'Love, Wisdom, and Patience will overcome all that is not of
God.'--G. FOX.
By the side of even a low mountain the tallest tower looks small. The
fells that shelter the old market town of Ulverston from northerly
winds are not lofty compared with the range of giants that lies behind
them in the distance, Coniston Old Man, Sca Fell, Skiddaw, Helvellyn,
and their brethren. But the fells are high enough to make the tall old
Church tower of Ulverston look small and toy-like as it rises under
their shadow above the thatched roofs of the old town.
Swarthmoor Hall stands on a level plateau on the other side of
Ulverston; and it was from Swarthmoor Hall, through a wooded glen by
the side of the stream, that George Fox came down to Ulverston Church,
one 'Lecture Day' at the end of September 1652.
On a 'Lecture Day' a sermon lasting for several hours was delivered by
an appointed teacher; and when that was finished, anyone who had
listened to it was free to rise and deliver a message in his turn if
he wished to do so. In those days, as there were no clocks or watches
in churches, the length of the sermon was measured by turning an
hour-glass, until all the sand had run out, a certain number of times.
Children, and perhaps grown-up people too, must often have watched the
sand with longing eyes when a sermon of several hours' length was in
process. On this particular day, Priest Lampitt was the appointed
preacher. Lampitt had never forgiven Fox for having persuaded so many
of his hearers, and especially the important ladies of Swarthmoor, to
forsake their Parish Church, and assemble for their own service at
home. His feelings may be imagined, therefore, when, his own sermon
ended, he saw George Fox get up and begin to preach in his turn.
George Fox says, 'On a Lecture Day I was moved to go to Ulverston
steeple-house, where there was an abundance of professors and
priests,[12] and people. And I went up near to Lampitt who was
blustering on in his preaching, and the Lord opened my mouth to
speak.'
Now among the 'abundance of people' who were present in the Church was
that same Mr. Justice Sawrey, 'the Catterpillar,' of whom the last two
stories tell. As soon as George Fox opened his mouth and began to
preach, up bustled the Justice to him, with a patronising air, and
said, 'Now, my good fellow, you may have my permission to speak in
this Church, so long as you speak according to the Scriptures.'
Like lightning, George Fox turned round on the high step where he was
standing near to Priest Lampitt, and saw at his elbow the little
pompous Justice, his face flushed, full of fussiness about his own
dignity and anxious to arrange everything according to his own ideas.
George Fox, who felt he had a message from God to deliver, had no
intention of being interrupted by any man in this way.
'I stranged at him,' says Fox, 'for speaking so to me!'
'Stranged' is an unfamiliar word, no longer used in modern English. It
sounds as if it meant something very fierce, and calls up a picture of
George Fox glaring at his antagonist or trying to shout him down. In
reality it only means that Fox was astonished at his strange
behaviour.
'I stranged at him and told him that I would speak according to the
Scriptures, and bring the Scriptures to prove what I had to say, for I
had something to say to Lampitt and to them.' 'You shall do nothing of
the kind,' said Mr. Justice Sawrey, contradicting his own words of the
moment before, that Fox might speak so long as he spoke according to
the Scriptures.
Fox paid no attention to this injunction, but went on calmly with his
sermon. At first the congregation listened quietly. But Fox had made a
new enemy and a powerful one. The little Justice would not be ignored
in this way. He whispered to one and another in the congregation,
'Don't listen to this fellow. Why should he air his notions in our
fine Church? Beat him! Stop his mouth! Duck him in the pond! Teach him
that the men of Ulverston are sensible fellows, and not to be led
astray by a ranting Quaker!'
These suggestions had their effect. Possibly the congregation agreed
with the speaker. Possibly also, they knew that the little Justice,
though short of stature, was of long memory and an ill man to offend.
Moreover, a magistrate's favour is a useful thing to have at all
times. Perhaps if they hunted Mr. Justice Sawrey's quarry for him in
the daytime, he would be more likely to turn a blind eye the next
moonlight night that they were minded to go out snaring other game,
with fur and feathers, in the Justice's own park! Anyhow, faces began
to grow threatening as the Quaker's discourse proceeded. Presently
loud voices were raised. Still the calm tones flowed on unheeding. At
length, clenched fists were raised; and, at the sight, the smile on
the Justice's face visibly broadened. Nodding his head emphatically,
he seemed to be saying, 'On, men, on!' till at length, like sparks
fanned by a bellows, the congregation's ill-humour suddenly burst into
a flame of rage. When at length rough hands fell upon the Quaker's
shoulders and set all his alchemy buttons a-jingling, Mr. Justice
Sawrey leaned against the back of his high wooden pew, crossed his
legs complacently, and laughed long and loud at the joke. The crowd
took this as a sign that they might do as they chose. They fell upon
Fox, knocked him down, and finally trampled upon him, under the
Justice's own eyes. The uproar became so great that the quieter
members of the congregation were terrified, 'and the people fell over
their seats for fear.'
At length the Justice bethought himself that such behaviour as this in
a church was quite illegal, since a man had been sentenced, before
now, to lose his hand as a punishment for even striking his neighbour
within consecrated walls. He began to feel uneasily that even the
excellent sport of Quaker-baiting might be carried too far inside the
Church. He came forward, therefore, and without difficulty rescued
George Fox from the hands of his tormentors. But he had not finished
with the Quaker yet. Leading him outside the Church, he there
formally handed him over to the constables, saying, 'Take the fellow.
Thrash him soundly and turn him out of the town,' adding, perhaps,
under his breath, 'and teach him to behave with greater respect
hereafter to a Justice of the Peace!'
George Fox describes in his own words what happened next. 'They led
me,' says the Journal, 'about a quarter of a mile, some taking hold of
my collar, and some by the arms and shoulders, and shook and dragged
me, and some got hedge-stakes and holme bushes and other staffs. And
many friendly people that was come to the market, and had come into
the steeple-house to hear me, many of them they knocked down and broke
their heads also, and the blood ran down several people so as I never
saw the like in my life, as I looked at them when they were dragging
me along. And Judge Fell's son, running after me to see what they
would do to me, they threw him into a ditch of water and cried, "Knock
the teeth out of his head!"'
Once well away from the town, apparently, the constables were content
to let their prisoner go, knowing that they might trust their
fellow-townsmen to finish the job with right good will. The mob yelled
with joy to find their prey in their hands at last. With one accord
they fell upon Fox, and endeavoured to pull him down, much as, at the
huntsman's signal, a pack of hounds sets upon his four-footed namesake
with a bushy tail. The constables and officers, too, continued to
assist. Giving him some final blows with willow-rods they thrust Fox
'amid the rude multitude, and they then fell upon me as aforesaid with
their stakes and clubs and beat me on the head and arms and
shoulders, until at last,' their victim says, 'they mazed me, and I
fell down upon the wet common.'
The crowd had won! George Fox was down at last! He lay, bruised and
fainting, on the wet moss of the common on the far side of the town.
Yes, there he lay for a few moments, stunned, bruised, bleeding,
beaten nigh to death. Only for a few moments, no longer. Very soon his
consciousness returned. Finding himself helpless on the watery common
with the savage mob glowering over him, he says, 'I lay a little still
without attempting to rise. Then suddenly the power of the Lord sprang
through me, and the eternal refreshings revived me, so that I stood up
again in the eternal power of God, and stretched out my arms among
them all and said with a loud voice: "Strike again! Here are my arms,
my head, my cheeks!"'
Whatever would he do next? What sort of a man was this? The rough
fellows in the circle around him insensibly drew back a little, and
looked in each other's faces with surprise, as they tried to read the
riddle of this disconcerting behaviour. The Quaker would not show
fight! He was actually giving them leave to set upon him and beat him
again! All in a minute, what had hitherto seemed like rare sport began
to be rather poor fun.
'There's no sense in thrashing a man who doesn't strike back! Better
leave the fellow alone!' some of the more decent-minded whispered to
each other in undertones, and then slunk away ashamed. Only one man, a
mason, well known as the bully of the town, knew no shame.
'Strike again, sayest thou, Quaker?' he thundered. 'Hast had none but
soft blows hitherto? Faith then, I will strike in good earnest this
time.' So saying, the mason brought a thick wooden rule that he was
carrying down on the outstretched hand before him, with a savage blow
that might have felled an ox. After the first shock of agonising pain
George Fox lost all feeling from his finger-tips right up to his
shoulder. When he tried to draw the wounded hand back to his side he
could not do it. The paralysed nerves refused to carry the message of
the brain.
'The mason hath made a good job of it this time,' jeered a mocking
voice from the crowd. 'The Quaker hath lost the use of his right hand
for ever.' For ever! Terrible words. George Fox was but a young man
still. Was he indeed to go through life maimed, without the use of his
right hand? The bravest man might have shrunk from such a prospect;
but George Fox did not shrink, because he did not happen to be
thinking of himself at all. His hand was not his own. Not it alone but
his whole body also had been given, long ago, to the service of his
Master. They belonged to Him. Therefore if that Master should need the
right hand of His servant to be used in His service, His Power could
be trusted to make it whole.
Thus Fox trusted, and not in vain; since all the while, no thoughts of
vengeance or hatred to those who had injured him were able to find
even a moment's lodging in his heart.
'So as the people cried out, "he hath spoiled his hand for ever having
any use of it more," I LOOKED AT IT IN THE LOVE OF GOD AND I WAS
IN THE LOVE OF GOD TO ALL THEM THAT HAD PERSECUTED ME. AND AFTER A
WHILE THE LORD'S POWER SPRANG THROUGH MY HAND AND ARM AND THROUGH ME,
THAT IN A MINUTE I RECOVERED MY HAND AND ARM AND STRENGTH IN THE FACE
AND SIGHT OF THEM ALL.'
This miracle, as it seemed to them, overawed the rough mob for a
moment. But some of the greedier spirits saw a chance of making a good
thing out of the afternoon's work for themselves. They came to Fox and
said if he would give them some money they would defend him from the
others, and he should go free. But Fox would not hear of such a thing.
He 'was moved of the Lord to declare unto them the word of life, and
how they were more like Jews and heathens and not like Christians.'
Thus, instead of thankfully slinking away and disappearing up the hill
by a by-path to the friendly shelter of Swarthmoor, Fox strode boldly
back into the centre of the town of Ulverston with his persecutors,
like a crowd of whipped dogs, following him at his heels. Yet still
they snarled and showed their teeth at times, as if to say, they would
have him yet if they dared. Right into Ulverston market-place he came,
and a stranger sight the old grey town, with its thatched roofs and
timbered houses, had surely never seen. In the middle of the
market-place the one other courageous man in the town came up to him.
This was a soldier, carrying a sword.
'Sir,' said this gallant gentleman, as he met the bruised and bleeding
Quaker, 'I am ashamed that you, a stranger, should have been thus
ill-treated and abused, FOR YOU ARE A MAN, SIR,' said he. Fox nodded,
and a smile like wintry sunshine stole over his worn face. Silently he
held out his hand. The soldier grasped it. 'In truth, I am grieved,'
he repeated, 'grieved and ashamed that you should have been treated
like this at Ulverston. Gladly will I assist you myself as far as I
can against these cowards, who are not ashamed to set upon an unarmed
man, forty to one, and drag him down.'
'No matter for that, Friend,' said Fox, 'they have no power to harm
me, for the Lord's power is over all.' With these words he turned and
crossed the crowded market-place again, on his way to leave the town,
and not one of the people dared to touch him.
But, as everyone prefers both to be defended himself and to defend
others with those weapons in which he himself puts most trust, the
soldier very naturally followed Fox, in case 'the Lord's power' might
also need the assistance of his trusty sword.
The mob, seeing Fox well protected, turned, like the cowards they
were, and fell upon the other 'friendly people' who were standing
defenceless in the market-place and beat them instead. Their meanness
enraged the soldier. Leaving Fox, he turned and ran upon the mob in
his turn, his naked rapier shining in his hand.
'My trusty sword shall teach these cravens a lesson at last,' he
thought. Quick as he was, Fox was quicker. He, too, had turned at the
noise, and seeing his defender running at the crowd, and the sunshine
dancing down the steel blade as it gleamed in the air, he also ran,
and dashed up the soldier's weapon before it had time to descend. Then
taking firm hold of the man's right hand, sword and all, 'Thou must
put up thy sword, Friend,' he commanded, 'if thou wilt come along with
me.' Half sulkily, and wholly disappointed, the soldier, in spite of
himself, obeyed. But he insisted on accompanying Fox to the outskirts
of the town. 'You will be safe now, Sir,' he said, and sweeping his
plumed hat respectfully on the ground, as he bowed low to his new
friend, the two parted.
Nevertheless, not many days thereafter this very gallant gentleman
paid for his chivalrous conduct. No less than seven men fell upon him
at once, and beat him cruelly 'for daring to take the Quaker's part.'
'For it was the custom of this country to run twenty or forty people
upon one man,' adds the Journal, with quiet scorn. 'And they fell so
upon Friends in many places, that they could hardly pass the high
ways, stoning and beating and breaking their heads.'
But of the punishment in store for his defender, Fox was happily
ignorant that hot afternoon of the riot, as he followed the peaceful
brook through its sheltered glen, and so came up again at last, after
his rough handling, to friendly Swarthmoor, where young George Fell,
escaped from his persecutors and the miry ditch, had arrived before
him. 'And there they were, dressing the heads and hands of Friends and
friendly people that were broken that day by the professors and
hearers of Priest Lampitt,' writes Fox.
'And my body and arms were yellow, black and blue with the blows and
bruises I received among them that day.'