QUAKER WOMEN.*
"WE sufficiently have had Experience, that the carriage of that sort of people is ridiculous, and is capable to bring dishonour to our Nation, besides other inconveniences, that may redound to them in particular, and to the English in generalL" This was the verdict of the world upon the Society of Friends in the year 1657. It was pronounced by Lord Winchihma, then English Ambassador at Constantinople, on the occasion of an attempt made by a Quaker woman, one Mary Fisher, to convert the Grand Tark. The world has never changed its mind. It is, of course, open to any body of Christians to contemn its conclusions. But though the world was against her, Mary Fisher, owing to her boundless faith, did get to Constantinople, and did stand face to face with the Grand Turk and make him listen to her. In the same manner Quakerism has more than once got the ear of the world, though without ever converting it. It is to the credit of the Grand Turk that he listened respectfully, and it is to the credit of the world that it profited by the Quakers' preaching even while engaged in their persecution. It would be too much to expect the seventeenth-century Quakers to appreciate this goodness. The situation in little is foreshadowed in an incident which took place early in the career of George Fox. In deep distress of mind, the boy who was to found the Society of Friends turned to the clergy of his national Church. They gave him no help, and as a body they became his hardest enemies. One of the parsons in whom the young enthusiast confided advised him to "take tobacco and sing psalms." Another repeated his confidence with so much indiscretion that " it got among the milk-lasses," and a third appeared to the overwrought boy to be but "an empty hollow cask." His own parish priest, however, appropriated" some of Fox's ideas to embellish his sermons,' for which,' as Sewel naively remarks, ' George did not like him.'" The Church of England did her best—it is one of the saddest chapters of her history—to stamp out Quakerism. The only result of her effort was that she herself became permeated with the doctrine of the Inner Light. Mean- while the Quakers "did not like" her. They almost forgot their doctrine of non-resistance in vituperation. But, after all, there is a vast difference between words and deeds, and if a "priest" had been instrumental in getting a Quaker—or, still worse, his wife—flogged and imprisoned, it was but natural that at the first opportunity the victim should have "told him his portion." Even in their utmost wrath the Friends laid the blame where it belonged, and exonerated their gaolers and all the instruments of the law, declaring that such knew not what they did. Again and again George Fox refused to give evidence against crowds or individuals who bad ill-treated him, and Judge Fell has left it on record that even on occasions of very serious mishandling he "spoke of the thing as a man that had not been concerned."
Mrs. Braileford has written an intensely interesting book about Quaker women of the seventeenth century. The position held by women in the time of Elizabeth had been in a measure lost. "In England, in those days," says the Quaker historian Sewel, "were people of very odd notions, and among the rest such as held, that women have no souls.' " George Fox, "lighting on some of these, could not forbear reproving them." Apparently from the very first beginnings of the Society of Friends it was taken for granted that women were the equals of men in ppiritual privilege. It followed from this doctrine that they were also expected to bear an equal part in persecution. From the wealthy Margaret Fell, "the "nursing•mother' of Quakerism," to the maidservant who bearded the Grand Turk, every woman who felt the Divine injunction laid upon her to preach risked her life just as the men Friends risked theirs.
• Quito. Moms,10001OOO, By IL B. Broaden'. London: Duckworth sad Co. [7s. 6d. mt.] Not that actual execution threatened the Quakers; but many died of hardship in prison, and the stocks, the ducking-stool, and the lash awaited as a certainty even those whose strength was proof against the overcrowding. underfeeding, and disease of the gaols. It is amazing that any set of men could have been so cruel as were the Mayors, Magistrates, and civic authorities at the time of the Restoration, and even during the Common. wealth. Cromwell no doubt had a tenderness for them, but even he extended to them latterly but a half-hearted protection. One must of course remember that the Quakers were irritating, especially the women, and some of them behaved not unlike militant suffragettes, with this great difference, that they showed no violence at any time, and suffered as innocent persons, at the worst misguided in pressing their ideas, never as malefactors. They insisted on having speech with great men, who alone, they knew, could redress their wrongs. They would answer the preacher after the sermon was done, and they would insist on calling his church "the Steeple House." They would not observe the ordinary forms of deference, and a great many of them insisted on working upon Sunday "I followed the King wheresoever he -went," writes ono of them, with this Cry: The Cry of the Innocent regard. I followed him twice to the Terrace Court, and spoke to him when he went up into his coach, after he had been at his sport.. . I matt him in the Parke, and gave him two letters, which he tooke at my hand but the people murmured because I did nob kneels, but I went along by the King and spoke as I went."
Another woman describes how she made 'what could only be called a disturbance in church, though she plumes herself on her reasonable conduct, explaining that she did not interrupt the clergyman. Evidently he did not inspire her even to contradiction. "I found nothings riseinge in mee till hee was downs." In vain the Magistrates would implore them to desist from preaching, or in the interests of conformity to give up holding a meeting. They were willing to lees their liberty or to bleed not only for their essential but for obviously non-essential opinions or customs. The only result of putting them in prison was that, full of compassion for their fellow-sufferers, they made a wide and wonderfully organized attempt at prison reform which succeeded in a great measure. A few of the lees wise tried hunger-striking ; but no person in authority in those days seems to have cared whether they died or lived, and the experiment, which had as much religious as rebellions significance, came to nothing.
Most of the prominent women among the early Quakers belonged to the poorer class. Margaret Fell only was a lady of degree, and her husband had a wide social and political influence. Even she passed four and a half years in prison, but that was in later life. Her six daughters all suffered persecution. The first women converts of note were a poor governess, a maidservant, and a yeoman's wife. The last lived to an extreme old age after incredible hardships both here and in America. When almost done to death in Boston by Governor Endicott, she would retire to Rhode Island, then Balled " The Island of Errors" because in it every one might follow his or her conscience, to refresh her mind and body, and then go boldly back to her Boston campaign.
But what of the Quaker women who felt no call to preach —the vest majority, who stayed at home and looked after their children P They also were persecuted in a less degree, and in the conduct of their children we see the reflection of their marvellous strength of character. At one time nearly all the adult Quakers in Bristol were haled off to prison. The children, however, went regularly to their illegal "Meeting," behaving "with a remarkable Gravity and Composure." The law forbade the imprisoning of Nonconformists under sixteen years of age, but the civic authorities in Bristol, and even the London Magistrates, did not hesitate to persecute them. On one occasion an assembly of fifty-five children is said to have been raided :—
"Thirteen boys present at that time were set in the stocks, eight wearing the creel garters' for two and a half hours. Growing more bold, the chief persecutor, Helliar, sent eleven boys and four girls to BridewelL One may read in Besse'. 'Sufferings' how, ' a Friend engaged for their Appearance next day before the Deputy-Mayor, who endeavoured both by Pereira- eons and Threats to make them promise to come at no more Meetings ; but the Children in that Respect were immoveable; Wherefore they were sent to Bridewell again, Defiler, to terrify them, charging the Keeper to provide a new Cat-of-Ninotaila against next Morning. Next day at the Tolvey he urged the Justices to have them corrected, but could not prevail. The Boys and Girth were mostly from ten to twelve years of Aga'"
A Reading Quaker, one Thomas Curtis, also records bow in 1664 "our little children," though pulled out of meeting and beaten, "kept the meetings up when we were all in prison." Surely there is no such record as this in the annals of child. hood! When one considers bow little there is in a Quakers' meeting to play upon the emotions of youth, such steadfast- ness is truly marvellous. Silent waiting upon the Spirit, not hysteria, not even enthusiasm, induced the kind of courage which makes martyrs.
Perhaps the greatest mistake ever made by the Society of Friends was the strict rule which forbade marriage outside the Quakes fold. We can well understand that the men, especially, grew restive under this restriction, and preferred to sacrifice their membership to sacrificing their liberty. Mrs. Brailsford gives us a few glimpses into the Quaker courtships of the time, and they do not seem to be of a very romantic nature. Equality of the sexes produces many good things, but not romance. The self-communings here set down of a young Quaker who committed to paper his hesitations about asking the hand of a lady who had taken his fancy, and his final determination not to do it, will make the reader smile ; and the reluctant marriage of Judith Zinspenning, the mother of Sewel, to a man whom " she much exceeded in clearness of understanding" suggests also that romance was little regarded. Francis Howgill, writing on his death- bed -a letter of advice to his little daughter, advises her thus "If thou have a desire to marry, do not thou seek a husband, but let a husband seek thee." Apparently he thought this old-fashioned plan more productive of happiness, and he adds "Be gentle, and easy to be entreated, and mind thy own business." The intense sobriety of Quaker middle age was not exacted from the young. Margaret Fell urged in her old age that young girls should be allowed to wear bright colours and dress in pleasing fashions, for she feared no much outward renunciation of vanity might well tend to hypocrisy, and we get a momentary glance of " Anne Blaykling." the "pretions lively heart."
Extraordinary as it seems, the later Stuarts had for all the individual Quakers they came across a curious tenderness. Charles II. was urged by his brother to deal severely with a Quaker who had written him a reproving letter. " But the King, being good-natured, said: 'It were better for us to amend our lives." Again, James IL, into whose presence a Quaker intruded with hie hat on, took his own off, saying " You do not know the custom, for that requires that but one hat must be on here." In Wisbech there died in the beginning of the eighteenth century an old Quaker woman named Jane Stuart. She was said to be a natural daughter of James IL, and to have been brought up at Court. She led the life of a poor woman, but was treated by her neighbours aa a person of distinction.
Is it possible that the doctrine of non-reeietance and the literal acceptance of the Sermon on the Mount could attract a Stuart P We should say they have attracted every man and woman to whom, at some time in their lives, Christianity has ever meant anything real. Extremes meet. The Roman Church andthe Quaker both demand of their adherents that they should turn their backs upon the logical dictates of reason and submit to another law. The ROM= Catholics demand obedience to an enter, the Quakers to an inner light. When these conflict with the pure light of reason, they demand that that light should be shaded. In reply the trumpet of conscience makes in moat men—at least sometimes—an un- certain sound.
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