A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 1 | Page 5

Inn, where he argued with priests and
professors of all sorts. Departing from thence, he took up his abode for
some time in the vale of Beevor, where he preached Repentance, and
convinced many. He then returned into Nottinghamshire, and passed
from thence into Derbyshire, in both which counties his doctrines
spread. And, after this, warning Justices of the Peace, as he travelled
along, to do justice, and notoriously wicked men to amend their lives,
he came into the vale of Beevor again. In this vale it was that he
received, according to his own account, his commission from divine
authority, by means of impressions on his mind, in consequence of
which he conceived it to be discovered to him, among other things, that
he was "to turn the people from darkness to the light." By this time he
had converted many hundreds to his opinions, and divers meetings of
Friends, to use his own expression, "had been then gathered."
The year 1649 was ushered in by new labours. He was employed
occasionally in writing to judges and justices to do justice, and in
warning persons to fulfil the duties of their respective stations in life.

This year was the first of all his years of suffering. For it happened on a
Sunday morning, that, coming in sight of the town of Nottingham, and
seeing the great church, he felt an impression on his mind to go there.
On hearing a part of the sermon, he was so struck with what he
supposed to be the erroneous doctrine it contained, that he could not
help publicly contradicting it. For this interruption of the service he was
seized, and afterwards confined in prison. At Mansfield again, as he
was declaring his own religious opinions in the church, the people fell
upon him and beat and bruised him, and put him afterwards in the
stocks. At Market Bosworth he was stoned and driven out of the place.
At Chesterfield he addressed both the clergyman and the people, but
they carried him before the mayor, who detained him till late at night,
at which unseasonable time the officers and watchmen put him out of
the town.
And here I would observe, before I proceed to the occurrences of
another year, that there is reason to believe that George Fox
disapproved of his own conduct in having interrupted the service of the
church at Nottingham, which I have stated to have been the first
occasion of his imprisonment. For if he believed any one of his actions,
with which the world had been offended, to have been right, he
repeated it, as circumstances called it forth, though he was sure of
suffering for it either from the magistrates or the people. But he never
repeated this, but he always afterwards, when any occasion of religious
controversy occurred in any of the churches, where his travels lay,
uniformly suspended his observations, till the service was over.
George Fox spent almost the whole of the next year, that is, of the year
1650, in confinement in Derby Prison.
In 1651, when he was set at liberty, he seems not to have been in the
least disheartened by the treatment he had received there, or at the
different places before mentioned, but to have resumed his travels, and
to have held religious meetings, as he went along. He had even the
boldness to go into Litchfield, because he imagined it to be his duty,
and, with his shoes off to pronounce with an audible voice in the streets,
and this on the market-day, a woe against that city. He continued also
to visit the churches, as he journeyed, in the time of divine service, and
to address the priests and the people publicly, as he saw occasion, but
not, as I observed before, till he believed the service to be over. It does

not appear, however, that he suffered any interruption upon these
occasions, in the course of the present year, except at York-Minster;
where, as he was beginning to preach after the sermon, he was hurried
out of it, and thrown down the steps by the congregation, which was
then breaking up. It appears that he had been generally well received in
the county of York, and that he had convinced many.
In the year 1652, after having passed through the shires of Nottingham
and Lincoln, he came again into Yorkshire. Here, in the course of his
journey, he ascended Pendle-Hill. At the top of this he apprehended it
was opened to him, whither he was to direct his future steps, and that
he saw a great host of people, who were to be converted by him in the
course of his ministry. From this time we may consider him as having
received his commission full and complete