Being returned[9] into Leicestershire, my relations would have had me married; but I told them I was but a lad, and must get wisdom. Others would have had me join the auxiliary band among the soldiery,[G] but I refused, and was grieved that they offered such things to me, being a tender youth. Then I went to Coventry, where I took a chamber for awhile at a professor's house, till people began to be acquainted with me, for there were many tender people in that town. After some time I went into my own country again, and continued about a year, in great sorrow and trouble, and walked many nights by myself. [9] From his return home in 1644, George Fox dates the beginning of his religious society. (See _Epistles_, Vol. I., p. 10. Philadelphia edition, 1831.) [G] The Civil War was at its height. Then the priest of Drayton, the town of my birth, whose name was Nathaniel Stephens, came often to me, and I went often to him; and another priest sometimes came with him; and they would give place to me, to hear me; and I would ask them questions, and reason with them. This priest, Stephens, asked me why Christ cried out upon the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" and why He said, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not my will, but thine, be done"? I told him that at that time the sins of all mankind were upon Him, and their iniquities and transgressions, with which He was wounded; which He was to bear, and to be an offering for, as He was man; but died not, as He was God; so, in that He died for all men, tasting death for every man, He was an offering for the sins of the whole world. This I spoke, being at that time in a measure sensible of Christ's sufferings. The priest said it was a very good, full answer, and such a one as he had not heard. At that time he would applaud and speak highly of me to others; and what I said in discourse to him on week-days, he would preach of on First-days,[10] which gave me a dislike to him. This priest afterwards became my great persecutor. [10] It was a settled custom, in fact, a matter of conscience with Fox, to avoid the names of the days and of the months. He disliked them because they commemorated heathen divinities, and he always makes a point of using numeral adjectives instead of the names. It was not an original scruple with him, but a similar position was taken by some of the leading "Separatists" before the Commonwealth period. (See Barrow's "False Churches," p. 204.)