — * Your meetings 
 are meetings for divine worship and for this very purpose 
 the church was built." As Grellet still hesitated, the 
 
 * Not long afterwards we find an entry in his journal which is characteristic 
 "both of the man and of the religious feeling of the society to which he belonged. 
 "Tenth Month, 22d, — Several friends called on me, and evinced tender sym- 
 pathy, particularly dear Joseph Foster and Rebecca Christy ; the latter was 
 sweetly engaged in supplication, and afterwards had to pour in the oil and 
 wine of consolation, in a very remarkable manner, exhorting me to give up to 
 the pointings of duty, even though the sacrifice might be as bitter as death." 
 
262 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 bishop called on him, and told him that neither he nor 
 any one else would object to him holding a meeting in the 
 cathedral church. There, accordingly, the Quaker pro- 
 claimed to a vast assemblage his simple Christianity, 
 which, in some of its aspects, is the most perfect counter- 
 part of Popery. He had some meetings afterwards, which 
 were conducted in silence, and with such signal success 
 that he thought the negroes were beginning to understand 
 the nature of silent worship. A severe fever compelled 
 him to shorten his visit, and return to New York.* 
 
 He was scarcely at home two years when he began to 
 turn his eyes anxiously and restlessly towards Europe. 
 " The weight of the service which the Lord calls for me 
 from Europe," he says, " becomes heavier and heavier : my 
 whole mind is at seasons absorbed by it." "f His business 
 was greatly prospering, but he resolved to retire from it. 
 His wife and family were dear to him, but he determined 
 to abandon them. Yea, he tells us his faithful wife, 
 "sweetly encouraged him" to go. His last pilgrimage 
 through Europe had occupied four years. He now, under 
 the " divine drawings," went forth again, and he knew not 
 when he might return — if ever. In July 1818 he was in 
 London, in the house of William Allan. He had long had 
 a presentiment that he was to be the companion of his 
 pilgrimage, and he had communicated to him his secret 
 intimations ; and in consequence of this, as he informs us, 
 Allan " passed through deep baptisms." " On the evening 
 of the 20th," writes Grellet, " in company with his mother 
 and daughter, and dear Eebecca Christy, we had a season 
 of most solemn silence. It was felt to be precious, and 
 was broken by dear William, prostrated on his knees, 
 
 * Memoirs of Stephen Grellet, Vol. I., pp. 329-50. 
 t Ibid., Vol. I., p. 352. 
 
MISSION TO THE NORTH. 
 
 263 
 
 offering up himself and his all to the Lord, to go with me 
 wherever the Blessed Master may be pleased to send us, 
 and to drink whatever cup He may prepare for us in the 
 course of that service, be it even unto death." * 
 
 It was toward Eussia and the north of Europe that the 
 eyes of the two Quakers were turned, for they remembered 
 the words and the tears of the Czar, and how he attended 
 their ministry, and how he kissed their sister's hand ; and 
 they thought that in his great empire, a wide and effectual 
 door was opened to them. First of all, they sailed for 
 Norway, where they found among its mountains a few 
 people who had been tinged with their principles while 
 prisoners of war in England, and they comforted them. 
 From Xorway they proceeded to Sweden, and, having 
 visited the prisons and other public institutions in the 
 towns which lay on their route, they at length found them- 
 selves in Stockholm, the capital city. There, by virtue of 
 the letters of introduction which they brought, and also by 
 the odour of their good name which was now pretty widely 
 diffused, they were waited upon by ministers of state, 
 ambassadors, nobles, and men eminent both for their good 
 words and their good works. As was their wont, wherever 
 they went, they visited the schools, the prisons, and the 
 hospitals.T" 
 
 From the first the Quakers have been a wandering 
 people. Supporting no missionary establishments, they 
 have themselves been missionaries. But the first Quakers 
 went forth to communicate some divine revelation which 
 they had received — it might be to the Sultan or to the 
 Pope — to the inhabitants of Jerusalem or the inquisitors 
 of Malta. These revelations were always neither more nor 
 
 * Memoirs of Stephen Grellet, Vol. I., pp. 350-7. 
 f Life of Allan, Vol. I. ; Memoirs of Grellet, Vol. I. 
 
264 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 less than some article of their faith — the universal light or 
 the sinless life — and, in their new-born ardour, they expected 
 to proselytize the world. The Quakers who now traversed 
 Europe did not thus compass sea and land in the hope of 
 making proselytes. Though they tenaciously adhered to 
 their traditionary customs and belief they were not zealous 
 in uroincr them on others. That was not their mission. 
 
 O o 
 
 They went forth as apostles of Christianity in its bene- 
 volent aspects. They were travelling philanthropists. They 
 declared everywhere that their object was simply to do 
 £ood — to introduce education among the masses of the 
 people, to soften the rigours of imprisonment, to counsel 
 universal toleration, as far as possible to benefit all. This 
 proclamation of their intentions attracted all good men of 
 every party and church to them. 
 
 The Quakers had by this time fairly established their 
 reputation as the most benevolent religious sect in the 
 world. They had toiled for a century to abolish slavery 
 and the slave-trade; Mrs. Fry's reputation as a prison- 
 reformer was already spread over Europe ; NVilliam Allan 
 and Joseph Lancaster were scarcely less famous as zealous 
 educationists, and their Society received the reflected lustre 
 of their renown. To be a Quaker was to be a philan- 
 thropist ; and the world readily pardoned the absurdities 
 of dress and manners for the sake of the warm heart which 
 beat beneath the drab. 
 
 At Stockholm the Quakers had an interview with the 
 king. They spoke of the institutions they had visited, and 
 of the improvements which might be effected. The king 
 declared he was most anxious to do good, but often found 
 himself more fettered by forms and old institutions than 
 they could believe. He referred to the principles of the 
 Friends, and more especially to their opinions on war and 
 self-defence, remarking he understood they might parry a 
 
THE QUAKERS IX RUSSIA. 
 
 265 
 
 blow, but not return it. For more than an hour the con- 
 versation went on. When the Friends rose to leave, the 
 monarch took them warmly by the hand, and, when Allan 
 uttered a prayer that the Lord would bless him, he pre- 
 sented first his one cheek and then his other to be kissed. 
 So the Quakers kissed the king and retired. This was 
 Bernadotte, who, from a private soldier, became a marshal 
 of France, and then, as a French marshal, was elected to 
 fill the Swedish throne.* 
 
 Their mission accomplished in Stockholm, the two 
 Friends crossed the Gulf of Bothnia and arrived in Fin- 
 land. From thence they proceeded — visiting the public 
 institutions and great men on their way — toward St. 
 Petersburg, which they reached just as the winter was 
 setting in. They found a few members of their sect in the 
 stately capital of the Czar, for the Quakers are an ubi- 
 quitous people, and with these, on the first days, they had 
 their silent worship. Among those who came to these 
 meetings was Daniel Wheeler, whom the Emperor had 
 invited into his kingdom to superintend some engineering 
 works in the neighbourhood of his capital, and wdio has 
 given to the world some interesting reminiscences of the 
 Bussian Court. 
 
 But it was not this which had brought them so far. One 
 of their first visits was to Prince Alexander Galitzin, the 
 Emperor's prime minister. They explained to him that 
 " their motive for visiting the country was a sense of 
 religious duty, laid upon them by the Great Parent of the 
 human family, and a strong desire to promote the general 
 welfare of mankind." f They begged permission to visit 
 the schools, prisons, hospitals, and other public institutions. 
 
 * Life of Allan, Vol. I. ; Memoirs of Grellet, Vol. I. 
 t Life of Allan, Vol. I., p. 424. 
 
266 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 The prince at once granted all that they asked, and said 
 that he had a letter from the Emperor, who was in the 
 provinces, requesting him to treat them as his friends, and 
 detain them till his return. 
 
 The Friends were soon at work visiting the prisons. 
 They found that considerable reforms had recently been 
 made, for the labours of Mrs. Fry were already known on 
 the banks of the Neva; but much still remained to be 
 done. In many cases, the men and the women were 
 huddled together, and often in the same room were to be 
 seen the most hardened wretches and persons committed 
 for some trifling offence, such as being without a passport, 
 or, perhaps, simply on suspicion. Thus was the contagion 
 of crime communicated ; and prisons, instead of being 
 reformatories, were schools of vice. On account of these 
 things they had their "deep mental conflicts," and their 
 " painful exercises," and their " much heaviness," but, at 
 other times, they had their seasons of joy and rejoicing. 
 Thus they rejoiced when with their own eyes they beheld 
 the Lancasterian system of education in full operation in the 
 city. Their joy, however, was somewhat damped when they 
 discovered that among the books used in these schools was 
 a book of sentences, consisting chiefly of translations from 
 French writers, and abounding in objectionable sentiments. 
 They instantly set to work;, and formed a lesson-book, made 
 up of sentences extracted entirely from the Bible, which 
 the Emperor afterwards introduced into all the schools 
 of Muscovy, and which was subsequently adopted by the 
 British and Foreign School Society* Thus, "whatsoever 
 their hand found to do," they did with all their might. 
 
 From visiting prisons, hospitals, and schools, the Friends 
 frequently went to visit princesses, ambassadors, and other 
 
 * Grellet's Memoirs, Vol. I., pp. 401-2. 
 
THE QUAKERS AT COURT. 
 
 267 
 
 high dignitaries of state. One of the most interesting of 
 these visits was to Michael, the Metropolitan of the Greek 
 Church. He received them arrayed in his rich pontifical 
 garments, and enquired at them regarding their religious 
 principles and practices ; and, in the end, remarked that 
 the main difference between them seemed to be that the 
 Quakers took everything in a spiritual sense, while the 
 Eastern Church believed that ceremonies were necessary, 
 though religion did not consist in these. 
 
 The Czar was now returned to St. Petersburg, and it was 
 not long till he sent for the Quakers, who had been doing 
 their best to mitigate the sins and the sorrows of his capital 
 city. He received them in a small cabinet, made them sit 
 down beside him, spoke of them as "old friends," and 
 referred to their interview in London, and his visit to their 
 meeting. The Quakers told His Majesty what they had 
 been doing, and what both of good and bad they had seen 
 in the prisons and other public institutions. " The state of 
 prisons," said Allan, " was too much alike in all countries ; 
 mankind had for ages been proceeding on a system which 
 had vengeance for its object rather than reform ; they went 
 upon the principle of retaliation. It was generally acknow- 
 ledged that this plan had failed, and it was now high time 
 to try another, more consonant with the Christian religion, 
 and better adapted to human nature." * They, moreover, 
 told him what great things had been done by Mrs. Fry in 
 Newgate, and how the work of prison reform, which had 
 been begun by Walter Venning in St. Petersburg, might be 
 more fully carried out. Passing from prisons to schools 
 the Quakers told the Czar how they had discovered that 
 sentiments of a demoralizing tendency had crept into some 
 of the school-books, and of how, during their stay in his 
 
 * Life of Allan, Vol. I., p. 467. 
 
268 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 city, they had prepared a book of Scripture-lessons, which 
 might be more advantageously employed. The Czar ex- 
 pressed himself pleased with all that had been done, and 
 showed himself anxious to follow out their views. The 
 interview had now lasted for two hours, and, when the 
 Quakers were ready to retire, the Emperor proposed that 
 before they went they should spend a short time together in 
 religious retirement and secret prayer. " We were disposed 
 to do so," says Grellet, " for we felt the Lord's presence and 
 power very near ; we continued for a short time in solemn 
 silence : our spirits were contrited together. After a while, 
 feeling my mind clothed with the spirit of prayer and sup- 
 plication, I bowed before the Divine Majesty on my knees ; 
 the Emperor kneeled by my side : we had a humbling and 
 grateful sense that the Lord condescended graciously to 
 hear our prayers." * A goodly spectacle this, most truly, 
 and such as the world has seldom seen, the Emperor and 
 the two Quakers on their knees in the stately palace of 
 St. Petersburg ! 
 
 About three weeks afterwards, Alexander again sent for 
 Allan and Grellet. They went with the consciousness that 
 " the canopy of heavenly love was over them." He told 
 them he had already carried out some of their reforms, 
 released some prisoners whom they thought unjustly con- 
 fined, and was so delighted with their Scripture-lessons 
 that he was resolved to have them introduced into all the 
 schools in his dominions. He spoke to them of his own 
 personal history, told " how early he had been favoured with 
 the touches of the divine love, though he knew not whence 
 they came ; " " that he remembered crying when he was 
 obliged to repeat forms of prayer, but that he and his 
 brother Constantine, with whom he slept, used to pray 
 
 * Grellet's Memoirs, Vol. I., p. 411 ; Life of Allan, Vol. I., p. 468. 
 
THE QUAKERS AND THE CZAE. 
 
 269 
 
 extempore, and had comfort in it; that, as he grew np, 
 these early impressions were very much dissipated, as the 
 Empress Catherine did not foster them, and he was placed 
 under the care of a French 1 philosophe,' who cared for none 
 of these tilings; that it was not till 1812 that he began 
 to read his Bible, when he found it bore witness to the 
 previous testimonies of the Holy Spirit in his heart, and 
 then he knew what they were, and whence they came." 
 This was precisely the Quaker creed in regard to the re- 
 lation of the inward light to the outward word, and it must 
 have greatly gladdened the two honest Quaker hearts to 
 hear this imperial testimony to its truth. It was now 
 getting near ten o'clock, and the Czar said he should like, 
 as before, to spend a little time in silence with them. 
 " This was a solemn moment," says Allan ; " the evidence 
 of the divine overshadowing was clear, strong, and indis- 
 putable, and the Emperor, I am sure, felt it to be so : it 
 was like sitting in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. After 
 some time, Stephen spoke most acceptably, and the Em- 
 peror, I doubt not, will long remember his communication. 
 I believed it right for me to offer up a supplication, but, so 
 awful did it appear, that I had great difficulty in giving 
 way; at last, however, I rose, turned round, and knelt 
 down, the Emperor came to the sofa and knelt down by 
 me, and now strength was given me beyond what I had 
 ever felt before, and the precious power accompanied the 
 words. When it was finished, I paused a little, and then 
 rose, he rose soon afterwards, and we sat a few minutes in 
 silence." * At parting, the Emperor was much affected — 
 he was bathed in tears — and, taking Allan's hand, he raised 
 it to his lips and kissed it. 
 
 A strange story, though true — the conqueror of Xapo- 
 
 * Life of Allan, Vol. EL, p. 15. 
 
270 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 leon, the most powerful potentate in the world, opening up 
 to two strangers — men of a different language and a dif- 
 ferent religion — the secret history of his heart, kneeling 
 down with them in prayer, doing them obeisance by kissing 
 their hand ! Was it that power of goodness, which is above 
 all churches, and superior to all rank and all race, which 
 had brought the American and the English Quakers into 
 such close brotherhood with the Eussian Autocrat ? 
 
 Before leaving St. Petersburg, the Quakers went, by 
 invitation, to visit the Empress Elizabeth, whom they had 
 not hitherto seen. Alas, there was a skeleton in a closet 
 in the proud palace on the banks of the Neva, as well as 
 in many humbler homes ! Alexander was not a faithful 
 husband, and his wife lived in a different part of the 
 palace. Perhaps, under a sense of the slights which had 
 been put upon her, she told the Quakers how she fre- 
 quently envied the lot of the milk-maids who went about 
 St. Petersburg, that she might live in privacy and religious 
 retirement. It is pleasing, however, to tell that this ami- 
 able princess, who wished she were a milk-maid as many a 
 milk-maid wishes she were a princess, was reconciled to 
 her husband before his death. He expired in her arms, 
 and, in the first outburst of her grief, she wrote to her 
 mother, " I have lost all : the angel is no more ! Dead, he 
 smiles upon me as he was wont to do while living ! " * 
 
 After a residence of four months in the city of the Great 
 Peter, the two Friends started for Moscow. Furnished 
 with letters from Prince Galitzin, in which they were re- 
 commended to all governors of provinces as persons well 
 known to the Emperor, they found an easy entrance into 
 every institution which they wished to visit, and were even 
 courted by the nobility and high officials, both spiritual 
 
 * Wheeler's Memoirs. 
 
THE QUAKERS AT THE TOMB OF HOWARD. 271 
 
 and civil. After seeing the ancient capital of Muscovy, 
 which was again rising from its ashes, they proceeded still 
 southwards, traversing some of those great steppes for 
 which this part of Eussia is distinguished. On the banks 
 of the Dnieper, they came in contact with a tribe, called 
 Malakans, or Spiritual Christians, who appeared to hold 
 religious opinions almost identical with their own, and 
 with them the two wanderers gladly fraternized. Not far 
 from thence they met the colonies of German Menonites, 
 who had found there a refuge and a home, and their rustic 
 bishop left his plough in the field, and came and made 
 arrangements for a religious meeting with them. They 
 penetrated the Crimea, and visited spots since made famous 
 by the marching of great armies, and the bloody struggles 
 of Great Britain and France with the Muscovite. They 
 stood at Kherson by the tomb of John Howard, the philan- 
 thropist, for there in the midst of his work he was struck 
 down by fever and died. A simple pyramid of stone 
 marked his grave, on one side of which was inscribed his 
 name, arid, underneath it, some stranger had chiselled the 
 appropriate words, "Propter alios visit." The Friends 
 might well stand by the mound where the good Howard 
 slept, " with their spirits retired within them," and think 
 how the Lord had called them to walk in his steps. At 
 Odessa they bade farewell to the Eussian empire, but the 
 wanderers had left the mark of their footprints behind 
 them, and they have not been effaced to this day. They 
 afterwards sent to the Emperor a report of what had most 
 attracted their notice as requiring reform.* 
 
 After crossing the Black Sea the travellers entered the 
 Bosphorus, and soon Constantinople, with its marble 
 mosques and towering minarets, burst upon their view. 
 
 * Life of Allan, Vol. II. ; Grellet's Memoirs, Vol. I. 
 
272 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 It was the Great Ramazan, -and the countless coloured 
 lamps, which were suspended from the minarets at night, 
 gave to the crescent city a peculiar splendour. But the 
 plague was also there, and threw a gloom over it. They 
 were introduced to pachas and head dragomen, and ex- 
 plained to them their mission — it was simply to do good 
 — which the Turks could not very clearly comprehend. 
 They were, however, freely allowed to visit the prisons, 
 hospitals, and schools, but they never gained access to 
 the Grand Sultan, as Mary Fisher had nearly two centuries 
 before. 
 
 Leaving Constantinople, they visited Smyrna, saw its 
 prisons and lazar-houses, drank coffee and sherbet with the 
 Bey Effendi, and when they found that he knew some- 
 thing of the Spirit's illumination, they expounded that way 
 more perfectly to him in the midst of a circle of friends. 
 From Smyrna they sailed to Scio, and then skirting the 
 sunny islands of the Archipelago, they set foot upon the 
 classic soil of Athens, wandered amid its ruined temples, 
 and stood on Mar's Hill, where Paul, eighteen hundred 
 years before, had proclaimed to its sneering philosophers 
 the unknown God. Like the first apostles of Christianity, 
 who visited this famous land, the Quakers " departed from 
 Athens, and came to Corinth;" but in the city where St. 
 Paul was " pressed in spirit, and testified that J esus was 
 Christ," they had little opportunity of doing so, only they 
 had an interesting interview with the primate of the Greek 
 Church. They, therefore, proceeded to Patras, and from 
 thence to Zante, one of the Ionian Islands, where Allan 
 was seized with fever, and for some time was seriously ill. 
 After his partial recovery, they sailed to Corfu : and here 
 the joint-labours of the two Friends came to a close. Allan 
 felt it to be his duty to return home by Malta, and Grellett 
 had a strong impression given him that he must see 
 
GEELLET AT NAPLES. 
 
 273 
 
 Naples and Rome before his work was done. We shall 
 follow him in his course. 
 
 Greliet set foot in Italy at Barletta, and there his 
 Quaker garb instantly attracted attention, and brought 
 priests and monks and all kinds of people about him to 
 inquire what he was, and what was the religion he pro- 
 fessed. He preached the Quaker gospel to them. When 
 he was ready to start for Xaples, he was offered an escort 
 of soldiers to protect him from the banditti who infested 
 the road ; but he declined it, as it was contrary to his 
 principles to trust to an arm of flesh. He had previously 
 refused to take his passage to Italy in a frigate, as he 
 deemed it improper for a man of peace to be sailing in a 
 man-of-war. All this made people marvel what manner 
 of man he was. On the way he heard of numerous rob- 
 beries, and saw several brigands swinging in gibbets by the 
 way-side ; but this suggested to his mind only two thoughts 
 — that the Lord protected those who put their trust in 
 Him, and that hangings and quart erings did harm rather 
 than good, as brigands were as plentiful as ever. 
 
 Sir Thomas Maitland, the commandant of the British 
 forces in the Mediterranean, "had furnished him with a 
 letter of introduction to the Chevalier de Medici, the Prime- 
 Minister of his Neapolitan Majesty, which he had forward- 
 ed, and now, by appointment, he went to wait upon the 
 minister. In the ante-chamber the crowd of suitors there 
 waiting were startled by the apparition of a man in drab 
 clothing, and with his hat on his head ; but he was almost 
 immediately ushered into the cabinet of the chevalier, who 
 received him most courteously, asked many questions about 
 his travels, and the principles of his society, and readily 
 agreed to give him orders for admittance to all the prisons 
 and other public institutions in the city, only requesting 
 he would communicate to him any evils he might see, and 
 
 s 
 
274 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 his opinions as to how they might best be remedied. 
 On the very next day Grellet began to visit the dun- 
 geons of Naples, which have always been proverbial for 
 their horrors, and he saw enough to sicken and distress 
 him. 
 
 There was a scene in a large foundling hospital which 
 he visited, too remarkable to be omitted. As he was 
 proceeding along one of the corridors, he happened to pass 
 the door of the chapel, and looking in he saw several nuns 
 and a number of girls on their knees before a madonna, 
 gorgeously arrayed. They were singing a hymn to the 
 virgin ; but at the noise of footsteps, some of them turned 
 round and laughed. The soul of Grellet was sorrowful 
 when he beheld their levity and idolatry. One of the 
 priests requested him to step into the chapel, but he ex- 
 cused himself on the ground, that he might not uncover 
 his head, and that he did not wish to give any offence. 
 They assured him that no offence would be felt, as he kept 
 on his hat from religious considerations, and as they them- 
 selves kept on their cowls. Thereupon, the Quaker said to 
 the chief-priest he would gladly go into their chapel if he 
 would be allowed to speak lo the nuns and young women 
 what the Lord might communicate to him, and if he would 
 act as his interpreter. The request was a bold one, but it 
 was granted, and the Quaker, with his attendant priests 
 and nuns, entered the consecrated place. When the hymn 
 was done, he opened his mouth and told the girls how his 
 heart had been grieved by their levity, while they pretended 
 to be engaged in devotion, but that there was some excuse 
 for it, as the image before them was but a piece of wood, 
 carved by man's device, and that all acceptable worship 
 must be offered to God alone ; he exhorted them, instead 
 of looking at candles uselessly burning at noon-day, to 
 turn their eyes inward upon Christ, the true light, who 
 
GEELLET IX ROME. 
 
 275 
 
 lighteth every man that cometh into the world, and so 
 they would be saved.* 
 
 His work done at Naples, he proceeded to Rome. Pius 
 VII., at that time, occupied the Pontifical throne. He had 
 lived in troublous times. He had given to the coronation 
 of Napoleon the religious sanction of the holy oil, and soon 
 afterwards he found himself Napoleon's prisoner, and the 
 States of the Church incorporated with the French empire. 
 Then came the change, and he was restored to his dignities 
 and dominions, amid the gratitude, the tears, and the 
 blessings of the Catholic world. He was now well-stricken 
 in years, and had learned wisdom from adversity. 
 
 Grellet was no sooner in the Papal city than he hurried 
 to the Quirinal to present the letters he had received from 
 Sir Thomas Maitland and the Chevalier Medici to the 
 Cardinal Consalvi, the Pope's prime minister. Consalvi 
 requested him to call at his own palace next morning. 
 The Quaker accordingly called on the cardinal, and was 
 kindly received. Who the Quakers were was a mystery to 
 the Italians, and therefore Consalvi asked Grellet particu- 
 larly about the principles of his sect. In giving the in- 
 formation desired, Grellet did not hesitate to state some 
 truths not generally agreeable to Roman ears. Notwith- 
 standing this the cardinal parted with him in a very friendly 
 manner, and promised to send him orders for admittance to 
 the different institutions which he wished to visit. 
 
 Notwithstanding the friendship he had received from 
 men in power, and the ready entrance which he obtained 
 to every public institution, Grellet's mind was often op- 
 pressed by indescribable suffering while he remained in 
 Rome. These painful thoughts reappeared in the night- 
 time, and in his dreams he felt as if he were among lions 
 
 * Grellet's Memoirs, Vol. IE, pp. 53-5. 
 
276 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 and serpents, and treading upon scorpions. Albeit he was 
 thus distressed, he resolved to make an effort to get ad- 
 mission to the Inquisition, and thus to thrust himself into 
 the very lions' den. The necessary orders were, with some 
 difficulty, procured, and he entered the buildings near the 
 Church of St. Peter, where so many heretics, like himself, 
 had bid farewell to liberty and life. He saw the under- 
 ground cellars in which the Inquisition had sat and ques- 
 tioned, and tortured and condemned their victims. He 
 saw the cells in which the unhappy captives were confined, 
 and had pointed out the one in which Molinos had lain. 
 He was conducted to the public library, and then, after 
 some hesitation, led into the secret one, where, ranged on 
 shelves, he saw the legion of books which the Inquisition 
 had condemned. From this he was taken to the secretary's 
 room, and permitted to inspect the records of this dark and 
 deadly court, whose buildings he had explored. There he 
 found, registered with business-like accuracy, the name 
 and crime of every one who had suffered, the tortures 
 he endured, the secrets he let out, the death which ' he 
 died. Everything, however, convinced Grellet that the 
 prisons of the Inquisition had not been used for many 
 years. He came out of its dreary portals thankful he was 
 safe* 
 
 This was a considerable feat for a Quaker to perform, 
 but he now hinted to Cardinal Consalvi that he would not 
 stand acquitted in the Divine sight unless he attempted to 
 see the Pope. The cardinal undertook to arrange a private 
 interview ; and, according to appointment, he proceeded to 
 the Vatican. After being led through several apartments, 
 he arrived at a private cabinet, and the Holy Father's 
 valet, arrayed like a cardinal, opened the door, and an- 
 
 * Grellet's Memoirs, Vol. II., pp. 71-3. 
 
GBELLET AND THE POPE. 
 
 277 
 
 nounced, "The Quaker is come." "Let liirn come in," 
 said his Holiness. Upon this the priest who was to act as 
 interpreter led him in ; but just as he was entering, some 
 one behind deftly whipped off his hat, and before he had 
 time to look around, the door was closed. Well, there he 
 was, with his hat off, in the presence of the Pope ; but 
 there was no help for it, for the door was closed. The 
 spare old man, with a serious mild countenance, rose to 
 receive his Quaker visitor, but he appeared feeble, and im- 
 mediately resumed his seat. He told Grellet he had 
 read the reports he had made to Consalvi regarding the 
 prisons and other public establishments, and said that he 
 was resolved to make several changes, as he believed that 
 Christian tenderness was more likely to effect reformation 
 than harshness. He said he was glad that Grellet was 
 convinced of the change which had taken place in Eome 
 in regard to the Inquisition, and that he was anxious to 
 bring about a similar change in Spain and Portugal, but 
 that popes were not so powerful as was supposed. He 
 even assented to the proposition that God alone is Lord of 
 the conscience, and that the weapons of the Christian 
 should not be carnal, but spiritual. Encouraged by this, 
 Grellet spoke of the sin of burning Bibles, and of the 
 licentiousness of many monks, and of the spiritual anoint- 
 ing which alone could make a man a minister ; to all which 
 the Pope also politely agreed. Finally, he felt, as he tells 
 us, the love of Christ flowing in his heart towards the 
 good old man, and so he became more special and search- 
 ing in his address. He alluded to his sufferings under 
 Napoleon, his deliverance from all his enemies, the pro- 
 longation of his days, and suggested that if now, in his old 
 age, he would declare that Jesus Christ alone was Head of 
 the Church, his sun would set in brightness, and his por- 
 tion in eternity would be with the sanctified ones amid the 
 
278 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 joys of salvation. The Holy Pontiff had hung his head 
 while the Quaker spoke, and now he courteously rose, and 
 addressing Grellet, expressed a desire that "the Lord would 
 bless and protect him wherever he went." It was the 
 Pope's blessing ; but what could the old man think of his 
 plain-spoken friend in drab ? * 
 
 When Grellet returned to the outer apartment, his hat 
 was restored to him. The valet made many apologies (and, 
 no doubt, some secret grimaces), remarking that he under- 
 stood the same plan was resorted to when Friends were 
 admitted into the presence of the King of England. His 
 mission in the City of the Seven Hills was now accom- 
 plished, and he felt at liberty to depart. 
 
 Turning his face to the north, our benevolent broadbrim 
 now travelled to Florence, Bologna, Venice, and Verona ; 
 crossed the Tyrolese Alps ; visited the cities of Bavaria and 
 Wiirtemburg ; inspected their prisons, and had conferences 
 with their kings ; passed into Switzerland, and, to his great 
 joy, met with William Allan at Geneva, lingering by the 
 grave of his wife. They were reunited, however, only to 
 part again, for Allan started direct for London, and Grellet 
 travelled into France, and lingered at places where he 
 thought he could do good ; revived the recollections of the 
 land of his birth ; saw his mother, now more than eighty 
 years of age, but with " a mind clear and green in the 
 Divine Life and finally reached England, after an absence 
 of nearly two years. 
 
 No more remarkable and surprising journey was ever 
 made since apostolic days — if even then. These two mem- 
 bers of an obscure sect had made the circuit of Europe, 
 and had found that above all churches and creeds there 
 was a serene region where all men might meet and love 
 
 Grellet's Memoirs, Vol. II., pp. 78-80. 
 
SECRET OF SUCCESS. 
 
 279 
 
 one another. They had visited the Lutherans of Norway 
 and Sweden, and as men of peace, had kissed the cheek of 
 the martial Bernadotte ; they had prayed on their bended 
 knees, by the side of the Czar, in his capital, and in their 
 plain drab had received the blessing of the mitred metro- 
 politan of the Eastern Church. They had talked with 
 pachas and beys in the city of Constantino regarding the 
 true light of the world ; they had spoken to the slippery 
 Greeks in Athens, Corinth, and Scio, of honesty and truth, 
 as Christian virtues, which they evidently knew not ; and, 
 finally, in the city of Eomulus and Hildebrand, one of 
 them, had stood before the Pope in his palace, had pro- 
 claimed the rights of conscience, and the unction of the 
 Spirit, and hinted that the Holy Father should abdicate 
 his pretended headship of the Church, and so die in peace. 
 
 What was the secret of their success — of their friendly 
 reception everywhere by all Churches and by all men ? 
 The first cause is to be found in the very vulgar fact that 
 they carried with them excellent letters of introduction, 
 which, at this peculiar stage of the world's civilization, have 
 a very magic power. Another cause lies in the circum- 
 stance that they belonged to no Church which was feared 
 or hated by the other Churches. Had they belonged to any 
 of the great Protestant communities, they would have been 
 received with suspicion, both in St. Petersburg and Eome. 
 But they were neither Lutherans nor Calvinists ; were 
 neither of the Church of England nor of any other State 
 Church; they were simply Friends, holding a somewhat 
 mystic creed, and repudiating almost all forms of worship 
 together ; and metropolitans, patriarchs, and popes at once 
 perceived that they had nothing to fear from the encroach- 
 ments of such a religion. But, undoubtedly, the chief 
 cause of their friendly welcome everywhere was, that they 
 came not to preach sectarianism, but to do good ; it was to 
 
280 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 visit the captive in his cell, the sick man in his hospital, 
 the madman in his asylum, the little child in his class- 
 room ; and to give the benefit of their large experience in 
 the management of all such institutions. Their mission 
 was one of mercy and universal good-will : and, therefore, 
 they were received in all love and honour as the apostles 
 of a gospel which is known and received in all the ends of 
 the earth. 
 
X 1822 there was to be a Congress of Sovereigns at 
 Verona, to arrange the affairs of Spain, and other- 
 wise to unravel the tangled threads of European 
 politics. It instantly occurred to the Friends that this was 
 an opportunity not to be let slip, to bring the subject of 
 slavery before the assembled powers. For, though the 
 slave-trade had been abolished on paper by almost every 
 civilized country, it nevertheless flourished more vigorously 
 than ever, and every person saw that it must be treated as 
 piracy if it was to be put down. This thought had espe- 
 cially entered into the secret heart of William Allan ; for 
 was not his friend, the Czar Alexander, to be there ; and 
 had he not gained his confidence, and knelt and prayed by 
 his side in his imperial palace at St. Petersburg ? What 
 might not be done through a potentate so mighty, and, at 
 the same time, apparently, so well disposed ! * 
 
 In September, 1822, Allan was on the road to Vienna, 
 where he knew the Czar, on his way to Verona, was to 
 remain some time on a visit to his brother of Austria. As 
 he went on Ins way, he met, on the western bank of the 
 Rhine, not far from Strasburg, a people called the " In- 
 spires," who, like the Quakers, believed in the immediate 
 
 * Life of William Allan, Vol. II., p. 240. 
 
282 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 influence of the Holy Spirit, in the unlawfulness of war 
 and oaths, and that the sacraments formed no part of 
 Christianity ; but who differed from them in singing hymns 
 and offering up stated prayers in their worship. He at- 
 tended one of their meetings, and rejoiced in the measure 
 of illumination they had received. Pursuing his journey, 
 he reached Vienna toward the end of the month.* 
 
 It was not long till the Czar sent for him, and received 
 him as kindly as ever. " I have nothing to do all the 
 evening," said Alexander, " but to hear what you have got 
 to say. But shall we not pray first ?" Allan said he would 
 rather speak first, and then pray afterwards. The Emperor 
 agreed, and Allan, after unburdening his mind in regard to 
 the Menonite colonies and the Lancaster schools in the 
 Eussian empire, approached the slave-trade. He showed 
 the Emperor the picture of a slaver which had recently 
 been captured, and of the thumbscrews which had been 
 found on board, and urged upon him to use his influ- 
 ence with the potentates in the Congress to get the trade 
 declared piracy. Alexander declared that he thoroughly 
 sympathized with his sentiments, and would do what he 
 could. Other subjects were then talked of, among which 
 were the Greek insurrection, now burst out, and Austrian 
 intolerance. " During the whole of the conversation," says 
 Allan, " there was such a sweetness to be felt, that all fear 
 was taken away, and we conversed with the familiarity of 
 old friends and acquaintances." It was now drawing to- 
 wards ten o'clock, and the Emperor, taking hold of the 
 Quaker's hand, said, " Have you anything for me ? I am 
 
 * Life of Allan, Vol. II., pp. 247-56. 
 
 The Quakers have always shown an extreme solicitude to find out people like 
 themselves, and to fraternize with them. Even, in Hindustan, they have dis- 
 covered a sect called Sands, who, they think, are virtually Quakers. — See 
 Gurney's Peculiarities of the Society of Friends, pp. 10-11. Ed. 1825. 
 
ALLAN AND ALEXANDER — A SCENE. 
 
 283 
 
 now ready to hear what you may have to communicate." 
 " After a short silence," says Allan, " I addressed him in 
 the fresh flowing of Gospel love." . . . "We were both 
 contrited with the sweet feeling of Divine goodness ; and, 
 on my remarking that tins made me forget for the moment 
 the difference in our relative situations, he put his arm 
 affectionately around me." Here let the curtain drop. 
 
 When the curtain dropped, the Emperor was seen with 
 Ins arms encircling the Quaker most lovingly; when it 
 rises again, the two are seen, a few days afterwards, sitting 
 together in the palace at Vienna, chatting about the slave- 
 trade and the approaching Congress. " Will you not take 
 some tea with me ?" said the Emperor. " I shall be happy," 
 said the Quaker. Whereupon the Emperor rings a little 
 silver hand-bell, and servants appear bearing in the re- 
 freshing beverage; but the Quaker, on tasting his cup, 
 discovers it is sweetened with sugar, and sugar he has 
 vowed not to taste, for it is the produce of slave labour, 
 and, therefore, he communicates his scruples to the Em- 
 peror, who orders a cup to be brought into which the sac- 
 charine element has not entered. Again the conversation 
 flows on, and the Czar begins to unbosom himself of his 
 religious experiences, his temptations, his trials, his con- 
 tinual warfare. At length all talk ceases, and, in Quaker 
 style, the two sit in deep silence, and then together they 
 kneel down upon the floor and pray. When they rise, and 
 have their little season of silence again, the Emperor kisses 
 the Quaker, and so they part.* A very Quaker with 
 Quakers does this Emperor appear. 
 
 Vienna, and especially the courts of the palace, were 
 bustling with princes, plenipotentiaries, and diplomatists — 
 great men and little men — lords and flunkeys, grandees 
 
 * Life of Allan, Vol. II., pp. 257-62. 
 
284 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 with the bluest blood of Castile, and scullions, who had 
 been taken from the dunghill, and set among princes, all on 
 their way to the Congress, and discussing what was likely 
 to be done there. Allan had interviews with several of 
 these, for, in such a circle, his broad brim and breastless 
 coat were quite as conspicuous as a marshal's uniform, or a 
 courtier's velvet and lace and fine linen. Almost everybody 
 knew him, and he knew everybody. More especially, he 
 had much talk with Prince Esterhazy and the Duke of 
 Wellington, the British Plenipotentiary to the Congress, 
 and they advised him to proceed to Verona, that he might 
 be able to give any information which might be required 
 in regard to the slave-trade. To Verona, therefore, he went. 
 When there, however, he learned there were insuperable 
 difficulties in the way of getting the powers to bind them- 
 selves to treat slave-traders as pirates ; and, in the chief 
 object of his mission, therefore, he failed. 
 
 While at Verona, however, he had two interviews with 
 the Emperor. In the parting one, he spoke of the persecu- 
 tions to which the Waldenses were subjected, and stated 
 that the Duke of Wellington had received instructions to 
 remonstrate with the King of Sardinia.* This led to the 
 general subject of toleration. The Czar thought that if 
 sectaries attacked the religion of the state, the magistrate 
 must interfere ; but the Quaker expounded to him the 
 more excellent way of his sect as to perfect freedom in 
 matters of faith. At length the conversation ceased, and 
 the Emperor proposed they should pray. But Allan sug- 
 gested silence. " We then," says he, " had a precious tender 
 time of silent waiting upon the Lord, and were .favoured 
 
 * This conversation was the cause of the Czar taking a profound interest in 
 this mountain people, and afterwards founding an hospital among them at La 
 Tour.— See Grellet's Memoirs, Vol. II., pp. 359-60. 
 
THE QUAKER EMPEROR. 
 
 285 
 
 with a sweet holy feeling ; at length I felt it right to kneel 
 down and offer np thanksgiving, and to supplicate for con- 
 tinned preservation. The Emperor knelt by me. The 
 power of the Holy Spirit accompanied the words." When 
 they had risen from their knees, after a little pause the 
 Czar said, " Now, I want you to tell me a little how you 
 do in silent worship, for I find that, without some words, 
 or something to fix my mind upon, I am apt to wander ; 
 I find it difficult to fix my thoughts ; how is it with you ?" 
 Allan confessed that he had often to struggle with the 
 same tendency, but that the only way w r as to keep a watch 
 over the thoughts, and, so often as they wandered, to bring 
 them back again. The Quaker rose to leave, and the Czar 
 embraced and kissed him thrice over. " Oh ! " said he, 
 when and where shall we meet again?"* They never 
 more met in this world ; perchance, they have now met in 
 the better one. 
 
 Two years after this Thomas Shillitoe was in St. Peters- 
 burg, and was twice received by the Emperor. They 
 talked together of their religious experiences ; they sat in 
 silence ; they knelt down side by side and prayed. And 
 then the proud Autocrat kissed the old cobbler, and so 
 they bid each other adieu. A year afterwards the Czar 
 was dead. A devout man truly, and half a Quaker, though 
 the Czar of Muscovy and the head of the Greek Church. 
 
 * Life of Allan, Vol. II., pp. 2S4-7. 
 
Cfjapter IFIIL 
 
 E must now return from our pleasant tour to the 
 Continent, where we have seen beggars riding on 
 horseback, and Quakers drinking tea with kings, 
 and enter the thorny track of religious controversy : for 
 though the Friends had no creed, and were all under a 
 Divine illumination, they began to quarrel among them- 
 selves about forms of faith. Prom the very first, it was 
 a fundamental article of belief among them that the Scrip- 
 tures were not the primary rule of faith and manners. 
 The same Spirit which dictated the Holy Scriptures to the 
 prophets and apostles spoke in every man's heart ; and it 
 was from these whisperings of the Spirit within us that we 
 could learn the truth in its greatest purity. George Fox 
 received his religion by an immediate revelation of the 
 Spirit, though he afterwards discovered it in his Bible. 
 This identity, however, was to be expected, as he and his 
 followers argued, for it was the same Spirit which spoke 
 in him which spoke in the holy men of old who wrote the 
 Scriptures. The Quakers, therefore, while holding that 
 they had the highest revelation of God in their own hearts, 
 read their Bible and reverenced it. 
 
 It will readily be seen that this doctrine of the superior- 
 
THE INNER AND OUTER REVELATIONS. 
 
 287 
 
 ity of the inward light might easily be wrested by a rigid 
 logician to his own destruction. For it might be argued 
 that if we receive religions truth by immediate revelation, 
 there is no need of any other revelation, or, at any rate, 
 any other pretended revelation must be subjected to the 
 test of this, and rejected or received only in so far as it 
 agrees with it. If the two oracles agreed in their responses, 
 it was well ; but if in any point they differed, it seemed to 
 follow as a necessary consequence that the book revelation 
 must be subordinated to the heart one. Thoughts like 
 these had naturally sprung up in many Quakers' minds — 
 for man is a reasoning animal, and is fond of driving prin- 
 ciples to their results. In the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century several Quakers, both in England and America, 
 had the courage to say what they thought. They main- 
 tained not merely the superiority of the inward light, but 
 on its authority they presumed to judge, and judging, to 
 reject and condemn portions of the written Word. One 
 female theologian, in especial, brought great grief to the 
 sect by declaring that no part of Scripture could be re- 
 ceived which was inconsistent with the moral perfections 
 of God, as mirrored in the human mind ; and hence she 
 rejected the narrative of the extirpation of the Canaanites 
 by Divine command, and all other Scripture of a similar 
 kind which, shocked her moral sense or her humane in- 
 stincts. Another fair divine declared that she had no 
 revelation of miracles being performed, and though she did 
 not deny their possibility, she seemed to doubt it* It 
 was apparently the philosophy of Hume which had dis- 
 guised itself as an angel of light, and crept into her mind. 
 But it was in America that these opinions grew to their 
 
 * Rathbone's Narrative of Events that have taken place in Ireland among the 
 Society called Quakers. 
 
288 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 greatest height. There, indeed, they seemed to have 
 come down by tradition, for George Keith tells us how his 
 spirit was vexed by those who maintained that the revela- 
 tion given in their own heart was to be preferred to the 
 sacred writings, and even seemed to deny the reality of 
 Christ's life by referring the Gospel narrative to what 
 occurs in every Christian's experience. It is a history, 
 said they, of the Christ within, miraculously begotten 
 from above, tempted of the devil, earnest to do good, per- 
 secuted, put to death, but triumphant over death. It is 
 probable that Keith, in some measure, misrepresented the 
 opinions of his adversaries; but it is, at the same time, 
 certain that many of the early American Quakers held 
 strong views in regard to the superiority of the inner to 
 the outer revelation ; and in truth, by doing so, only car- 
 ried out the principles of Barclay and Fox. These opinions 
 thus early manifested appear to have lingered among the 
 American Friends till the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century, when they received such a development as re- 
 sulted in the disruption of the society. 
 
 Elias Hicks, an eloquent and influential minister, was 
 the leader of the party, which, aiming at a high spirituality, 
 subordinated the Bible to the oracle in the heart. So early 
 as 1805 he had begun to advocate these views, but some- 
 what timidly, perhaps, because his ideas were not yet fully 
 matured and systematised. In 1808 he spoke more boldly, 
 depreciating the authority of Holy Scripture, undervaluing, 
 if not denying, the redemption of Christ, and questioning 
 the observance, in any shape, of the first day of the week, 
 as this seemed to imply that it was a day more holy than 
 others* Stephen Grellet was scandalised by his way of 
 talking, and took him to task. The remonstrances of Ste- 
 
 * Grellet's Memoirs, Vol. I., pp. 142-3. 
 
QUAKERISM IN AMERICA. 
 
 289 
 
 plien, "however, appear to have done no good, for he went 
 on preaching his principles more earnestly than ever ; and 
 the Friends in great multitudes were convinced, if indeed 
 they did not hold the same opinions from the beginning. 
 
 Quakerism had flourished much more vigorously in 
 America than in England. The Quakers in England at 
 present do not exceed 14,000. In America they are esti- 
 mated at 150,000. In England there is only one yearly 
 meeting, where the representatives of the Society from the 
 whole island assemble. In America there are eight 'yearly 
 meetings, each with its own province, and possessed of its 
 own absolute jurisdiction, though in communication with 
 all the rest, and with the parent meeting at London. This 
 large body was nearly equally divided in regard to the 
 preaching of Hicks — some holding that he was the truest 
 exponent of primitive Quakerism, others that he was no 
 better than an apostle of natural religion, that he had 
 denied the faith, and was almost worse than an infidel. 
 By and by these disputes found their way into the monthly, 
 quarterly, and yearly meetings, and wrangling and bad 
 blood broke in upon their silence, and even entered into 
 their devotions. While the controversy was at its hottest, 
 in 1826, the active, ubiquitous English Quaker, Thomas 
 Shillitoe, whose acquaintance we have already made, ar- 
 rived in America, and was claimed by the Hicksites as an 
 adherent. It is certain that he preached in the meeting- 
 house at Long Island, where Hicks habitually ministered ; 
 and when he was done, Hicks rose up and declared that 
 his doctrines were identical with his own. In like man- 
 ner, in an address which he issued to the Seneca Indians, 
 he declared the Scriptures were not the only means of 
 salvation, or sole rule of conduct. But other utterances 
 which he gave at other times were of a different stamp, 
 and he never left the orthodox Friends. 
 
 T 
 
290 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 The controversy turned, in a considerable measure, upon 
 the condition of the heathen. It was an ancient and 
 radical principle of the sect that an evangelical and saving 
 light was given by God to every man who came into the 
 world, and that he, by following the guidance of this light 
 might, without any other help, come to heaven. Eobert 
 Barclay, the apologist, elaborately developed this principle, 
 and besides referring to heathen philosophers who possessed 
 this divine light, and were saved by it, he quoted the case 
 of Hai Eben Yokdan. According to the story, this man 
 was thrown into the sea on the day of his birth, and car- 
 ried by the waves to an uninhabited island, where he was 
 suckled by a roe, and grew up to manhood — a perfect child 
 of nature. Here, without any intercourse with a single 
 human being, he reached, as was affirmed, to a deep know- 
 ledge of religious truth, as taught in the Koran ; and when 
 discovered, after fifty years of solitude, he could explain all 
 the tenets of the Moslem faith. "Without converse of 
 man, living in an island alone," says Barclay, " he attained 
 to such a profound knowledge of God as to have immediate 
 converse with him, and to affirm that the best and most 
 certain knowledge of God is not that which is attained by 
 premises premised and conclusions deduced, but that which 
 is enjoyed by the conjunction of the mind of man with the 
 supreme intellect, after the mind is purified from its cor- 
 ruptions, and is separated from all bodily images, and is 
 gathered into a profound stillness." The states of abstrac- 
 tion here referred to in which the highest knowledge of 
 God was attained were produced, as the story went, by 
 Hai Eben Yokdan shutting his eyes, closing his ears, and 
 performing rapid gyrations, till all outward sense was 
 lost ; in other words, till he was perfectly dizzy. All this 
 the simple-minded but amiable apologist fully believed, 
 and took for actual history, but, as might have been seen 
 
THE DISRUPTION. 
 
 291 
 
 by even the most credulous, it was simply an Arabian tale. 
 The fact, however, that he gave it a place in his system of 
 theology shows very clearly his opinion as to the univer- 
 sality of the divine and saving light. Hicks maintained 
 that this universal light was nothing but our innate ideas 
 of right and wrong — the law written on the heart — and 
 that by attending to these, any man, whether heathen or 
 Christian, might be saved. It was a favourite maxim of 
 his, that what was known of God was manifested only in 
 man. 
 
 It will be seen there was ground here for very fierce 
 religious controversy, and the controversy, once wakened, 
 raged for several years. It was debated not merely which 
 opinions were true and which false, but which were in 
 accordance with the ancient principles of the sect. At 
 length, in 1827, the explosion came — the society burst in 
 twain. First of all, in the yearly meeting at Philadelphia, 
 the capital of Quakerism, whose very name speaks of 
 brotherly love, the division began, and the Hicksites formed 
 themselves into a separate meeting. The schism spread to 
 New York and the other yearly meetings, till in five out of 
 the eight there was a complete rupture. The Hicksites 
 declared that one half of the whole body had gone with 
 them, but their opponents would not admit more than a 
 third. 
 
 The creed of the Hicksites or Liberal Quakers (as they 
 called themselves) is simple and consistent. Christ, they 
 say, is the light of the world, and every man born into the 
 world receives a portion of this light, which he is bound to 
 follow as his supreme guide in matters of religion. The 
 teaching of the Bible must therefore be subordinated to 
 it, and judged by it. But farther, as this heavenly light 
 within them is itself the Christ, the Son of God, the Ee- 
 deemer, they own no other Saviour, and need none. To 
 
292 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 the Christ in their own bosom — the Christ who reveals 
 himself there in holy affections and heavenly thoughts — 
 and not to the Christ who died on Calvary they look 
 for salvation. The atonement, as a work outside them- 
 selves has no meaning and no merit for them. As re- 
 presenting their own soul's passion and victory over death 
 it is very precious. The letter of the Scripture killeth, it 
 is the Spirit which giveth life. As they recognise no holy 
 places, so they acknowledge no sacred days, for all these 
 things, they declare, are but the beggarly elements of an 
 old and dead religion. These, they say, were the senti- 
 ments of Fox, and Barclay, and Penn, and they are theirs, 
 and so they are the true representatives of primitive 
 Quakerism. 
 
 The only obscurity in this Confession of Faith is in re- 
 gard to what is meant by the " Christ within" or the 
 "Divine Light," for these two things are declared to be 
 identical. The eminent American historian Bancroft, in 
 his lively sketch of the Quakers, declares that Fox's inner 
 light was essentially the same as the intuitions and a priori 
 conceptions of Emmanuel Kant. As the professor at Kbn- 
 igsberg, he tells us, derived all philosophy from the voice 
 of the soul, and made the oracle within the categorical rule 
 of all practical morality, so the founder of the Quakers 
 drew religion from the same source. He based his theology 
 upon consciousness. Schiller, Chateaubriand, Coleridge, 
 Lamartine, Wordsworth, are all, he asserts, disciples in the 
 same school ; and Cousin, the great apostle of Ecclecticism, 
 constantly speaks of reason as the inner light, and some- 
 times seems to borrow the language of Barclay in expound- 
 ing his philosophy.* It must be acknowledged that the 
 anxiety of some of the early Quakers to get support for 
 
 History of the United States. 
 
THE LIGHT WITHIN". 
 
 293 
 
 their new theology from the old philosophy gives some 
 ground for this interpretation of their creed. Pemi de- 
 clared that the " Eternal Word," the " Divine Light," the 
 " Holy Spirit," was no other than the " Divine Mind " of 
 Anaxagoras, the " Good Spirit" of Socrates, the " God in 
 man " of Hieron, the " Eternal principle of Faith " of Plato, 
 the "Boot of the Soul" of Plotinus, the "Inner Guide" 
 of Plutarch, so that these heathen philosophers knew and 
 were partakers of the Gospel Logos.* He identified their 
 light with the divine light — the Christ; and now, with 
 equal reason, Hicks and Bancroft have identified the 
 divine light with the intuitions and a priori concep- 
 tions of modern philosophy. It is certain, I think, not- 
 withstanding these quotations, that the old Quakers meant 
 something more than intuition when they spoke of the 
 light of life, but it is equally certain the modern Quakers, 
 of the American liberal school, do not. We need scarcely 
 hesitate to accept the historian as an interpreter of their 
 principles, and believe that they regard Eeason as sove- 
 reign and supreme, and venerate most the Bible which 
 lies open in their hearts. 
 
 * See the close of his Advice to Children. Elisha Bates, in his Doctrines 
 of Friends, which is regarded as a good exposition of modern Quaker orthodoxy, 
 uses similar language. "Pythagoras," says he, "calls this divine principle, 
 the 'Great Light and Salt of Ages;'" Anaxagoras called it "The Divine 
 Mind;" Socrates called it "A good Spirit;" Timeus styled it "An unbegotten 
 Principle and Author of all Light ; " Hieron, Pythagoras, Epictetus, and Seneca 
 say it is " God in Man, or God within ;" Plato calls it the " Eternal, Ineffable, 
 and Perfect Principle of Truth — the Light and Spirit of God ; " Plotin calls it 
 "The Root of the Soul— the Divine Principle in Man;" Philo, "The Divine 
 Power — the Infallible Immortal Law in the Minds of Men;" and Plutarch 
 denominates it " The Law and Living Rule of the Mind, the Interior Guide of 
 the Soul, and Everlasting Foundation of Virtue." Of the operation of this 
 divine principle in the mind Plato gives this striking testimony — "The Light 
 and Spirit of God are as wings to the soul, or as that which raises it up into a 
 sensible communion with God," he. — P. 204. 
 
294 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 The news of the disruption in the American Society 
 soon reached England, and its merits were everywhere 
 keenly canvassed by Friends. There were, as a matter of 
 course, varieties of view, but the Quakers in England 
 were steadied by the presence of the Established Church, 
 as Dissenters always are ; and when the subject was 
 brought before the yearly meeting, in 1829, the doctrines 
 of Hicks were condemned as anti- Christian, and his fol- 
 lowers disowned. But the matter did not end here. The 
 opinions which had been embraced by so large a portion of 
 he American Quakers had the effect of driving many of 
 the English ones in the opposite direction. They had seen 
 the results which had flowed from refusing to acknowledge 
 the Scriptures as the primary rule of faith, and from attach- 
 ing too spiritual a meaning to their contents, and therefore 
 they began to bethink themselves if it would not be wise 
 to accept the Bible as the surest standard of orthodoxy, 
 and to construe it more literally than they had hitherto 
 done. 
 
 In 1835 a book appeared, entitled "A Beacon to the 
 Society of Friends," written by Isaac Crewdson of Man- 
 chester, a man greatly beloved and honoured in the Society. 
 It consisted, in a great measure, of a commentary on vari- 
 ous passages in the sermons of Hicks, and while it con- 
 demned his heresies, it hinted that such heresies were sure 
 to come of the principles prevalent in the Society. It 
 spoke doubtingly of the doctrine of the inner and universal 
 light. While it warned the Friends against the errors of 
 Hicks, it recommended the adoption of water baptism, the 
 Lord's Supper, and other usages abandoned by Quakers, 
 but clearly taught in Scripture, if the Scripture was to be 
 received according to its literal meaning. It even ques- 
 tioned the sovereign virtues of silence ; and cast ridicule 
 upon some of the favourite Quaker phrases, such as " crea- 
 
JOSEPH JOHN GURNEY. 
 
 295 
 
 turely exertions," " sinking down into oneself," " centreing 
 down," " digging deep," "dwelling deep," "turning inward." 
 Such a book, coming from such a quarter, instantly at- 
 tracted attention ; and whilst it was being read by Friends, 
 with very various feelings, it was seized upon by outside 
 scoffers to turn Quakerism into a subject for laughter. 
 
 The Friends were in dismay ; for they seemed to have 
 escaped Scylla only to be dashed on Charybdis. The 
 Hicksites had set the inward light above the Scriptures, 
 and now the Beaconites set the Scriptures above the in- 
 ward light. The former had wandered into the inner 
 mazes of mysticism, the latter had sought relief from 
 their perplexities by lapsing into dogmatism. The yearly 
 meeting of 1835 appointed a committee to correspond with 
 the quarterly meeting for Lancashire to deal with Crewd- 
 son, and, if possible, heal him of his heresy. The most pro- 
 minent member of this committee was Joseph John Gurney 
 of Earlham, of whom we have already heard a little. He 
 was born at Earlham Hall, near Norwich, in 1788, and his 
 Quaker biographer, eschewing all pride of ancestry, delights 
 himself in telling, as is told of all our aristocracy, that the 
 Gurneys came over with William the Conqueror. It is 
 much more to our purpose to know that he was the brother 
 of Mrs. Fry, and brother-in-law of Sir Thomas Fowell 
 Buxton and Samuel Hoare — a very wonderful family of 
 love. Though a Quaker by birth, he was not much of a 
 Quaker in his early youth ; he found pleasure in music and 
 dancing, and other such sinful amusements, which were 
 suffered in his father's house. All the world knows that 
 the Gurneys, notwithstanding their Norman blood and 
 Quaker faith, have been bankers from ancient times, and 
 made rich by money-changing; and Joseph John was, in 
 due season, initiated in the way of discounting bills, and 
 making advances on good security. And the work pros- 
 
296 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 pered in his hand, and lie made rich too; but he could 
 make a good use of his wealth, and one rejoices to find 
 him, on one occasion, when he had made up his balance- 
 sheet and found himself prosperous, handing over £500 to 
 his sister, Elizabeth Fry — " to oil her wheels," as he ex- 
 pressed it.* Nor was this the only £500 he spent in such 
 a way. 
 
 Gurney had gradually become a stricter Quaker. He 
 had naturally strong religious convictions, as well as a 
 benevolent heart, and, in the year 1818, when he was thirty 
 years of age, he was acknowledged as a minister within the 
 Society. In all the philanthropic movements- then in pro- 
 gress he took an active interest, more especially in his 
 sister's efforts to reform prison discipline ; and, being no 
 bigot, he numbered among his intimate friends many of 
 the great and good men of all churches — Wilberforce, 
 Chalmers, Brougham, Sir James Mackintosh, and others of 
 a like stature. He was the principal means of converting 
 Mrs. Opie, the novelist, to Quakerism, when she had 
 reached middle life, and felt it no easy matter to assume 
 the Quaker dress, and " tJiee" and " thou" her old acquaint- 
 ances. In 1824 he published his " Distinguishing Views 
 and Practices of the Society of Friends," which speedily 
 acquired a wide popularity, and has ever since been re- 
 garded as a book of high authority in the Society. -f* 
 
 One of the points which Gurney, in this work, sets him- 
 self most earnestly to prove is the immediate and per- 
 ceptible influence of the Divine Spirit on the human soul. 
 Now, it is most true that the object of every thought and 
 
 * Memoirs of Joseph John Gnmey, Vol. I., p. 152. 
 
 + The first title of this book was " Observations on the Religious Peculiarities 
 of the Society of Friends." So it stands even in the fifth edition, which is 
 before me. 
 
DIVINE AND HUMAN THOUGHTS. 
 
 297 
 
 feeling which rises up in the soul is perceptible, or, in 
 other words, is revealed to us in consciousness. We have 
 thoughts and feelings, whether divine or human, only in so 
 far as we are conscious of their objects. All this is certain. 
 But, when the Spirit stirs up holy thoughts and affections 
 within us, do we necessarily perceive it to be the Spirit ? 
 Do we distinguish between the inspirations of the Holy 
 Ghost and our own human thoughts ? We suspect that 
 this is the Quaker creed, though, it is certain, that most 
 men cannot make this discrimination, though all are said 
 to have a divine illumination ; and Gurney does not help 
 us by distinctly telling us how he knows which of his 
 ideas are inspired, and which are merely suggested by the 
 ordinary laws of mental association. " How are we to dis- 
 tinguish between the divine influence and the working of 
 our own imagination?" said the Duchess de Broglie, the 
 daughter of Madame de Stael, to William Allan, at Copet. 
 Here was the rub. The clever daughter of the celebrated 
 mother had hit the nail on the head. Allan could only 
 answer that it was here the difficulty lay, but that, if we 
 resigned ourselves to God's will, and sought for instruction 
 in prayer, sufficient evidence would be given us.* But is 
 such evidence ever given, and, if so, to whom ? Most men 
 have never had it, and so they must have had divine 
 thoughts without knowing them to be so : they have 
 " entertained angels unawares." The few who declare they 
 have it, have never yet explained in what it consists, and 
 how they manage to distinguish between thoughts which 
 are purely their own and those which spring from a higher 
 source; how they know when to be silent, and when to 
 speak, as they never speak but when they are inspired ? 
 Here is the mystery and the marvel. We seem to get 
 
 * Life of Allan, Vol. II., p. 302. 
 
298 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 a crucible, in which divine and human thoughts may be 
 separated, in a letter of Gurney to his brother-in-law, 
 Powell Buxton. " My only course," he says, " is to go to 
 my Lord with the question — 1 Is it of myself, or is it of 
 Thee ? ' — or, in other words, ' Is it wrong, or is it right ? ' 
 — the two questions being perfectly equivalent." * If 
 whatever is right is of God, and whatever is wrong is of 
 ourselves, then the whole mystery is explained. And, cer- 
 tainly, in one sense, whatever is just or true is divine. 
 
 Under the guidance of this good man, but somewhat 
 mystical divine, the Committee attempted to reclaim 
 Crewdson and his friends from their errors. But their 
 efforts were vain : Crewdson and his followers seceded 
 from the Society of Friends. At first, they formed them- 
 selves into a separate meeting, and had their own worship ; 
 but, as they found there was little to separate them from 
 the Church of England, or some of the dissenting churches 
 which crowd the land, they, after a time, attached them- 
 selves to these, as their different fancies led them. Those 
 who sympathized with them in other parts of the country 
 did the same. Thus, they melted away; and now no 
 religious sect exists as a memorial of the Crewdsonite con- 
 troversy and secession. There can be no doubt, however, 
 that the controversy led the Friends to pay greater defer- 
 ence than they had hitherto done to the Sacred Volume, 
 and its effects are seen at this day. 
 
 Having smitten the Crewdsonites, Gurney was anxious 
 to smite the Hicksites, which he could only do in America, 
 as there were no Hicksites at home. He, therefore, brought 
 the matter before the May Meeting in 1837, begging a 
 " certificate of unity" to travel to America on a religious 
 mission After some discussion his request was granted, 
 
 * Life of Guiney, Vol. II., p. 73. 
 
GUKNEY IN AMERICA. 
 
 299 
 
 and he cheerfully sacrificed a third of his income, and 
 crossed the sea to preach the orthodox Quaker theology in 
 the New World.* He traversed a great part of the North 
 American continent ; saw the slaves in their rice-fields, 
 and the Indians in their woods, as well as the citizens of 
 all the great cities in their stores and warehouses. He 
 attended the meetings of the Society wherever he could, 
 and preached in the midst of their congregations when 
 the Spirit moved him. He was introduced to the Pre- 
 sident, Martin van Buren, the ex-President, John Quincy 
 Adams, to Henry Clay, Dr. Channing, Moses Stuart, and 
 other American celebrities. He met Stephen Grellet, 
 that grand old Quaker, who had so often traversed both 
 Europe and America "doing good;" and was still as zealous 
 in his work as ever, though the Hicksite secession had 
 entered deep into his soul, and the infirmities of age were 
 coming upon him. He spoke to the Hicksites who came 
 to his meetings, but their light was different from his, and 
 they refused to be diverted from following it. In many 
 cases they withstood him to his face.-f" Moreover, a Quaker, 
 named Wilbur, also rose up to oppose him, but he was dis- 
 owned by orthodox and heterodox alike. Three hundred 
 left the Society with him, and formed a sect distinct both 
 from the old Quakers and the new. After a sojourn of 
 three years, in which he no doubt sowed some good seed, 
 but in which he did not crush the heresy, Gurney returned 
 home. The Quakers in America are, to this day, a divided 
 as well as a peculiar people. 
 
 * Gurney's Memoirs, Vol. II., pp. 77-9. 
 
 t Gurney's Journal is provokingly general and obscure in regard to these 
 matters. Everything is glossed over, and, instead of plain facts, we get only 
 lamentations and moans, on account of unpleasant things which had occurred — 
 hut what they precisely were we are not told. 
 
(Chapter 151. 
 
 HILE the din of the Hicksite controversy was still 
 ringing in America, the spirit of restlessness came 
 again upon Stephen Grellet, and he must recross 
 the ocean. Perhaps, he felt that polemics were not a 
 wholesome atmosphere for his soul to dwell in. After 
 entering in his diary, in March, 1831, his resolution to 
 cross the Atlantic once more, he adds — " My beloved wife, 
 on this occasion, as on all preceding ones, which have not 
 been few since we became united together by the endearing 
 tie of the marriage covenant, freely, and with Christian 
 cheerfulness, resigns me to the Lord's service. She is 
 uniformly a great encourager to me to act the part of a 
 faithful servant of the best of Masters ; her soul travails 
 with mine in such a manner that she had been deeply sen- 
 sible of the nature of the service that the Great Master 
 called me to, before I had disclosed to her or to any man 
 the secret exercises of my heart." * 
 
 A doubting philosopher would, probably, remark upon 
 this passage, that Stephen's wife could have no difficulty in 
 divining his thoughts, as, from past experience, she knew 
 his tendencies ; and one, without being a philosopher at 
 all, might at least think that she must have been made of 
 different flesh and blood from most wives to give up her 
 
 * Memoirs, Vol. II., pp. 228-9. 
 
COLONIES AT HOME. 
 
 301 
 
 husband for years with such happy contentment. How- 
 ever this may be, everything must yield to the heavenly 
 impulse, and so Grellet, now approaching threescore years, 
 a time when most men think of putting off their harness, 
 left Ms wife and daughter behind him, and sailed for 
 Liverpool. He was comforted when he reached London by 
 meeting friend Allan, who took him to his house, and 
 kindly entertained him for many days. 
 
 Allan's liberal heart was ever devising liberal things, 
 and, shortly before this, he had taken a farm at Lindfield, 
 and established there, what he called, " Colonies at Home." 
 It was an experiment intended to prove that many, who 
 would otherwise inevitably be paupers, might be made to 
 support themselves by having assigned to them small allot- 
 ments of land upon moderate terms, and being directed in 
 the cultivation of them. The Friends visited the " Home " 
 colony together, and saw a happy and apparently thriving 
 community — boys and old men and maidens all busy at 
 work* Allan afterwards frequently urged the success of 
 this experiment on the rulers and potentates of the earth; 
 but, though such a scheme still floats in many benevolent 
 visionary brains, it has never been realized on such a scale, 
 and in such a way, as to prove that it could save the land 
 from the sore burden of pauperism. *f- 
 
 Grellet's " impressions " led him to remain a whole year 
 in England, visiting the Quaker meetings, and watering 
 
 * Life of Allan, Vol. III. ; Memoirs of Grellet, Vol. II. 
 
 t I have had occasion to note the many philanthropic projects started by the 
 Quakers. Some of them deserve to be called discoveries. Their inventive 
 illumination went beyond the region of pure benevolence. It is remarkable 
 that the first public railway in the world — that betwixt Stockton and Darling- 
 ton — was almost entirely the property of Quakers, and is called the "Quaker 
 Line" to thus day. The sagacious Edward Pease was the first patron of Stephen- 
 son. — See Smiles' Life of George Stephenson. 
 
302 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 them. On one of his journeys he learned how Hannah 
 Field, a sister Quaker from America, had, during a recent 
 visit, prophesied to two Friends that they would be at- 
 tacked by highwaymen on their return from a meeting 
 they had attended, which happened as it had been foretold, 
 and Grellet saw in this a new proof of the reality of the 
 Spirit's work in illuminating the mind. On another occa- 
 sion, he was thrown from his carriage and severely hurt, 
 but, even while the wheels were passing over his body, he 
 heard a voice distinctly saying to him, " Thou shalt not die 
 but live," and visions of Spain, and what the Lord had in 
 store for him there, rose before his swimming brain. He 
 was sufficiently recovered to attend the yearly meeting of 
 the Society in May, in which he declares, in his peculiar 
 diction, "there was a living spirit of travail present;" and 
 with joy he saw Friend Allan get a commission to proceed 
 with him to the Continent on a Gospel tour.* 
 
 " So they being sent forth," as they believed, " by the 
 Holy Ghost," departed unto Holland. They went as the 
 preachers of the gospel of universal goodwill — worthy suc- 
 cessors of Barnabas and Saul. They travelled through 
 Holland, Hanover, Prussia, Saxony, Bohemia, Austria, 
 Hungary, Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Switzerland, Piedmont, 
 France, and Spain — a more extensive tour than any they 
 had previously made. As was their custom, they visited 
 the hospitals, prisons, and schools, spoke to their inmates 
 of the Good Physician and the Great Deliverer, and advised 
 those in authority to make what changes appeared to be 
 needful. But their time was also greatly occupied in 
 visiting princes and potentates, for their fame as philan- 
 thropists everywhere went before them, and prepared a 
 way for them. Very often, therefore, they left a prison to 
 
 * Memoirs, Vol. II. 
 
THE QUAKERS IN" SPAIN. 
 
 303 
 
 go to a palace, and the rulers of the land, whatever their 
 creed, gladly received from them suggestions for the reform 
 of their public institutions. Even in Spain they were 
 admitted to an audience of the king and queen; and, as 
 there was no clever chamberlain at the door, as in Eome, 
 to whisk off their hats as they entered, they appeared 
 covered in the royal presence. A little princess, two years 
 and a half old, stared at them so much, that they came to 
 the conclusion that it was their hats which had excited her 
 amazement, and said so. When the conversation verged 
 upon religion, Grellet lifted his hat and preached his gospel 
 to their most Catholic Majesties. He likened the king to 
 Nebuchadnezzar who had been driven from his throne and 
 restored again. " Who is this King Nebuchadnezzar ? " said 
 Ferdinand, not being very deeply read in Hebrew history. 
 The Queen knew her Bible better, and explained to her 
 consort who and what his royal brother was to whom re- 
 ference had been made. This matter being made plain, the 
 Quaker proceeded to exhort them to grant a universal tolera- 
 tion, and to signalise the concluding years of their reign by 
 deeds of clemency. The royal pair took it all in good part, 
 and afterwards granted orders for their admission into the 
 prisons and hospitals throughout the kingdom, and that 
 they should, on no account, be molested because of their 
 religion, and that the very hats on their heads should be 
 untouched, as these had received a kind of consecration by 
 having appeared in the king's presence. As this order was 
 in some places printed in the newspapers, it brought crowds 
 about them to see the men whose religion consisted in 
 keeping their hats on their heads. On leaving Spain, they 
 forwarded to the king a memorandum of their observations 
 while in the kingdom, in which they ventured to make 
 suggestions, not only in regard to schools, prisons, and 
 hospitals, but in regard to several things connected with 
 
304 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 the government. After an absence of nearly a year, they 
 found themselves once more in England.* 
 
 But Grellet's work was not yet done. Accompanied by 
 George Stacey he started on a tour to visit the meetings in 
 the central and northern counties of England : from England 
 he passed into Scotland, and from Scotland crossed the 
 Channel to Ireland. He was in London again in time to 
 attend the May meeting in 1834. There was more excite- 
 ment than usual at this Quaker convocation. The Hicksite 
 heresy had already created a reaction, though Crewdson's 
 " Beacon " had not yet appeared, and many were inclined 
 to expose the weaknesses of the Quaker faith and practice. 
 Allan, Gurney, and Mrs. Fry were all there, and Grellet was 
 inspired to speak. " I went," says Allan, " with dear Stephen 
 Grellet, to Downshire House during the yearly meeting, as 
 it was the last meeting for worship he was likely to attend, 
 when Stephen had an opportunity clearly to relieve his 
 mind, and his communication was very remarkable, rising 
 brighter and brighter towards the close : Elizabeth Fry 
 followed in supplication, and there was a very solemn feel- 
 ing over the meeting, "-f- Soon afterwards, Grellet set sail 
 from Liverpool. Some of his friends accompanied him to 
 the dock, and gazed after the ship as she was slowly towed 
 down the river, thinking of the kind old man who was on 
 board, and sorrowing most of all that they should see his 
 face no more. He reached his adopted country after an 
 absence of nearly three years, during which he had travelled 
 upwards of twenty-eight thousand miles in his benevolent 
 enterprise. 
 
 Three years afterwards, Gurney, laden with the spoils of 
 the Crewdsonites, followed Grellet across the sea, that he 
 
 * Memoirs of Grellet, Vol. II. ; Life of Allan, Vol. III. 
 t Life of Allan, Vol. III., p. 173. 
 
MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES. 
 
 305 
 
 might smite the Hicksites with the edge of the sword, but 
 the tale of his adventures is already told. In 1840, William 
 Allan, Samuel Gurney, Josiah Forster, and Mrs. Fry started 
 upon a missionary expedition to the Continental kingdoms. 
 As usual, they were well received by the great and honour- 
 able of the earth. On this occasion they frequently gathered 
 together in the large room of the hotel where they were 
 residing a number of the most influential persons whose 
 presence they could command, and explained to them the 
 object of their mission. Mrs. Fry, who was the centre of 
 interest, would speak of her labours in the prisons of Lon- 
 don ; Samuel Gurney would urge upon all to give a helping 
 hand for the abolition of slavery; Allan would speak of 
 schools and his home-colonies ; and, before the meeting- 
 was closed, they would all sit in silence and worship in 
 Quaker fashion, or one of the band, under a spiritual im- 
 pulse, would kneel down and pray. Thus was their work 
 done."' 
 
 "While these magnates of the Society of Friends were 
 visiting the cities and courts of Europe, a devoted Quakeress, 
 named Hanna Kilham, had penetrated into Africa, con- 
 tentedly dwelt in a kraal, and patiently taught the children 
 of the Foolahs. She died at her work. Another Quaker 
 had visited the savages of the South-Sea Islands ; others 
 had gone to Australia ; and many American Friends pushed 
 their way into the woods, and visited the Eed Indians in 
 their wigwams.-j- Quakers from America were constantly 
 crossing the sea to visit Europe, and, in return, English 
 Quakers were voyaging to America to illumine the new 
 hemisphere with their old-world light. It has sometimes 
 
 * Memoirs of Mrs. Fry ; Life of Allan, Vol. III. 
 
 t„ Memoirs of Grellet, Vol. II., p. 248 ; Article in Encyclopaedia Britannica 
 on Quakerism. 
 
306 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 been said that the Friends have never engaged in any mis- 
 sionary enterprise. But these are the truest of all mis- 
 sionary enterprises, and the best. Great churches employ 
 missionaries to do their work, as great men employ almoners 
 to dispense their charity, but the Quakers, like the first 
 Apostles, have themselves taken their staff in their hand, 
 and gone forth as preachers of their universal gospel of 
 peace and goodwill. This was the kind of missionary enter- 
 prise which Edward Irving advocated before the London 
 Missionary Society, and the members thereof marvelled, 
 and were wroth when they heard him.* 
 
 William Allan's benevolent schemes and long missionary 
 journeys were now ended. On the 30th of December, 18-43, 
 he peacefully died. He was one of the excellent of the 
 earth. Gifted by nature with a good intellect, and a strong 
 tendency to philosophical research, he soon became eminent 
 as a chemist, and was the friend and colleague of the 
 highest scientific men of the age. It was not without a 
 struggle that he so often left his laboratory to go forth on 
 missions of love and religion. But his benevolent instincts 
 were still stronger than his scientific tendencies, and, as 
 conscience, above all things, was strong within him, he 
 resolved to live for others, and not for self. His mind was, 
 in Quaker phrase, particularly " tender" in regard to duty ; 
 and, when he believed anything to be his duty, he always 
 did it. Considering that the charge of an extensive busi- 
 ness was upon his head, it is marvellous he was able to do 
 so much. There must have been something courtly, in the 
 best sense of the term, about the man ; for great potentates, 
 as we have seen, delighted in his society, and listened 
 patiently to his advice. Not only the Czar of Muscovy, 
 but the King of Wiirtemberg, and princes innumerable, 
 
 * Life of Edward Irving, by Mrs. Olipliant. 
 
DEATH OF MRS. FRY. 
 
 307' 
 
 made the honest Quaker their friend. Partaking of the 
 general smoothness of his sect, it is difficult to find any 
 very salient points in his character, unless it be his con- 
 scientiousness aud benevolence. But are not these two 
 endowments, richly given, enough for any one man ? Men, 
 like him, are undoubtedly the salt of the earth — they save 
 society from putrescence. 
 
 Two years afterwards, Mrs. Fry, who had lent so strong 
 an interest to the Quaker cap and gown, and almost made 
 them classical, followed him to the grave. She was cer- 
 tainly a very remarkable woman. Eoman Catholic coun- 
 tries can point to saintly women who have rivalled her in 
 works of mercy, but Protestant countries have none such. 
 Here she stands alone, or almost alone. The world no 
 doubt is full of women with hearts as kind and pure, and 
 many of these have done as much in their own homes as 
 ever she did in Xewgate — waiting ungrudgingly for long- 
 years upon a sick sister, or bedridden mother, and, perhaps, 
 struggling with poverty beside, with no motive-power but 
 love to keep them at their task. Their names are written 
 in heaven. But, as she overstepped the narrow circle of 
 home -life, and effected a great public reform, she is richly 
 deserving of public honour. For thirty years she devoted 
 herself to the improvement of our prisons, and, even before 
 her work was half done, was well entitled to be hailed by 
 Sir James Macintosh as the " Female Howard." The good 
 she accomplished was fully recognized. When she travelled 
 on the Continent, kings and princes sought for her advice, 
 and did homage to her virtues. Frederick William IV. 
 of Prussia, when in London in 1842, accompanied her to 
 Xewgate, sat by her side while she read the Scriptures to 
 the prisoners, and knelt down beside her when she prayed 
 with them. From the prison, His Majesty went with the 
 Quakeress to her residence five miles out of London, and 
 
308 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 had presented to him her children and her children's 
 children, between thirty and forty in number. 
 
 In childhood she is said to have been very timid, and 
 somewhat self-willed. In after life, her timidity appeared 
 only in her gentle, tender, womanly ways, for none was 
 more courageous ; and her self-will only made her firmly 
 persistent in following any object upon which her heart 
 was set. Pitifulness was, perhaps, the most prominent 
 feature in her character, and, with this, there was combined 
 that Christ-like charity which " could have compassion on 
 the ignorant and on them that were out of the way." Most 
 people would have shrunk with horror from many of the 
 women whom she almost took to her bosom — as sisters — 
 though erring. She had a quick eye for discovering distress, 
 for her eye was in the constant employ of her loving heart. 
 Walking one morning in Lombard Street, she met a de- 
 cently-clad woman, and, at a glance, perceived that some- 
 thing was grievously wrong with her. She did not hesitate 
 to salute her. " Thou appearest to be in trouble," said she, 
 with her soft voice ; " tell me, I beseech thee, the cause of 
 thy sorrow ; perhaps, I can assist thee and afford thee relief." 
 The woman was on her way to the Thames to throw herself 
 in, when she was thus met by her saviour. Mrs. Fry had 
 very strong home affections, and never neglected her family 
 duties, which is not unfrequently done, to take a part in 
 public life. 
 
 She was rather above the middle height, and of a pleasing, 
 though not of a beautiful countenance. With her hair 
 plainly combed down upon her brow, her quiet eyes, her 
 rather long nose, her firm little mouth, her Quaker cap, you 
 might not admire her, but you would at least be interested 
 in her. Her manners were sedate, but always free and un- 
 embarassed ; in her perfect composure, through which there 
 shone a sister's love, lay the secret of her power over the 
 
DEATH OF GURXEY. 
 
 309 
 
 most abandoned ; and her voice, every one declares, was of 
 surpassing sweetness. To hear her read the Bible was to 
 listen to wondrous music. 
 
 Several of her children, some of them by marriage, others 
 through conviction, left the Society of Friends, and attached 
 themselves to other religious communities; but still she 
 was ever the centre of a peculiar happy family group — her 
 children and her children's children rose up and called her 
 blessed. Her last two years were spent in very feeble 
 health, but she was surrounded by opulence and affection ; 
 and. when it was known she was dead, the whole nation 
 mourned her loss, and reared a refuge for the penitent as 
 the most fitting monument to her memory. 
 
 Fifteen months more, and her brother, Joseph John 
 Gurney, was also in the grave. After his return from 
 America he had three different times visited the Continent 
 on religious and benevolent missions ; and, like others of 
 his Society, he was one whom kings delighted to honour. 
 Christian VIII. of Denmark and Louis Philip of France 
 had received him with kindness, had listened to his lectures, 
 and joined in his worship. While he was yet under three- 
 score years, he was seized with an illness, apparently slight, 
 but which soon deepened into death. More than any other 
 man of the time he had influenced the Quaker theology, 
 and preserved the Society in the mean between the Hick- 
 sites and Crewdsonites. No man can meddle with polemics 
 without incurring odium, as no man can touch pitch with- 
 out being defiled. He was blamed by some for maintaining 
 that the influences of the Spirit were 'pcrce.ptihh, and vitu- 
 perated by others for having destroyed altogether the spiritu- 
 ality of the Quaker faith. I am afraid it is impossible for 
 any man to hold the scales evenly poised with the inner 
 revelation in the one, and the outer in the other. This will 
 ever be the difficulty in the Quaker creed. But there were 
 
310 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 others, who pretended a more philosophical spirit, who 
 mourned these disputes altogether, and declaied it was a 
 return to the house of bondage, from which they imagined 
 their sect had been set free — a substitution of the beggarly 
 elements for Christian perfection. Gurney, who was not 
 naturally a polemic, but a good, charitable man, was greatly 
 grieved by the bitterness which had been evoked, and one 
 of the last acts of his life was to write out a confession of 
 his faith to be transmitted to America. 
 
 Though belonging to a small religious sect, a circum- 
 stance which generally narrows a man's religious views, 
 Gurney was possessed of a catholic heart, and delighted to 
 see around him in the noble park of Earlham the good and 
 the wise of all churches. As " he went about doing good " 
 during his life, he was mourned by all classes of people at 
 his death. In almost every pulpit in Norwich a funeral 
 sermon was preached for the man who contemned all 
 pulpits, and, even in the cathedral, the bishop pronounced 
 a high eulogium on the Quaker. Around his grave there 
 were gathered men of every religious faith — Churchmen, 
 Independents, Baptists, Methodists — to show their reverence 
 for the dead. For a time the Friends, according to their 
 custom, stood and gazed into the grave in deep silence, and 
 then a voice was heard, saying — " 0, death ! where is thy 
 sting ? 0, grave ! where is thy victory ? The sting of 
 death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law, but thanks 
 be to God which giveth us the victory, through our Lord 
 Jesus Christ ! " 
 
 Thus, one after another, the Friends, who had shed lustre 
 upon their Society in England and everywhere, had passed 
 away, and they had not left their equals behind them. 
 During their time there had been such a revivification of 
 Quakerism as had never been known before. There was 
 all the pristine zeal with more than the pristine wisdom, 
 
THE PEACE SOCIETY. 
 
 311 
 
 and Quakerism had almost become a synonym for bene- 
 volence. 
 
 Shortly before Gurney's death, the Oregon boundary 
 question had been settled, and war between Great Britain 
 and America prevented. Gurney mentions the fact with 
 joy in his journal.* In the same year, the May Meeting 
 recorded in their minutes their belief that the peaceful 
 principles of the Evangel were spreading among all Christian 
 peoples. " We hail," said they, " as a symptom of this en- 
 lightened view, many instances of later years in which 
 disputes between nations have been settled by arbitration, 
 and not by a recourse to the anti-christian practice of war."-f* 
 But this pleasing dream was soon rudely disturbed by the 
 revolutionary spirit which swept over Europe in 1848, 
 making many thrones to topple, and deluging the streets of 
 Paris with civic blood. But this feverish time also passed 
 away, and again the nations had rest. 
 
 There had long existed, both in this country and in 
 America, a not very numerous, but still influential party, 
 who earnestly advocated the principles of peace — of " peace 
 at any price,'' as those who scoffed at them said. This 
 party embraced many who were not Quakers, but the 
 Quakers were to a man members of it. Prominent among 
 these was Joseph Sturge. Now this Joseph had already 
 become known for his active benevolence, and more espe- 
 cially for his earnest advocacy of Immediate Negro Eman- 
 cipation, not only within his own religious Society, but by 
 all lovers of good men. He had gone to the West Indies, 
 upon his own charges, expressly for the purpose of collect- 
 ing information regarding the working of the apprenticeship 
 system, and the fitness of the negro for freedom ; and he 
 
 * Life ; Vol. II., p. 496. 
 
 t Extracts from the Minutes and Epistles of the Yearly Meeting, &c., 1861. 
 
312 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 had rejoiced with the joy of a man who gathers in the 
 harvest, when, in the month of August 1838, he saw, partly 
 through his labours, every slave in the British possessions 
 become free.* He had again crossed the sea, and visited 
 the Friends in America, for he had become convinced that 
 they were not so faithful as they might be in lifting up 
 their voices against the " evil thing " which was in the very 
 midst of their land. It was in the year 1841 he was tra- 
 versing the United States, and as he had come, not only as 
 the advocate of negro emancipation but of universal peace 
 and good will, the members of the American Peace Society, 
 in Boston, held a meeting, while he was in their city, to 
 hear what he had got to say. What he said was simply 
 this, that he believed good would arise if a convention 
 could be held of the friends of peace, of different nations, 
 to deliberate upon the best method of adjusting international 
 disputes.-)- The meeting received the suggestion with ap- 
 probation, and resolved to correspond with the English 
 Peace Society as to the practicability of holding a con- 
 vention in London. A convention was accordingly held in 
 London in the following year, in which speeches were made 
 by benevolent men gathered from the different corners of 
 the earth, but for a season at least, little fruit of their speak- 
 ing was seen. 
 
 Years passed on and still there was peace ; and 1848 
 came, and though the political earthquakes which then 
 shook Europe showed there were passions in the human 
 breast which could be appeased only by blood, to some men 
 it seemed a fitting season to revive the peace agitation, 
 by reason of the new strength which, popular as opposed to 
 
 * "Joseph Sturge " said Lord Brougham, "won the game off his own hat." 
 Memoirs of Joseph Sturge, p. 180. 
 t Memoirs of Joseph Sturge, p. 351. 
 
DENMARK AND THE DUCHIES. 
 
 313 
 
 royal principles, had obtained — for war had been pro- 
 nounced " the last argument of kings," in forgetfulness that 
 it had been quite as frequently the last argument of peoples. 
 Accordingly a Peace Congress assembled at Brussels in 
 September, and toward the end of the same year, Mr. 
 Cobden brought the matter before the British House of 
 Commons. The Quakers meanwhile agitated the question 
 with such resolution and energy, that Mr. Cobden wrote to 
 Sturge, — " I always say that there is more real pluck in the 
 ranks of the Quakers than in all our regiments of red-coats." 
 
 In 1849 the Peace Congress met in Paris, and in 1850 
 it held its sittings at Frankfort, \Vhile the philanthropists 
 who had assembled there were talking of peace, war had 
 broken out between Denmark and the Duchies of Schleswig- 
 Holstein. Dr. Bodenstedt of Berlin, brought the matter 
 before the Congress, but he was interrupted in his state- 
 ment by the president, as one of the standing orders of the 
 Congress was, that speakers must " avoid digressions to 
 present political events." But what the Congress could 
 not do, individual members of it might, and it occurred to 
 Joseph Sturge, Elihu Burrit, and Frederick Wheeler, that 
 now was the time to put their principles into practice. 
 They resolved to present themselves before the hostile 
 authorities of Denmark and the Duchies, and pray them to 
 submit their differences to arbitration. In the simple capa- 
 city of peace-makers they found access to the ministers of 
 both governments, and made such progress in arranging the 
 preliminaries of arbitration, that the Chevalier Bunsen, the 
 Prussian ambassador in London, is said to have declared 
 that he had more hopes from this pacific embassy than from 
 all that had hitherto been done by the professional diplo- 
 matists of Europe* But the Great Powers interfered, and 
 
 * Memoirs of Joseph Sturge, p. 454. 
 
314 
 
 THE QUAKEES. 
 
 took the matter out of the hands of both Denmark and the 
 Duchies, and the Protocol of London was signed. We have 
 recently seen the old quarrel revived, the Protocol of Lon- 
 don torn to shreds, the Duchies disjoined for ever from 
 Denmark, Prussia and Austria quarrelling about the spoil, 
 and the terrific battle of Konigsgratz ending the strife. 
 Men may now speculate whether it would have been dif- 
 ferent if the negotiations inaugurated by the Quakers had 
 been carried out. 
 
 In 1851, the Great International Exhibition was held in 
 London, and people of all countries and kindreds there dis- 
 played the products of their soil, and the works of their 
 hands, and the whole world was gathered to see the world's 
 show. Many wise men, besides the Quakers, thought that 
 a new era was begun, and that henceforward the contest of 
 the nations would be in arts and not in arms. For nearly 
 forty years the general peace of Europe had been undis- 
 turbed, and after what they had heard and seen, they 
 thought it could never be disturbed again. In the same 
 year, the Peace Congress assembled in London, and never 
 before had it been so numerously attended : and men of 
 highest note, from the Old World and the New, not only 
 counselled peace but proclaimed the advent of a millennium 
 of national brotherhood and good will. In less than three 
 years this pleasing imagination was dispelled. The Czar 
 Nicholas was mustering his legions to pour them down 
 upon the Ottoman Empire ; and England and France were 
 banding themselves together to repel the invasion, for they 
 had resolved that no Muscovite would reign in the city of 
 Constantine. 
 
 While all England was ringing with the din of warlike 
 preparation, it occurred to some of the members of the 
 Society of Friends that they might peradventure preserve 
 peace by a mission to the Emperor Nicholas at St. Peters- 
 
PEACE MISSION TO RUSSIA. 
 
 315 
 
 burgh. They called to their remembrance how the great 
 Peter had worshipped in their meetings and conversed with 
 the leaders of their sect. They bethought them of how the 
 Czar Alexander had knelt down and prayed with Allan and 
 Grellet, of how he had opened up to them the history of his 
 inner life, in the full confidence of friendship, and kissed 
 them like brothers. Might not Nicholas, who held in his 
 hand the issues of peace and war, be moved by their en- 
 treaties, and allow the sword to remain in the scabbard ? 
 What the remonstrances of diplomacy and the menaces of 
 force had failed to effect, might be accomplished by the 
 persuasions of humanity and religion ; the heart of the 
 proud autocrat which had been hardened by the one, might 
 be softened by the other. In January 1854 the matter was 
 brought before the Committee of Sufferings, which adopted 
 the suggestion, and resolved to despatch a deputation to 
 St. Petersburg, to present an address to the emperor.* 
 
 The Quakers who went on this errand were Joseph 
 Sturge, Robert Chaiieton, and Henry Pease. On the 20th 
 of January they started on their mission. The country 
 
 * The following is the Miimte of the Meeting — 
 
 " At a Meeting, representing the religious Society of Friends, held in London 
 the 17th of 1st month 1854. 
 
 "This Meeting has been introduced into much religious concern in contempla- 
 ting the apparent probability of war between some of the nations of Europe. 
 Deeply impressed with the enormous amount of evil that invariably attends the 
 prosecution of war, and with the utter inconsistency of all war with the spirit of 
 Christianity and the precepts of its divine Founder, as set forth in the New Testa- 
 ment, this Meeting has concluded, under a strong feeling of religious duty, to 
 present an address to Nicholas, Emperor of Russia, on this momentous question, 
 and it also concludes to appoint Joseph Sturge, Robert Charleton, and Henry 
 Pease, to be the bearers of the address, and, if the opportunity for so doing be 
 afforded, to present the same in person. 
 
 " In committing this service to our dear brethren, we crave for them, in the 
 prosecution of it, the help and guidance of that wisdom which is from above, 
 and we commend them, as well as the cause entrusted to them, to the blessing 
 of Almighty God." 
 
316 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 was at this time filled with a warlike fury, and the three 
 Quakers were followed by a perfect storm of laughter and 
 ridicule. They were spoken of as modern Quixots, as 
 men fond of notoriety, as simply ambitious of speaking to 
 an Emperor, as foolishly and vainly imagining that they 
 could manage things better than the ablest diplomatists of 
 Europe. Notwithstanding this abuse, they quietly went on 
 their way, and passing through Berlin, Konigsberg, and 
 Riga, in the depth of winter, they reached St. Petersburg 
 on the 2d of February. Arrived in the imperial city, they 
 first of all sought an interview with Count Nesselrode, the 
 Chancellor of the Empire. The Count received them with 
 the politeness of his country and station, told them the 
 Emperor was apprised of their coming, and would grant 
 them an audience, and carried his courtesy still farther by 
 requesting his private secretary to accompany them to the 
 most remarkable sights of the city. 
 
 A few days afterwards, they were admitted to a private 
 interview with the Czar. They found no person with him 
 but Baron Nicolay, who acted as interpreter, for His Ma- 
 jesty spoke French. Joseph Sturge read the address, which 
 had been prepared by the Society. 
 
 " May it please the Emperor. 
 
 " We, the undersigned, members of a meeting re- 
 presenting the religious Society of Friends (commonly called 
 Quakers) in Great Britain, venture to approach the Imperial 
 presence, under a deep conviction of religious duty, and in 
 the constraining love of Christ our Saviour. 
 
 " We are moreover encouraged so to do, by the many proofs 
 of condescension and Christian kindness manifested by thy 
 late illustrious brother, the Emperor Alexander, as well as 
 by thy honoured" mother, to some of our brethren in re- 
 ligious profession. 
 
ADDEESS TO THE EMPEROR. 
 
 317 
 
 " It is well known, that apart from all political considera- 
 tion, we have as a Christian Church, uniformly upheld a 
 testimony against war, on the simple ground that it is 
 utterly condemned by the precepts of Christianity, as well 
 as altogether incompatible with the spirit of its divine 
 Founder, who is emphatically styled the 1 Prince of Peace.' 
 This conviction we have repeatedly pressed upon our own 
 rulers, and often in the language of bold, but respectful, re- 
 monstrance, have we urged upon them the maintenance of 
 peace, as the true policy, as well as manifest duty, of a 
 Christian government. 
 
 " And now, 0 Great Prince, permit us to express the 
 sorrow which fills our hearts, as Christians and men, in 
 contemplating the probability of war in any portion of the 
 Continent of Europe. Deeply to be deplored would it be, 
 were that peace, which to a very large extent has happilv 
 prevailed so many years, exchanged for the unspeakable 
 horrors of war, with all its attendant moral evil, and phy- 
 sical suffering. 
 
 " It is not our business, nor do we presume to offer any 
 opinion upon the question now at issue between the Im- 
 perial Government of Paissia and that of any other countrv ; 
 but estimating the exalted position in which divine Provi- 
 dence has placed thee, and the solemn responsibilities de- 
 volving upon thee, not only as an earthly potentate, but 
 also as a believer in that Gospel which proclaims ' peace 
 on earth ' and ' good will toward men,' we implore Him 
 by whom 1 kings reign and princes decree justice ' so to 
 influence thy heart and to direct thy counsels at this mo- 
 mentous crisis, that thou mayest practically exhibit to the 
 nations, and even to those who do not profess the " like 
 precious faith," the efficacy of the Gospel of Christ, and the 
 universal application of His command, ' Love your enemies, 
 bless them that curse you ; do good to them that hate you ; 
 
318 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute 
 you, that you may be the children of your Father which is 
 in heaven.' 
 
 " The more fully the Christian is persuaded of the justice 
 of his own cause, the greater his magnanimity in the 
 exercise of forbearance. May the Lord make thee the 
 honoured instrument of exemplifying this true nobility ; 
 thereby securing to thyself and to thy vast dominions that 
 true glory and those rich blessings which could never result 
 from the most successful appeal to arms. 
 
 " Thus, 0 mighty Prince, may the miseries and devastation 
 of war be averted ; and in that solemn day, when ' every 
 one of us shall give an account of himself to God/ may the 
 benediction of the Eedeemer apply to thee. ' Blessed are 
 the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of 
 God,' and mayest thou be permitted, through a Saviour's 
 love, to exchange an earthly for a heavenly crown, — 1 a 
 crown of glory which fadeth not away.' " 
 
 When the address was read and presented, the Czar 
 begged the Quakers to be seated upon a sofa, while he 
 himself sat down upon a chair beside them, and at once 
 entered into conversation. He told them that Eussia had 
 received its religion from the Greeks, and, in gratitude, 
 had ever claimed the right to protect the Greek Church, 
 and that even now Turkey would have acknowledged this 
 right, had she not been persuaded by others that he meant 
 conquest, and the ruin of the Ottoman Empire — a tiring which 
 he utterly disclaimed. He declared he had the highest 
 respect for England and her Queen, and that on account of 
 that respect he had warned her of dangers likely to arise in 
 the East, but that his prudent foresight had been construed 
 into a designing policy, and an ambitious desire of aggran- 
 disement. He finally protested his abhorrence of war, but 
 
INTERVIEW WITH NICHOLAS. 
 
 319 
 
 that he must protect the honour of his country.* In reply, 
 the Quakers avoided the political aspects of the question, 
 but urged the humane and religious considerations which 
 were opposed to all war. When they rose to leave, Sturge 
 said, that though they should probably never see his face 
 again, they were anxious to tell him there were those in 
 England who desired his temporal and spiritual welfare as 
 sincerely as his own subjects. Touched by the simple 
 earnestness of the man, and feeling, no doubt, the fearful 
 responsibility which lay upon him, the Czar was affected 
 to tears, and when he shook hands with the ambassadors of 
 peace and good- will, he turned away his head to conceal his 
 emotion. " My wife," said he, " also wishes to see you." 
 The arrival of the strange embassage had caused a com- 
 motion in the palace, and the ladies were curious to see the 
 men who had come so far on such an errand. " I have just 
 seen the Emperor," said the Empress, when they were 
 ushered into her presence, "the tears were in his eyes."*f* 
 This fierce, proud autocrat, who was defying all Europe, 
 had his softer moods it would appear, and had been moved 
 to tenderness by the Quaker's words. 
 
 The interview took place on a Thursday, and on the 
 Monday following, the deputation were to leave St. Peters- 
 burg : but on Sunday the Baron Mcolay called upon them 
 to beg them to delay their journey for a day, as the Em- 
 peror wished to give an official reply to the Society of 
 Friends, and as his widowed daughter, moreover, the 
 
 * The substance of what the Czar said in reply to their address was im- 
 mediately afterwards committed to writing by the Quakers, and submitted to 
 the revision of Baron Nicolay, who testified to its accuracy. The document is 
 given at length in Sturge's Memoirs, pp. 477-8. In the Appendix to the same 
 very interesting memoirs of a very remarkable man, the official reply of the 
 Czar to the Society of Friends, will be found. 
 
 t Memoirs of Joseph Sturge, p. 476. See also Kinglake's History of the 
 Crimean War, Vol. I. 
 
320 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 Duchess of Leuchtenberg, wished to see them. The 
 Friends readily complied ; but when they went, by appoint- 
 ment, to wait upon the Grand Duchess, they perceived that 
 the Imperial countenance was changed toward them. They 
 were received with merely formal politeness. They ac- 
 counted for the change by the fact that the mail had 
 arrived from England, bringing news of the opening of the 
 Parliament, and the warlike speeches which had been made 
 in the House of Commons.* Their mission was now done, 
 and they hastened to depart, and the Czar, courteous to the 
 last, sent a Government courier to accompany them, and see 
 that everything was done to contribute to the comfort and 
 rapidity of their journey. 
 
 What followed all the world knows. For two years the 
 Crimea witnessed one of the fiercest struggles ever waged, 
 and more than a hundred thousand brave men, gathered 
 from Britain, France, Italy, Turkey, and Eussia, now lie 
 buried around the heights of Sebastopol. The Quaker 
 mission failed, as it scarcely could but fail, for the Czar had 
 already advanced too far to recede. His troops had crossed 
 the Pruth, and his fleet had burned the Turkish navy at 
 Sinope. At the same time, it is certain that his mind at 
 this period was torn by contending passions, and fluctuating 
 violently, and, it is not improbable, that words of peace 
 from England and France, like unto those which the 
 Quakers had spoken, might even yet have stayed his arm 
 although it was lifted to strike. Bat the misfortune is that 
 nations cannot speak such words to one another. 
 
 When the representatives of the Great Powers, at the 
 close of the war in 1856, met in Paris to - settle the terms 
 of peace, Joseph Sturge, accompanied by two Friends, pro- 
 ceeded thither, resolved to make an effort to get a clause 
 
 * Memoirs of Joseph Sturge, p. 480. 
 
PROTOCOL OF PARIS. 
 
 321 
 
 inserted in the treaty binding the contracting governments, 
 in the event of any future dispute, to refer it to arbitration. 
 They prepared a memorial on the subject, and presented it 
 to the plenipotentiaries. They waited upon Lord Clarendon, 
 and urged the matter on his attention. He said it would 
 be difficult to get the parties to the treaty to bind them- 
 selves to such a course of conduct. " Still," said his lord- 
 ship, " I will do what I can to bring the matter before the 
 Congress." He redeemed his promise, and a resolution was 
 unanimously passed recognizing the duty of having recourse 
 to arbitration, in the event of any international dispute, 
 though not binding the contracting parties to have recourse 
 to it.* Even this was a great victory on the side of 
 humanity, and the Quakers might well be proud of the 
 triumph of their principle, and the part they had played in 
 achieving it. 
 
 But Sturge had yet another benevolent thought in his 
 heart — he was bent on assuaging the horrors of the war 
 which he had been unable to prevent. He had heard that 
 hundreds of the poor fishermen of Finland had been beg- 
 gared, by the destruction of their boats and everything, by 
 some of the British cruisers which had come into their 
 waters, and that now famine was amongst them. Accom- 
 panied by a Friend, he started for the scene, and travelled 
 over many a league of a dreary country, the abode of fogs 
 and snow, that he might see with his own eyes the misery 
 of which he had heard others speak, and learn how he 
 
 * The following is the important protocol, which can scarcely remain for ever 
 a dead letter : — 
 
 " The plenipotentiaries do not hesitate to express, in the name of their Govern- 
 ments, the wish that States between which any serious misunderstandings may 
 arise, should, before appealing to arms, have recourse, as far as circumstances 
 might allow, to the good offices of a friendly power. The plenipotentiaries hope 
 that the Governments not represented at the Congress will unite in the sentiment 
 which has inspired the wish recorded in the present protocol." 
 
 X 
 
322 
 
 THE QUAKEES. 
 
 could best stretch out a helping hand. On his return, he 
 and his brother opened a subscription for the suffering Fins 
 by placing their own names at the head of it for £1000. 
 Others followed the noble example, and £9000 was soon 
 raised, almost, though not exclusively, among the Society 
 of Friends. To them was left its distribution ; and, by their 
 discreet generosity, they so won back the hearts of the 
 people to England and the English, that Whittier, the 
 American poet, has entitled a touching poem on the event, 
 " The Conquest of Finland." The name of J oseph Sturge 
 is written on the roll of great Quakers ; and his statue, 
 reared at Birmingham after his death in 1859 by his fellow - 
 citizens, is a fitting tribute to a man who was a benefactor 
 to his race. 
 
 At the commencement of the Crimean War, Stephen 
 Grellet was still living, the greatest ornament of the Ame- 
 rican Society, but his days were now numbered. He was 
 well stricken in years, and many of the infirmities of age 
 had come upon him ; but, so late as 1851, when the people 
 were crowding to the Great Exhibition, the ancient spirit 
 of wandering descended upon him, and he confesses he 
 would fain have crept or limped to London too, though 
 he could no longer run.* It was the old war-horse pricking 
 up his ears at the sound of the bugle. When a deputation 
 of English Quakers came to America in 1853, to place in 
 the hands of the President an address upon slavery and the 
 slave-trade, and to agitate the American mind upon the 
 subject, Grellet was still ready to welcome them, and bid 
 them " God-speed " in their work. Two years longer he 
 lived, though in very poor health, and then, in the winter 
 of 1855, when the English soldiers were dying in hun- 
 dreds in the trenches before Sebastopol, he died in peace, 
 
 * Memoirs, Vol. II., p. 481. 
 
CHARACTER OF GRELLET. 
 
 323 
 
 having reached the venerable age of fourscore years and 
 two. 
 
 That the Gallic blood and the Quaker character are not 
 destructive of one another, is shown by the fact that a 
 species of Quakerism is native to France, and that Anthony 
 Benezet and Stephen Grellet were Frenchmen. But one 
 should scarcely have expected a Quaker like Etienne Grellet 
 to have come of the pre-revolution French noblesse; and 
 yet he was, every inch of him, a Frenchman and a noble, as 
 well as a Quaker. He had the excitable temperament and 
 the courtly manners of his country and his order. It was 
 Ms excitable temperament which made him see visions and 
 hear voices in his youth — these softened into " impressions" 
 in his latter years — and, though clothed in drab, every one 
 saw that he was born to live in kings' houses. He was a 
 great orator. All who heard him speak felt it; and it is 
 impossible to read his Journal — so full of the imagery of 
 the East, and so tinged with his own elevated piety — with- 
 out knowing that the man who was master of such language 
 must have captivated many. Then, what a great heart he 
 had ; and what a pleasant old face, beaming upon the whole 
 world in tender love. Take him all in all, the world has 
 seldom seen such a man ; and, since the days of George 
 Fox, there had arisen no greater Quaker. 
 
Cfjapter XX. 
 
 EELLET and his English compeers were true re- 
 presentatives of the ancient Quakerism ; but, not- 
 withstanding the strength which they gave to 
 their sect, its peculiarities were beginning to give way 
 under the pressure of modern ideas. The Quakers had 
 aimed at being a distinct people, but that was no longer 
 possible. The marriage-law of the Society was felt to be a 
 grievance — no Quaker could marry out of his Society with- 
 out being expelled ; no Quaker could allow a clergyman or 
 magistrate to marry him without subjecting himself to the 
 censures of his Society. Now, it so happened that Quakers, 
 having their eyes wide open, sometimes saw women who 
 were beautiful to look upon though they did not dress in 
 drab or gray ; and, sometimes even, when their furtive 
 glances were returned, such a commotion was raised in 
 their heart that love became stronger than religion, and 
 they resolved to abandon the Friends that they might get 
 a wife after their own heart. So the Society lost some of 
 its members who were otherwise good and true. Thus, two 
 evils resulted from this restrictive policy — the Friends were 
 hampered in their affections, and the Society was bereft of 
 those who refused to be so confined in their choice of a 
 mate. The quarterly meeting for Yorkshire was the first 
 
QUAKER MARRIAGES. 
 
 325 
 
 to feel that allowance must be made for human frailty, and 
 that, under certain restrictions, the Friends might wed with 
 the daughters of the land. It proposed to the yearly meeting 
 in May, 1856, that marriage should be allowed betwixt a 
 member of the Society and one who was not in the Society, 
 but who " professed with it;" and even betwixt two persons 
 neither of whom were members of the Society, but who 
 " both professed with it." 
 
 This phraseology, being somewhat obscure to the outside 
 world, must be made plain. The children of Quakers are 
 Quakers by birth, but there has always been a considerable 
 number of persons, who, from being educated in Quaker 
 schools, or reared in Quaker families, have a sympathy with 
 Quaker ways, and attend their meetings. These, though 
 not acknowledged members of the Society are said to 
 "profess with it;" and even these a young Quaker might 
 not look upon with thoughts of marriage in his heart with- 
 out committing a sin. It was proposed to give them this 
 liberty, and even a little more. The proposal was regarded 
 as very bold, and even revolutionary, and was debated 
 three several years, and then referred to a conference of 
 three hundred sages of the Society, who met in London, 
 in November, 1858, and by whom, after much talk and 
 some wrath, it was finally allowed. So the marriage-law of 
 the Quakers was altered, and Friends allowed to look upon 
 a maid, though she was not a Quakeress, provided only she 
 sometimes came to their meetings, and had some sympathy 
 with Quaker ways — a thing to be easily supposed, if her 
 heart was set upon a Quaker husband.* 
 
 But other matters besides this were brought before the 
 conference. Some of the younger members of the Society, 
 
 -* Article " Quakerism," in Encyc. Brit. Extracts from Minutes and Epistles 
 pf Yearly Meeting, 1861. 
 
326 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 led away by the fashions of the world, had, for a long sea- 
 son, murmured against the tailor and millinery laws of the 
 Society. They no longer saw that religion could consist in 
 the cut of a coat, or the shape of a bonnet. They said that 
 George Fox had not prescribed any peculiar apparel ; that 
 all the first fathers of the sect were ignorant of this conceit ; 
 that all they required was simplicity of attire. They ex- 
 plained that the present Quaker garb had arisen from their 
 grandfathers refusing to follow the fashions, but that never- 
 theless changes had crept surreptitiously into the dress- 
 making of the Society ; and, as there were no great artistes 
 belonging to their body, there had grown up a costume 
 which was "singularly formal, stiff, bald, and ungraceful." 
 It had neither the sanction of authority, antiquity, or taste, 
 and therefore, they were resolved to change their clothes ; 
 and, indeed, some of them had done so already, and were 
 undistinguishable from the crowd. 
 
 These revolutionary Quakers also brought before the 
 conference the grammatical grievance of the second person 
 singular in their forms of speech. They argued that piety 
 did not depend upon the proper conjugation of verbs. As- 
 suming the tone of antiquarians, they said that, in the time 
 of Fox, a poor man was addressed " thou," and a rich man 
 " you," and was thus multiplied and magnified in his own 
 eyes, and that their founder was right to repudiate such 
 invidious distinctions;* but that now all such distinctions 
 had been laid aside, though the "you" had triumphed in- 
 stead of the more grammatical " thou," and that, therefore, 
 
 * I am doubtful of the correctness of this autiquarian argument. I find no 
 foundation for the alleged fact in the dramatists or novelists of the period, and 
 Fox specially mentions, in his Journal, that people were startled, and even, in 
 some cases, frightened by his forms of speech. They thought he was mad. He 
 assigns a totally different reason for his grammatical innovations. 
 
SPEECH AND APPAREL. 
 
 327 
 
 there was no longer any need for them to separate them- 
 selves from the world in their forms of address. They went 
 still farther, and maintained that it was no longer flattery 
 and a lie to call a man Mr., or a woman Mrs. ; that it was 
 not half so bad as to call a person Friend, who was in 
 reality no friend at all. They, therefore, sought to be 
 emancipated from the bondage of their peculiar dialect. 
 
 From ancient times the monthly meetings of the Society 
 have been required to answer a series of searching queries 
 regarding the character and conduct of members within 
 their bounds. The fourth of these demanded whether 
 Friends " were faithful in maintaining plainness of speech, 
 behaviour, and apparel." The conference was asked if 
 there ought not to be some modification of this question ? 
 It was contended that its terms had acquired a false value ; 
 that no costume had ever been prescribed by the Society ; 
 and that the customs of address against which it protested 
 had become obsolete. The conference adopted this conclu- 
 sion, the annual meeting afterwards ratified its decision, 
 and the Friends are no longer questioned about the cut or 
 colour of their garments, or the grammatical structure of 
 their sentences. The great smoothing-iron which is passing 
 over society, and removing all creases, and making all men 
 alike, had touched them too. 
 
 This decision led many to say that Quakerism was de- 
 funct. External Quakerism was certainly gone ; but surely 
 this sect, winch lias existed for centuries, and made such a 
 noise in the world, consists in something more than " thou " 
 and "thee," and a snuff-brown coat and a broad-brimmed 
 hat ? There is its mystic theology, and its benevolent 
 spirit. Its mysticism will always find disciples, even in 
 the heart of practical England and America ; and the world 
 may well wish that, though the Friends should cease to 
 engage much attention as a religious sect, they may ever 
 
328 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 remain banded together as a benevolent Society — blessing 
 and blessed. Thus far I have traced the history of the 
 Friends ; it only remains for me to explain the present 
 organization and condition of their Society. 
 
 Though they do not recognize any priesthood, or any 
 ordained ministry, they have their ministers, their elders, 
 and their overseers. When any Friend has given good proof 
 that he has a gift for the ministry, he is recognized as a 
 minister of the gospel by the Society; but those who are 
 thus recognized receive no pay, as a hireling ministry has 
 always been the aversion of the Society. In certain cases, 
 however, when travelling on a religious mission, their ex- 
 penses are paid. Next in honour to the ministers come the 
 elders, who are appointed that they may " tenderly en- 
 courage and help young ministers, and advise others, as 
 they, in the wisdom of God, see occasion." Overseers, both 
 male and female, come next among the office-bearers of the 
 Society, and they are charged, as their name implies, with 
 the oversight of the conduct of all Friends within the 
 district where their function lies.* We have already seen 
 that women may be recognized as ministers of the Society 
 of Friends, and at present, and for a long time past, a great 
 majority of the ministers belong to the female sex, which 
 seems to be most open to spiritual influences. 
 
 On " first day," as they call Sunday, all the Quakers 
 within a convenient distance meet together for worship. 
 The men and women occupy separate divisions of the place 
 where they meet. The men walk in with their hats on, for, 
 their meeting-house being made of stone and mortar, is not 
 holy. There is no pulpit, and no preacher specially ap- 
 pointed to address the people and conduct their devotions ; 
 but, as there may be several preachers inspired to speak, 
 
 * Extracts from the Minutes and Epistles of the Yearly Meeting, &c, 1861. 
 
PREACHING AND PREACHERS. 
 
 329 
 
 there is a long gallery, where the minister?, male and 
 female, sit, facing the audience, and each in front of his 
 or her own sex There also the elders sit, or in a lower 
 gallery together with the overseers. There are no liturgical 
 forms, no singing of Psalms, no reading of Holy AVrit, but 
 the congregation sit " retired wit Inn themselves," in solemn 
 silence, till some one feels a divine afflatus, and rises up to 
 speak. There may be several speakers, or there may be 
 none. There may be many prayers, or there may be none. 
 There are said to be some meetings where no word is 
 spoken for years together, unless it be, perhaps, by some 
 itinerant preacher.* 
 
 Many even of the Quakers themselves declare that the 
 experiment of an untrained and unpaid ministry has not 
 succeeded, and that the rhapsodies which are heard in 
 Quaker meeting-houses are very inferior to the confessedly 
 human compositions which are heard in the Established 
 Churches. Sensible Quakers are deterred from speaking 
 because they cannot clearly discriminate between the 
 Spirit's operations and their own good thoughts, and 
 know that they are in danger of being put down by some 
 " weighty Friend," as speaking in their own strength. It 
 is the most excitable, and not the most able, who venture 
 upon the task of preaching to the meeting, and hence it 
 is that the men generally sit and hear, while the women 
 speak. -f Alas ! the inspiration of every Quaker preacher is 
 not like that of Stephen Grellet or Mrs. Fry ; in too many 
 cases, it seems to lose its beauty and its power in per- 
 colating through uneducated brains. 
 
 Connected with most meetings for worship there is a 
 
 * Article "Quakerism," in Encyc. Brit. 
 
 t The great majority of the Quaker preachers at present are women. Hence, 
 at the yearly meeting in 1S65, the death of seven ministers are reported — all 
 females 
 
330 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 preparative meeting, one of the duties of which is to choose 
 representatives to the monthly meeting. 
 
 The monthly meetings embrace several preparative meet- 
 ings, and they are, in some respects, the radical meetings of 
 the Society. In them is vested the property of the Society, 
 and to them it belongs to determine who should be ad- 
 mitted within its pale, and who should be disowned. They 
 receive funds for the support of the poor, and appropriate to 
 each particular meeting what seemeth meet to them. They 
 also gather in the funds for schools, and for the national 
 stock, and hand these over to the quarterly meetings. In 
 them, moreover, the Quakers take one another in wedlock, 
 for better or worse ; and, finally, by them a register of all 
 marriages, births, and burials is kept. 
 
 The quarterly meetings comprehend all the monthly 
 meetings in one or two counties. At them are produced 
 the answers to the standing queries addressed to the 
 monthly meetings regarding the conduct of all members. 
 In Spring they choose their representatives to the yearly 
 meeting, and through these forward the contributions which 
 they have gathered to the Meeting for Sufferings in London, 
 which acts as a kind of exchequer to the Society. 
 
 In the month of May, and in the City of London, the 
 Yearly Meeting is convoked. It consists of representatives 
 from the Yearly Meeting in Ireland, as well as from all the 
 Quarterly Meetings of Great Britain. A thousand or twelve 
 hundred Quakers, male and female, are gathered together 
 at this high time,* and the Meeting lasts for about ten days. 
 It has no president, for that would be an interference with 
 the presidency of Christ, but it appoints a clerk, who really 
 acts as president as well as secretary. No private members 
 
 * Only about 139 of these, however, are representatives, with a right to vote. 
 
MEETINGS. 
 
 331 
 
 are allowed to take notes of the proceedings.* During the 
 sittings, epistles are read from the Friends in Ireland, and 
 from the orthodox Meetings in America, and committees 
 are appointed to prepare answers to them. Every matter of 
 general interest to the Society is disposed of. There is a kind 
 of committee, consisting of ministers and elders, which meets 
 previous to the General Meeting, and is called the Morning 
 Meeting, which, among other things, revises the manuscripts 
 of books connected with the doctrines of the Society ; for, 
 notwithstanding their spiritual illumination and their free- 
 dom from creeds, a strict censorship is exercised over the 
 religious publications of the Friends. When Stephen Grellet 
 visited the library of the Inquisition and beheld the shelves 
 groaning with proscribed books, did he not think of the 
 Morning Meeting and the many Quaker MSS. which had 
 perished as an untimely birth ? There is also another 
 standing committee, consisting of ministers alone, called the 
 Meeting for Sufferings, for it arose in troublous times, and 
 was designed to afford aid to the distressed. Into its hands 
 a great deal of the effective power of the Society has passed, 
 and it may almost be regarded as the executive branch of 
 the Quaker government. 
 
 There is but one Yearly Meeting for Great Britain and 
 Ireland ; but in America there are eight Yearly Meetings of 
 orthodox Quakers, besides five of the Hicksites. One 
 should imagine that the history of the Society of Friends 
 might be best read in the minutes of these great representa- 
 tive Yearly Meetings, as the history of the Church of Scot- 
 land can be best traced in the proceedings of its General 
 Assembly. But it is not so: and therefore I have been 
 obliged to seek for the truest history of the Quakers in the 
 
 * Extracts from the Minutes and Epistles of the Yearly Meeting, kc, 1861. 
 
332 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 sayings and doings of their great representative men, from 
 George Fox to Stephen Grellet. 
 
 The women have their own monthly, quarterly and yearly 
 meetings, simultaneously with the men, with an almost co- 
 ordinate jurisdiction over the members of their own sex. 
 On certain occasions the men and the women meet together, 
 which is quaintly and significantly called " opening the 
 shutters." * 
 
 William Howitt tells us that those who are supposed to 
 live more habitually than others under the influence of the 
 spirit, are called weighty Friends, who, as it so happens, 
 are generally men also of weighty purses ; and that a prac- 
 tice has arisen of deciding matters not so much by the 
 number of votes as by the weight of the voters ; and that 
 hence the government of the Society has passed into the 
 hands of a sanctimonious wealthy oligarchy. Bather a 
 bitter thing for a Friend to say of Friends : but it may be 
 true, for it so happens in other religious communities too. 
 
 At stated periods, the monthly meetings report to the 
 quarterly meetings as to the position of the Society within 
 their bounds. The following are some of the questions 
 which must be answered. 
 
 1. Are your meetings for worship regularly held ? Do 
 Friends attend them duly, and at the time appointed ? 
 
 2. Are Friends preserved in love one towards another; 
 and do they avoid and discourage tale-bearing and de- 
 traction ? 
 
 3. Are Friends frequent in reading the Holy Scriptures ; 
 and do those who have children, servants, and others under 
 their care, encourage them in the practice of this religious 
 duty ? 
 
 * "In the subsequent meeting," says Joseph John Gurney, "leave to open 
 the shutters (to unite men and women in a closing opportunity) was refused." — 
 Life : Vol. II., pp. 117-8. 
 
QUERIES. 
 
 333 
 
 4. Are Friends careful to maintain a religious life and 
 conversation, consistent with our Christian profession ? and 
 do those who have children or others under their care, en- 
 deavour, by example and precept, to train them up in ac- 
 cordance therewith ? 
 
 5. Are Friends faithful in bearing our Christian testimony 
 against all ecclesiastical demands ? 
 
 6. Are Friends faithful in maintaining our Christian 
 testimony against all war ? * 
 
 When a Friend wishes to travel over England on a re- 
 ligious mission, he must get a certificate from his monthly 
 meeting ; if he designs crossing to Ireland he must have the 
 certificate of his quarterly meeting; if he purposes going 
 abroad, nothing less than the testimony of the yearly meet- 
 ing will speed him on his way.-)" These ministerial tours 
 are still frequent, for the Friends have not lost their old 
 missionary spirit. 
 
 In many respects their polity resembles the polity of the 
 Church of Scotland, which has its Kirk-Sessions, Presbyteries, 
 Synods, and General Assemblies, but it is much more in- 
 quisitorial, and interferes more with the freedom of personal 
 thought and action. The Quakers are certainly not left to 
 the guidance of the Holy Spirit ; and their religious opinions 
 are as carefully watched as if they were stereotyped in a 
 creed. 
 
 The Society of Friends, with praiseworthy charity, sup- 
 port all their own poor ; but, as almost the whole body is 
 respectable and even wealthy, the burden is not very heavy. 
 They pay scrupulous attention to the education of their 
 children; and, in strict families, the natural instincts of 
 boyhood and girlhood for merriment are carefully sup- 
 
 * Extracts from the Minutes and Epistles of the Yearly Meeting, &c, 1861. 
 t Ibid. 
 
334 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 pressed, and the smooth, prim, quiet Quaker of the future 
 is formed by times. Their public schools at Ackworth and 
 other places are models of economy and good management, 
 and the education given is thoroughly sensible and good. 
 They make it their boast that there is no religious com- 
 munity in which there is so little crime, and when, some 
 years ago, a Friend was convicted of murder and hanged, 
 the whole Society was in dismay, but they had some corn- 
 fort in the reflection that he had been disowned some years 
 before the crime was committed. We have seen that their 
 peculiar customs have of late been breaking down. The 
 second person singular has, by many at least, been aban- 
 doned, and the Quaker coat and knee-breeches are now 
 more rarely seen on the streets. Many who are not of 
 them lament this, for the " thou " and the " thee " gave a 
 piquancy to conversation; and one liked to meet in the 
 crowd with a cut of coat different from any body's else. 
 Other kinds of asceticism have already disappeared, with- 
 out the sanction of the Society. George Fox and the first 
 Quakers put their ban upon pictures and statuary as savour- 
 ing of vanity, but now, pictures are frequently to be found 
 adorning the walls of Quaker houses — a likeness of Grellet 
 gives additional interest to his biography — a statue of 
 Sturge has been reared at Birmingham, no Quaker forbidding 
 it, and several Friends have risen to eminence as engravers 
 and photographers, though no great artist has yet emerged 
 from the sect. The Society, from first to last, has borne 
 testimony against music and dancing as sinful amuse- 
 ments ;* but notwithstanding this, music is carefully cul- 
 tivated in many Quaker families, and Howitt assures us it 
 is by no means a rare sight to see in the houses of grave 
 Friends, young people engaged in the dance, f 
 
 * Extracts from the Minutes and Epistles of the Yearly Meeting, 1861. 
 t Article, "Quakerism." — Encyc. Brit. 
 
PRESENT POSITION. 
 
 335 
 
 They still continue to protest against slavery, capital 
 punishments, and war. Of all these objects, the last is un- 
 doubtedly the sublimest and the" best — though the most 
 unattainable. But if the Friends, by their continual pro- 
 tests, should lead the nations to abhor war more than they 
 do, to strip the military life of its false glory, and refer their 
 quarrels more frequently to arbitration, they will have done 
 great service to humanity. There are already symptoms of 
 such a state of feeling arising in Europe. The protocol re- 
 commending arbitration, inserted in the Treaty of Paris, 
 was itself a gigantic step in this direction, though unfor- 
 tunately it has not since been always acted on. The Society 
 cannot at present boast of any great Quaker, but it can 
 justly speak of a Quaker who is a great orator — John 
 Bright — who, on this and other questions, has made his 
 voice so heard in the councils of his country, that the echo 
 of it will not soon die away. 
 
 The Quakers are declining in numbers, both in England 
 and America. It has been remarked that as they become 
 wealthy and get an entrance into fashionable life, they show 
 a strong tendency to abandon the Society. But besides 
 this, the spirit of the present age is unfriendly to mysticism 
 and quite fatal to peculiarities not founded on utility. It 
 is said that the Quakers in England were once as one in a 
 hundred and thirty of the population, whereas they are at 
 present only as one in eleven hundred. It is probable they 
 may still continue to decrease, but the world must ever 
 confess its debt of Gratitude to them, and acknowledge that 
 they are " a peculiar people, zealous of good works." 
 
 H. SYME AND SON, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.