It was a faith for martyrs and enthusiasts, a faith which in its simple earnestness had wonderful power of conviction, but which was especially liable to counterfeits and pretenders, who could delude themselves or others into a belief in their inspiration, and who substituted a wild extravagance for the enthusiasm of the first believers. One cannot help regretting that Fox’s fate placed him in so uncongenial a century as the seventeenth and in so matter-of-fact a country as England. Had he been born in Italy in the middle ages, his name might rank with that of Francis of Assisi. But it was impossible to expect comprehensiveness or liberality from the Puritans of the day, all the less because of the abuses and fanatical actions by which Quakerism was parodied and made ridiculous. It was essentially an esoteric religion, and had, in consequence, the great disadvantage of being able to furnish no tests by which the true could be distinguished from the false, those inspired with a genuine religious enthusiasm from the fanatics and pretenders. Their revolt from all established customs and usages, their disrespect for authority, and the boldness with which they rebuked and disputed with the preacher in the pulpit of the “steeple house” or with the justice on the bench, brought them at once into difficulties with the rulers in church and state, who showed themselves no more tolerant of dissent from their own favorite way of thinking and acting than were the most despotic of all the Anglican prelates. They were imprisoned, fined, beaten, and exiled; in 1656 Fox computed that there were seldom less than a thousand Quakers in prison at once. They seemed inspired with a spirit of opposition; wherever they were not wanted, there were they sure to go. They visited Scotland and Ireland, the West India islands and the American colonies; one woman testified before the Grand Turk at Adrianople, two others were imprisoned by the Inquisition at Malta; one brother visited Jerusalem and bore his testimony against the superstition of the monks, others made their way to Rome, Austria, and Hungary, and a number of them preached their doctrines in Holland and Germany.[3] Such enthusiasm, even in those in whom it was genuine, was very nearly akin to insanity; and in many instances the dividing line was crossed, and the votaries allowed themselves to commit grotesque and indecent actions, or to speak most shocking blasphemies and to receive an idolatrous veneration from the silly women who listened to their ravings. The disturbances of the times produced many other bands of fanatics who were frequently confounded with the Quakers, and gave to them the odium of their misdeeds. The Ranters, the Adamites, the Muggletonians, and the Fifth Monarchy Men were all akin to the Quakers in being opposed to the order established by law, and in professing to be guided by an inner light; they differed from them, however, in