A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 1 | Page 8

impolicy is not less than the wickedness of
oppression. Thus was George Fox probably the first person, who
publicly declared against this species of slavery. Nothing in short, that
could be deplored by humanity, seems to have escaped his eye; and his
benevolence, when excited, appears to have suffered no interruption in
its progress by the obstacles, which bigotry would have thrown in the
way of many, on account of the difference of a persons country, or of
his colour, or of his sect.
He was patient under his own sufferings. To those, who smote his right
cheek, he offered his left; and, in the true spirit of christianity, he
indulged no rancour against the worst of his oppressors. He made use
occasionally of a rough expression towards them; but he would never
have hurt any of them, if he had had them in his power.
He possessed the most undaunted courage; for he was afraid of no
earthly power. He was never deterred from going to meetings for
worship, though he knew the officers would be there, who were to seize
his person. In his personal conversations with Oliver Cromwell, or in
his letters to him as protector, or in his letters to the parliament, or to
king Charles the second, or to any other personage, he discovered his
usual boldness of character, and never lost, by means of any degrading
flattery, his dignity as a man.
But his perseverance was equal to his courage; for he was no sooner out
of gaol, than he repeated the very acts, believing them to be right, for
which he had been confined. When he was forced also out of the
meeting-houses by the officers of justice, he preached at the very doors.
In short, he was never hindered but by sickness, or imprisonments,
from persevering in his religious pursuits.
With respect to his word, he was known to have held it so sacred, that
the judges frequently dismissed him without bail, on his bare promise
that he would be forth coming on a given day. On these occasions, he
used always to qualify his promise by the expression, _"if the Lord
permit."_

Of the integrity of his own character, as a christian, he was so
scrupulously tenacious, that, when he might have been sometimes set at
liberty by making trifling acknowledgements, he would make none,
least it should imply a conviction, that he had been confined for that
which was wrong; and, at one time in particular, king Charles the
second was so touched with the hardship of his case, that he offered to
discharge him from prison by a pardon. But George Fox declined it on
the idea, that, as pardon implied guilt, his innocence would be called in
question by his acceptance of it. The king, however, replied, that "he
need not scruple being released by a pardon, for many a man who was
as innocent as a child, had had a pardon granted him." But still he chose
to decline it. And he lay in gaol, till, upon a trial of the errors in his
indictment, he was discharged in an honourable way.
As a minister of the gospel, he was singularly eminent. He had a
wonderful gift in expounding the scriptures. He was particularly
impressive in his preaching; but he excelled most in prayer.
Here it was, that he is described by William Penn, as possessing the
most awful and reverend frame he ever beheld. His presence, says the
same author, expressed "a religious majesty." That there must have
been something more than usually striking either in his manner, or in
his language, or in his arguments, or in all of them combined, or that he
spoke "in the demonstration of the spirit and with power," we are
warranted in pronouncing from the general and powerful effects
produced. In the year 1648, when he had but once before spoken in
public, it was observed of him at Mansfield, at the end of his prayer,
_"that it was then, as in the days of the apostles, when the house was
shaken where they were."_ In the same manner he appears to have gone
on, making a deep impression upon his hearers, whenever he was fully
and fairly heard. Many clergymen, as I observed before, in
consequence of his powerful preaching, gave up their livings; and
constables, who attended the meetings, in order to apprehend him, felt
themselves disarmed, so that they went away without attempting to
secure his person.
As to his life, it was innocent. It is true indeed, that there were persons,
high in civil offices, who, because he addressed the people in public,
considered him as a disturber of the peace. But none of these ever
pretended to cast a stain on his moral character. He