A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 1 | Page 7

confuted many of the professors of religion in public disputations.
He had converted magistrates, priests, and people. Of the clergymen of
those times some had left valuable livings, and followed him. In his
thirtieth year he had seen no less than sixty persons, spreading, as
ministers, his own doctrines. These, and other circumstances which
might be related, would doubtless operate powerfully upon him to
make him believe, that he was a chosen vessel. Now, if to these
considerations it be added, that George Fox was not engaged in any
particular or partial cause of benevolence, or mercy, or justice, but
wholly and exclusively in a religious and spiritual work, and that it was
the first of all his religious doctrines, that the spirit of God, _where men
were obedient to it, guided them in their spiritual concerns_, he must
have believed himself, on the consideration of his unparalleled success,
to have been providentially led, or to have had an internal or spiritual
commission for the cause, which he had undertaken.
But this belief was not confined to himself. His followers believed in
his commission also. They had seen, like himself, the extraordinary
success of his ministry. They acknowledged the same internal
admonitions, or revelations of the same spirit, in spiritual concerns.
They had been witnesses of his innocent and blameless life. There were
individuals in the kingdom, who had publicly professed sights and
prophecies concerning him. At an early age he had been reported, in
some parts of the country, as a youth, who had a discerning spirit. It
had gone abroad, that he had healed many persons, who had been sick
of various diseases. Some of his prophecies had come true in the
lifetime of those, who had heard them delivered. His followers too had
seen many, who had come purposely to molest and apprehend him,
depart quietly, as if their anger and their power had been providentially

broken. They had seen others, who had been his chief persecutors,
either falling into misfortunes, or dying a miserable or an untimely
death. They had seen him frequently cast into prison, but always
getting out again by means of his innocence. From these causes the
belief was universal among them, that his commission was of divine
authority; and they looked upon him therefore in no other light, than
that of a teacher, who had been sent to them from heaven.
George Fox was in his person above the ordinary size. He is described
by William Penn as a "lusty person." He was graceful in his
countenance. His eye was particularly piercing, so that some of those,
who were disputing with him, were unable to bear it. He was, in short,
manly, dignified, and commanding in his aspect and appearance.
In his manner of living he was temperate. He ate sparingly. He avoided,
except medicinally, all strong drink.
Notwithstanding the great exercise he was accustomed to take, he
allowed himself but little sleep.
In his outward demeanour he was modest, and without affectation. He
possessed a certain gravity of manners, but he was nevertheless affable,
and courteous, and civil beyond the usual forms of breeding.
In his disposition he was meek, and tender, and compassionate. He was
kind to the poor, without any exception, and, in his own society, laid
the foundation of that attention towards them, which the world remarks
as an honour to the Quaker-character at the present day. But the poor
were not the only persons, for whom, he manifested an affectionate
concern. He felt and sympathized wherever humanity could be
interested. He wrote to the judges on the subject of capital punishments,
warning them not to take away the lives of persons for theft. On the
coast of Cornwall he was deeply distressed at finding the inhabitants,
more intent upon plundering the wrecks of vessels that were driven
upon their shores, than upon saving the poor and miserable mariners,
who were clinging to them; and he bore his public testimony against
this practice, by sending letters to all the clergymen and magistrates in
the parishes, bordering upon the sea, and reproving them for their
unchristian conduct In the West-Indies also he exhorted those, who
attended his meetings to be merciful to their slaves, and to give them
their freedom in due time. He considered these as belonging to their
families, and that religious instruction was due to these, as the branches

of them, for whom one day or other they would be required to give a
solemn account. Happy had it been, if these christian exhortations had
been attended to, or if those families only, whom he thus seriously
addressed, had continued to be true Quakers; for they would have set an
example, which would have proved to the rest of the islanders, and the
world at large, that the