'Some place their religion in books, some in images, some in the pomp and splendour of external worship, but some with illuminated understandings hear what the Holy Spirit speaketh in their hearts'—THOMAS À KEMPIS.
'Lord, when I look upon mine own life it seems Thou hast led me so carefully, so tenderly, Thou canst have attended to none else; but when I see how wonderfully Thou hast led the world and art leading it, I am amazed that Thou hast had time to attend to such as I.'—AUGUSTINE.
II. 'PURE FOY, MA JOYE'
'He is stiff as a tree and pure as a bell, and we could never bow him.' So spoke the rough soldiers of Scarborough Castle of their prisoner, George Fox, after he had been set at liberty. A splendid thing it was for soldiers to say of a prisoner whom they had held absolutely in their power. But a tree does not grow stiff all at once. It takes many years for a tiny seedling to grow into a sturdy oak. A bell has to undergo many processes before it gains its perfect form and pure ringing note. And a whole lifetime of joys and sorrows had been needed to develop the 'stiffness' (or steadfastness, as we should call it now) and purity of character that astonished the soldiers in their prisoner. There will not be much story in this history of George Fox's early days, but it is the foundation-stone on which most of the later stories will be built.
It was in July 1624, the last year in which James the First, King of England, ruled in his palace at Whitehall, that far away in a quiet Leicestershire village their first baby was born to a weaver and his wife. They lived in a small cottage with a thatched roof and wooden shutters, in a village then known as 'Drayton-in-the-Clay,' because of the desolate waters of the marshlands that lay in winter time close round the walls of the little hamlet. Even though the fens and marshes have now long ago been drained and turned into fertile country, the village is still called 'Fenny Drayton.' The weaver's name was Christopher Fox. His wife's maiden name had been Mary Lago; and the name they gave to their first little son was George.
Mary Lago came 'of the stock of the martyrs': that is to say, either her parents or her grand-parents had been put to death for their faith. They had been burnt at the stake, probably, in one of the persecutions in the reign of Queen Mary. From her 'martyr stock' Mary Lago must have learned, when she was quite a little girl, to worship God in purity of faith. Later on, after she had become the mother of little George, it was no wonder that her baby son sitting on her knee, looking up into her face, or listening to her stories, learned from the very beginning to try to be 'Pure as a Bell.'
Mary Lago's husband, Christopher Fox, did not come 'of the stock of the martyrs,' but evidently he had inherited from his ancestors plenty of tough courage and sturdy sense. Almost the only story remembered about him is that one day he stuck his cane into the ground after listening to a long dispute and exclaimed: 'Now I see that if a man will but stick to the truth it will bear him out.'
When little George grew old enough to scramble down from his mother's knee and to walk with unsteady steps across the stone-flagged floor of the cottage, there was his weaver father sitting at his loom, making a pleasant rhythmic sound that filled the small house with music. As the boy watched the skilful hands sending the flying shuttle in and out among the threads, he learned from his father, not only the right way to weave good reliable stuff, but also how to weave the many coloured threads of everyday life into a strong character. The village people called his father 'Righteous Christer,' which shows that he too must have been 'stiff as a tree' in following what he knew to be right; for a name like that is not very easily earned where village eyes are sharp and village tongues are shrewd.