They were delighted with their first sight of England, to find such abundant verdure instead of the snow and ice which they left on the hills of New England, and they were more delighted still to find warm hearts waiting for them, among whom was Benjamin Seebohm, who had been a former messenger of good to them. It was nearly time for Dublin yearly meeting to begin, and they crossed over to Ireland to attend it. This was an occasion of great interest, and the two American Friends had weighty service to perform; but Sybil Jones was taken ill with severe irritation of the spine while the meeting was still in session. She finally found relief for that time, and was able to attend some of the meetings. Their friend Mary James Lecky was always ready to attend to their comfort, and they did not want for pleasant homes.
Their visit to Balitore is thus described: "We left for Balitore in the comfortable coach of our dear friend Mary J. Lecky. Our route was most pleasant and interesting—beautiful groves, rich fields of waving grain, with herds and flocks scattered over the flowery lawns; stately dwellings and white cottages, with now and then some ancient castle in ruins, wearing a vesture of deep green woven by the evergreen ivy, which flourishes in rich foliage on its time-beaten walls and dilapidated towers. The golden furze may be seen in abundance on hill and dale, and is a lovely ornament to the variegated scene. The hedges that skirt the way are bespangled with yellow and crimson primroses, bluebells, violets, and many other little wild flowers, forming a radiant wreath entwined with the graceful ivy. We admired the scene, and talked much of Erin, the green isle of the ocean. At one o'clock we arrived at Balitore, or, as it is sometimes called, the 'Classic Vale.' Dear Elizabeth Barrington—the 'Princess Elizabeth,' as she is sometimes called—gave us a cordial welcome. The charms of this little village, loveliest of the plain, are sweetly enhanced by the memory of departed worth, talent, genius, virtue and piety which once flourished here."[5]
Day after day they attended meetings and visited families, though Sybil Jones was in such a state of health that it was merely her will which kept her from bed; she continually spoke of the "frailty of the tabernacle," but the strength of the spirit forced the body to obey and do its part of the work; and as the time drew near for the London yearly meeting they turned thither. Everywhere they directed their eyes a new beauty of landscape, a majesty of mountain, or a charm of antiquity met them; but Sybil Jones was forced to close her eyes on all this outward loveliness, and as as she rode along, reclining on her seat, she comforted herself "in the presence of Him who verily knows what is best for us; health and life, with every other blessing, are in his hand."
The meeting began on the 17th of Fifth month, and now for the first time in their lives they were sitting in the parent yearly meeting of the Society of Friends. For more than two hundred years the Friends of Great Britain have annually assembled in London, and the power of these meetings is wonderful. Some of England's greatest minds have sat in silent waiting there, and have raised their voices in regard to the proper ordering of the household of faith, and some of her lowliest sons and daughters have not been hindered from sitting in the same seat with these great lights, and their words have been listened to with equal deference. English conservatism has kept this meeting much as it was in earlier days, while broad ideas and liberal notions have been disseminated, so that no stiff cloak of formalism has settled over the body. The Spirit which giveth life is sought for, but the iron yoke of the letter does not rest upon them. The voices of "just men made perfect" have, in all the generations since George Fox, pleaded from full hearts that the Lord might have here a "peculiar people," separated from the world and satisfied with the one honor of being "fellow-citizens with the saints."
Eli and Sybil Jones had many comforting sessions in this meeting, and they not only did the work which was in their hearts for the strengthening of those assembled, but they were themselves made more strong and more useful members of the Church for this work in the harmonious company of united English Friends.
The effect of their utterances and the impressiveness of the gathering were beautifully and eloquently described by Elihu Burritt, who was present, and who was afterward associated with Eli Jones in the Peace cause. This passage is from his diary, dated the 21st of fifth month:
THE QUAKER MEETING.
"London, May 21, 1852.
"This has been a day of deep interest. In the morning I went to the meeting of public worship in the Devonshire House, which was filled to the utmost capacity by Friends from every part of the kingdom. As a spectacle no human congregation can surpass it in impressive physiognomy. The immaculate purity of the women's dresses as they sat a mountain multitude of shining ones, arising in long quiet ranks from the floor to the gallery on one side of the house, the grave mountain of sedate and thoughtful men on the other, presented an aspect more suggestive of the assemblies of the New Jerusalem than any earthly congregation I had ever seen. In a brief time the last-comers had found seats or standing-places, and then a deep devotional silence settled down upon the great assembly like an overshadowing presence from heaven. The still, upbreathing prayer of a thousand hearts seemed to ascend like incense, and the communion of the Holy Spirit to descend like a dove, whispering its benediction and touching to sweeter listening serenity those faces so calm with the breath of its wing; and out of the deep silence of this unspoken devotion arose one, with trembling meekness, to unburden the heart of a few brief message-words to which it feared to withhold utterance, lest it should sin against the inspiration that made it burn with them. From another part of the house arose the quavering voice of prayer, short, but full of the earnest emotion of supplication and humble utterance of faith and thanksgiving. Then moments of deeper silence followed, as if all the faculties of the mind and all the senses of the physical being had descended into the soul's inner temple to listen to and wait for the voice of the Spirit of God. How impressive was the heart-worship of those silent moments! There was something solemn beyond description in the spectacle of a thousand persons of all ages so immovable that they seemed scarcely to breathe. The 'Ministers' Gallery' was occupied by a long rank of the teachers, the fathers, and the mothers of the Society from different parts of the country, who seemed to preside over this communion like shepherds sitting down before their quiet flocks by the still waters of salvation. In the centre sat a man and a woman a little past the meridian of life, and apparently strangers in the great congregation. The former had an American look, which was perceptible even to the opposite extremity of the building, and when he slowly arose out of the deep silence his first words confirmed that impression. They were words fitly spoken and solemn, but uttered with such a nasal intonation as I never heard before, even in New England. At first and for a few minutes I felt it doubtful whether the unpleasant influence of this aggravated peculiarity would not prevent his words of exhortation from having salutary effect upon the minds of the listening assembly. But as his words seemed to flow and warm with increasing unction, little by little they cleared up from that nasal cadence and rounded into more oral enunciation. Little by little they strengthened with the power of truth, and the truth made them free and flowing. His whole person, so impassive and unsympathetic at first, entered into the enunciation of these truths with constantly increasing animation, and his address grew more and more impressive to the last. He spoke nearly an hour, and when he sat down and buried his fingers under his broad-brimmed hat, and the congregation settled down into the profound quiet of serene meditation, I doubted whether it would be broken again by the voice of another exhortation. But in the course of a few minutes the form of the woman who sat by his side—and it was his wife—might be perceived in a state of half-suppressed emotion, as if demurring to the inward monitor of the Spirit that bade her arise and speak to such an assembly. It might well have seemed formidable to the nature of a meek and delicate woman. She seemed to struggle involuntarily with the conviction of duty, and to incline her person slightly toward her husband, as if the tried attributes of her heart leaned for strength on the sympathy of his, as well as on the wisdom she waited from above. Then she arose calm, meek, and graceful. Her first words dropped with the sweetest enunciation upon the still congregation, and were heard in every part of the house, though they were uttered in a tone seemingly but little above a whisper. Each succeeding sentence warbled into new beauty and fulness of silvery cadence. The burden of her spirit was the life of religion in the heart as contrasted with its mere language on the tongue, or what it was to be really and truly a disciple of Jesus Christ. Having meekly stated the subject which had occupied her meditations and which she had felt constrained to revive in the hearing of the congregation before her, she said: 'And now, in my simple way and in the brief words which may be given me, let me enter with you into the examination of this question.' At the first word of this sentence she loosed the fastenings of her bonnet, and at the last handed it down to her husband with a grace indescribable. There was something very impressive in the act as well as in the manner in which it was performed, as if she uncovered her head involuntarily in reverence to that vision of divine truth unsealed to her waiting eyes. And in her eyes it seemed to beam with a heavenly light serene, and in her heart to burn with holy inspiration and meekness, and to touch her lips and every gentle movement of her person with an expression eloquent, solemn, beautiful as her words fell upon the rapt assembly from the heaven of tremulous flute-like music with which her voice filled the building. Like a stream welling from Mount Hermon and winding its way to the sea, so flowed the melodious current of her message, now meandering among the unopened flowers of rhymeless poetry, now through green pastures of salvation, where the Good Shepherd was bearing in his bosom the tender lambs of his flock; next it took the force of lofty diction, and fell, as it were, in cascades of silvery eloquence, but solemn, slow, and searching, adown the rocks and ravines of Sinai; then out like a sweet-rolling river of music into the wilderness, where the Prodigal Son, with the husks of his poverty clutched in his lean hands, sat in tearful meditation upon his father's home and his father's love. More than a thousand persons seemed to hold their breath as they listened to that meek, delicate woman, whose lips appeared to be touched to an utterance almost divine. I never saw an assembly so moved, but so subdued into motionless meditation. And the serene and solemn silence deepened to stillness more profound when she ceased speaking. In the midst of these still moments she knelt in prayer. As the first word of her supplication arose the men, who had worn their hats while she spoke to them, reverently uncovered their heads as she kneeled to speak to God. Long and fervent was her supplication. Her clear sweet voice trembled with the burden of the petition with which her soul seemed to ascend into the Holy of holies, and to plead there with Jacob's Father for a blessing upon all encircled within that immediate presence. She arose from her knees, and the great congregation sat down, as it were under the shadow of that prayer to silence more deep and devotional. This lasted a few minutes, when two elders of the Society, seated in the centre of the 'Ministers' Gallery,' shook hands with each other, and were followed by other couples in each direction as a kind of mutual benediction as well as a signal that meeting was terminated.—At this simple sign the whole congregation arose and quietly left the house. Such was the experience of a couple of hours in a Quaker meeting."
The last day of the yearly meeting Sybil Jones spoke out her feelings in regard to total abstinence. She was probably the first person who publicly stated to an English audience the necessity of taking such high ground to overcome the evils of intemperance, and, though much sympathy was expressed, there was a deep feeling on the part of some against her expressed views. She writes: "This day has concluded the yearly meeting; my spirit was bound down under a weight of exercise, but divine help came and enabled me to testify the gospel of the grace of God in a way most humiliating to the creature; but some, it may be hoped, were led to examine how far their example of righteousness and temperance had reached to give a check to the crying sin of this nation, that not only their husbands and brothers be influenced by their example, but also their neighbors, and whether there was not something for them to do in this matter, even total abstinence if it may be required. When this was done my peace abounded, and I hope no harm was done. Many dear Friends seemed to feel much sympathy, and a precious solemnity came over us."
For weeks after leaving London these "two recruiting-officers labored hard to enlist soldiers for their Captain" through the northern counties of Ireland. Not only Friends and other Protestants came to hear them, but often there were priests present at the meetings, and many Irish Catholics heard them preach the gospel. Sometimes Sybil Jones seemed to be "standing on the verge of eternity," but as the body grew frail it seemed the soul waxed strong and her messages became more impressive. All she saw as they rode from one village to another attracted her attention, and she rejoiced that the Creator had made the earth so fair, while she was brought into great sadness at the poverty and oppression of the unfortunate, and the lack of vital religion which was often found. There was great need of wisdom in telling the whole truth to her mixed audiences, to have it come to them as the one thing they needed to make their unhappy lives happy, and her soul went out in her utterances to their souls and stirred them to believe. There was hardly a town which they visited where error had not been taught and superstitions ruled the hearts of the people, and many who had suffered deep wrongs felt that there was no justice in the earth. To such it was announced, "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart;" but they felt that "nothing short of the omnipotent Arm could deliver these souls from popish thraldom and make them free through the power of Jesus Christ."
Mary James Lecky continued to accompany them, and she was an almost indispensable companion, providing for their comfort and safety and opening ways for their service which to them alone would have been closed; and as Sybil Jones was under a daily weight of infirmity, she was a strong arm to lean upon, and encouraged her as a sister when her heart grew weak from the abundance of trial.[6]