GEORGE FOX'S SPEAKING IN CHURCH.
[To THE EDITOR or THY "SPECTATOR."] Slft,—The remark in your excellent review of Dr. Hodgkin's Life of George Fox, in the Spectator of August 15th, that his bitter attacks on the Puritan clergy were "often delivered in church," induces me to trouble you with the following extract from my lecture on Fox to the University Extension students at Oxford in 1S94 :- "The first chapter of 'Woodstock,' professedly referring to the September of 1652,has familiarised Sir Walter Scott's readers with the fact that public worship as conducted in the churches, 1642 —1662, was widely different from that which has now been familiar to Englishmen for two centuries. Proceedings which would now constitute the offence of brawling were of constant occurrence in the times of the Commonwealth. Readers of his journal will observe that Fox was many times invited to speak in the churches, also that on almost every occasion on which he was arrested for interfering with public worship the offence alleged against him was the doctrine preached, not the act of speaking in itself."
Previous page
