'We who were once slayers of one another do not now fight against our enemies.'—JUSTIN MARTYR. A.D. 140.
'Victory that is gotten by the sword is a victory slaves get one over the other; but victory contained by love is a victory for a king.'—GERRARD WINSTANLEY. 1649.
'Here you will come to love God above all, and your neighbours as yourselves. Nothing hurts, nothing harms, nothing makes afraid on this holy mountain.'—G. FOX.
'My friends that are gone or are going over to plant and make outward plantations in America, keep your own plantations in your hearts with the spirit and power of God, that your own vines and lilies be not hurt.'—G. FOX.
'Take heed of many words, what reaches to the life settles in the life. That which cometh from the life and is received from God, reaches to the life and settles others in the life.'—G. FOX.
'An old Indian named Papunehang appreciated the spirit and atmosphere of a Friends' meeting, even if he did not comprehend the words, telling the interpreter afterwards, "I love to feel where words come from."'—A.M. GUMMERE (from John Woolman's Journal).
XXIX. FIERCE FEATHERS
The sunlight lay in patches on the steep roof of the Meeting-house of Easton Township, in the County of Saratoga, in the State of New York. It was a bright summer morning in the year 1775. The children of Easton Township liked their wooden house, although it was made only of rough-hewn logs, nailed hastily together in order to provide some sort of shelter for the worshipping Friends. They would not, if they could, have exchanged it for one of the more stately Meeting-houses at home in England, on the other side of the Atlantic. There, the windows were generally high up in the walls. English children could see nothing through the panes but a peep of sky, or the topmost branches of a tall tree. When they grew tired of looking in the branches of the tree for an invisible nest that was not there, there was nothing more to be hoped for, out of those windows. The children's eyes came back inside the room again, as they watched the slow shadows creep along the white-washed walls, or tried to count the flies upon the ceiling. But out here in America there was no need for that. The new Meeting-house of Easton had nearly as many possibilities as the new world outside. To begin with, its logs did not fit quite close together. If a boy or girl happened to be sitting in the corner seat, he or she could often see, through a chink, right out into the woods. For the untamed wilderness still stretched away on all sides round the newly-cleared settlement of Easton.