"London: Printed for Robt. Wilson, and are to be sold at his Shop at the Signe of the Black-Spread-Eagle and Wind-Mil in Martins le Grand 1660."
[134] These Friends undoubtedly believed that the principles of truth which they had discovered would ultimately prevail over the entire globe.
"Prester John's Country" was Abyssinia. Prester John was a legendary Christian priest, who was believed in the early Middle Ages to reign over this Eastern country. About this time Catherine Evans and Sarah Chevers, in their travels, were put in the inquisition-prison at Malta, from which Fox secured their release, through the influence of Lord D'Aubeny, a Roman Catholic.
[135] Friends are married without clergyman or magistrate. The bridal couple stand up in a religious assembly, and, taking each other by the hand, promise to be husband and wife till death.
[136] It is estimated that at this time there were not less than 4,500 Friends in the prisons of England and Wales. This letter to the King is strikingly direct and straightforward.
[137] This was an act passed in 1662, "for preventing mischiefs and dangers that may arise by certain persons called Quakers, and others refusing to take oaths." The act declared it "altogether unlawful and contrary to the word of God" to refuse to take an oath, or to persuade another person to refuse to do so. It further made it an offense for more than five persons, "commonly called Quakers," "to assemble in any place under pretense of joining in a religious worship not authorized by the laws of this realm."
[138] This letter well illustrates the difficulties of George Fox's style. The letter manifests a profound and beautiful spirit, but the phraseology is none too clear. He means: "Dear Edward is living in God, who is invisible and unchangeable; settle your own lives down into that same living God whose divine presence manifested in Edward Burrough has begotten a spiritual life in you, and you will feel yourselves united in spirit and life with the dear departed one."
[AL] Truro.
[AM] "Truth" is used here and often in Friends' writings for the CAUSE which Friends represented.
[139] Most of the Quakers who suffered in prison during the reign of Charles were imprisoned for refusing to take the oath.