in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. He and his family won a warm
place in the hearts of the Friends here, as well as elsewhere. He might
have a large and handsome house at Pennsbury, and his style of living
might be superior to that of his neighbours; but he could pick up a
bare-legged Quaker girl and give her a ride behind him to "meeting,"
and he had a kindly word and pleasantry for the poor as much as
for the rich. "The Governor is our pater patriæ," writes one of the
Colonists, "and his worth is no new thing to us. His excellent wife is
beloved of all."
As Pennsylvania was the birthplace of Abolition, the German Friends
at Germantown first raising the question, it is interesting to see
what Penn did in the matter. He passed a Bill for regulating the trial
and punishment of negro wrong-doers. But he wished to go further, and
proposed that negro marriages should be legal, and that the rights
of negro-women should be secured by law; but the Assembly threw out
these Bills. In 1696 the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting had resolved that
buying, selling, and holding slaves was contrary to the teachings
of Christianity. Penn followed up this resolution by urging on the
Society of Friends in Pennsylvania the recognition of the spiritual
claims of negroes. Henceforth, until the Society insisted on its
members liberating their slaves, they were taught the Scriptures, and
encouraged to attend divine worship.
Penn arrived at Portsmouth, in the middle of December, 1701, after a
voyage of about six weeks. The chief business that called him home,
was the scheme of William III. for amalgamating all the American
provinces as regal Governments. To his intense relief, that scheme was
dropped. Soon after this, the king died, and Queen Anne, the daughter
of Penn's friend and guardian, James II., ascended the throne. He
once more enjoyed royal favour in a marked degree. He was chosen to
present to the Queen the Quaker address, thanking her for promising
to maintain the Act of Toleration. After the address was read, "Mr.
Penn," said the Queen, "I am so well pleased that what I have said is
to your satisfaction, that you and your Friends may be assured of my
protection."
Of the remaining years of Penn's life, we have very imperfect accounts.
He edited the works of two Quaker ministers, those of John Whitehead
in 1704; those of John Banks, in 1711. In 1709, he wrote "Some account
of the Life and Writings of Bulstrode Whitlocke, Esq.," the famous
lawyer and stout Puritan, whom he had known and greatly esteemed. He
also travelled repeatedly as a minister, and took an active interest
in the affairs of the Quakers. Thus, in 1710, Sir D. Dalrymple writes
to R. Barclay, junr., who had written to him about the sufferings of
Edinbro' Friends:--"I have written fully to Mr. Penn by this post, who
had written to me upon the same subject, to whom I refer you." Again,
in 1711, he with others waited on the Duke of Ormond (whom he had known
before he became a Friend) to thank him for the kindness which he had
shewn to Friends in Ireland during his Lord Lieutenancy.
Meantime had occurred the sad troubles with his late agent Philip
Ford, which crippled his resources, broke down his health, and even at
one time made him a prisoner in the Fleet for debt. Oldmixon states
the fact thus:--"The troubles that befel Mr. Penn in the latter part
of his life are of a nature too private to have a place in a public
history. He trusted an ungrateful, unjust agent too much with the
management of it; and when he expected to have been thousands of pounds
the better, found himself thousands of pounds in debt: insomuch that
he was restrained in his liberty within the privilege of the Fleet by
a tedious and unsuccessful law suit, which together with age, broke
his spirits, not easy to be broken, and rendered himself incapable
of business and society, as he was wont to have been in the days of
his health and vigour both of body and mind." The story is a very sad
one. Ford was a Quaker lawyer, and undoubtedly Penn had been far too
trustful and careless with him. He had even borrowed money from him
on the security of his colony. Ford repaid his kindness and trust by
cheating him out of thousands, and his widow and son went farther, and
tried to snatch the colony from Penn's grasp. But it was ruled that "it
would not be decent to make Government ambulatory," and their claim was
not allowed.
The trouble thus caused resulted in Penn having several apoplectic
fits, which left him thoroughly shattered. For six years he lingered
in second childhood, lovingly nursed by his wife. The best account of
his last days occurs in the Journal of Thomas Story, a distinguished
Quaker minister, a scholar and a naturalist, whom he had made the first
recorder of Philadelphia.
The end came very gently and peacefully. After the long and stormy
voyage, the vessel came into harbour through unwonted calms and
waters almost without a ripple. He was laid in his grave in Jordan's
meeting-house beside his dearly loved Guli, and not far from his mother
and Isaac Pennington. Many gathered there to pay the last honours. And
since that day, the spot hallowed by his dust has been a well-visited
shrine, where many have not only thought admiringly of his deeds, but
have also thanked God for the grace that was in him.
If Macaulay was prejudiced against Penn, his testimony to his
world-wide fame is the more reliable. We will quote it as it stands.
"Rival nations and hostile sects have agreed in canonising him. England
is proud of his name. A great commonwealth beyond the Atlantic regards
him with a reverence similar to that which the Athenians felt for
Theseus, and the Romans for Quirinus. The respected society of which
he was a member honours him as an apostle. By pious men of other
denominations he is usually regarded as a bright pattern of Christian
virtue. Meanwhile admirers of a very different sort have sounded his
praises. The French philosophers of the eighteenth century pardoned
what they regarded as his superstitious fancies in consideration
of his contempt for priests, and of his cosmopolitan benevolence,
impartially extended to all races and to all creeds. His name has thus
become, throughout all civilised countries, a synonym for probity and
philanthropy."
"Nor is this reputation altogether unmerited. Penn was without doubt a
man of eminent virtues. He had a strong sense of religious duty, and
a fervent desire to promote the happiness of mankind. On one or two
points of high importance he had notions more correct than were in his
day common, even among men of enlarged minds; and as the proprietor
and legislator of a province, which, being almost uninhabited when it
came into his possession, afforded a clear field for moral experiments,
he had the rare good fortune of being able to carry his theories into
practice without any compromise, and yet without any shock to existing
institutions. He will always be mentioned with honour as the founder of
a Colony, who did not in his dealings with a savage people abuse the
strength derived from civilisation, and as a law-giver who in an age of
persecution, made religious liberty the corner-stone of a polity."
This testimony is bare justice, indeed it needs supplementing. Macaulay
has done justice to his fame, but not to his usefulness or to his
beautiful character. For to use the beautiful figure which the Rt. Hon.
W. E. Forster employs, "like as the citizens of Philadelphia are even
now building the streets which he planned on the unpeopled waste, so
are the workmen in the temple of freedom yet labouring at the design
which he sketched out." And in the work they have not only his designs
to assist them, but the inspiration of his noble life to stimulate them.
The story of Penn's life, so noble and yet so sad in many parts, has
touched many hearts. "He reminds me of Abraham or Æneas more than
any one else," says Professor Seeley. "I find him," says Tennyson,
(writing Mar. 3rd, 1882, to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania),
"no comet of a season, but the fixed light of a dark and graceless
age, shining into the present--a good man and true." In Caroline
Fox's "Memories of Old Friends" we read,--"He (Ernest de Bunsen) has
been translating William Penn's life into German and sent a copy to
Humboldt, from whom he received two charming letters about it, in one
saying that he has read every word, and that the contemplation of such
a life has contributed to the peace of his old age."
Such testimonies could be multiplied indefinitely. The character and
life that inspire such feelings need no defence and no eulogy.
ROBERT BARCLAY,
THE
APOLOGIST OF QUAKERISM.
PREFACE.
This sketch was outlined as a companion sketch to those of Fox and
Penn. But the opportunity of embodying in it extracts from unpublished
letters in the keeping of members of the Barclay family, (for which
the author cannot be too grateful,) led to its being enlarged to a
disproportionate size. But the reader will not regret this, when
he finds himself furnished with new materials throwing light on a
character so little understood. To most readers, Barclay is merely a
name; the author has attempted to realise the man and his work, as far
as the still very imperfect information will allow.
ROBERT BARCLAY,
THE
APOLOGIST OF QUAKERISM.
George Fox, that fervid evangelist who anticipated Wesley in claiming
the whole world as his parish, visited Scotland only once. This
was in 1657. But some years previously, several Quaker ministers,
including two lady-evangelists, Catherine Evans and Sarah Cheevers,
had preached "the truth" there, and meetings had been gathered, says
Sewel the Quaker historian, in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and other places.
James Nayler preached in Scotland as early as 1651, with his usual
fervour and success. But no church of professed "Friends" was formed
in Aberdeen until 1662, when Alexander Jaffray sometime provost of
Aberdeen, one of the Scottish Commissioners to King Charles, and a
member of Cromwell's Parliament, was led along with others to a full
and open acceptance of Quakerism by William Dewsbury. The number of
the names was small, but they were men and women whose energy and
sterling worth made them noteworthy. Their decision may be measured
by their daring the contempt so profusely accorded the "Friends" by
the orthodox; "possessed with the devil, demented, blasphemous deniers
of the true Christ" being some of the expressions hurled at them by
the neighbouring pulpits. In 1666, they were strengthened by the
accession of Colonel David Barclay, and a little later by that of his
son, Robert Barclay, the future Apologist of Quakerism. Fully then was
the expectation of George Fox realised, of which he afterwards told
Robert Barclay, in 1675, "As soon as ever my horse set his foot upon
the land of the Scottish nation, the infinite sparkles of life sparkled
about me; and so as I rid with divers friends, I saw the seed of the
seedsman Christ that was sown; but abundance of clods--foul and filthy
earth--was above it; and a great winter and storms and tempests of
work." "Thick cloddy earth of hypocrisy and falseness atop," says the
corresponding passage of his journal, "and a briary brambly nature,
which is to be turned up with God's Word, and ploughed up with his
spiritual plough, before God's seed brings forth heavenly and spiritual
fruit to his glory. But the husbandman is to wait in patience."
David Barclay represented an ancient and honourable family, supposed
to be a branch of the Berkeleys in Gloucestershire. He was a lineal
descendant of Theobald de Berkeley, born about 1110, who held a large
estate in Kincardine, and was conspicuous in the court of David I. In
the 15th century, Alexander Berkeley began to spell the name Barclay,
and his descendants followed his example.[13] They were a powerful,
sometimes a turbulent race, with an occasional instance of a literary
or scholarly scion. David Barclay's father having wrecked his fortune
by spendthrift and easygoing habits, his sons had to shift for
themselves. Three of them died before their father, two in infancy, the
third, James, falling at the battle of Philiphaugh, whilst fighting
under his brother David. Of the two survivors, the younger, Robert,
became a Catholic priest, and flourished in Paris, becoming Rector of
the Scottish College there. Of David, the elder and the father of the
subject of this sketch, we must speak more at length.
[13] Of the father of this Alexander de Barclay, whose name was
David, we read that he was the "ringleader of the savage barons who
exaggerated the atrocities of a reckless age by actually boiling an
obnoxious sheriff of the Mearns in a cauldron, and then 'suppin' the
broo'." Yet the son was something of a poet, and some lines full of
good advice, said to be from his pen, are given in the "Short Account
of R. Barclay."
David Barclay was born at Kirtounhill, in 1610. The only patrimony
he got from his father was a good education: for in 1633, the old
family estates were sold to pay off his father's debts. Finding that
he had to make his own way in the world, with all the energy of his
race he "flung himself into the saddle of opportunity as a soldier
of fortune," and rose to the rank of major in the army of Gustavus
Adolphus, specially distinguishing himself at Lutzen. Returning home
with substantial gains as well as honours, when the civil war broke
out he became a colonel in the Royal Army. He fought under Leslie
at Philiphaugh, and effectively assisted Middleton in holding the
north, until Cromwell removed him from command, after his victory
at Preston-pans. Then he retired from military service, bought the
Ury estate, and with his wife and son Robert settled there. He had
contracted an advantageous marriage in the spring of 1648, with
Catherine, daughter of Sir Robert Gordon, of Gordonstown. The father
was the second son of the Earl of Sutherland and second cousin to James
I. He was a man of great parts, and held various high offices under
the Crown. After his marriage, David Barclay sat in Parliament for
Sutherland, and then for Angus and Kincardine. He used his influence to
regain possession of his Ury estate which had been seized by General
Monk, and to befriend other gentlemen who were in similar trouble, and
his success in these efforts made him very popular. Then he retired
into private life. In 1663, he lost his excellent wife when Robert was
not fifteen. But before her death, she took one step of the greatest
moment to Robert. He had been sent to Paris, to finish his education
under his uncle's eye. But though his progress must have satisfied
even a mother's pride, she, herself a staunch Protestant, felt a great
anxiety lest he should adopt the Romish faith. So, when dying of
consumption, she obtained from his father the promise that he should
be recalled home. This step was farther urged by her mother, good
old lady Gordon, in an earnest letter which still exists. Accordingly
Col. Barclay visited his brother in Paris in 1664, and after vigorous
opposition from him, brought his son home.
But the time had come for a complete change in the tone and tenour of
David Barclay's life. He had gained renown and position, and had allied
himself with a branch of the Royal family, but these had brought him
neither peace nor satisfaction. Royal blood is no guarantee against
disease and death, and he had had to see his beloved wife fade away
and die at the early age of forty-three. He had risked limb and life,
and had striven with hand and brain to win renown, and position,
and wealth, only to find that these things expose their possessor
to special trials and dangers. He had found out by hard experience
how uncertain was his tenure of earthly good. His sorrows and
disappointments prepared his heart for more earnestness about spiritual
truth than he had hitherto manifested, and Quakerism was to present
that truth in a form which would satisfy his mind and heart.
Perhaps it was whilst on the journey to fetch home his son, that he
became closely acquainted with the Quakers. He tells us how he had
heard of their simple and conscientious living, and "he considered
within himself that if they were really such as even their enemies were
forced to acknowledge, there must be something extraordinary about
them." Whether or not this knowledge was gained in Aberdeen, where a
meeting had been gathered now more than a year, we do not know. But,
"being in London" on some errand or other, he had opportunities to
enquire into the Quaker principles and practises, which he did to
such purpose, that his mind became convinced that their tenets were
according to the Scriptures. Still, the cautious Scotchman did not
immediately join them.
Immediately afterwards we find David Barclay in prison in Edinbro'
Castle. Although he had suffered for the king, he was accused of having
held office under Cromwell, and it might have gone hardly with him had
he not been befriended by his old chief, the Earl of Middleton. Through
the influence of that nobleman the proceedings were quashed, and he was
liberated.
This imprisonment, in the ordering of God's providence, brought to
the right issue the great crisis of his life. In the same room with
him in Edinbro' Castle was imprisoned Sir John Swintoune, who from a
soldier and a Presbyterian had become a thorough Quaker. He was so
zealous in propagating his opinions that the only way to silence him
was to keep him in solitary confinement, which was at one time done for
several weeks. No wonder, then, that he urged on David Barclay the full
acceptance of the truth.
On leaving the Castle, the colonel seems to have remained in Edinbro'
even after he had sent his son, in company with a Quaker, David
Falconer, to Ury. In Edinbro' he came out as an acknowledged Friend.
He tells us what points satisfied his sober and careful judgment that
the Quakers were right. He was struck with the correspondence between
their peace principles and Isaiah's prophecy, that in Gospel times
they would beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into
pruning-hooks. Then again, they were all as brothers, loving and
standing by each other, and had not Christ said, that his disciples
should be known by their mutual love? The courageous soldier was in
sympathy with those who, whilst others worshipped God by stealth,
bravely dared all persecution by openly assembling to worship God as
their consciences dictated. So he thought within himself, that "if the
Lord Jesus Christ had a visible Church on earth these must be they."
But all this merely cleared the ground for the final and decisive
proof, without which he would never have made a Friend. Feeling
his judgment satisfied by these tests, he yielded his heart to the
influence of the truth, and he experienced a peace which insults and
sufferings could not disturb, and gained an experimental acquaintance
with God that satisfied the cravings of his soul.
He became distinguished for his solemn fervour in prayer, his deep
piety and uncomplaining meekness in ill-usage--the latter, "a virtue,"
says one of his descendants, "he was before very much unacquainted
with." "One of his relations, upon an occasion of uncommon rudeness,
lamenting that he should be now treated so differently from what
formerly he had been, he answered, that he found more satisfaction as
well as honour in being thus insulted for his religious principles,
than when, some years before, it was usual for the magistrates as he
passed through Aberdeen, to meet him several miles, and conduct him to
a public entertainment in their town-house, and then convey him so far
out again, in order to gain his favour." This noble testimony is the
subject of one of Whittier's most spirited ballads. The old soldier
lived to a ripe old age, his son only surviving him four years.
We have thus traced the career of the father, that we may better
understand the influences through which the son passed before his
hearty acceptance of Quakerism. He belonged to a family divided in
religious opinions, some of the Catholic faith, some Protestant to
the core. His abilities, connections, and worldly expectations, all
invited him to a distinguished career. Yet from the noblest and purest
motives he turned away from brilliant prospects, and from older and
more respected churches, and linked himself with a new, despised and
persecuted sect.
Robert Barclay was born at Gordonstown, Oct. 23rd, 1648. From both
sides of his parentage, he seems to have inherited scholarly ability
and literary tastes. His grandfather, Sir Robert Gordon, was a man
of culture and refinement, and his great-grandfather, John Gordon
(father-in-law of Sir Robert), was Dean of Sarum, a good classical
scholar and a keen theologian. On the other side, the Barclays seem
to have supplied the Catholic church with several theologians and
scholars. From early years he gave promise of great intellectual
powers, which were sedulously cultivated at the best schools that
Scotland possessed. His uncle Robert offered to look after his
education, and took him in hand, as he tells us, when he had "scarcely
got out of his childhood." But early as he left Scotland for Paris, he
carried with him such impressions of the narrowness and bigotry of his
Calvinistic countrymen as remained with him through life. In Paris,
his uncle and others so skilfully assailed his Protestant instincts
that they succumbed, and he became an avowed Catholic. He was a great
favourite with his uncle, who purposed making him his heir, and who
watched him through his brilliant college course with the greatest
delight.
But whilst his uncle was thus satisfied, his mother's heart was
filled with dismay at the thought of her son growing up a Catholic--a
consummation for which his scholarly proficiency was poor compensation.
She therefore on her death-bed obtained from his father a promise that
her son should be brought home.
On this errand the Colonel went to Paris, in 1664. But he found his
brother stoutly opposed to parting with his nephew. He met the argument
of worldly welfare by offering to buy Robert a larger estate than his
father's, and put him in possession immediately. But the boy had a
noble reverence for his father in spite of his long absence from home,
and his wish settled the question with him, and he replied to all
pleas, "He is my father and must be obeyed." So father and son returned
home together, and the uncle's property eventually enriched the College
of which he was Rector, and other religious houses in France.
When David Barclay was passing through that crisis in his spiritual
history which resulted in his embracing Quakerism, he made no efforts
to win his son to the same view. No doubt he had all a new convert's
confidence in the power of "the truth." Probably he had also a Quaker's
persuasion that though such efforts might sway the understanding, they
could not "reach" the soul. He said he wished the change to come from
conviction, not from imitation. The early Friends never considered
themselves a sect, and did not seek proselytes so much as they sought
to spread deep spiritual life. In the end at least, the laissez-faire
method resulted in what the father wished. The son quietly looked
around on the different classes of professed Christians. He felt his
old repugnance to the Calvinists invincible. The latitudinarians, with
all their professed charity and condemnation of "judging," pleased him
no better. Finally, he gave his hearty allegiance to Friends within
twelve months of his father's admission to their fellowship.
It is an interesting question, "What led such a clear and powerful mind
to accept Quakerism?"