But there could hardly be a grander
and more picturesque and varied age than that.
Born out of and in this age, when Milton, Bunyan, Dryden and John
Locke were still living--amid the memories of Queen Elizabeth and
James First, and the events of their reigns--when the radiance of that
galaxy of poets, warriors, statesmen, captains, lords, explorers, wits
and gentlemen, that crowded the courts and times of those sovereigns
still fill'd the atmosphere--when America commencing to be explor'd
and settled commenc'd also to be suspected as destin'd to overthrow
the old standards and calculations--when Feudalism, like a sunset,
seem'd to gather all its glories, reminiscences, personalisms, in one
last gorgeous effort, before the advance of a new day, a new incipient
genius--amid the social and domestic circles of that period--indifferent
to reverberations that seem'd enough to wake the dead, and in a sphere
far from the pageants of the court, the awe of any personal rank or charm
of intellect, or literature, or the varying excitement of Parliamentarian
or Royalist fortunes--this curious young rustic goes wandering up and
down England.
George Fox, born 1624, was of decent stock, in ordinary lower life--as
he grew along toward manhood, work'd at shoemaking, also at farm
labors--loved to be much by himself, half-hidden in the woods,
reading the Bible--went about from town to town, dress'd in leather
clothes--walk'd much at night, solitary, deeply troubled ("the inward
divine teaching of the Lord")--sometimes goes among the ecclesiastical
gatherings of the great professors, and though a mere youth bears
bold testimony--goes to and fro disputing--(must have had great
personality)--heard the voice of the Lord speaking articulately to
him, as he walk'd in the fields--feels resistless commands not to be
explain'd, but follow'd, to abstain from taking off his hat, to say
_Thee_ and _Thou_, and not bid others Good morning or Good evening-was
illiterate, could just read and write-testifies against shows, games,
and frivolous pleasures--enters the courts and warns the judges that
they see to doing justice--goes into public houses and market-places,
with denunciations of drunkenness and money-making--rises in the
midst of the church-services, and gives his own explanations of the
ministers' explanations, and of Bible passages and texts--sometimes
for such things put in prison, sometimes struck fiercely on the mouth
on the spot, or knock'd down, and lying there beaten and bloody--was
of keen wit, ready to any question with the most apropos of
answers--was sometimes press'd for a soldier, (_him_ for a
soldier!)--was indeed terribly buffeted; but goes, goes, goes--often
sleeping out-doors, under hedges, or hay stacks--forever taken before
justices--improving such, and all occasions, to _bear testimony_, and
give good advice--still enters the "steeple-houses," (as he calls
churches,) and though often dragg'd out and whipt till he faints
away, and lies like one dead, when he comes-to--stands up again, and
offering himself all bruis'd and bloody, cries out to his tormenters,
"Strike--strike again, here where you have not yet touch'd! my arms,
my head, my cheeks,"--Is at length arrested and sent up to London,
confers with the Protector, Cromwell,--is set at liberty, and holds
great meetings in London.
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