Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/533

 FOX 501 to adhere to the letter of the command he believed himself to have received; he soon began to have some misgivings as to the propriety of his action in having forsaken his relations, and, apparently without waiting for any new revelation, he ultimately conceded so much to the claims of natural affection as occasionally to visit those whom he had formerly thought il his duty to leave. Still, throughout this period his wanderings were very numerous, and covered a very wide area. He would go from town to town, &quot;travelling up and down as a stranger in the earth, which way the Lord inclined my heart ; taking a chamber to myself in the town where I came, and tarrying sometimes a mouth, more or less, in a place ;&quot; and the reason he gives for this migra tory habit is that he was &quot; afraid both of professor and pro fane, lest, being a tender young man, he should be hurt by conversing much with either.&quot; The same fear often led him to shun all society for days at a time ; but frequently he would apply to &quot; professors &quot; for spiritual direction and consolation. These applications, however, never proved suc cessful ; he invariably found that his advisers &quot; possessed not what they professed.&quot; Some recommended marriage, others enlistment as a soldier in the civil wars; one &quot;ancient priest&quot; bade him take tobacco and sing psalms; another of the same fraternity, &quot; in high account,&quot; advised physic and blood-letting. About the beginning of 1G4G his thoughts began to take more definite shape ; or, as he himself expresses it, he began to receive more revelations. For example, as he was one day approaching the gate of Coventry, &quot; the Lord opened to him &quot; that none were true bslievers but such as were born of God and had passed from death unto life ; and this was soon followed by other &quot;openings&quot; to the effect that &quot; being bred at Oxford or Cambridge was not enough to fit and qualify men to be ministers of Christ,&quot; and that &quot; God who made the world did not dwell in temples mado with hands.&quot; &quot; I had also greit openings concerning the things written in the Revela tions.&quot; He also experienced deeper manifestations of Christ within his ow r n soul. &quot; When I myself was in the deep, shut up under all [the burden of corruptions], I could not believe that I should ever overcome; my troubles, my sorrow s, and my temptations were so great that I thought many times I should have despaired, I was so tempted. But when Christ opened to me how He was tempted by the same devil, and overcame him and bruised his head, and that through Him, and His power, light, grace, and spirit, I should overcome also, I had confidence in Him ; so He it was that opened to me, when I was shut up and had no hope nor faith. Christ, who had enlightened me, gave me His light to believe in ; He gave me hope which He Himself revealed in me ; and He gave me His spirit and grace, which I found sufficient in the deeps and in weakness.&quot; With the knowledge he had thus received, Fox, towards the end of the year 1647, felt himself constrained to begin the work of his life as an itinerant preacher, the positive element in his teaching being to the effect that men ought to give sincere and earnest heed to the inner light the light of Christ which God had placed in every human heart. The scenes of his early labours and early successes were in the neighbourhood of Dukinfield and Manchester, where he had &quot;great openings and prophecies,&quot; and succeeded in establishing his influence over a considerable number of followers. From this date his creed grew rapidly in point of explicitness, especially on its negative and practical sides. For example, in 1648 it was revealed to him by the inner light that he was not to take off his hat to any person, high or low ; that he was to use in addressing any single individual of whatever rank no other pronouns than the simple &quot;thou&quot; and &quot;thee&quot;; that he was not to bid people good morning or good evening; and that he was not to &quot;bow or scrape with his leg to any one.&quot; Increasingly persuaded of the truth and importance of his message, he daily became bolder in the delivery of it. In the year 1649, as he was walking towards Nottingham on a first-day morning accom panied by some friends, he heard the bell of the &quot; steeple house &quot; of the city, and was admonished by an inward voice to go forward and cry against the great temple and the wor shippers in it. Entering the church he found the preacher engaged in expounding the words, &quot; We have also a more sure word of prophecy,&quot; from which the ordinary Protestant doctrine of the supreme authority of Scripture was being en forced in a manner which appeared to Fox so defective or erroneous as to call for his immediate and most energetic protest. Lifting up his voice against the preacher s doctrine, he declared that it is not by the Scripture alone, but by the divine light by which the Scriptures were given, that doctrines ought to be judged. The result of the disturbance which not unnaturally ensued was that he was seized by the constables and carried otf to prison, where he was detained for some time, and from which he was released only by the favour of the sheriff, whose sympathies he had succeeded in enlisting. A similar adventure at Derby ended less favourably. For raising a discussion which seemed not unlikely to end in a breach of the peace in the church there, he was brought before the magistrates, and after examina tion, committed along with one of his comrades to the house of correction as a blasphemer ; l and not till the beginning of 1651, after he had been a prisoner for almost a year, did he succeed in regaining his freedom. It would be here out of place to follow with any minuteness the details of his subsequent imprisonments, such as that at Carlisle in 1653, at London in 1654, at Launceston 1656, at Lancaster in 1660 and again in 1663, at Scarborough in 1666, and at Worcester in 1674. They are related with a certain monotony, which is yet far from being tedious or un interesting, in the Journal, fortunately an easily accessible book. Suffice it to say that during these terms of imprisonment his pen was not idle, as is amply shown by the very numerous letters, pastorals, and exhortations which have been preserved by his followers ; while during his intervals of liberty he was unwearied in the work of preaching and making disciples. While his labours were for the most part confined to the midland and northern counties of England, he found time in 1657 for a tour through Scotland, which, in his opinion, was not altogether without result. In 1669 he married the widow of a Welsh judge, Margaret Fell, who, with her family, had been among his earliest converts ; but almost immediately afterwards his proselytizing ardour impelled him to proceed alone to Barbados, Jamaica, and the American continent. In all places visited by him there he met with a good reception, and was successful in making many converts. Shortly after his return in 1673 he was, as has been already noted, apprehended in Worcestershire for attending meetings that were forbidden by the law. He was ultimately set at liberty on account of errors in the indictment which had been drawn up against him, but this was not until after he had suffered a captivity of nearly fourteen months. In 1677 he visited Holland along with his followers Barclay and Penn ; and this visit he re newed in 1684, extending his tour through a considerable part of North Germany. The later years of his life were spent mostly in London, where he continued to give public addresses, comparatively unmolested, until within a few days of his death, which took place November 13, 1690. 1 It was about this time that the epithet &quot;Quaker&quot; was first bestowed upon Fox and his friends (by Justice Bennett of Derby, it is said) because &quot; they bade the people tremble at the word of the Lord.&quot; It soon passed into common use, and is to be found even in the Records of the House of Commons as early as 1651.