Among dissenters there is less literary record. We find more among the Quakers than elsewhere, yet even there not so much as might be expected from the fact of their recognition of the equality of the sexes. It was stated in their creed: "As we dare not encourage any ministry but that which we believe to spring from the influence of the Holy Spirit, so neither dare we attempt to restrain this ministry to persons of any condition in life, or to the male sex alone; but as male and female are one in Christ, we hold it proper that such of the female sex as we believe to be endued with a right qualification for the ministry should exercise their gifts for the general edification of the Church."[170] As a rule, however, the Quaker women were too busy on their preaching tours to have much time for authorship. Margaret Fell is their chief representative writer.[171] Her activities began before the Restoration. As the wife of Judge Fell of Swarthmore Hall she was of distinct social importance, and she showed unusual ability in the conduct of the household affairs incident on her husband's wealth and large landed properties. She was always exceedingly devout and Swarthmore Hall was traditionally recognized as the home of "lecturing ministers." Among these itinerant speakers, in 1652, was George Fox. His brief sojourn at Swarthmore was epoch-making, for when Judge Fell returned from a distant visit he was met as he crossed Ulverston Sands by a solemn conclave of gentlemen on horseback whose purpose it was to announce that his wife and most of his household had become Quakers. On investigation he became himself at least sufficiently sympathetic with the new views not to interfere with his wife's convictions. For half a century she was identified with Quaker interests. The great dining-room at Swarthmore was for many years the regular meeting-place of the Friends. In 1669, eleven years after the death of Judge Fell, Margaret married George Fox, and till his death in 1691 she gave her time, her thought, her money, to a defense of persecuted Quakers. Three of her daughters became preachers. She traveled from jail to jail, from house to house, to comfort the imprisoned and their families, and from meeting to meeting to preach the word. As the "nursing mother" of the church she had an immense correspondence. The petitions to the king and to powerful noblemen were often composed and personally presented by her. The importance attached to her advice and opinions is indicated by the hundreds of letters still extant addressed to her by the preachers who gathered about George Fox. During her most active years the practical conduct of church affairs occupied her to the exclusion of other work. But earlier, especially during 1665-1668, she made use of the enforced leisure consequent on various imprisonments to write in defense of Quaker principles. Of the ten tracts thus produced one of the most interesting was on the vexed question of the right of women to preach and was entitled Women's Speaking Justified, Proved and Allowed of by the Scriptures.
Anne Finch, Lady Conway (d. 1679)
Another important lady who, after long study in other religions came finally into the Quaker faith, was Anne Finch, a daughter of Sir Henry Finch. In 1651 she married Lord Conway and was established as mistress of Ragley Castle in Warwickshire. As a young woman she had been attracted by the teachings of Henry More, the Cambridge Platonist. After she became Lady Conway he spent much time at Ragley where he wrote several of his books. During his various absences Mr. More and Lady Conway corresponded regularly on theological subjects. The questions in her letters sufficiently indicate the metaphysical perplexities that absorbed her thoughts. She knew the learned tongues and read eagerly the works of "Plato, Plotinus, Philo Judæus, and the Kabbala Denudata." She was a theosophist and a mystic. The esoteric, the mysterious, the miraculous, captured her imagination. "Under her inspiration Ragley became the home of religious marvels." One chapter of John Inglesant, the novel in which Mr. Shorthouse so sympathetically described Little Gidding, is said to be based on the life at Ragley. Lady Conway suffered from headaches so severe and persistent as to defy the best skill of London and Paris. Under the influence of Mr. More, who said there might be "a sanative and healing contagion as well as a morbid and venemous," she summoned to Ragley the famous Valentine Greatrakes, "the Stroker," but the magic of his hands failed in her case. Her headaches made of her life one long disease, but never conquered her intellectual eagerness and hardly abated her learned pursuits.
When she finally joined the Quakers it was against the advice of Mr. More, but she was one, he said, "who never submitted all her judgment to any one." Her friendship with Robert Barclay and William Penn followed her acceptance of the new doctrines. While Lady Conway was undoubtedly one of the most distinguished converts to the Quaker faith, her invalidism and then her death in 1679 interfered with any such active service as that of Margaret Fell. The two women were, moreover, temperamentally unlike. Margaret Fell, a descendant of Anne Askew, had the blood of the martyrs in her veins. A "cause" could capture her mind and heart. She was energetic, an organizer and administrator. Lady Conway, on the other hand, beyond almost any woman of her time, lived in things of the mind.
Of Lady Conway's numerous works only one has been printed. In 1690 there appeared at Amsterdam a collection of philosophical treatises written in Latin. The first one of the series was a translation of "a work by a certain English countess, learned beyond her sex." Leibnitz, on the authority of Van Helmont, attributed this to Lady Conway. This treatise was re-translated into English in 1692.[172]
Jane Ward, Mrs. Lead (1623-1704)
Mrs. Jane Lead[173] was a mystic and the founder of a sect. She was the daughter of Schildknap Ward, of a good Norfolk family, and it is said that there were no external influences to account for her unusual experiences. As a child in the midst of the Christmas gayeties at her father's house, she heard a miraculous voice that summoned her to a religious life. She became a widow while still young and thereafter followed without hindrance, in the completest seclusion, in London, her recognized vocation. She studied mystical works and had nightly prophetic visions which she recorded in her spiritual diary. Between 1681 and 1702 she published fifteen volumes and another one appeared immediately after her death. In 1693 Mr. Francis Lee, a young Oxford man and a medical student at Leyden, visited her, gave allegiance to her doctrines, and devoted himself to her service. Mr. Lee and Mrs. Lead became the center of an important theosophical organization called The Philadelphian Society, which existed till 1702. Mrs. Lead died in 1704 "in the 81st year of her age and the 65th of her vocation to the inward life." Mr. Lee wrote to the Countess Kniphausen and others in France and Germany a letter entitled The Last Hours of Jane Lead by an Eye and Ear Witness. Five years before her death Mrs. Lead's spiritual diary was published under the title, A Fountain of Gardens, watered by the Rivers of Divine pleasure, and springing up in all the variety of spiritual plants, blown up by the pure Breath into Paradise. To which is prefixed, A Poem, introductory to the Philadelphia Age, called Solomon's Porch, or The Beautiful gate to Wisdom's Temple.
Susannah Annesley, Mrs. Wesley (1670-1742)
One of the most notable women of the early eighteenth century was Susannah Wesley, the mother of John and Charles Wesley. She came of a fine old Nottinghamshire family, and her father, Dr. Annesley, a man of power and influence, "the St. Paul of the Nonconformists," secured for his children an education suitable to their birth. At twenty-one Susannah, a beautiful and gifted young woman, married Samuel Wesley and entered upon her career as wife of a rector of humble position and small means.