The seventeenth century has truly been called 'a very ill-mannered century.' Certainly these were not pretty names for pamphlets that were so widely read that, to quote the graphic expression of an earlier writer, 'they walked up and down England at deer rates.'
Yet, still, in spite of bodily ill-usage and imprisonment, through good report and through evil report, through fair weather and foul, the work of scattering the seed continued steadily, day after day, month after month, year after year. The messengers went on, undaunted; the Message spread and took root throughout the land; the trials of the work were swallowed up in the triumphant joy of service and of 'Publishing Truth.'
FOOTNOTES:
[14] W.C. Braithwaite, Beginnings of Quakerism.
[15] W.C. Braithwaite, Beginnings of Quakerism.
[16] Jamaica, with its deadly climate, had lately been taken by England from Spain, and was at this time proving the grave of hundreds of English soldiers.
[17] Cameos from the Life of George Fox, by E.E. Taylor.
[18] Sewel's History of the Quakers.
[19] W.C. Braithwaite, Beginnings of Quakerism.