A BOOK OF THE MOMENT.

AN ARISTOCRAT OF THE SOUL.

The Journal of George Fox. With an Introduction by Rufus M. Jones, LL.D. A Revised Text. Prepared and Edited by Norman Penney, F.S.A. (j. M. Dent and Sons. 5s. net.)

BooKs of piety are seldom great literature. But here is a book in which the lamp of religion burns with its brightest, dearest flame, and yet is inspired with the true sense of letters. Here is what John Milton, quoted by Dr. Rufus Jones, the writer of the introduction, calls "the precious life-blood of a master spirit." Here is the story of the man who founded the noblest Christian society in the world-- the society which has most in it of the spirit of Jesus. But, though allied thus to the first, and so the most primitive, form of Christianity,, there is nothing about the religion of the Friends which is primitive in the weak or trivial sense. Here is the form and substance of a religion fit for modern and enlightened communities. Here is a mysticism which is not childish, ridiculous, or unscientific. George Fox when he founded and set forth the Quaker faith, acted in obedience to the scientific instinct. With an unconscious, but none the less magnificent, pride he tells us, "I came to 'know God experimentally, and was as one who hath a key and doth open." As Dr. Rufus Jones well tells us "he dis- covered that God is not above the sky, or at the end of a 'logical syllogism, but is a living spiritual presence revealed :within the soul." He believed with absolute sincerity, and that belief was enough, that though only a hungering, thirsting man, he had been in the presence of God. He ate and drank like the rest of us, but "saw God also."

William Penn, the man who by nature and upbringing was so far from FOx, said well of him, "He acquitted himself • like a man, a new and heavenly-minded man ; a divine and a naturalist, and all of God Almighty's making." Here was • the truth. Fox has one of the most certain marks of greatness. He inspires and vivifies those who write about him. He was indeed an aristocrat of the soul. Wherever he appeared he was, a leader, and whether it was his fellow-prisoners, or 'the judges, or the gaol-keepers, or the mob, or His Highness the Protector himself, he made men say and feel, "Never man spake like this man."

Such a man was Fox, and such a man needs no formal panegyric, or laudation. Again, he needs very little inter- pretation, for his words still live. There springs from the text an influence, a peculiar grace so sublimated that it must touch all hearts. It does not matter how much we may disagree with portions of Fox's theology, or with his practice, or perhaps still more with his fierceness in regard to his enemies, for no one can pretend that here he attained to the full position of his Great Examplar. Still, wherever there is a good man, whatever his creed, he will feel that Fox was one of the Knights of the Holy Spirit, one of those whose one bond is that they have kept themselves unspotted from the world. Socrates might have smiled, but would have loved him and honoured him. Marcus Aurelius would have found in him the noblest and best of Stoics. Confucius might have thought that he had too much zeal and too little order, but must have revered him. Ignatius Loyola would undoubtedly have burned him, but with true tears of sympathy. Augustine and St.Bemard would have seen in him a brother. Joan of Arc would at first have not understood his fierce hate of all war, but she would have been reconciled to what she at first thought an aberration had she known that, like Sir. Thomas Browne, he "naturally loved a soldier." He and soldiers, as the Journal shows, again and again got together by a kind of natural affinity in opposition. Fox, who in many ways was an epitome of humanity, was indeed always dealing in contradictions. Among others, he was actually painted by Sir Teter Lely, and while sitting—sandwiched doubtless between Louise de Querouaille and La Belle Hamilton—he evidently inspired the painter. The face portrayed shows the most extraordinary mixture of kindness and fierceness, gentleness and firmness. The forehead and the eyes belie the nose and the mouth ; but the chin seems to give the

balance to the hard side of the face. But perhaps it is not really strange that Lely should have painted him. One feels as one reads the Journal that Fox was far more at home and in sympathy with courtiers, soldiers, and worldly men, than with those who superficially were so much nearer to him in doctrine and habit of life and yet were leagues apart.

No doubt he found it a good deal easier to make an impression on a high-born Cavalier than on a Republican and Puritanical Major-General. The exception was Cromwell, who was undoubtedly much moved by Fox. But then Cromwell had in him two men, the mystic and the practical man of action, and the balance was pretty even between them.

A very little more of the mystic might have made the Protector a colleague and co-worker with the first Quaker.

Before I say anything about the Journal itself, I am bound to notice the fact that the character sketch which William Penn wrote as a preface to the original edition of the Journal of George Fox, which was published in 1694, that is, very soon after his death, is a masterly piece of interpretative biography. It is intensely modern in tone, and there is not an analyst of the mind and the emotions living to-day, from Mr. Lytton Strachey to Mr. George Santayana, or from Mr. De In Mare to Mr. Hardy, who would not have been proud to have made the animi figura achieved by Penn. I take an example almost at random :—

" In 1652, he being in his usual retirement to the Lord upon a very high mountain, in some of the hither parts of Yorkshire, as I take it, his mind exercised towards the Lord, he had a vision of the great work of God in the earth, and of the way that he was to go forth to begin it. He saw people as thick as motes in the sun, that should in time be brought home to the Lord ; that there might be but one shepherd and one sheepfold in all the earth. There his eye was directed northward, beholding a great people that should receive him and his message in the parts. Upon this mountain he was moved of the Lord to sound forth His great and notable day, as if he had been in a great auditory, and from thence went north, as the Lord had shown him ; and in every place where he came, if not before he came to it, he had his particular exercise and service shown to him, so that the Lord was his leader indeed ; for it was not in vain that he travelled, God in most places sealing his commission with the convincement of some of all sorts, as well publicans as sober professors of religion."

The first thought of an English scholar who reads these

words is, had Fox or Penn ever read The Vision of Piers Plowman ? Is it possible or likely ? I confess that I am far too ignorant of seventeenth-century Bibliography to be able to pronounce any opinion ; but, all the same, the speculation has a natural fascination. Better, however, for my immediate purpose of leading people to study Fox and not to dismiss him as a zealot or a mystic, are some of the admirable phrases used by William Penn to paint his dear George. This for example :—

" He was a man that God endued with a clear and wonderful depth, a discerner of others' spirits, and very much a master of his own."

He goes on to add that, though Fox's words might sound uncouth to nice ears, "his matter was nevertheless very profound." The passage ends, "as man he was an original, being no man's copy."

Here is Penn's deeply moving description of Fox's praying :

"But above all he excelled in prayer. The inwardness and weight of his spirit, the reverence and solemnity of his address and behaviour, and the fewness and fullness of his words, have often struck even strangers with admiration, as they used to reach others with consolation. The most awful, living, reverent frame I ever felt or beheld, I must say, was his in prayer. And truly it was a testimony he knew and lived nearer to the Lord than other men ; for they that know Him most will see most reason to approach Him with reverence and fear."

Next to it come some delightful personal touches. We are told that he was "neither touchy nor critical " ; but "so

meek, contented, modest, easy, steady, tender, it was a pleasure to be in his company." "He exercised no authority but over evil, and that everywhere and in all ; but with love,

compassion, and long-suffering. A most merciful man, as ready to forgive as unapt to take or give an offence." As a slimming up, what could be better than the following? :— " For in all things he acquitted himself like a man, yea, a strong man, a new and heavenly-minded man ; a divine and a naturalist, and all of God Almighty's making. I have been surprised at his questions and answers in natural things ; that whilst he was ignorant of useless and sophistical science, he had in him the foundation of useful and commendable knowledge, and cherished it everywhere. Civil, beyond all forms of breeding, in his behaviour ;

very temperate, eating little, and sleeping less, though a bulky person."

Penn, like a true, if unconscious, artist, ends :— " I have done when I have left this short epitaph to his name : 'Many sons have done virtuously in this day, but dear George, thou excellest them all."

It may seem strange that, admiring Fox as I do, I have taken up so much of my space quoting others and not Fox himself. Clearly to such an accusation I must plead guilty ; but a good deal might be said in my defence, and chiefly this, that I am most anxious that my readers should read and enjoy this memorable book for themselves. Besides its deep and moving piety, it is full of strange, curious, and attractive things. Indeed, no one can understand the great years from 1640 to 1690 without having read it. We are too apt to think of that age as if it consisted of nothing but Dryclens and Halifaxes, Wycherleys and Miltons, Cromwells and Charles I.s, Marlboroughs and Louis XIV.s. Fox's

diary shows us the other side. Perhaps I can best illustrate the interest that the general reader will find in the book by quoting from the pencil notes which I have freely scattered

over my copy :— "Striking definition of religion.—Form of words to act

as substitute for an oath.—Lord Chief Justice Hale.—The soldier's opinion of Fox (` He is as stiff as a tree and as pure as a bell, for we could never stir him.').—Account of his mother.—Striking phrases.—Delightful and intriguing story

of the Sallee pirate which pursued Fox's ship on his first voyage to America.—Charming correspondence with Princess Elizabeth, daughter of the Queen of Bohemia.—Visions.- Account of dungeons.—Rude undergraduates.—Pictures of Cromwell.—Fox's legal ingenuity.—The Rape of the Lock." This last will, perhaps, raise my readers' curiosity so much that it deserves to be satisfied. Fox in the year 1687 was travelling in North Wales. As will be seen, he did not altogether hit it off with the fascinating Celts of those regions:—

" Next day we passed thence into Flintshire, sounding the day of the Lord through the towns ; and came into Wrexham at night. Here many of Floyd's people came to us ; but very rude, and wild, and airy they were, and little sense of Truth they had : yet Some were convinced in that town. Next morning there was a lady sent for me, who kept a preacher in her house. I went, but found both her and her preacher very light and airy ; too light to receive the weighty things of God. In her lightness she came and asked me if she could cut my hair ; but I was moved to reprove her, and bid her cut down the corruptions in herself with the Spirit of God. And afterwards in her frothy mind she made

• her boast that she came behind me and cut off the curl of my hair ; but she spake falsely."

• The great passage about Fox galloping after Cromwell's coach in Hyde Park and shouting messages, spiritual and political, in through the window is too well known for quota- tion. One almost as good and far less well known is the description of Cromwell sitting upon the table and talking to Fox. It is, indeed, the most intimate picture we have of the Protector and is to be specially cherished for his account, as well as Fox's. Fox describes how he and Edward Pyot went to Whitehall and spoke very seriously to Oliver Cromwell concerning the sufferings of the Friends. But this was not all. They, as Fox tells us, "directed him to the light of Christ, who enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world." Then Fox proceeds :—

" He said it was a natural light ; but we showed him the con- trary, and manifested that it was divine and spiritual, proceeding from Christ, the spiritual and heavenly Man ; and that which was called the life in Christ the Word, was called the light in us. The • - power of the Lord God arose in me, and I was moved in it to bid him lay down -his crown at the feet of Jesus. Several times I spike to him to the same effect. Now I was standing by the ' table, and he came and sate upon the table's side by me, and said he would be at; high as I was ; and so continued speaking against the light of Christ Jesus ; and went away in a light manner. But the Lord's power came ovet him, so that when he came to his wife and other company, he said, I never parted so from them before ' ; for he was judged in himself."

The whole passage may seem a little harsh and arrogant quoted in this way ; but in its context it is not so. At the same time, Fox, no doubt, had a terrible tongue, and one can imagine a person who was not sympathetic to him often feeling deep resentment at his words and accusing him of having a viper's tongue. For, example, here is the description of the way he handled the people at Edinburgh :--

"After this we returned to Edinburgh, where many thousands were gathered together, with abundance of priests among them, after burning a witch. and I was moved to declare the day of the Lord amongst them. When I had done, I went to our meeting, whither many rude people and Baptists came. The Baptiste began to vaunt with their logic: and sylkigisms •' but I was moved in the Lord's power to thrash their chaffy, light minds; and shewed the people that, after that fhllacious way of discoursing, they might make white seem black, and black white ; as, that because a cock had two legs, and each of them had two legs, there- fore they were all cocks. Thus they might turn anything into lightness and vanity ; bat it was not the way of Christ or His apostles to teach, speak, or reason after that manner. Hereupon those Baptists went their way, and after they wore gone we had a blessed meeting in the Lord's power, which -was over all."

Though Fox's magnificent courage, physical and moral, and the tongue which could lash men, not merely into fury, but into abject contrition, is again and again • displayed in the Journal, no one can read the book as a whole without feeling that Penn was perfectly right in insisting on the Mildness. gentleness, and humanity of the first and- greatest of the

Quakers.

J. Sr. LOE STRACHEY.