A Book of Quaker Saints

by L. V. Hodgkin

Far away from all the hurly-burly, though in the very middle of the clash of arms, George Fox, the unknown Leicestershire shepherd lad, went on his way, unheeded and unheeding. He, too, had to fight; but his was a lonely battle, in the silence of his own heart. It was there that he fought and conquered first of all, there that he tamed his own Tiger at last—more than that, he learned to find God.

'One day,' he says in his Journal, 'when I had been walking solitarily abroad and was come home, I was taken up into the love of God, and it was opened to me by the eternal light and power, and I therein clearly saw that all was to be done in and by Christ, and how He conquers and destroys the Devil and all his works and is atop of him.' He means that he saw that all the outward fighting was really part of one great battle, and that to be on the right side in that fight is the thing that matters eternally to every man.

Another time he writes: 'I saw into that which was without end, things which cannot be uttered and of the greatness and infiniteness of the love of God, which cannot be expressed by words, for I had been brought through the very ocean of darkness and death, and through and over the power of Satan by the eternal glorious power of Christ; even through that darkness was I brought which covered over all the world and shut up all in the death.... And I saw the harvest white and the seed of God lying thick in the ground, as ever did wheat that was sown outwardly, and I mourned that there was none to gather it.'

When George Fox speaks of the 'seed,' he means the tender spot that there must always be in the hearts of all men, however wicked, since they are made in the likeness of God. A tiny, tiny something, the first stirring of life, that God's Spirit can find and work on, however deeply it may be buried (like a seed under heavy clods of earth), if men will only yield to It. In another place he calls this seed 'THAT OF GOD WITHIN YOU.' And it is this tender growing 'seed' that gets trampled down when fierce angry passions are unloosed in people's hearts, just as the tender springing corn in the Indian village was trampled down by the hungry Tiger. George Fox believed that that seed lay hidden in the hearts of all men, because he had found it in his own. Everywhere he longed to set that seed free to grow, and to tame the Tiger spirits that would trample it down and destroy it. Let us watch and see how he did this.

One day when he was about twenty-five years old, he heard that some people had been put in prison at Coventry for the sake of their religion. He thought that there must be a good crop of seed in the hearts of those people, since they were willing to suffer for their faith, so he determined to go and see them. As he was on his way to the gaol a message came to him from God. He seemed to hear God's own Voice saying to him, 'MY LOVE WAS ALWAYS TO THEE, AND THOU ART IN MY LOVE.' 'Always to thee.' Then that love had always been round him, even in his loneliest struggles, and now that he knew that he was in it, nothing could really hurt him. No wonder that he walked on towards the gaol with a feeling of new joy and strength. But when he came to the dark, frowning prison where numbers of men and women were lying in sin and misery, this joyfulness left him. He says, 'A great power of darkness struck at me.' The prisoners were not the sort of people he had hoped to find them. They were a set of what were then called 'Ranters.' They began to swear and to say wicked things against God. George Fox sat silent among them, still fastening his mind on the thought of God's conquering love; but as they went on to say yet wilder and more wicked things, at last that very love forced him to reprove them. They paid no attention, and at length Fox was obliged to leave them. He says he was 'greatly grieved, yet I admired the goodness of the Lord in appearing so to me, before I went among them.'

For the time it did seem as if the Tiger spirits had won, and were able to trample down the living seed. But wait! A little while after, one of these same prisoners, named Joseph Salmon, wrote a paper confessing that he was sorry for what he had said and done, whereupon they were all set at liberty.

Meanwhile, George Fox went on his way, and travelled through 'markets, fairs, and divers places, and saw death and darkness everywhere, where the Lord had not shaken them.' In one place he heard that a great man lay dying and that his recovery was despaired of by all the doctors. Some of his friends in the town desired George Fox to visit the sufferer. 'I went up to him in his chamber,' says Fox in his Journal, 'and spake the word of life to him, and was moved to pray by him, and the Lord was entreated and restored him to health. When I was come down the stairs into a lower room and was speaking to the servants, a serving-man of his came raving out of another room, with a naked rapier in his hand, and set it just to my side. I looked steadfastly on him and said "Alack for thee, poor creature! what wilt thou do with thy carnal weapon, it is no more to me than a straw." The standers-by were much troubled, and he went away in a rage; but when news came of it to his master, he turned him out of his service.'

Although that particular man's Tiger spirit had been foiled in its spring, the man himself had not been really tamed. Perhaps George Fox needed to learn more, and to suffer more himself, before he could really change other men's hearts. If so, he had not long to wait.

Shortly after this, it was his own turn to be imprisoned. He was shut up in Derby Gaol, and given into the charge of a very cruel Gaoler. This man was a strict Puritan, and he hated Fox, and spoke wickedly against him. He even refused him permission to go and preach to the people of the town, which, strangely enough, the prisoners in those days were allowed to do.

One morning, however, Fox was walking up and down in his cell, when he heard a doleful noise. He stopped his walk to listen. Through the wall he could hear the voice of the Gaoler speaking to his wife—'Wife,' he said, 'I have had a dream. I saw the Day of Judgment, and I saw George there!' How the listener must have wondered what was coming! 'I saw George there,' the Gaoler continued, 'and I was afraid of him, because I had done him so much wrong, and spoken so much against him to the ministers and professors, and to the Justices and in taverns and alehouses.' But there the voice stopped, and the prisoner heard no more. When evening came, however, the Gaoler visited the cell, no longer raging and storming at his prisoner, but humbled and still. 'I have been as a lion against you,' he said to Fox, 'but now I come like a lamb, or like the Gaoler that came to Paul and Silas, trembling.' He came to ask as a favour that he might spend the night in the same prison chamber where Fox lay. Fox answered that he was in the Gaoler's power: the keeper of the prison of course could sleep in any place he chose. 'No,' answered the Gaoler, 'I wish to have your permission. I should like to have you always with me, but not as my prisoner.' So the two strange companions spent that night together lying side by side. In the quiet hours of darkness the Gaoler told Fox all that was in his heart. 'I have found that what you said of the true faith and hope is really true, and I want you to know that even before I had that terrible vision, whenever I refused to let you go and preach, I was sorry afterwards when I had treated you roughly, and I had great trouble of mind.'