A Book of Quaker Saints

t think it wrong to fight for their King and Country. Why did George Fox forbid Quakers to f

his own followers. Let us see what he himself did when, as a young man, he was faced with this very same difficulty, or an

to the story of a m

lain hidden in the thick reeds by the riverside; but at sunset he grew hungry, and sprang, with a great bound, up from his hiding-place. Right into the village itself he came, trampling down the patches of young, green corn that the villagers had sown, and that were just beginning to spring up, fresh and green, around the mud

hort in its spring, to gaze upon this perplexing, motionless Being who knew no fear. There he stood, perfectly silent, perfectly calm, gazing back at the Tiger with the look of a conqueror. Several long, heavy minutes passed. At length the villagers, peeping out from their hiding-places, looking between the broad plantain leaves or through the chinks of their wooden huts, beheld a miracle. They saw, to their amazement, the Tiger slink off, sullen and baffled, to the jungle, while the Stranger remained alone and unharmed in posses

was able to overcome this savage Tiger only because I have alre

is the story. And now le

en unloosed and that were trampling the land. The whole country lay torn and bleeding. Some bad men there were on both sides certainly; but the real mis

d the Cavaliers, and rushed into

uritans. 'For God and the Liberties of Englan

d, went on his way, unheeded and unheeding. He, too, had to fight; but his was a lonely battle, in the silence of his own heart. It w

ight and power, and I therein clearly saw that all was to be done in and by Christ, and how He conquers and destroys the Devil and all his works and is atop of him.' He means

brought through the very ocean of darkness and death, and through and over the power of Satan by the eternal glorious power of Christ; even through that darkness was I brought which covered over all the w

seed under heavy clods of earth), if men will only yield to It. In another place he calls this seed 'THAT OF GOD WITHIN YOU.' And it is this tender growing 'seed' that gets trampled down when fierce angry passions are unloosed in people's hearts, just as the tender springing corn in the Indian village wa

Then that love had always been round him, even in his loneliest struggles, and now that he knew that he was in it, nothing could really hurt him. No wonder that he walked on towards the gaol with a feeling of new joy and strength. But when he came to the dark, frowning prison where numbers of men and women were lying in sin and misery, this joyfulness left him. He says, 'A great power of darkness struck at me.' The prisoners were not the sort of people he had hoped to find them. They were a se

eed. But wait! A little while after, one of these same prisoners, named Joseph Salmon, wrote a paper

t the sufferer. 'I went up to him in his chamber,' says Fox in his Journal, 'and spake the word of life to him, and was moved to pray by him, and the Lord was entreated and restored him to health. When I was come down the stairs into a lower room and was speaking to the servants, a serving-man of his came raving out of another room, with

f had not been really tamed. Perhaps George Fox needed to learn more, and to suffer more

y cruel Gaoler. This man was a strict Puritan, and he hated Fox, and spoke wickedly against him. He even refused him permi

ehouses.' But there the voice stopped, and the prisoner heard no more. When evening came, however, the Gaoler visited the cell, no longer raging and storming at his prisoner, but humbled and still. 'I have been as a lion against you,' he said to Fox, 'but now I come like a lamb, or like the Gaoler that came to Paul and Silas, trembling.' He came to ask as a favour that he might spend the night in the same prison chamber where Fox lay. Fox answered that he was in the Gaoler's power: the keeper of the prison of course could sleep in any place he chose.

he Gaoler himself perhaps least of all until his dream showed him the truth about himself. When the night was over and morning light had come, the Gaoler was determined to do all he

he name of Quakers to George Fox and his followers as a nickname, to make fun of them. Fox declared in his preaching that 'all men should tremble at the word of the Lord,' whereupon the Justice laughingly said that 'Quakers and Tremblers was

therefore, although his Gaoler's heart had been changed, George Fox st

'Sitting in Church, listening to the Priest,' continued the trooper, paying no attention to the interruption, 'I was in an exceeding great trouble, thinking over my sins and wondering what I should do, when a Voice came to me-I believe it was God's own Voice and it said-"Dost thou not know that my servant is in prison? Go thou to him for direction." So I obeyed the Voice,' the man continued, 'and here I have come to you, and now I want you to tell me what I mu

took his new-found happiness straight back to the other soldiers in his quarters, and told them of the truths he had learnt in the prison.

her, but before the actual fighting had begun, that two soldiers of the King's Army came out and challenged any two soldiers of the Parliamentary Army to single combat, whereupon Colonel Barton ordered the soldier who had likened him to Nebuchadnezzar to go with one other companion on this dangerous errand. They went; they fought with the two Royalists, and one of the two Parliamentarians was killed; but it was the other one, not Fox's friend. He, left alone, with his comrade lying dead by h

it. We must go back a little to the time, some months before the Battle of Worcester, when the

e, and there, before the assembled Commissioners and soldiers, Fox was offered a good position in the army if he would take up arms for the Commonwealth against Charles Stuart. The officers could not understand why George Fox should refuse to r

ed me to accept their offer, and thought I did but compliment them. But I told them I was come into that covenant of peace which was before wars and strifes were. They said they offered it in love and kindness to me, because for my virtue, an

ecome an officer in the army. His relations, distressed at his imprisonment, had already offered ￡100 for his release, but Fox would not accept the pardon this sum might have obtained for him as he said he had done nothing wrong. He was occasionall

there was for him in prison truly. A young woman prisoner who had robbed her master was sentenced to be hanged, according to the barbarous law then in force. This shocked Fox so much that he wrote letters to her judges and to the men who were to have been her executioners, expressing his horror at what was going to happen in such strong language that he actually softened their hearts. Although the girl had actually reached the foot of the gallows, and her grave had already been dug, she was reprieved. Then, wh

go for a soldier, but I said I was dead to it. They said I was alive. I told them where envy and hatred is, there is confusion. They offered me money twice, but I refused it. Being disappointed, they were angry, and committed me a

s that the prisoner had planted in that dark place sprang

then had the vision and repented, wrote this letter to his former prisoner. It is a real

D,' the let

It makes me think of the gaoler's conversion by the apostles. Oh! happy George Fox! that first breathed the breath of life within the walls of my habitation! Notwithstanding that my outward losses are since that time such that I am become nothing in the world, yet I hope I shall find that these light afflictions, which are but for a moment, will work for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. They have tak

AS SH

nd of the four

ldiers in Derby market-place that he could not fight, because he 'lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars

TNO

save, but 'a little time after they had suffered their spirits