was that the Friend where they dined insisted on my going with them. With fear and trembling I complied, and being sat down in the house, Thomas Wilson fixed his eyes upon me, which made me conclude he saw something in me that was wrong. I arose and went out, being much affected, but heard him say: "What young woman is that! She is like the little captive maid I have been speaking of this day. May the God of my life strengthen her. She will meet with sore trials, but if she is faithful, the Lord will fit her for his service."

The experience of George Fox was similar to that of Thomas Wilson. He passed through many exercises and conflicts of spirit preparatory to his coming forth as a minister of the Gospel, some of which, as he afterwards saw, were designed to give him a heartfelt experience that would better fit him for declaring to others the mysteries of God's kingdom. His Journal interestingly and instructively shows how one thing after another was opened to his mind by the spirit of the Lord.

About the beginning of the year 1646, he says, the Lord opened to him that none were true believers but such as were born of God and passed from death to life. At another time, he was made to see that to be educated at Oxford or Cambridge, which were the great theological schools of England, was not enough to qualify men to be ministers of Christ. He adds: "I wondered at it, because it was the common belief of people. At another time it was opened in me 'That God, who made the world, did not dwell in temples made with hands.' This, at the first, seemed strange, because both priests and people used to call their temples or churches, dreadful places, holy ground, and the temples of God. But the Lord showed me clearly that He did not dwell in these temples, which men had commanded and set up, but in people's hearts."

His growth in Divine knowledge was attended with many

trials and temptations, which continued upon him for several years. In 1647 there was a great meeting of Baptists in Leicestershire, to which George Fox went, and where, he says: "The Lord opened my mouth, and his everlasting Truth was declared among them, and the power of the Lord was over them all."

In looking back at the experiences through which he had passed, this servant of Christ says he saw that he had been brought through the very ocean of darkness and death. The same eternal power of God, which brought me through these things was that which afterwards shook the nations, priests, professors and people. In 1648 he appears to have entered more fully into his Gospel labors, and mentions attending many large meetings, in which "several tender people were convinced."

At a great meeting at Leicester, held in a "steeple-house," a woman asked a question, out of Peter: "What birth that was, 'A being born again of incorruptible seed, by the word of God, that liveth and abideth forever?" The priest said: "I permit not a woman to speak in the church," though he had before given liberty for any to speak. "Whereupon," says George Fox, "I stepped up and asked the priest: 'Dost thou call this place (the steeple-house) a church? 'Or dost thou call this mixed multitude a church? For the woman asking a question, he ought to have answered it, having given liberty for any to speak. But, instead of answering me, he asked me what a church was? I told him, 'The church was the pillar and ground of Truth, made up of living stones, living members, a spiritual household, which Christ was the head of; but He was not the head of a mixed multitude, or of an old house made up of lime, stones and wood. This set them all on fire."

When in the vale of Beavor, one morning, as he was sit

ting by the fire, a temptation beset him, which he thus narrates:

It was said, "All things come by nature;" and the elements and stars came over me, so that I was in a manner quite clouded with it. But as I sat still and said nothing, the people of the house perceived nothing. And as I sat still under it and let it alone, a living hope and a true voice arose in me, which said: "There is a living God, which made all things." Immediately the cloud and temptation vanished away, and life rose over it all; my heart was glad, and I praised the living God. After some time I met some people who had a notion that there was no God, but that all things come by nature. I had a great dispute with them, and overturned them, and made some of them confess, that there is a living God. Then I saw that it was good that I had gone through that exercise.

This incident suggests the following lines by J. G. Whittier:

Still, as of old in Beavor's Vale,

O'man of God! our hope and faith
The elements and stars assail,

And the awed spirit holds its breath,
Blown over by a wind of death.

Takes nature thought for such as we,
What place her human atom fills,
The weed-drift of her careless sea,
The mist on her unheeding hills?
What recks she of our helpless wills?

Strange god of force, with fear, not love,
Its trembling worshipper! Can prayer
Reach the shut ear of fate, or move
Unpitying energy to spare?

What doth the cosmic vastness care?

In vain to this dread unconcern

For the All-Father's love we look;

In vain, in quest of it, we turn
The storied leaves of nature's book,
The prints her rocky tablets took.

I pray for faith, I long to trust;
I listen with my heart, and hear
A Voice without a sound: "Be just,
Be true, be merciful, revere

The Word within thee: God is near!

"A light to sky and earth unknown,

Pales all their lights: a mightier force
Than theirs the powers of nature own,
And, to its goal, as at its source,
His Spirit moves the universe.

"Believe and trust. Through stars and suns,
Through all occasions and events,
His wise paternal purpose runs;
The darkness of his providence
Is star-lit with benign intents."

O joy supreme! I know the Voice
Like none besides on earth or sea;
Yea, more, O soul of mine rejoice,
By all that He requires of me,

I know what God himself must be.

No picture to my aid I call,

I shape no image in my prayer;
I only know in Him is all

Of life, light, beauty, everywhere,
Eternal Goodness here and there!

I know He is, and what He is

Whose one great purpose is the good

Of all. I rest my soul on his

Immortal love and fatherhood;

And trust Him, as his children should.

Not less that his restraining hand
Is on our selfish seekings laid,

And, shorn of words and works, we stand
Of vain illusions disarrayed,
The richer for our losses made.

I fear no more. The clouded face

Of nature smiles; through all her things

Of time and space and sense I trace
The moving of the Spirit's wings,
And hear the song of hope she sings.

During the three years, 1646, 1647 and 1648, many were convinced, and divers meetings of Friends were established. George Fox's labors at that period appear to have been chiefly in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire, in the central parts of England. The message he was constrained to deliver he thus describes:

I was sent to turn people from darkness to the light, that they might receive Christ Jesus; for to as many as should receive Him in his light, I saw He would give power to become the sons of God. I was to direct people to the Spirit that gave forth the Scriptures, by which they might be led into all Truth and up to Christ and God, as those had been who gave them forth. I was to turn them to the grace of God and to the Truth in the heart, which came by Jesus; that by this grace they might be taught, which would bring them salvation, that their hearts might be established by it, their words might be seasoned and all might come to know their salvation nigh. I saw Christ died for all men, was a propitiation for all, and enlightened all men and women with his Divine and saving light, and that none could be true believers but those who believed therein. I saw that the grace of God, which brings salvation, had appeared to all men, and that the manifestation of the Spirit of God was given to every man to profit withal.

At Nottingham, he attended a meeting in the "steeplehouse," when the priest took for his text these words of Peter:

We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day-star arise in your hearts." George Fox says: "He told the people this was the Scriptures, by which they were to try all doctrines, religions and opinions. Now the Lord's power was so mighty upon me and so strong in me, that I could not hold, but was made to cry out: 'Oh, no, it is not the Scriptures,' and told