tieth of the Ninth Month. After the meeting he went to the house of John Irwin, where, he says:

I was ill most of that night, but towards the morning the Lord encouraged me with a little help, which proved very effectual. It was by the operation of his power in my heart, by which all the pains for that time were overcome and quieted, and then I had ease and rest all that day.

About two months after that, he attended a meeting at Sunderland, appointed for James Dickinson, a minister of the Gospel. At this, he says:

I was much renewed in my strength, both of body and mind; for though I had been ill all night and had little rest, by reason of a great cough, and pain in my stomach, and so much indisposed in the morning after I arose that I could not go to meeting till about half an hour after the time; yet, within a few minutes after I was there, I found my heart bound up and surrounded with the girdle of Truth, so close and fast that the healing virtue thereof overpowered every other power in me, both of body and mind, so that I had no present sense at all of any ailing.

In 1698, on a voyage from England to America, the ship in which he sailed encountered a violent storm, so that, as his narrative relates:

All the yards were brought down on the gunnels, and the helm lashed and made fast, and the ship let drive before the wind. And we being met together in the great cabin and steerage to wait upon the Lord, as at other times, He was pleased to appear in the needful time; for the tempest increased, with thunder and lightning and rain, to that degree, that few there, if any, had ever seen the like.

And in waiting upon the Lord, I became concerned in prayer; and being in a mighty agony and wrestling in spirit with the Lord, I received hope that we should not perish; and having concluded for that time, and my concern returning, I prayed again; and then some stout hearts were broken: and the Lord's power was glorified, and we greatly comforted. For I prayed

unto the Lord, who is God of the seas as well as of the earth, and of the winds, the Creator of all things visible and invisible, that He would be pleased to send forth his word, and command the winds as of old; and that if there was any opposing spirit that stood in our way to hinder our progress, the Lord would please to drive him away. And then I was easy, having fully overcome; and my companion and some others were also greatly tendered; and as soon as I arose I took the Friends by the hands, and some others also, and in full assurance, told them the worst was over for that time; and the words were scarcely out of my mouth and I set down in the cabin, till the storm abated and the weather became moderate for some time after, and we had no more great storms after it to that degree.

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In 1698, when in Ireland, at the castle of Shannigary, which was on the estate of William Penn, he met with a gentlewoman of good sense and character," who gave him the following relation:

That she, being in the City of Cork when it was invested by king William's army, and having a little daughter of hers with her, they were sitting together on a squab; and being much. concerned in mind about the danger and circumstances they were under, she was seized with a sudden fear and a strong impulse to arise from that seat, which she did in a precipitant manner, and hasted to another part of the room, and then was in the like concern for her child, to whom she called with uncommon earnestness to come to her, which she did. Immediately after which came a cannon-ball and struck the seat all in pieces, and drove the parts of it about the room, without any hurt to either of them.

From this relation I took occasion to reason with her thus: That Intelligence which gave her notice, by fear, of the danger they were in, must be a spiritual being, having access to her mind (which is likewise of a spiritual nature) when in that state of humiliation, under those circumstances; and must also be a good and beneficent Intelligence, willing to preserve them; and furnished also with knowledge and foresight more than human. He must have known that such a piece would be fired at that time and that the ball would hit that seat, and infal

libly destroy you both, if not prevented in due time by a suitable admonition, which he suggested by the passion fear (the passions being useful when duly subjected) and by that means saved your lives. And seeing that the passions of the mind can be wrought upon for our good by an invisible, beneficent Intelligence in the mind, in a state of humiliation and stillness, without any exterior medium, is it not reasonable to conclude that an evil intelligence may have access likewise to the mind in a state of unwatchfulness, when the passions are moving and the imagination at liberty to form ideas destructive to the mind, being thereby depraved and wounded? And when so, is it not likewise reasonable to think that the Almighty himself, who is the most pure, merciful and beneficent Spirit, knowing all events and things, doth sometimes, at his pleasure, visit the minds of mankind, through Christ, as through or under a veil, so as to communicate of his goodness and virtue to an humble and silent mind, to heal and instruct him in things pleasing to himself and proper for the conduct of man in his pilgrimage through this present world, and lead him to the next in safety?

Oliver Sansom, a Friend, of England, says in his memoir: "On the twenty-fifth of this Tenth Month, 1665, as I lay in bed in the morning early, I heard, as it were, an audible voice, which said unto me: 'Take no care for thy business, for thou must go to prison for three months.' Thereupon I presently arose, and related to my family what I had so plainly heard; and we all thought that if I went to prison it would be for not paying the priest, he having so often threatened me. So I let it pass for the present, being given up in my mind to suffer, if the will of the Lord were so.

Three days after, a ministering Friend came to my house to visit me, and I desired him, if it stood with his freedom, to have a meeting there that evening, because several of my neighbors had told me that if ever there should be a meeting at my house, and they had notice of it, they would come to it. The Friend consenting, I sent my servants, both man and maid, to acquaint all my neighbors therewith, both in that town and also in a village which was near, and I bid them deliver their message thus, that if they had any desire to hear

the Truth declared, they might come to my house at such an hour that evening. There was not one family, besides the priest's, but was invited. For I thought the priest would prove a troublesome guest; and therefore neither he nor any of his family were invited. But most of my neighbors came, especially the men, and the room was full, and the Friend declared the Truth for near the space of an hour to the great satisfaction of the people."

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The priest during this time was at his home, with his family and some others, amusing himself with playing cards, but hearing of the meeting, he came with his company to break it up, and the next morning made complaint of the meeting having been held to William James, a justice of the peace. Fines of twelve pence each were imposed on those who were proved to have been present. When they came to Oliver, he says: Because I could not promise, as the others did, that I would go no more to meetings, and to confess myself guilty as an offender in that which, in the sight of God and all just men, was no offence, they fined me five pounds, or to endure three months' imprisonment, as for the first offence (as they called it) upon the act for banishment. And I, not consenting to pay the fine, was committed prisoner to the county jail at Reading for three months.

Now did I call to mind and thankfully acknowledge the goodness of the Lord unto me, in fore-showing me of this three months' imprisonment by that voice which I had heard as I lay in bed three days before.

CHAPTER IX.

MINISTRY.

There have been preserved the outlines of several of the sermons preached by George Fox, which show the general character of the doctrines proclaimed by that devoted servant of the Lord. When at Firbank-chapel, where a large audience

had collected, he directed all to the spirit of God in themselves, so that they might be turned from darkness to light, and from the power of satan, which they had been under, unto God; and come to know Christ to be their teacher to instruct them, their counsellor to direct them, their shepherd to feed them, their bishop to oversee them, and their prophet to open Divine mysteries to them. He told them "That the Lord God had sent him to preach the everlasting Gospel and word of life amongst them; and to bring them off from all those temples, tithes, priests and rudiments of the world, which were gotten up since the apostles' days."

In his preface to George Fox's Journal, William Penn says that our early Friends directed people "To the Light of Jesus Christ within them, as the seed and leaven of the kingdom of God; near all, because in all, and God's talent to all." They taught that without the secret Divine power of Christ there is no quickening and regenerating of dead souls. Such was their dependence on this power, that they taught that in Him no true worship could be performed without its assistance; hence, in their assemblies they exhorted all to wait on the Lord in silence for the experience of this power, and without this arising they believed that no one ought to attempt the exercise of Gospel ministry.

One of the early openings made on the mind of George Fox, he thus relates: "As I was walking in a field on a First-day morning, the Lord opened unto me that being bred at Oxford or Cambridge was not enough to fit and qualify men to be ministers of Christ-and I wondered at it, because it was the common belief of people." In another place he remarks that:

In the old covenant and testament there was but one tribe of twelve that was made a priesthood, and they were to have no lot or portion in the land, but tithes and offerings were