Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/36

Rh said more than that; it said, “All men are equal, because the inner light enlightens all. And all government is to be rejected which is not based upon the laws of universal reason. There is no difference between priest and layman, between man and woman. The inner light enlightens all, and knows no distinction of class or of sex.”

But I must not go to greater length in these doctrines of the Quakers, or I should extend my letter too far. I must instead, pass over to the establishment of this Quaker State.

In proportion as the sect protested more and more vehemently against Church and State, persecution and hatred increased, and thousands of the Quakers died in prison from cold and ill-usage.

Amid these sufferings the oppressed people cast their eyes towards the New World, as a place of refuge. Fox returned from his missionary journey through the Eastern States, from Rhode Island to Carolina, where he had sown the seed of his doctrines in thousands of willing souls.

Several Quaker families in England united to prepare for themselves and their friends an asylum on the other side of the Atlantic; in that land which had given a home to George Fox. They purchased, therefore, land along the banks of the Delaware, and set out with a large number of adherents to establish there a community whose one law and rule should be the inner law of the heart, enlightened by the inner light. To this party William Penn soon attached himself, and took the lead in the colony as its natural head and governor.

In the fundamental principles of their legislation the Friends adhered to that of the Puritan colony of New Hampshire; “their concessions were such as Friends could approve of,” because, said they, the power is vested in the people.

But the Quakers went further than the Pilgrim Fathers