A Book of Quaker Saints. L. V. Hodgkin
her home, or ever my lord finds out that she has forsaken him,' she prayed in the depths of her faithful heart.
Was it in answer to her prayer that the rain came down in such torrents that for two days the roads were impassable? Cecily was inclined to think so. Anyhow, Joyce and Abigail, growing tired of the stuffy inn parlour while the torrents descended, and having nothing to do, seeing that the day was the Sabbath, and therefore scrupulously observed without doors in Puritan Beverley, strolled through the Minster, meaning to make sport of the congregation and its ways thereafter. The sermon was long and tedious, but it was nearing its end as they entered. At the close a stranger rose to speak in the body of the Church, a tall stranger, who stood in the rays of the sun that streamed through a lancet window behind him. His first words arrested careless Joyce, though she paid small heed to preaching as a rule.
More than the words, something vaguely familiar in the tones of the voice and the piercing gaze that fell upon her out of the flood of sunlight, awoke in her the memory of that long ago Sunday of her childhood, of her theft of the cherries, of her 'disremembering,' and then of her mother's words, 'You, a Purefoy, to forget to be worthy of your name.'
Alas! where was her Pure Faith now? The preacher seemed to be speaking to her, to her alone: yet, strangely enough, to almost every heart in that vast congregation the message went home. Did the building itself rock and shake as if filled with power? The real Joyce was reached again: the real Joyce, though hidden now under the weight of years of self-pleasing, a heavier burden than any childish finery. Certainly reached she was, though Lady Darcy preserved through it all her cynical smile, and made sport of her friend's earnestness. Nevertheless Lady Darcy went to France alone. Lady Danvers returned to her husband—too much accustomed to be left alone, poor man, to have been seriously disquieted by her absence. For the remainder of his short life his wife did her best to tend him dutifully. But she did leave him for an hour or two the day after her return, in order to go and throw herself on her knees beside kind old Justice Hotham, and confess to him how nearly she had deserted her post.
'And then what saved you?' enquired the wise old man, smoothing back the wavy hair from the wilful, lovely face that looked up to him, pleading for forgiveness.
'I think it was an angel,' said Joyce simply—'an angel or a spirit. It rose up in Beverley Minster: it preached to us of the wonderful things of God: words that burned. The whole building shook. Afterwards it passed away.'
Little she guessed that George Fox, the Weaver's son, the Judge's guest, seated in a deep recess of the long, panelled library, was obliged to listen to every word she spoke. Joyce never knew that the angel who had again enabled her to keep her 'Faith pure' was no stranger to her. Neither did it occur to him, whose thoughts were ever full of weightier matters than wilful woman's ways, that he had met this 'great woman of Beverley,' as he calls her, long before.
Only waiting-maid Cecily, who had prayed for an angel; Cecily, who had recognised the Weaver's son the first moment she saw him at the inn door; Cecily who had found in him, also, the messenger sent by God in answer to her prayer—wise Cecily kept silence until the day of her death.
George Fox says in his Journal:
'I was moved of the Lord to go to Beverley steeple-house, which was a place of high profession. Being very wet with rain, I went first to an inn. As soon as I came to the door, a young woman of the house said, "What, is it you? Come in," as if she had known me before, for the Lord's power bowed their hearts. So I refreshed myself and went to bed. In the morning, my clothes being still wet, I got ready, and, having paid for what I had, went up to the steeple-house where was a man preaching. When he had done, I was moved to speak to him and to the people in the mighty power of God, and turned them to their teacher, Christ Jesus. The power of the Lord was so strong that it struck a mighty dread among the people. The Mayor came and spoke a few words to me, but none had power to meddle with me, so I passed out of the town, and the next day went to Justice Hotham's. He was a pretty tender man and had some experience of God's workings in his heart. After some discourse with him of the things of God he took me into his closet, where, sitting together, he told me he had known that principle these ten years, and was glad that the Lord did now send his servants to publish it abroad among the people. While I was there a great woman of Beverley came to Justice Hotham about some business. In discourse she told him that "The last Sabbath day," as she called it, "an Angel or Spirit came into the church at Beverley and spoke the wonderful things of God, to the astonishment of all that were there: and when it had done, it passed away, and they did not know whence it came or whither it went; but it astonished all, priests, professors and magistrates." This relation Justice Hotham gave me afterwards, and then I gave him an account that I had been that day at Beverley steeple-house and had declared truth to the priest and people there.'
IV. TAMING THE TIGERToC
'The state of the English law in the 17th century with regard to prisons was worthy of Looking Glass Land. The magistrates' responsibility was defined by … the justice. "They were to commit them to prison but not to provide prisons for them." This duty devolved upon the gaoler, who was an autocrat and responsible to no authority. It frequently happened that he was a convicted & branded felon, chosen for the position by reason of his strength & brutality. Prisoners were … required to pay for this enforced hospitality, & their first act must be to make the most favourable terms possible with their gaoler landlord or his wife, for food & lodging.'—M.R. BRAILSFORD.
'You are bidden to fight with your own selves, with your own desires, with your own affections, with your own reason, and with your own will; and therefore if you will find your enemies, never look without. … You must expect to fight a great battle.'—JOHN EVERARD. 1650.
'The real essential battlefield is always in the heart itself. It is the victory over ourselves, over the evil within, which alone enables us to gain any real victory over the evil without.'—E.R. CHARLES.
'They who defend war, must defend the dispositions that lead to war, and these are clean against the gospel.'—ERASMUS.
IV. TAMING THE TIGER
Perhaps some boys and girls have said many times since the War began: 'I wish Friends did not think it wrong to fight for their King and Country. Why did George Fox forbid Quakers to fight for the Right like other brave men? Is it not right to fight for our own dear England?'
But did George Fox ever forbid other people to fight? He was not in the habit of laying down rules for other people, even his own followers. Let us see what he himself did when, as a young man, he was faced with this very same difficulty, or an even more perplexing one, since it was our own dear England itself in those days that was tossed and torn with Civil War.
First of all, listen to the story of a man who tamed a Tiger:—
Far away in India, a savage, hungry Tiger, with stealthy steps and a yellow, striped skin, came padding into a defenceless native village, to seek for prey. In the early morning he had slunk out of the Jungle, with soft, cushioned paws that showed no signs of the fierce nails they concealed. All through the long, hot day he had lain hidden in the thick reeds by the riverside; but at sunset he grew hungry, and sprang, with a great bound, up from his hiding-place. Right into the village itself he came, trampling down the patches of young, green corn that the villagers had sown, and that were just beginning to spring up, fresh and green, around the mud walls of their homes. All the villagers fled away in terror at the first glimpse of the yellow, striped skin. The fathers and mothers snatched up their brown babies, the older children ran in front screaming, 'Tiger! Tiger!' Young and old they all fled away, as fast as ever