Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-03-13
QUAKER GIRL SAW SULTAN.
Failed to Convert Him, But Gave
message From God"

| peared one day before the royal en-
| campment demanding speech with the
| Grand Turk about the things Of her
religion.
The account of her journey reads
| like page from the Arabian
Nights" and is worthy of a place in
history beside that of the young Sara
cen who found her way To her beloved
across the breadth of Europe with the
two words Gilbert and London
for her passport But it is doubtful
whether this seventeenth-cen pill
grim possessed so much as two words
of any foreign tongue. The mysti-
cism which was so pronounced an eie-
ment of her religion made nought Of
material obstacles. She was sus-
tanned by some such vision as that
which confronted the Quaker preach
er in NeWgate iail-a vision of "seV-
eral men. of most nations upon the
earth, whose (ontward) language |
understand not but the seed Of God in
them saw and understood clearly
breathing and crying TO the
Lord" Again, however dreadful was
the report of Turkish cruelty which
was current in England. ii was not
likely 10 exceed the cruelty which
Mary had endured at the hands of her
own countrymen. Although not yet
thirty five years of age, she had had
long and varied acquaintance with the
insides of English prisons. While
still a young girl in service at Selby,
her determined Interruptions of the
service in the "Steeple- house" had
earned her three periods of imprison-
ment in York Castle, and she was the
first of the Friends to endure the
punishment of public flogging, the re-
suit of her denuneiation of the Cam
bridge scholars. In 1856 she had at
tempted 70 carry the Gospel into New
England. but was not even allowed
the privilege of landing in Boston. By
order of the Deputy Governor she and
her companions were stripped and
searched for signs of witchcraft, and
after lying in prison for five weeks,
half starved and unable to communi-
cate with their friends, they were
shipped back whence they came. Mary
may well have preferred the tender
mercies of the Turk to those of her
own kindred.
She was not without precedent for
her journey, although up to this date
no Quaker missionary had succeeded
in reaching the capital of Turkey, be-
ing invariably intercepted along the
route and sent home by an English
Consuls or Ambassador. The mission
which set out from England in 1857
TO convert the Grand Signior" con-
sisted of three men, all of them Irish
and three women, of whom Mary
Fisher was one. and. according to con-
temporary accounts, the only one who
reached the goal of their journey.
They started with the help of the
newly formed General Quaker Fund
for the Service of Truth Abroad,
which contains items for this year I'M
der the head of Turkey to the
amount of Git 5s. I'd. At Zante,
which they reached by way of Leg
horn. the first separation occurres.
and Mary Fisher, still accompanied by
her two women friends and by one of
the men, pushed on to Smyrna. The
remaining two men. Perrot and Lutte,
after travelling to and fro In Italy and
interviewing the Doge of Venice, were
betrayed in Rome into the hands of
the Inquisition. The fate of the un-
fortunate Lutte was for some time in
doubt-he was reported at the end of
the year to have died in prison as the
result of his refusal to take food, the
hunger strike being one of the many
early practices of the religious world
which have been revived of later
years. The truth, however, leaked
Perrots captivity lasted two or three
years longer-first in the prison and lat
terly in madhouse When at last his
release came his shattered mind had re-
volted from the doctrines for which he
had suffered so cruelty. and he became
the leader of the first serious schism
which took place among the Quakers.
The cruelty of William PENIS summing
up of his history is only equalled by it's
quaintness-'John Jerrot, who If he had
been as faithful as his companion might
with him have been hanged at Rome-to
the Church's peace"
Meanwhile Mary Fisher had learnt. on
arriving at Smyrna, that the Sultan was
to be found at Adrianople. and thther
she resolved to pursue her journey. But
the English Consul, having tried in vain
TO dissuade her from an enterprise which
seemed to him both mad and dangerous,
put her on board ship bound for Venice
When she learned the destination to
which she was being carried, Mary per-
suaded the ship-master to set her down
upon the nearest coast. From this point
there is no further word of any compan-
ion, and it seems certain that it was
alone and on foot that she performed
the land journey of 500 or 800 miles along
the sea coast of the Morea, Greece and
Macedonia, and so across the mountains
of Thrace to the broad plain where
Adranople lies, watered by the River
Maritsa Here the Sultan was encamped
with his army and the whole of his vast
retinue of courtiers and attendants. 1t
was only after many attempts that Mary
found a friend bold enough to speak for
her to the Grand Vizier and tell him that
"a woman was come who had something
to declare from the Great God to the Sui
tan" Ahmed Pasha belonged to an Al
bantam family who for two generations
supplied a Grand Vizier to Turkey, and
by the magnificent gift of organization
and their genius for government Nigh,
i hn liz tN tha