A Book of Quaker Saints

by L. V. Hodgkin

Do you think he can be a wicked man after all? Is not the prisoner being punished through some dreadful mistake? He looks kind and good, and, stranger still, he looks happy, even through all his sufferings in this horrible prison. His face has a sort of brightness in it, like the mysterious light there is sometimes to be seen in a dark sky, behind a thunderstorm. A radiance is about him too as if, in spite of all he is enduring, he has some big joy that shines through everything and makes it seem worth while.

He is actually 'letting the sunlight through,' even in this dismal place. Any one who can do that must be a very real and a very big saint indeed. We must just find out all that we can about him. Let us take a good look at him now, while we have the chance. Then we shall know him another time, when we meet him again, having all sorts of adventures in all sorts of places. It is impossible to see his eyes, as he sits by the bed, for they are downcast, but we can see that he has a long, nearly straight nose, and lips tightly pressed together. His hair is parted and hangs down on each side of his head, stiff and lank now, owing to the wet, but in happier days it must have hung in little curls round his neck, just below his ears. He is a tall man, with a big strong-looking body. In spite of the coarse clothes he wears, there is a strange dignity about him. You feel something drawing you to him, making you want to know more about him.

You feel somehow as if you were in the presence of some one who is very big, and that you yourself are very small, smaller perhaps than you ever felt in your life. Yet you feel ready to do anything for him, and, at the same time, you believe that, if only you could make him know that you are there, he would be ready to do anything for you. Even in this wretched den he carries himself with an air of authority, as if he were accustomed to command. Now, at last he is looking up; and we can see his eyes. Most wonderful eyes they are! Eyes that look as if they could pierce through all sorts of disguises, and read the deepest secrets of a man's heart. They are kind eyes too; and look as if they could be extraordinarily tender at times. They are something like a shepherd's eyes, as if they were accustomed to gazing out far and wide in search of strayed sheep and lost lambs. Yet they are also like the eyes of a Judge; thoroughly well able to distinguish right from wrong. It would be terrible to meet those eyes after doing anything the least bit crooked or shabby or untrue. They look as if they would know at the first glance just how much excuses were worth; and what was the truth. No wonder that once, when those eyes fell on a man who was arguing on the wrong side, he felt ashamed all of a sudden and cried out in terror: 'Do not pierce me so with thine eyes! Keep thine eyes off me!' Another time when this same prisoner was reasoning with a crowd of people, who did not agree with him, they all cried out with one accord: 'Look at his eyes, look at his eyes!' And yet another time when he was riding through an angry mob, in a city where men were ready to take his life, they dared not touch him. 'Oh, oh,' they cried, 'see, he shines! he glisters!'

Then what happened next? We do not want to look at the prisoner in fancy any longer. We want really to know about him: to hear the beginnings and endings of those stories and of many others. And that is exactly what we are going to do. The prisoner is going to tell us his own true story in his own real words. There is no need for our fancy wings any longer. They may shrivel up and drop off unheeded. For that prisoner is GEORGE FOX, and he belongs to English history. He has left the whole story of his life and adventures written in two large folio volumes that may still be seen in London. The pages are so old and the edges have worn so thin in the two hundred and fifty years since they were written, that each page has had to be most carefully framed in strong paper to keep it from getting torn. The ink is faded and brown, and the writing is often crabbed and difficult to read. But it can be read, and it is full of stories. In olden times, probably, the book was bound in a brown leather cover, but now, because it is very old and valuable, it has been clothed with beautiful red leather, on which is stamped in gold letters, the title:

GEORGE FOX'S JOURNAL.

Now let us open it at the right place, and, before any of the other stories, let us hear what the writer says about that dismal prison in Scarborough Castle: how long he stayed there, and how he was at last set free.

'One day the governor of Scarborough castle, Sir Jordan Crosland, came to see me. I desired the governor to go into my room and see what a place I had. I had got a little fire made in it, and it was so filled with smoke that when they were in it they could hardly find their way out again.... I told him I was forced to lay out about fifty shillings to stop out the rain, and keep the room from smoking so much. When I had been at that charge and had made it somewhat tolerable, they removed me into a worse room, where I had neither chimney nor fire hearth.'

(This last is the room in the castle cliff that is still called 'George Fox's prison,' where we have been standing in imagination and looking in upon him. We will listen while he describes it again, so as to get accustomed to his rather old-fashioned English.)

'This being to the sea-side and lying much open, the wind drove in the rain forcibly, so that the water came over my bed, and ran about the room, that I was fain to skim it up with a platter. And when my clothes were wet, I had no fire to dry them; so that my body was benumbed with cold, and my fingers swelled, that one was grown as big as two. Though I was at some charge in this room also, yet I could not keep out the wind and rain.... Afterwards I hired a soldier to fetch me water and bread, and something to make a fire of, when I was in a room where a fire could be made. Commonly a threepenny loaf served me three weeks, and sometimes longer, and most of my drink was water, with wormwood steeped or bruised in it.... As to friends I was as a man buried alive, for though many came far to see me, yet few were suffered to come to me.... The officers often threatened that I should be hanged over the wall. Nay, the deputy governor told me once, that the King, knowing that I had a great interest in the people, had sent me thither, that if there should be any stirring in the nation, they should hang me over the wall to keep the people down. A while after they talked much of hanging me. But I told them that if that was what they desired and it was permitted them, I was ready; for I never feared death nor sufferings in my life, but I was known to be an innocent, peaceable man, free from all stirrings and plottings, and one that sought the good of all men. Afterwards, the Governor growing kinder, I spoke to him when he was going to London, and desired him to speak to Esquire Marsh, Sir Francis Cobb, and some others, and let them know how long I had lain in prison, and for what, and he did so. When he came down again, he told me that Esquire Marsh said he would go a hundred miles barefoot for my liberty, he knew me so well; and several others, he said, spoke well of me. From which time the Governor was very loving to me.

'There were among the prisoners two very bad men, who often sat drinking with the officers and soldiers; and because I would not sit and drink with them, it made them the worse against me. One time when these two prisoners were drunk, one of them (whose name was William Wilkinson, who had been a captain), came in and challenged me to fight with him. I seeing what condition he was in, got out of his way; and next morning, when he was more sober, showed him how unmanly a thing it was in him to challenge a man to fight, whose principle he knew it was not to strike; but if he was stricken on one ear to turn the other. I told him that if he had a mind to fight, he should have challenged some of the soldiers, that could have answered him in his own way. But, however, seeing he had challenged me, I was now come to answer him, with my hands in my pockets: and, reaching my head towards him, "Here," said I, "here is my hair, here are my cheeks, here is my back." With that, he skipped away from me and went into another room, at which the soldiers fell a-laughing; and one of the officers said, "You are a happy man that can bear such things." Thus he was conquered without a blow.