XXVI. RICHARD SELLAR AND THE 'MERCIFUL MAN'[ToC]
'To resort to force is to lose faith in the inner light. War only results from men taking counsel with their passions instead of waiting upon God. If one believes, as Fox did, that the most powerful element in human nature is that something of God which speaks in the conscience, then to coerce men is clearly wrong. The only true line of approach is by patience to reach down to that divine seed, to appeal to what is best, because it is what is strongest in man. The Quaker testimony against war is no isolated outwork of their position: it forms part of their citadel.'—H.G. WOOD.
'The following narrative we have thought proper to insert in the very words of the sufferer, as taken from his own mouth. The candid Reader will easily excuse the simplicity of its style, and the Plainness of its Expressions. It is the more like the man, and carries the greater evidence of the Honesty and Integrity of the Relator, viz. "An Account of the Sufferings of Richard Seller of Keinsey, a Fisherman, who was prest in Scarborough-Piers, in the time of the two last engagements between the Dutch and English, in the year 1665." These are (says the writer) the very words that proceeded from him, who sat before me weeping.'—BESSE, 'Sufferings of the Quakers.'