they flourished. Before the death of their founder, their numbers, their piety, their energy and zeal encouraged them to predict the universal triumph of their principles.

Not less remarkable than the vehemence of their early zeal, and the furious opposition it encountered, is the suddenness and completeness of its subsidence. Up to the end of the seventeenth century, they confidently foretold the conversion of the world to quakerism. In the eighteenth they were paralysed, almost fossilised. In the nineteenth they sadly calculate the probable date of their extinction. During the last few years an increase of activity has arrested the decline and revived hope in some breasts. But the stirrings of new life are the result of the influence of modern evangelicalism, not a revival of the old quakerism of George Fox. Already to the student, quakerism seems to belong to a museum of religious antiquities rather than to form a living part of the Church of the present day. Among the Quakers it is a frequently expressed opinion that their decay as a denomination has been brought about by the general acceptance of their principles; an opinion not destitute of considerable plausibility. The more we study their original doctrines, the greater is our astonishment to observe in how true a sense and to how great a degree quakerism was prophetic; advocating, generations in advance, reforms which are now accomplished facts, and other reforms the necessity of which begins to be perceived. Religious toleration, for which they were among the earliest and most consistent pleaders, is now the accepted doctrine of civilized humanity. They were the first to insist upon that truth of speech and fixity of price in

traffic which is the established custom of trade amongst us. The sturdy Quaker refusing to doff his hat, to bow and scrape and bend the knee, to nobleman, magistrate, or monarch, was the harbinger of the modern democratic spirit. In an age when fine gentlemen arrayed themselves like peacocks, the Quaker gentleman cut off the buttons and bows from his dress, and the Quaker tailor refused to make foppish attire, though the refusal cost him his livelihood. Quakers were the first temperance reformers, the earliest friends of the negro slave. They from the first elevated woman to complete equality with man; they advocated, and for themselves obtained, the abolition of oaths; they protested against war as unchristian, and chose rather to die than to kill. Two centuries ago, the Quakers emancipated themselves from the domination of a professional clergy, and proved by experiment that the highest type of Christian life is possible without sermons and without ceremonies. All these particular features of quakerism are parts and consequences of their conception of the source and nature of Christianity itself; and not until after a careful survey of their doctrines and practice shall we be in a position to consider how far this conception was true, and to what extent it was obscured and encumbered by the admixture of errors prevalent in their day. But the cursory glance we have already taken may well make us marvel, both that so excellent a people were once so foully libelled and bitterly hated by their fellowChristians, and now have so sadly dwindled away. Even in their decay, there is a quiet dignity and beauty. In the last century when quakerism as a religious movement was on the verge of extinction, the life that

was in it re-appeared in the form of philanthropy; and in this character the sect has ever since taken the lead among the churches. Mainly through their zeal and self-denial the abolition of West Indian slavery was achieved, and still, with unwearied pertinacity, though almost alone, they toil for the entire suppression of slavery the wide world over. In the great work of prison reform, Elizabeth Fry takes rank with John Howard. In the temperance movement, in the education of the masses, in the protection of oppressed aboriginal races, in advocating peace and goodwill among men, the Quakers march in the first rank of philanthropists. When Paris, freed from the German leaguer, was on the brink of starvation, Quakers hurried forward with supplies, and were waiting outside with stores of food, before the road was opened. Such deeds as these have won for them the respect and love of mankind. Probably there is not one Englishman in a thousand who could give an account of Quaker tenets; and not one Englishman in a thousand who is ignorant that from William Penn to Joseph Sturge and John Bright, Quakers have been the friends and benefactors of the human race.

To study this George Fox and his principles, to try to discern whether he was a half-crazed fanatic or a prophet of God, would seem then not likely to prove misspent time. Possibly the study may shed some light upon the religious perplexities of the present day. Possibly the sudden decadence of the sect may have been due to the fact that the age was not fully ripe for the reception of the truth which was revealed to Fox and his followers. We must not prejudge the case before

hearing. It may turn out in the end, that some of us will attribute the arrest of the movement to the discovery that its original impulse was in a false direction: others may judge that the collapse was rather due to the unfaithfulness of the succeeding generation to the truth they had received. But, whatever the issue, the study of so remarkable a development of Christianity can hardly fail to be instructive. Quakerism is an off-shoot from the great Christian trunk, and a biological study of this one minor branch may aid our efforts to understand the whole tree.

CHAPTER II.

scene.

THE CHALLENGE.

ONE Sunday morning in 1649—in what month is not known, and the year is fixed only by a marginal note, to which some doubt attaches; possibly the occurrence may belong to the end of 1648-the congregation in the principal church of Nottingham witnessed a memorable The townsfolk had passed through a long period of excitement; for seven years before, King Charles hoisted his royal standard in their oid castle; and afterwards their town was held for the parliament, gallant Colonel Hutchinson doing brave deeds of arms against the Cavaliers. But now Hutchinson was in London, where he had lately been one of the judges who tried the defeated monarch; and peace was in all the land, save that Cromwell was mustering his forces for Ireland. The great many-windowed church was probably filled with worshippers: for those were church-going, sermonhearing days, when absentees and dissenters were few and unpopular. The service was conducted according to the Directory of the Westminster Assembly, and the clergyman in the pulpit was a Presbyterian. In the previous century Queen Elizabeth ejected the mass and installed the prayer-book. Now the Long Parliament forbade the prayer-book and introduced the Genevan form of worship. In both cases the people, a minority