Mysticism formed his whole character. It penetrated his intellect. It pervaded his spirit. It was the soul of his religion, and the mainspring of his morality. It inspired him with the love of solitude and the love of nature. To get away from his fellow-creatures to commune with himself, and with God, amidst the solitudes of creation, became his chief delight. Not that when he speaks of wandering in fields and orchards, and of getting into the depths of forests, and the hollows of trees, it was with a poet's perception of nature's mysteries. He rather wished, whilst away from the noisy world, in the deep silence of a summer's noon or a winter's night, to open his inmost self to the Spirit of God, to uncover the hidden harp that an invisible finger might touch the strings; to walk in an inward light, to enjoy the indwelling Christ, and to receive revelations of truth and love from those pure realms where they everlastingly reign. George Fox often deluded himself, and mistook for the Divine what was merely human: but that the Holy Ghost wrought within his heart in a powerful manner, who can doubt? His errors were often the shadows of everlasting verities; some of his aberrations came from noble self-denying impulses; and with respect to him it might be aptly said, "And e'en the light that led astray was light from heaven." The solitary became ascetic, as was natural. He denied himself the common comforts of life, he would not eat and drink like other people, and for a while he belied the name of "friend," and walked about like a hermit or a ghost. "And when he came into a town, he took a chamber to himself there, and tarried sometimes a month, sometimes more, sometimes less, in a place; for he was afraid of staying long in any place, lest, being a tender young man, he should be hurt by too familiar a conversation with men."[367] He had deep spiritual exercises of soul. No one could be more conscious of the existence of evil powers--of Satanic agencies in the invisible world to which the inner nature of man belongs even in the present life. But applying to himself the holy words, "in returning and in rest shall ye be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength," he sought refuge from his mysterious troubles by abiding "under the shadow of the Almighty." Describing his experience when he was pressed by the greatest of mystical problems, he says:--"One morning, as I was sitting by the fire, a great cloud came over me, and a temptation beset me; but I sat still. And it was said, 'All things come by nature,' and the elements and stars came over me, so that I was in a manner quite clouded with it. But as I sat still, and said nothing, the people of the house perceived nothing. And as I sat still under it, and let it alone, a living hope arose in me, and a true voice which said:--'There _is_ a living God, who made all things,' and immediately the cloud and temptation vanished away, and life rose over it all; my heart was glad,