PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
The Author has long believed that a popular sketch of the Life and Work of George Fox was wanted. His noble labours in the Gospel, and the many excellences of his character are not known as they deserve to be. The story of his life is full of dramatic interest, and the author has endeavoured to tell it with sympathy and yet with faithfulness.
Too few outside the Society of Friends are aware of the great and happy change which has lately come over it. The cramping influence of custom and precedent is yielding to the free spirit which first made the Society a power. In the present remodelling of its "Practice and Discipline," the study of its early days is of great importance. And for a fervent and constraining piety, for free and large-hearted devotion to "the truth" wherever it leads, few men are more worthy of study and imitation at the present day than George Fox.
Should this effort prove a success, companion sketches of Penn and Barclay will shortly follow.
The Manse,
Batheaston, near Bath;
September, 1883.