From Baddesley we passed to Swannington and Higham, and so into
Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire, having great meetings; and many
were turned to the Lord by His power and Spirit.
When we came to Baldock in Hertfordshire, I asked if there was
nothing in that town, no profession; and it was answered me that
there were some Baptists, and a Baptist woman who was sick. John
Rush, of Bedfordshire, went with me to visit her.
When we came in there were many tender people about her. They told me
she was not a woman for this world, but if I had anything that would
comfort her concerning the world to come, I might speak to her. I
was moved of the Lord God to speak to her; and the Lord raised her
up again, to the astonishment of the town and country. This Baptist
woman and her husband, whose name was Baldock, came to be convinced,
and many hundreds of people have met at their house since. Great
meetings and convincements were in those parts afterwards; many
received the Word of life, and sat down under the teaching of Christ,
their Saviour.
When we had visited this sick woman we returned to our inn, where
were two desperate fellows fighting so furiously that none durst
come nigh to part them. But I was moved, in the Lord's power, to go
to them; and when I had loosed their hands, I held one of them by
one hand and the other by the other, showed them the evil of their
doings, and reconciled them one to the other; and they were so
loving and thankful to me that people marveled at it.[83]
[83] These cases are further illustration of Fox's power to
deal with sickness and with desperate persons. He always _felt_
himself equal to any emergency which confronted him.
Now, after I had tarried some time in London, and had visited Friends
in their meetings, I went out of town, leaving James Nayler in the
city. As I passed from him I cast my eyes upon him, and a fear struck
me concerning him; but I went away and rode down to Ryegate, in
Surrey, where I had a little meeting.[84] There the Friends told me
of one Thomas Moore, a justice of the peace, that lived not far from
Ryegate, a Friendly, moderate man. I went to visit him at his house,
and he came to be a serviceable man in Truth.
[84] James Nayler's fall, which is here felt in dim forecast,
became very soon only too sadly real.
Thence we went to Dorchester, and alighted at an inn, a Baptist's
house. We sent into the town to the Baptists, to ask them to let us
have their meeting-house to assemble in, and to invite the sober
people to the meeting; but they denied it us. We sent to them again,
to know why they would deny us their meeting-house, so the thing was
noised about in the town. Then we sent them word that if they would
not let us come to their house, they, or any people that feared God,
might come to our inn, if they pleased; but they were in a great
rage. Their teacher and many of them came up, and slapped their
Bibles on the table.
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