'He is stiff as a tree and pure as a bell, and we could never bow
him.' So spoke the rough soldiers of Scarborough Castle of their
prisoner, George Fox, after he had been set at liberty. A splendid
thing it was for soldiers to say of a prisoner whom they had held
absolutely in their power. But a tree does not grow stiff all at once.
It takes many years for a tiny seedling to grow into a sturdy oak. A
bell has to undergo many processes before it gains its perfect form
and pure ringing note. And a whole lifetime of joys and sorrows had
been needed to develop the 'stiffness' (or steadfastness, as we should
call it now) and purity of character that astonished the soldiers in
their prisoner. There will not be much story in this history of George
Fox's early days, but it is the foundation-stone on which most of the
later stories will be built.
* * * * *
It was in July 1624, the last year in which James the First, King of
England, ruled in his palace at Whitehall, that far away in a quiet
Leicestershire village their first baby was born to a weaver and his
wife. They lived in a small cottage with a thatched roof and wooden
shutters, in a village then known as 'Drayton-in-the-Clay,' because of
the desolate waters of the marshlands that lay in winter time close
round the walls of the little hamlet. Even though the fens and marshes
have now long ago been drained and turned into fertile country, the
village is still called 'Fenny Drayton.' The weaver's name was
Christopher Fox. His wife's maiden name had been Mary Lago; and the
name they gave to their first little son was George.
Mary Lago came 'of the stock of the martyrs': that is to say, either
her parents or her grand-parents had been put to death for their
faith. They had been burnt at the stake, probably, in one of the
persecutions in the reign of Queen Mary. From her 'martyr stock' Mary
Lago must have learned, when she was quite a little girl, to worship
God in purity of faith. Later on, after she had become the mother of
little George, it was no wonder that her baby son sitting on her knee,
looking up into her face, or listening to her stories, learned from
the very beginning to try to be 'Pure as a Bell.'
Mary Lago's husband, Christopher Fox, did not come 'of the stock of
the martyrs,' but evidently he had inherited from his ancestors plenty
of tough courage and sturdy sense. Almost the only story remembered
about him is that one day he stuck his cane into the ground after
listening to a long dispute and exclaimed: 'Now I see that if a man
will but stick to the truth it will bear him out.'
When little George grew old enough to scramble down from his mother's
knee and to walk with unsteady steps across the stone-flagged floor of
the cottage, there was his weaver father sitting at his loom, making a
pleasant rhythmic sound that filled the small house with music. As the
boy watched the skilful hands sending the flying shuttle in and out
among the threads, he learned from his father, not only the right way
to weave good reliable stuff, but also how to weave the many coloured
threads of everyday life into a strong character. The village
people called his father 'Righteous Christer,' which shows that he too
must have been 'stiff as a tree' in following what he knew to be
right; for a name like that is not very easily earned where village
eyes are sharp and village tongues are shrewd.
[Illustration: THE BOYHOOD OF GEORGE FOX]
Less than a mile from the weaver's cottage stood the Church and the
Manor House side by side. The churchyard had a wall of solid red
bricks, overshadowed by a border of solemn old yew-trees. The Manor
House was encircled by a moat on which graceful white swans swam to
and fro. For centuries the Purefoy family had been Squires of Drayton
village. They had inhabited the Manor House while they were alive, and
had been buried in the churchyard close by after they were dead. The
present Squire was a certain COLONEL GEORGE PUREFOY. It may have been
after him that 'Righteous Christer' called his eldest son George, or
it may have been after that other George, 'Saint George for Merrie
England,' whose image killing the Dragon was to be seen engraved on
each rare golden 'noble' that found its way to the weaver's home.
Christopher and Mary Fox were both of them possessed of more education
than was usual among country people at that time, when reading and
writing were still rare accomplishments. 'Righteous Christer' was an
important man in the small village. Besides being a weaver, he was
also a churchwarden, and was able to sign his own name in bold
characters, as may still be seen to-day in the parish registers, where
his fellow-churchwarden, being unable to read or write, was only able
to sign his name with a cross. Unfortunately this same register,
which ought to record the exact day of July 1624 on which little
George was baptized here in the old church, no longer mentions him,
since, more than a hundred years after his time, the wife of the
Sexton of Fenny Drayton, running short of paper to cover her jam-pots,
must needs lay hands on the valuable Church records and tear out a few
priceless pages just here. So, although several other brothers and
sisters followed George and came to live in the weaver's cottage
during the next few years, we know none of their ages or birthdays,
until we come to the record of the baptism of the youngest sister
Sarah. Happily her page came last of all, after the Sexton's jam was
finished, and thus Sarah's name escaped being made into the lid of a
jam-pot. But we will hope that the weaver and his wife remembered and
kept all their children's birthdays on the right days, even though
they are forgotten now. However that may have been, George's parents
'endeavoured to train him up, as they did their other children, in the
common way of worship--his mother especially being eminent for piety:
but even from a child he was seen to be of another frame of mind from
his brethren, for he was more religious, retired, still and solid, and
was also observing beyond his age. His mother, seeing this
extraordinary temper and godliness, which so early did shine through
him, so that he would not meddle with childish games, carried herself
indulgent towards him.... Meanwhile he learned to read pretty well,
and to write as much as would serve to signify his meaning to others.'
When he saw older people behaving in a rowdy, frivolous way, it
distressed him, and the little boy used to say to himself: 'If ever I
come to be a man, surely I will not be so wanton.'
'When I came to eleven years of age,' he says himself in his Journal,
'I knew pureness and righteousness; for while I was a child I was
taught how to walk so as to be kept pure, and to be faithful in two
ways, both inwardly to God, and outwardly to man, and to keep to Yea
and Nay in all things.'
At that time there was a law obliging everybody to attend Church on
Sundays, and as the services lasted for several hours at a time, the
weaver's children doubtless had time to look about them, and learned
to know the stones of the old church well. When the Squire and his
family were at home they sat in the Purefoy Chapel in the North Aisle.
From this Chapel a door in the wall opened on to a path that led
straight over the drawbridge across the moat to the Manor House. It
must have been interesting for all the village children to watch for
the opening and shutting of that door. But up in the chancel there
was, and still is, something even more interesting: the big tomb that
a certain Mistress Jocosa or Joyce Purefoy had put up to the memory of
her husband, who had died in the days of good Queen Bess.
'PURE FOY, MA JOYE,' the black letters of the family motto, can still
be read on a marble scroll. If George in his boyhood ever asked his
mother what the French words meant, Mary Fox, who was, we are told,
'accomplished above her degree in the place where she lived,' may have
been able to tell him that they mean, in English, 'Pure faith is my
Joy'; or that, keeping the rhyme, they might be translated as
follows:--
'MY FAITH PURE, MY JOY SURE.'
Then remembering what had happened in her own family, surely she would
add, 'And I, who come of martyr stock, know that that is true. Even if
you have to suffer for it, my son, even if you have to die for it,
keep your Faith pure, and your Joy will be sure in the end.'
Then Righteous Christer would take the little lad up on his shoulder
and show him the broken spear above the tomb, the crest of the
Purefoys, and tell him its story. Hundreds of years before, one of the
Squires of this family had defended his liege lord on the battle-field
at the risk of his own life, and even after his weapon, a spear, had
been broken in his hand. His lord, out of gratitude for this, had
given his faithful follower, not only the right to wear the broken
spear in token of his valour ever after as a crest, but also by his
name and by his motto to proclaim to all men the PURE FAITH (PUREFOY)
that had given him this sure and lasting joy. Ever since, for hundreds
of years, the Purefoy family had handed down, by their name, by their
motto, and by the broken spear on their crest, this noble tradition of
loyalty and allegiance--enshrined like a shining jewel in the centre
of the muddy village of Drayton-in-the-Clay.
This was not the only battle story the boy must have known well. A few
miles from Fenny Drayton is 'the rising ground of Market Bosworth,'
better known as Bosworth Field. As he grew older George loved to
wander over the fields that surrounded his birthplace. He 'must have
often passed the site of Henry's camp, perhaps may have drunk
sometimes at the well at which Richard is said to have quenched his
thirst.' But although his home was near this old battlefield, the boy
grew up in a peaceful England. Probably no one in Fenny Drayton
imagined that in a very few years the smiling English meadows would
once more be drenched in blood. George Fox in his country home was
brought up to follow country pursuits, and was especially skilful in
the management of sheep. He says in his Journal: 'As I grew up, my
relations thought to have made me a priest, but others persuaded to
the contrary. Whereupon I was put to a man who was a shoemaker by
trade, and dealt in wool. He also used grazing and sold cattle; and a
great deal went through my hands. While I was with him he was blest,
but after I left him, he broke and came to nothing. I never wronged
man or woman in all that time.... While I was in that service, I used
in my dealings the word "Verily," and it was a common saying among
those that knew me, "if George says Verily, there is no altering him."
When boys and rude persons would laugh at me, I let them alone, but
people generally had a love to me for my innocence and honesty.
'When I came towards 19 years of age, being upon business at a Fair,
one of my cousins, whose name was Bradford, a professor, having
another professor with him, asked me to drink part of a jug of beer
with them. I, being thirsty, went with them, for I loved any that had
a sense of good. When we had drunk a glass apiece, they began to drink
healths and called for more drink, agreeing together that he that
would not drink should pay for all. I was grieved that they should do
so, and putting my hand into my pocket took out a groat and laid it on
the table before them, saying, "If it be so, I will leave you." So I
went away, and when I had done my business I returned home, but did
not go to bed that night, nor could I sleep, but sometimes walked up
and down and prayed and cried unto the Lord, who said to me: "Thou
must forsake all, young and old, keep out of all and be a stranger to
all."
'Then at the command of God, the 9th of the 7th month,[1] 1643, I left
my relations, and broke off all familiarity or fellowship with young
or old.'
The old-fashioned English of the 'Journal' makes this story rather
puzzling at the first reading, because several words have changed in
meaning since it was written. The name 'professors,' did not then mean
learned men who teach or lecture in a University, but any men who
'professed' to be particularly religious and good. These
'professionally religious people' are generally known as 'the
Puritans,' and it was meeting with these bad specimens among them who
'professed' a religion they did not attempt to practise, that so
dismayed George Fox. Here at any rate 'Pure Faith' was not being kept
either to God or men. He must find a more solid foundation on which to
rest his own soul's loyalty and allegiance. Over the porch of the
Church at Fenny Drayton is painted now, not the Purefoy motto, but the
words: 'I will go forth in the strength of the Lord God.' It was from
this place that George Fox set forth on the long search for a 'Pure
Faith' that, when he found it, was to bring both to him and to many
thousands of his countrymen a 'Sure Joy.'
Why Righteous Christer and his wife did not help George more at this
time remains a puzzle. They may have been afraid lest he was making a
terrible mistake in leaving the worship they knew and followed, or
they may have guessed that God was really calling him to do some work
for Him bigger than they could understand, and may have felt that they
could help their boy best by leaving him free to follow the Voice that
spoke to him in the depths of his own heart, even if he had to fight
his own battles unaided. Or possibly their thoughts were too full of
all the actual battles that were filling the air just then to think
any other troubles important. For our Quaker Saints are not legendary
people; they are a real part of English History.
All through the years of George's boyhood the struggle between King
Charles the First and his Parliament had been getting more tense and
embittered. The abolition of the Star Chamber (May 1640), the
attempted arrest of the five Members (October 1642), the trial and
death, first of Strafford (May 1641) and then of Laud (January
1645)--all these events had been convulsing the great heart of the
English nation during the long years while young George had been
quietly keeping his master's sheep and cattle in his secluded
Leicestershire village.
A year before he left home the long-dreaded Civil War had at last
broken out. But the Civil War that broke out in the soul of the young
shepherd lad, the struggle between good and evil when he saw his
Puritan cousin tempting other people to drink and carouse, was to him
a more momentous event than all the outward battles that were raging.
His Journal hardly mentions the rival armies of King and Parliament
that were marching through the land. Yet in reading of his early
struggles in his own spirit, we must always keep in the background of
our minds the thought of the great national struggle that was raging
at the same time. It was not in the orderly, peaceful, settled England
of his earliest years that the boy grew to manhood, but in an England
that was being torn asunder by the rival faiths and passions of her
sons. Men's minds were filled with the perplexities of great national
problems of Church and State, of tyranny and freedom. No wonder that
at such a time everyone was too busy to spare much sympathy or many
thoughts for the spiritual perplexities of one obscure country lad.
Right into the very middle, then, of this troubled, seething England,
George Fox plunged when he left his home at Fenny Drayton. The battle
of Marston Moor was fought the following year, July 1644, and Naseby
the summer after that. But George was not heeding outward battles. Up
and down the country he walked, seeking for help in his spiritual
difficulties from all the different kinds of people he came across;
and there were a great many different kinds. The England of that day
was not only torn by Civil War, it was also split up into innumerable
different sects, now that the attempt to force everyone to worship
according to one prescribed fashion was at length being abandoned. In
one small Yorkshire town it is recorded that there were no less than
forty of these sects worshipping in different ways about this time,
while new sects were continually arising.
Perhaps it was a generous wish to give the professors another chance
and not to judge the whole party from the bad specimens he had met,
that made George go back to the Puritans for help. At first they made
much of the young enquirer; but, alas! they all had the same defect as
those he had met already. Their spoken profession sounded very fine,
but they did not carry it out in their lives.
'They sought to be acquainted with me, but I was afraid of them, for I
was sensible they did not possess what they professed.' In other
words, their faith did not ring true. The professors were certainly
not 'Pure as a Bell.'
George Fox's test was always the same, both for his own religion and
other people's: 'Is this faith real? Is it true? Can you actually live
out what you profess to believe? And do you? Is your faith pure? Is
your joy sure?'
Finding that, in the case of the professors, a sorrowful 'No' was the
only answer that their lives gave to these questions, George says: 'A
strong temptation to despair came over me. I then saw how Christ was
tempted, and mighty troubles I was in. Sometimes I kept myself retired
in my chamber, and often walked solitary in the Chace to wait upon the
Lord.'
It must not be forgotten that part of the Puritan worship consisted in
making enormously long prayers in spoken words, and preaching sermons
that lasted several hours at a time. George Fox became more and more
sure that this was not the worship God wanted from him, as he thought
over these matters in solitude under the trees of Barnet Chace.
After a time he went back to his relations in Leicestershire. They saw
the youth was unhappy, and very naturally thought it would be far
better for him to settle down and have a happy home of his own than to
go wandering about the country in distress about the state of his
soul.
'Being returned into Leicestershire, my relations would have had me
married; but I told them I was but a lad and must get wisdom.' Other
people said: 'No, don't marry him yet. Put him into the auxiliary band
among the soldiery. Once he gets fighting, that will soon knock the
notions out of his head.'
Young George would not consent to this plan either. He had his own
battle to fight, his own victory to win, unaided and alone. He did not
yet know that it was useless for him to seek for outward help. Being
still only a lad of nineteen he thought that surely there must be
someone among his elders who could help him, if only he could find out
the right person. Having failed with the professors, he determined
next to consult the priests and see if they could advise him in his
perplexities. 'Priests' is another word that has changed its meaning
almost as much as 'professors' has done. By 'priests' George Fox does
not mean Anglican or Roman Catholic clergy, but simply men of any
denomination who were paid for preaching. At this particular time the
English Rectories and Vicarages were mostly occupied by Presbyterians
and Independents. It was they who preached and who were paid for
preaching in the village churches, which is what he means by calling
them 'priests' in his Journal.
In these stories there is no need to think of George Fox as arguing or
fighting against real Christianity in any of the churches. He was
fighting, rather, against sham religion, formality and hypocrisy
wherever he found them. In that great fight all who truly love Truth
and God are on the same side, even though they are called by different
names. So remember that these old labels that he uses for his
opponents have changed their meaning very considerably in the three
hundred years that have passed since his birth. Remember too that the
world had had at that time nearly three hundred years less in which to
learn good manners than it has now. The manners and customs of the day
were much rougher than those of modern times. However much we may
disagree with people, there is no need for us to tell them so in the
same sort of harsh language that was too often used by George Fox and
his contemporaries.
To these Presbyterian priests, therefore, George went next to ask for
counsel and help. The first he tried was the Reverend Nathaniel
Stephens, the priest of his own village of Fenny Drayton. At first
Priest Stephens and young George seemed to get on very well together.
Another priest was often with Stephens, and the two learned men would
often talk and argue with the boy, and be astonished at the wise
answers he gave. 'It is a very good, full answer,' Stephens once said
to George, 'and such an one as I have not heard.' He applauded the boy
and spoke highly of him, and even used the answers he gave in his own
sermons on Sundays. This was a compliment, but it cost him George's
friendship and respect, because he felt it was a deceitful practice.
The Journal says: 'What I said in discourse to him on week-days, he
would preach of on first days, which gave me a dislike to him. This
priest afterwards became my great persecutor.'
Priest Stephens' wife was also very much opposed to Fox, and it is
said that on one occasion she 'very unseemly plucked and haled him up
and down, and scoffed and laughed.' Fox always felt that this priest
and his wife were his bitter foes; but other people described Priest
Stephens as 'a good scholar and a useful preacher, in his younger days
a very hard student, in his old age pleasant and cheerful.' So, as
generally happens, there may have been a friendly side to this couple
for those who took them the right way.
After this, Fox continues, 'I went to another ancient priest at
Mancetter in Warwickshire, and reasoned with him about the ground of
despair and temptations; but he was ignorant of my condition; he bade
me take tobacco and sing psalms. Tobacco was a thing I did not love,
and psalms I was not in a state to sing; I could not sing. Then he bid
me come again and he would tell me many things; but when I came he was
angry and pettish; for my former words had displeased him. He told my
troubles, sorrows and griefs to his servants so that it got among the
milk-lasses. It grieved me that I should have opened my mind to such a
one. I saw they were all miserable comforters, and this brought my
troubles more upon me. Then I heard of a priest living about Tamworth,
which was accounted an experienced man, and I went seven miles to
him; but I found him like an empty hollow cask. I heard also of one
called Dr. Craddock of Coventry, and went to him. I asked him the
ground of temptations and despair, and how troubles came to be wrought
in man? He asked me, "Who was Christ's Father and Mother?" I told him
Mary was His Mother, and that He was supposed to be the son of Joseph,
but He was the Son of God. Now, as we were walking together in his
garden, the alley being narrow, I chanced, in turning, to set my foot
on the side of a bed, at which the man was in a rage, as if his house
had been on fire. Thus all our discourse was lost, and I went away in
sorrow, worse than I was when I came. I thought them miserable
comforters, and saw they were all as nothing to me; for they could not
reach my condition. After this I went to another, one Macham, a priest
in high account. He would needs give me some physic, and I was to have
been let blood; but they could not get one drop of blood from me,
either in arms or head (though they endeavoured to do so), my body
being, as it were, dried up with sorrows, grief and troubles, which
were so great upon me that I could have wished I had never been born,
or that I had been born blind, that I might never have seen wickedness
or vanity; and deaf, that I might never have heard vain and wicked
words, or the Lord's name blasphemed. When the time called Christmas
came, while others were feasting and sporting themselves, I looked out
poor widows from house to house, and gave them some money. When I was
invited to marriages (as I sometimes was) I went to none at all, but
the next day, or soon after, I would go to visit them; and if they
were poor, I gave them some money; for I had wherewith both to keep
myself from being chargeable to others, and to administer something to
the necessities of those who were in need.'
Three years passed in this way, and then at last the first streaks of
light began to dawn in the darkness. They came, not in any sudden or
startling way, but little by little his soul was filled with the hope
of dawn:
Silently as the morning
Comes on when night is done,
Or the crimson streak, on ocean's cheek,
Grows into the great sun.
He says, 'About the beginning of the year 1646, as I was going into
Coventry, a consideration arose in me how it was said, "All Christians
are believers, both Protestants and Papists," and the Lord opened to
me, that if all were believers, then they were all born of God, and
were passed from death unto life, and that none were true believers
but such, and though others said they were believers, yet they were
not.'
Possibly George Fox was looking up at the 'Three Tall Spires' of
Coventry when this thought came to him, and remembering in how many
different ways Christians had worshipped under their shadow: first the
Latin Mass, then the order of Common Prayer, and now the Puritan
service. 'At another time,' he says, 'as I was walking in a field on a
first day morning, the Lord opened to me "That being bred at Oxford or
Cambridge was not enough to fit and qualify men to be ministers of
Christ:" and I wondered at it because it was the common belief of
people. But I saw it clearly as the Lord had opened it to me, and was
satisfied and admired the goodness of the Lord, who had opened the
thing to me this morning.... So that which opened in me struck I saw
at the priests' ministry. But my relations were much troubled that I
would not go with them to hear the priest; for I would go into the
orchard or the fields with my Bible by myself.... I saw that to be a
true believer was another thing than they looked upon it to be ... so
neither them nor any of the dissenting people could I join with.
'At another time it was opened in me, "That God who made the world did
not dwell in temples made with hands." This at the first seemed
strange, because both priests and people used to call their temples or
churches dreadful places, holy ground and the temples of God. But the
Lord showed me clearly that He did not dwell in these temples which
men had made, but in people's hearts.'
In this way George Fox had found out for himself three of the
foundation truths of a pure faith:--
1st. That all Christians are believers, Protestants and Papists
alike.
2nd. That Christ was come to teach His people Himself.
3rd. That the Temple in which God wishes to dwell is in the
hearts of His children.
Now that George Fox was sure of these three things, it troubled him
less if he was with people whose beliefs he could not share.
The first set of people he came among believed that women had no
souls, 'no more than a goose has a soul' added one of them in a light,
jesting tone. George Fox reproved them and told them it was a wrong
thing to say, and added that Mary in her song said, 'My soul doth
magnify the Lord, My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour,' so she
must have had a soul. George by this time had learned to know his
Bible so well in the long quiet hours out of doors, when it had been
his only companion, that it was easy to him to find the exact
quotation he wanted in an argument. It was said of him, later on, by
wise and learned men, that if the Bible itself were ever to be lost it
might almost be found again in the mouth of George Fox, so well did he
know it.
The next set of people he came to were great dreamers. They guided
their lives in the daytime according to the dreams they had happened
to dream during the night. And I should think a fine mess they must
have made of things! George helped these dreamers to know more of
realities, till, later on, many of them came out of their dream-world
and became Friends.
After this at last he came upon a set of people who really did seem to
understand him and to care for the same things that he did. They were
called 'Shattered Baptists,' because they had broken off from the
other Baptists in the neighbourhood who 'did the Lord's work
negligently' and did not act up to what they professed. This was the
very same fault that had driven George forth from among the professors
at the beginning of his long quest. It is easy to imagine that he and
these people were happy together. 'With these,' he says, 'I had some
meetings and discourses, but my troubles continued and I was often
under great temptations. I fasted much, walked abroad in solitary
places many days, and often took my Bible and sat in hollow trees and
lonesome places till night came on, and frequently in the night walked
about by myself.... O the everlasting love of God to my soul, when I
was in great distress! when my troubles and torments were great, then
was His love exceeding great.... When all my hopes in all men were
gone so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could I tell what
to do, then, O then, I heard a Voice which said, "There is one, even
Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition." When I heard it, my
heart did leap for joy.'
This message was like the rising of the sun to George Fox. The long
night of darkness was over now, the sun had risen, and though there
might be clouds and storms ahead of him still he had come out into the
full clear light of day.
'My desires after the Lord grew stronger,' he writes, 'and zeal in the
pure knowledge of God and of Christ alone, without the help of any
man, book, or writing.... Then the Lord gently led me along and let me
see His love which was endless and eternal, surpassing all the
knowledge that men have in the natural state or can get by history and
books. That love let me see myself as I was without him.... At another
time I saw the great love of God, and was filled with admiration at
the infiniteness of it.'
The truths that George Fox is trying to express are difficult to put
into words. It is the more difficult for us to understand what he
means because his language is not quite the same as ours. Other words
besides 'priest' and 'professor' have altered their meanings. When he
speaks of having had things 'opened' to him, we should be more likely
to say he had had them revealed to him, or had had a revelation.
Perhaps these 'openings' and 'seeings' that he describes, though they
meant much to him, do not sound to us now like very great discoveries.
They are only what we have been accustomed to hear all our lives. But
then, whom have we to thank for that? In large measure George Fox
himself.
In the immense bush forests that cover an unexplored country or
continent the first man who attempts to make a track through them has
the hardest task. He has to guess the right direction, to cut down the
first trees, to 'blaze a trail,' to help every one who follows him to
find the way a little more easily. That man is called a Pioneer.
George Fox was a pioneer in the spiritual world. He discovered a true
path for himself, a path leading right through the thick forest of
human selfishness and sin and out into the bright sunshine beyond. In
his lonely Quest through those years of struggle he was indeed
'blazing a trail' for us. If the track we tread nowadays is smooth and
easy to tread, that is because of the pioneers who have gone before
us. Our ease has been gained through their labours and sufferings and
steadfastness.
The track was not fully clear even yet to George Fox. He had more to
learn before he could make the right path plain to others; more to
learn, but chiefly more to suffer. To strengthen him beforehand for
those sufferings, he was given an assurance that never afterwards
entirely left him. 'I saw the Infinite Love of God. I saw also that
there was an ocean of darkness and death; but an infinite ocean of
light and love which flowed over the ocean of darkness. In that also I
saw the infinite love of God, and I had great openings.' The Quest was
ended. Faith was pure, and Joy was sure at last.
'Now was I come up in spirit, through the flaming sword, into the
Paradise of God. All things were made new, and all the creation gave
another smell to me beyond what words can utter. I knew nothing but
pureness, innocency, and righteousness, being renewed up to the image
of God by Christ Jesus.... Great things did the Lord lead me into, and
wonderful depths were opened to me, beyond what can by words be
declared; but as people come into subjection by the Spirit of God, and
grow up in the Image and Power of the Almighty they may receive the
word of wisdom that opens all things, and come to know the hidden
unity in the Eternal Being.'
'Thus travelled I in the Lord's service, as He led me.'