A Book of Quaker SaintsHodgkin, L. V. (Lucy Violet)
Religion
A Book of Quaker Saints
Hodgkin, L. V. (Lucy Violet)
Society of Friends
'I went again to Mansfield,' he says in his Journal, 'where was a
Great Meeting of professors and people, where I was moved to pray; and
the Lord's power was so great that the house seemed to be shaken. When
I had done, one of the professors said, "It was now as in the days of
the Apostles, when the house was shaken where they were."'
After Fox had finished praying, with this vehemence that seemed to
shake the house, one of the professors began to pray in his turn, but
in such a dead and formal way that even the other professors were
grieved thereat and rebuked him. Whereupon this praying professor came
in all humility to Fox, beseeching him that he would pray again.
'But,' says Fox, 'I could not pray in any man's will.' Still, though
he could not make a prayer to order, he agreed to meet with these same
professors another day.
This second meeting was another 'Great Meeting.' From far and wide the
professors and people gathered to see the man who had learnt to pray.
But the professors did not truly seem to care to learn the secret.
They went on talking and arguing together. They were 'jangling,' as
Fox calls it (that is to say, using endless strings of words to talk
about sacred things, without really feeling the truth of them in their
hearts), jangling all together, when suddenly the door opened and a
grave young officer walked in. ''Tis Captain Amor Stoddart, of Noll's
Army,' the professors said one to another, as, hardly stopping for a
moment at the stranger's entrance, they continued to 'jangle' among
themselves. They went on, speaking of the most holy things, talking
even about the blood of Christ, without any feeling of solemnity, till
Fox could bear it no longer.
'As they were discoursing of it,' he says, 'I saw through the
immediate opening of the invisible Spirit, the blood of Christ; and
cried out among them saying, "Do you not see the blood of Christ? See
it in your hearts, to sprinkle your hearts and consciences from dead
works to serve the living God?" For I saw the blood of the New
Covenant how it came into the heart. This startled the professors who
would have the blood only without them, and not in them. But Captain
Stoddart was reached, and said, "Let the youth speak, hear the youth
speak," when he saw that they endeavoured to bear me down with many
words.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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