Three Apostles of Quakerism: Popular Sketches of Fox, Penn and BarclayRhodes, Benjamin
History
Three Apostles of Quakerism: Popular Sketches of Fox, Penn and Barclay
Rhodes, Benjamin
Barclay, Robert, 1648-1690; Fox, George, 1624-1691; Penn, William, 1644-1718; Society of Friends
Then again the new Society was a real brotherhood. The members stood
shoulder to shoulder as fellow servants of the one Master. Their only
emulation was which should do most and suffer most cheerfully. Their
great question was "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? Where wilt
Thou have me to go?" The Jesuit was ready to go at an hour's notice
wherever the Pope sent him. The Quaker was as ready in his obedience
to the voice within. Not only Great Britain, but Italy, Turkey, Syria,
and Egypt heard the truth before 1662. John Stubbs, "a remarkable
Oriental scholar," and Henry Fell, who was also "well versed in Arabic
and Hebrew," set out for the land of Prester John, but were stopped
by the English Consul at Alexandria. Their leader was chief simply
through gifts and devotedness. So strongly were Friends attached to
him that when he was in Launceston gaol, one of them went to Cromwell
and offered to lie in prison in his stead; which made the Protector
turn to those around him and ask, "Which of you would do as much for
me if I were in the same condition?" And Fox showed himself worthy of
such devotion by always seeking the post of danger and the most arduous
work. Urgent he might be, for he was tremendously in earnest, but to
speak as Hepworth Dixon does of his "imperious instincts" simply shows
ignorance of the man.
For centuries no such zealous and noble-spirited evangelism had been
seen. No wonder that it won its way. Many who had been rich, like Isaac
Pennington, were content to become poor by fines and distraints for
"the truth's sake." Most nobly did they help each other. If they did
not insist on community of goods as a theory, they carried out the
spirit of it in practice.
There are two marked stages in Fox's work; first the Evangelistic
Stage, and then the Organising Stage, which was, of course, overlapt by
the other. Let us trace the salient points in his evangelistic work.
In 1654 he was brought before Cromwell, and made a good impression on
that keen judge of men. His sincerity stood testing, his zeal for God
was manifestly genuine, and the grand, though not faultless Protector,
learnt heartily to respect him. As he was turning to leave him,
Cromwell caught him by the hand and said, "Come again to my house, for
if thou and I were but an hour of a day together, we should be nearer
one to the other." Next year he visited him again, to lay before him
the ill-treatment to which Friends were subjected.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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