MR. BICKLEY'S LIFE OF GEORGE FOX.*
MR. BICKLEY writes in his preface that the work of George Fox as a " social reformer" has not been sufficiently treated by his biographers, and that he intends to supply the deficiency. This promise he scarcely fulfils ; indeed, it could not be fulfilled in the sense in which the reader will naturally understand it. George Fox was not a social reformer in the sense in which Howard and Samuel Romilly, and the illustrious men who struggled for the abolition of slavery, were so. He did not directly address him- self to the solution of social questions. When, indeed, some- what late in his life, he came in contact with slavery, on the occasion of his visit to the West Indies, he took up the position which might be expected from his character, which had then developed into a well-balanced moderation, contrasting strongly with his early eccentricities. He did not plead for immediate emancipation, but for a mild and gentle treatment, which should have liberation for its ultimate end. In Mary- land, again, he maintained the right of the Indians to -a fair and just treatment. They were sharers with other men in that divine light which it was Fox's life-long work to assert, and therefore had the same human rights as others. To make these protests on behalf of oppressed classes of humanity was in effect to do the work of social reform ; but the thing itself, as we understand it, the direct dealing with faulty or corrupt in- stitutions and laws, did not come within the range of the man's vision. This, of course, does not hinder us from heartily agree- ing with Mr. Bickley when he goes on to say that this is " the enduring bias " of Fox's work, and that " the social influence he diffused has increased, is increasing, and will never be diminished." This book, therefore, may well suggest to us the drawing of a larger moral from the evangelist's career than has commonly been drawn; but it does not and could not present to our view activities which had before been unnoticed. Consciously and directly, Fox was a preacher of religious truth, as he con- ceived it. It may even be sail that he kept studiously aloof from non-religious questions. He saw, for instance, we should say, very little to choose between the Government of the Commonwealth and the Government of the Restoration, and found it as easy to be loyal to the one as to the other. Any question between Republicanism and Monarchy would probably have seemed mere vanity to him, beside the momentous issues with which he felt himself called upon to deal.
Mr. Bickley's work is evidently the result of much careful study, and is fall of interesting matter; at the same time, it is scarcely satisfying. His own position is, we gather from various indications, that of a somewhat conservatively inclined Friend. He regrets that the " Friends no longer keep to the quaint, useful, and neat costumes which for nearly two centuries was eo strong a protest against the ever-growing vice of ex- travagance in dress." He is doubtful whether the concession of " mixed " marriages was wise. At the same time, be seems to allow that the time for maintaining the marked peculiarities
• George Fox and the Early Quaker.. By A. C. Biekley. London : Hodder and Stoughton. 1884.
of the community has passed by. In fact, his attitude does not seem to be very well defined, and his view of the great founder of Quakerism is, in consequence, scarcely consistent. He is far too candid to write as an unhesitating partisan ; but he is too much in the position of a disciple to take the judicial tone which, sometimes at least, it would be incon- venient for one who relates so remarkable a career to assume. We do not, for instance, exactly gather what he thinks of the aggressive attitude which Fox, and some of his followers still more emphatically, assumed. He allows that, on one occasion, at least, Fox was guilty of "brawling." But the allowance, in justice to those who took action against him, ought to be made much wider. The early Friends continually conducted them- selves in a way which this tolerant age would not endure with anything like the patience which was then accorded to them. They were often imprisoned and brutally treated, as, indeed, prisoners in those days were apt to be treated ; but not unfre- quently they did with impunity what would now be inevitably visited with punishment.
The fact is that the " persecutors " have somewhat hard measure dealt to them. Multiply tenfold the greatest aggra- vations offered by the Salvation Army, and we scarcely reach the amount of offence which the Friends in the active stage of their movement gave to society. There was the extra- ordinary fantasy, for instance, of going naked by way of testimony "in markets, courts, towns, cities, to priests' houses, and to great men's houses, that they should be stripped naked as He was stripped naked.' " Dr Stoughton, indeed, quoted by Mr. Bickley with apparent assent, thinks that there is no instance of an " approved " Friend going naked in England. William Simpson, however, seems, from the language which Fox uses about him in his journal (quoted pp. 204-205), to have been " approved." Fox, indeed, though be became personally moderate and restrained in his demeanour in his later life, does not seem to have imposed the necessary check on the extravagances of his followers. It is only fair to take these extravagances into account. Cromwell himself, the most tolerant of men, could not rise to the height of regarding the proceedings of these aggressive men of peace with absolute equanimity. He protected Fox, for whom, as shown in the three interviews which he had with him, he entertained a high regard; but he allowed the common law to be set in action against his followers. Indeed, according to Richard Hulberthorn, writing to George Fox (page 121), he told the Corporation of London that " there was a good law against Quakers, and they did well to put it in execution." It is true in one sense that the treatment of the Friends here and in New England was an exception, and a deplorable exception, to the rule of toleration ; but it is an exception which it is easy to account for. The Friend of the sevententh century was a very different creature from the inoffensive being whom the name naturally suggests to us.
Mr. Bickley's book deals with "the early Quakers " as well as with Fox, and presents us with a series of remarkable pictures of enthusiastic and devoted men. Among such we may name Fisher, the vicar of Lydd, who having scruples about singing and the baptising of infants, became first a Baptist and a farmer and then a Quaker, and who went to Rome, hoping to plant a Quaker Church there ; and Thomas Aldam, who, baying visited the gaols in England to discover what Friends were wrongfully imprisoned, went to Cromwell to seek their deliverance, and when he would not listen, was " moved to take his cap off his head in the Protector's presence, and to say to him, So shall thy Government be rent from thee and thy house.' " " Career Doleti patria" was the reproach which was levelled against the great French humanist, Etienne Dolet ; and it might have been repeated in the case of many of these preachers of a doctrine which was rarely welcome to priest or people. To recognise the service which they did to truth without being unjust to their opponents is no easy task ; and it is a defect in this interesting and valuable work that it does not assist us in performing it.
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