Chapter 12

'He went on to Dalton, Aldingham, Dendron and Ramside chapels and steeple-houses, and several places up and down, and the people followed him mightily; and abundance were convinced and saw that that which he spoke was the truth, but the priests were in a rage. And about two weeks after James Nayler and Richard Farnsworth followed him and enquired him out, till they came to Swarthmoor, and there stayed awhile with me at our house, and did me much good; for I was under great heaviness and judgment. But the power of the Lord entered upon me within about two weeks that he came, and about three weeks end my husband came home; and many were in a mighty rage, and a deal of the captains and great ones of the country went to meet my then husband as he was coming home, and informed him "that a great disaster was befallen amongst his family, and that they were witches; and that they had taken us away out of our religion; and that he must either set them away, or all the country would be undone."'

'So my husband came home, greatly offended; and any may think what a condition I was like to be in, that either I must displease my husband or offend God; for he was very much troubled with us all in the house and family, they had so prepossessed him against us. But James Nayler and Richard Farnsworth were both then at our house, and I desired them both to come and speak to him, and so they did very moderately and wisely; but he was at first displeased with them until they told him "they came in love and goodwill to his house." And after that he had heard them speak awhile, he was better satisfied, and they offered as if they would go away; but I desired them to stay and not go away yet, for George Fox will come this evening. And I would have had my husband to have heard them all, and satisfied himself further about them, because they [_i.e._ the neighbours] had so prepossessed him against them of such dangerous fearful things in his first coming home. And then he was pretty moderate and quiet, and his dinner being ready he went to it, and I went in, and sate me down by him. And whilst I was sitting, the power of the Lord seized upon me, and he was struck with amazement, and knew not what to think; but was quiet and still. And the children were all quiet and still, and grown sober, and could not play on their musick that they were learning; and all these things made him quiet and still.'

'At night George Fox came: and after supper my husband was sitting in the parlour, and I asked him, "if George Fox might come in?" And he said, "Yes." So George came in without any compliment, and walked into the room, and began to speak presently; and the family, and James Nayler, and Richard Farnsworth came all in; and he spoke very excellently as ever I heard him, and opened Christ's and the apostles' practices, which they were in, in their day. And he opened the night of apostacy since the apostles' days, and laid open the priests and their practices in the apostacy that if all England had been there, I thought they could not have denied the truth of these things. And so my husband came to see clearly the truth of what he spoke, and was very quiet that night, said no more and went to bed. The next morning came Lampitt, priest of Ulverston, and got my husband in the garden, and spoke much to him there, but my husband had seen so much the night before, that the priest got little entrance upon him.... After awhile the priest went away; this was on the sixth day of the week, about the fifth month (July) 1652. And at our house divers Friends were speaking to one another, how there were several convinced hereaways and we could not tell where to get a meeting: my husband being also present, he overheard and said of his own accord, "You may meet here, if you will:" and that was the first meeting that we had that he offered of his own accord. And then notice was given that day and the next to Friends, and there was a good large meeting the first day, which was the first meeting that was at Swarthmoor, and so continued there a meeting from 1652 till 1690 [when the present Meeting-house, given by George Fox, was built]. And my husband went that day to the steeple-house, and none with him but his clerk and his groom that rid with him; and the priest and the people were all fearfully troubled; but praised be the Lord, they never got their wills upon us to this day.'

George Fox in his Journal also records his first eventful interview with Judge Fell as follows:

'I found that the priests and professors and Justice Sawrey had much incensed Judge Fell against the truth with their lies; but when I came to speak with him I answered all his objections, and so thoroughly satisfied him by the scriptures that he was convinced in his judgment. He asked me "if I was that George Fox whom Justice Robinson spoke so much in commendation of among many of the parliament men?" I told him I had been with Justice Robinson and Justice Hotham, in Yorkshire, who were very civil and loving to me. After we had discoursed a pretty while together, Judge Fell himself was satisfied also, and came to see, by the openings of the spirit of God in his heart, over all the priests and teachers of the world, and did not go to hear them for some years before he died. He sometimes wished I was awhile with Judge Bradshaw to discourse with him.'

This was Judge Bradshaw the regicide, and, coming as it did from such a friend of Cromwell's as Judge Fell, the remark was probably a high compliment.

The following year, 1653, George Fox came again to Swarthmoor, where he says he had 'great openings from the Lord, not only of divine and spiritual matters, but also of outward things relating to the civil government. Being one day in Swarthmoor Hall when Judge Fell and Justice Benson were talking of the news in the newsbook, and of the Parliament then sitting, (called the long Parliament) I was moved to tell them, "before that day two weeks the Parliament should be broken up, and the speaker plucked out of his chair"; and that day two weeks Justice Benson told Judge Fell that now he saw that George was a true prophet, for Oliver had broken up the parliament.' Although Judge Fell never actually joined Friends he was their constant protector and helper, and, in the words of Fox, 'A wall to the believers.' If he did not himself attend the meetings in the great Hall at Swarthmoor, he was wont to leave the door open as he sat in his Justice's chair in his little oak-panelled study close at hand, and thus hear all that was said, himself unseen. How entirely his wife had regained his confidence, and how entirely Lampitt and Sawrey had failed to poison his mind against her or her new teacher, is shown by the following letter written about this time, when the Judge was away on one of his frequent absences. It is the only letter to Judge Fell from his wife that has been preserved, but it is ample assurance that no shadow had dimmed the unclouded love of this devoted husband and wife.

'Dear Husband,' Margaret writes, 'My dear love and tender desires to the Lord run forth for thee. I have received a letter this day from you, and am very glad that the Lord carried you on your journey so prosperously.... Dear Heart, mind the Lord above all, with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning, and who will overturn all powers that stand before Him.... We sent to my dear brother James Nayler and he is kept very close and cannot be suffered to have any fire. He is not free to eat of the jailor's meat, so they eat very little but bread and water. He writ to us that they are plotting again to get more false witnesses to swear against him things that he never spoke. I sent him 2 lb., but he took but 5 [shillings?]. They are mighty violent in Westmorland and all parts everywhere towards us. They bid 5 lb. to any man that will take George anywhere that they can find him within Westmorland.... The children are all in health, praised be the Lord. George is not with us now, but he remembered his dear love to thee....

'Thy dutiful wife till death, MARGARET FELL.'

'Swarthmoor, Feb. 18, 1653.'

But whether Margaret Fell ever entirely forgave Justice Sawrey for the part he had played in trying to alienate her husband from her, is, to say the least, doubtful. Anyhow, later on she wrote of him as 'a catterpillar which shall be swept out of the way.' And 'swept out of the way' he eventually was, some years later, when it is recorded that 'he was drowned in a puddle upon the road coming from York.' But he was to have time and opportunity to do much harm to Friends, and especially to George Fox, before that happened, as the next two stories will show.

XII. 'STRIKE AGAIN!'

_'Ulverston consisted of thatched one storied houses, many old shops, gabled buildings standing out towards the street on pillars beneath which neighbours sheltered and gossipped. On market days these projections were filled with goods to tempt gentry and yeomanry to open their purse-strings.'--From 'Home Life in North Lonsdale.'_

_'By the year 1654 "the man with the leather breeches" as he was called, had become a celebrity throughout England, with scattered converts and adherents everywhere, but voted a pest and a terror by the public authorities, the regular steeple-house clergy, whether Presbyterian or Independent, and the appointed preachers of all the old sects.'--D. MASSON._

_'For in those days the high and proud professors and persecutors were generally bitterly set against the people called Quakers, when Presbytery and Independency swimmed and floated in possession, and with their long Lectures against us cried out, "These are the Antichrists come in the last times"'--G. WHITEHEAD._

_'For in all things he acquitted himself like a man, yea, a strong man, a new and heavenly-minded man.'--W. PENN of George Fox._

XII. 'STRIKE AGAIN!'

'Love, Wisdom, and Patience will overcome all that is not of God.'--G. FOX.

By the side of even a low mountain the tallest tower looks small. The fells that shelter the old market town of Ulverston from northerly winds are not lofty compared with the range of giants that lies behind them in the distance, Coniston Old Man, Sca Fell, Skiddaw, Helvellyn, and their brethren. But the fells are high enough to make the tall old Church tower of Ulverston look small and toy-like as it rises under their shadow above the thatched roofs of the old town.

Swarthmoor Hall stands on a level plateau on the other side of Ulverston; and it was from Swarthmoor Hall, through a wooded glen by the side of the stream, that George Fox came down to Ulverston Church, one 'Lecture Day' at the end of September 1652.

On a 'Lecture Day' a sermon lasting for several hours was delivered by an appointed teacher; and when that was finished, anyone who had listened to it was free to rise and deliver a message in his turn if he wished to do so. In those days, as there were no clocks or watches in churches, the length of the sermon was measured by turning an hour-glass, until all the sand had run out, a certain number of times. Children, and perhaps grown-up people too, must often have watched the sand with longing eyes when a sermon of several hours' length was in process. On this particular day, Priest Lampitt was the appointed preacher. Lampitt had never forgiven Fox for having persuaded so many of his hearers, and especially the important ladies of Swarthmoor, to forsake their Parish Church, and assemble for their own service at home. His feelings may be imagined, therefore, when, his own sermon ended, he saw George Fox get up and begin to preach in his turn.

George Fox says, 'On a Lecture Day I was moved to go to Ulverston steeple-house, where there was an abundance of professors and priests,[12] and people. And I went up near to Lampitt who was blustering on in his preaching, and the Lord opened my mouth to speak.'

Now among the 'abundance of people' who were present in the Church was that same Mr. Justice Sawrey, 'the Catterpillar,' of whom the last two stories tell. As soon as George Fox opened his mouth and began to preach, up bustled the Justice to him, with a patronising air, and said, 'Now, my good fellow, you may have my permission to speak in this Church, so long as you speak according to the Scriptures.'

Like lightning, George Fox turned round on the high step where he was standing near to Priest Lampitt, and saw at his elbow the little pompous Justice, his face flushed, full of fussiness about his own dignity and anxious to arrange everything according to his own ideas.

George Fox, who felt he had a message from God to deliver, had no intention of being interrupted by any man in this way.

'I stranged at him,' says Fox, 'for speaking so to me!'

'Stranged' is an unfamiliar word, no longer used in modern English. It sounds as if it meant something very fierce, and calls up a picture of George Fox glaring at his antagonist or trying to shout him down. In reality it only means that Fox was astonished at his strange behaviour.

'I stranged at him and told him that I would speak according to the Scriptures, and bring the Scriptures to prove what I had to say, for I had something to say to Lampitt and to them.' 'You shall do nothing of the kind,' said Mr. Justice Sawrey, contradicting his own words of the moment before, that Fox might speak so long as he spoke according to the Scriptures.

Fox paid no attention to this injunction, but went on calmly with his sermon. At first the congregation listened quietly. But Fox had made a new enemy and a powerful one. The little Justice would not be ignored in this way. He whispered to one and another in the congregation, 'Don't listen to this fellow. Why should he air his notions in our fine Church? Beat him! Stop his mouth! Duck him in the pond! Teach him that the men of Ulverston are sensible fellows, and not to be led astray by a ranting Quaker!'

These suggestions had their effect. Possibly the congregation agreed with the speaker. Possibly also, they knew that the little Justice, though short of stature, was of long memory and an ill man to offend. Moreover, a magistrate's favour is a useful thing to have at all times. Perhaps if they hunted Mr. Justice Sawrey's quarry for him in the daytime, he would be more likely to turn a blind eye the next moonlight night that they were minded to go out snaring other game, with fur and feathers, in the Justice's own park! Anyhow, faces began to grow threatening as the Quaker's discourse proceeded. Presently loud voices were raised. Still the calm tones flowed on unheeding. At length, clenched fists were raised; and, at the sight, the smile on the Justice's face visibly broadened. Nodding his head emphatically, he seemed to be saying, 'On, men, on!' till at length, like sparks fanned by a bellows, the congregation's ill-humour suddenly burst into a flame of rage. When at length rough hands fell upon the Quaker's shoulders and set all his alchemy buttons a-jingling, Mr. Justice Sawrey leaned against the back of his high wooden pew, crossed his legs complacently, and laughed long and loud at the joke. The crowd took this as a sign that they might do as they chose. They fell upon Fox, knocked him down, and finally trampled upon him, under the Justice's own eyes. The uproar became so great that the quieter members of the congregation were terrified, 'and the people fell over their seats for fear.'

At length the Justice bethought himself that such behaviour as this in a church was quite illegal, since a man had been sentenced, before now, to lose his hand as a punishment for even striking his neighbour within consecrated walls. He began to feel uneasily that even the excellent sport of Quaker-baiting might be carried too far inside the Church. He came forward, therefore, and without difficulty rescued George Fox from the hands of his tormentors. But he had not finished with the Quaker yet. Leading him outside the Church, he there formally handed him over to the constables, saying, 'Take the fellow. Thrash him soundly and turn him out of the town,' adding, perhaps, under his breath, 'and teach him to behave with greater respect hereafter to a Justice of the Peace!'

George Fox describes in his own words what happened next. 'They led me,' says the Journal, 'about a quarter of a mile, some taking hold of my collar, and some by the arms and shoulders, and shook and dragged me, and some got hedge-stakes and holme bushes and other staffs. And many friendly people that was come to the market, and had come into the steeple-house to hear me, many of them they knocked down and broke their heads also, and the blood ran down several people so as I never saw the like in my life, as I looked at them when they were dragging me along. And Judge Fell's son, running after me to see what they would do to me, they threw him into a ditch of water and cried, "Knock the teeth out of his head!"'

Once well away from the town, apparently, the constables were content to let their prisoner go, knowing that they might trust their fellow-townsmen to finish the job with right good will. The mob yelled with joy to find their prey in their hands at last. With one accord they fell upon Fox, and endeavoured to pull him down, much as, at the huntsman's signal, a pack of hounds sets upon his four-footed namesake with a bushy tail. The constables and officers, too, continued to assist. Giving him some final blows with willow-rods they thrust Fox 'amid the rude multitude, and they then fell upon me as aforesaid with their stakes and clubs and beat me on the head and arms and shoulders, until at last,' their victim says, 'they mazed me, and I fell down upon the wet common.'

The crowd had won! George Fox was down at last! He lay, bruised and fainting, on the wet moss of the common on the far side of the town. Yes, there he lay for a few moments, stunned, bruised, bleeding, beaten nigh to death. Only for a few moments, no longer. Very soon his consciousness returned. Finding himself helpless on the watery common with the savage mob glowering over him, he says, 'I lay a little still without attempting to rise. Then suddenly the power of the Lord sprang through me, and the eternal refreshings revived me, so that I stood up again in the eternal power of God, and stretched out my arms among them all and said with a loud voice: "Strike again! Here are my arms, my head, my cheeks!"'

Whatever would he do next? What sort of a man was this? The rough fellows in the circle around him insensibly drew back a little, and looked in each other's faces with surprise, as they tried to read the riddle of this disconcerting behaviour. The Quaker would not show fight! He was actually giving them leave to set upon him and beat him again! All in a minute, what had hitherto seemed like rare sport began to be rather poor fun.

'There's no sense in thrashing a man who doesn't strike back! Better leave the fellow alone!' some of the more decent-minded whispered to each other in undertones, and then slunk away ashamed. Only one man, a mason, well known as the bully of the town, knew no shame.

'Strike again, sayest thou, Quaker?' he thundered. 'Hast had none but soft blows hitherto? Faith then, I will strike in good earnest this time.' So saying, the mason brought a thick wooden rule that he was carrying down on the outstretched hand before him, with a savage blow that might have felled an ox. After the first shock of agonising pain George Fox lost all feeling from his finger-tips right up to his shoulder. When he tried to draw the wounded hand back to his side he could not do it. The paralysed nerves refused to carry the message of the brain.

'The mason hath made a good job of it this time,' jeered a mocking voice from the crowd. 'The Quaker hath lost the use of his right hand for ever.' For ever! Terrible words. George Fox was but a young man still. Was he indeed to go through life maimed, without the use of his right hand? The bravest man might have shrunk from such a prospect; but George Fox did not shrink, because he did not happen to be thinking of himself at all. His hand was not his own. Not it alone but his whole body also had been given, long ago, to the service of his Master. They belonged to Him. Therefore if that Master should need the right hand of His servant to be used in His service, His Power could be trusted to make it whole.

Thus Fox trusted, and not in vain; since all the while, no thoughts of vengeance or hatred to those who had injured him were able to find even a moment's lodging in his heart.

'So as the people cried out, "he hath spoiled his hand for ever having any use of it more," I LOOKED AT IT IN THE LOVE OF GOD AND I WAS IN THE LOVE OF GOD TO ALL THEM THAT HAD PERSECUTED ME. AND AFTER A WHILE THE LORD'S POWER SPRANG THROUGH MY HAND AND ARM AND THROUGH ME, THAT IN A MINUTE I RECOVERED MY HAND AND ARM AND STRENGTH IN THE FACE AND SIGHT OF THEM ALL.'

This miracle, as it seemed to them, overawed the rough mob for a moment. But some of the greedier spirits saw a chance of making a good thing out of the afternoon's work for themselves. They came to Fox and said if he would give them some money they would defend him from the others, and he should go free. But Fox would not hear of such a thing. He 'was moved of the Lord to declare unto them the word of life, and how they were more like Jews and heathens and not like Christians.'

Thus, instead of thankfully slinking away and disappearing up the hill by a by-path to the friendly shelter of Swarthmoor, Fox strode boldly back into the centre of the town of Ulverston with his persecutors, like a crowd of whipped dogs, following him at his heels. Yet still they snarled and showed their teeth at times, as if to say, they would have him yet if they dared. Right into Ulverston market-place he came, and a stranger sight the old grey town, with its thatched roofs and timbered houses, had surely never seen. In the middle of the market-place the one other courageous man in the town came up to him. This was a soldier, carrying a sword.

'Sir,' said this gallant gentleman, as he met the bruised and bleeding Quaker, 'I am ashamed that you, a stranger, should have been thus ill-treated and abused, FOR YOU ARE A MAN, SIR,' said he. Fox nodded, and a smile like wintry sunshine stole over his worn face. Silently he held out his hand. The soldier grasped it. 'In truth, I am grieved,' he repeated, 'grieved and ashamed that you should have been treated like this at Ulverston. Gladly will I assist you myself as far as I can against these cowards, who are not ashamed to set upon an unarmed man, forty to one, and drag him down.'

'No matter for that, Friend,' said Fox, 'they have no power to harm me, for the Lord's power is over all.' With these words he turned and crossed the crowded market-place again, on his way to leave the town, and not one of the people dared to touch him.

But, as everyone prefers both to be defended himself and to defend others with those weapons in which he himself puts most trust, the soldier very naturally followed Fox, in case 'the Lord's power' might also need the assistance of his trusty sword.