The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-01-02 00:00:00

no hu

liiianyo

from those rbeto-

ries) expressions

e duty of pa.tien

ander iniu

ries is enjoined, he deduced the &trine that "self
against pirates and assassins is unlawful. On the other
hand, the plain commands to baptize with water, and to
partake Qf tread And wine in commemoration of the
redemption of mankind, he pronounced to be allegorical. He
long wandered from place to place, teaching this strange
theology, shaking like an aspen leaf in :his paroxysm of
fanatical excitement, forcing lljS way into churches, which
he nicknamed steeple houses, interrupting prayers and ser-
mons with clamour and scurrility, and pestering rectors and
justices with episiles much resembling burlesques of those
sablime odes in which the Hebrew prophets foretold the
calamities of Babylon "and Tyre. He soon aequired
great notoriety by these feats. His strange face his
straneT!chant, hiS immovable hat, and his leather breeches,
were known all over the country ; and he boasts that, as
soon as the rumour was heard, " The man in leather
breeches is corning,'3 terror seized hypocritical professors,
and hireling priests made haste to get out of the way. He
was repeatedly imprisoned and set in the stocks, some-
times justly, for disturbing the public worship of congre-
gations'; and sometimes unjustly, for merely talking non-
sense. Ho soon gathered round him a body of disciples,
some of whom went beyond himself in absurdity. He
has told us that one of his friends walked naked through
Skiptong declaring the truth, and that another
was divinely moved to go naked during several years to
market-places, and to the houses of the gentlemen and
clergymen. Fox complains bitterly that these pious acts,
prompted by the Holy Spirit, were requited, by an un,
toward generation, with hooting, peltiee, coachvvhipping,
and horsewhipping. But though he applauded the zeal
of the sufferers, he did not go quite to their lengths.
He sometimes, indeed, was impelled to strip himself
partially. Thui he pulled off his shoes and walked
barefoot through Lichfield, crying, " Woe to the bloody
city." But it does not appear the*, he ever thought
it his duty to appear before the public without that
decent garment from which his popular appellation
was derived. If we forrri our judgment of George Fox
simply by looking at his own actions and writings, we
shall see no reason for placing him, morally and intellec-
tually' above Luvowick Muggleton or Johanna, Southeote.
But it would be most unjust to rank the sect which re-
gards him as its founder with the Muggletonians or the
Southcotians. It charmed that aroonfr the thm,..na.

whom his enthusiasm infected were a feii persons whose
abilities and attainments were of a very different order
from his own. Robt. Barclay was a man of considerablc
parts and learning. Wm. Ponn, though inferior to Bare
in both natural and acqpired abilities, was a gent!
and a scholar. That such men should have, becom€
the, followers of George Fox ought not to astonish
any person who remembers
highly cultivated intellects

4 what, quick, vigorous,
are in our time duped by
ne truth is; that no powers of
Igainst errors of this description.
.d way with an, highest
faculties can diseover littles more tmhanthe the means tl. In
thealop.,y the interval is small indeed between Aristotle and
a child, between Archimedes and a naked savage. It is not
strange, therefore, that wise men, weary of investigation,
tormented by uncertainty, longing to believe something,
and yet seeing objections to every thing, should submit.
themselves absolutely to teachers who, with firm and
undoubting faith, lay claim to a supernatural commission.
Thus we frequently see inquisitive and restless spirits
take refuge from their own scepticism in the bosom of a
church which pretends to infallibility, and after question-
ing the existence of a Deity, bring themselves to worship
a wafer.- And thus it was that Fox made some converts to
whom he was immeasurably inferior in everything except
the energy of his convictions. By these converts his rude
doctrines were polished into a form somewhat less shocking
to good sense and good taste. No proposition which he
had laid down was retracted, No indecent act which he
had:done, or approved, was condemned ; but what was
most grossly absurd in his theories and pranti'--

the unknown tom

mind constitut

ecurity a

Touching God and II

softened down

at least not 014

whateve

mla be

fairest light ; his gil

d into Er

e been quite unable to
les ; and his system, so

improved thati
fended by flume'

1, was d

ous eitz

from?

however, fix__ _,
to profess,and doubtless to feel, profound r
and his crazy epistles were to the last re _ ___ ____
idllt-fields.
e. Several
with respect 'n Quaker meetings all Over the country.
death produced a sensation which was not confined to lus
own diseiplea. On the 'morning of the funeral a great
multitude assembled round the meeting-house in Grace-
church-street. Thence the corpse was borne to the
fiunllhe
orators
sgardodurneds
addressed
the
ee
csreocwtdnweahrichß,
met ery.—
Macaulay's History.

ho had remodelled his