A perilous journey for two women, neither of them young, to undertake, and one marvels at the high courage and faith, and the deep sense of the guiding hand of God, which sent them forth “looking death in the face” to deliver the message of their Lord.
CHAPTER III
Second Visit to New England
It is easy for us, at this comfortable distance, in an ordered society in which one believes what he wants to believe—or peradventure believes nothing at all—to say that these Friends walked of their own accord into the lion’s den.... That is undoubtedly true, but it indicates a superficial acquaintance with the spirit of these Quakers.... They would have preferred the life of comfort to the hard prison and the gallows rope if they could have taken the line of least resistance with inward peace, but that was impossible to them.... They had learned to obey the visions which they believed were heavenly, and they had grown accustomed to go straight ahead where the Voice which they believed to be Divine called them.
Rufus M. Jones, Quakers in the American Colonies, p. 80.
To one of Elizabeth Hooton’s temperament it was obviously impossible that there should be any long period of rest after her arduous journeyings, and we soon find her dauntlessly remonstrating with magistrates, visiting prisoners, and appearing before King Charles II. About this period she rented a farm near Syston or Sileby in Leicestershire, which was worked for her by her son Samuel, its assessable value being £5. In 1662 we find that Samuel was “taken at a meeting” possibly at that place and thrown into Leicester prison, and from him were taken “three mares with geares.” This distraint is the subject of many letters to the King, the Lord Chamberlain, and various other people. On reading these epistles one is frequently reminded of the unjust judge and the importunate widow; it is not at all clear that she received reparation, though her numberless appeals, one would have thought, might have proved sufficiently wearisome.
The following is E. Hooton’s own account of one interview with the King, perhaps the first:[73]