“I advise thee,” answered George Fox quietly, “to wear it as long as thou canst.”
Shortly after this, they met again. William Penn had no sword.
“William,” said George Fox, “where is thy sword?”
“Oh!” replied William Penn, “I have taken thy advice. I wore it as long as I could!”
Samuel M. Janney (Retold)
THE PEACEMAKER
“He must not be a man but a statue of brass or stone, whose bowels do not melt when he beholds the bloody tragedies of this war in Hungary, Germany, Flanders, Ireland, and at sea; the mortality of sickly and languishing camps and navies; and the mighty prey the devouring winds and waves have made upon ships and men,” wrote William Penn over two hundred years ago.
It was then that William Penn became the peacemaker.
The world was in the midst of a terrible war. William Penn did not believe in war. He had cast aside his own sword for principle’s sake, and had bravely suffered persecutions and imprisonments in the Tower of London and in Newgate. Fearlessly now he came forward with a plan for world peace, which he hoped would stop bloody wars, and persuade rulers to arbitrate their quarrels.
He published a “Plan for the Peace of Europe,” urging the formation of a league of European countries.