Read Ebook: Œuvres complètes de Mathurin Regnier accompagnées d'une notice biographique et bibliographique de variantes de notes d'un glossaire et d'un index by R Gnier Mathurin Courbet Ernest Editor

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'They sought to be acquainted with me, but I was afraid of them, for I was sensible they did not possess what they professed.' In other words, their faith did not ring true. The professors were certainly not 'Pure as a Bell.'

George Fox's test was always the same, both for his own religion and other people's: 'Is this faith real? Is it true? Can you actually live out what you profess to believe? And do you? Is your faith pure? Is your joy sure?'

Finding that, in the case of the professors, a sorrowful 'No' was the only answer that their lives gave to these questions, George says: 'A strong temptation to despair came over me. I then saw how Christ was tempted, and mighty troubles I was in. Sometimes I kept myself retired in my chamber, and often walked solitary in the Chace to wait upon the Lord.'

It must not be forgotten that part of the Puritan worship consisted in making enormously long prayers in spoken words, and preaching sermons that lasted several hours at a time. George Fox became more and more sure that this was not the worship God wanted from him, as he thought over these matters in solitude under the trees of Barnet Chace.

After a time he went back to his relations in Leicestershire. They saw the youth was unhappy, and very naturally thought it would be far better for him to settle down and have a happy home of his own than to go wandering about the country in distress about the state of his soul.

'Being returned into Leicestershire, my relations would have had me married; but I told them I was but a lad and must get wisdom.' Other people said: 'No, don't marry him yet. Put him into the auxiliary band among the soldiery. Once he gets fighting, that will soon knock the notions out of his head.'

In these stories there is no need to think of George Fox as arguing or fighting against real Christianity in any of the churches. He was fighting, rather, against sham religion, formality and hypocrisy wherever he found them. In that great fight all who truly love Truth and God are on the same side, even though they are called by different names. So remember that these old labels that he uses for his opponents have changed their meaning very considerably in the three hundred years that have passed since his birth. Remember too that the world had had at that time nearly three hundred years less in which to learn good manners than it has now. The manners and customs of the day were much rougher than those of modern times. However much we may disagree with people, there is no need for us to tell them so in the same sort of harsh language that was too often used by George Fox and his contemporaries.

To these Presbyterian priests, therefore, George went next to ask for counsel and help. The first he tried was the Reverend Nathaniel Stephens, the priest of his own village of Fenny Drayton. At first Priest Stephens and young George seemed to get on very well together. Another priest was often with Stephens, and the two learned men would often talk and argue with the boy, and be astonished at the wise answers he gave. 'It is a very good, full answer,' Stephens once said to George, 'and such an one as I have not heard.' He applauded the boy and spoke highly of him, and even used the answers he gave in his own sermons on Sundays. This was a compliment, but it cost him George's friendship and respect, because he felt it was a deceitful practice. The Journal says: 'What I said in discourse to him on week-days, he would preach of on first days, which gave me a dislike to him. This priest afterwards became my great persecutor.'

Priest Stephens' wife was also very much opposed to Fox, and it is said that on one occasion she 'very unseemly plucked and haled him up and down, and scoffed and laughed.' Fox always felt that this priest and his wife were his bitter foes; but other people described Priest Stephens as 'a good scholar and a useful preacher, in his younger days a very hard student, in his old age pleasant and cheerful.' So, as generally happens, there may have been a friendly side to this couple for those who took them the right way.

After this, Fox continues, 'I went to another ancient priest at Mancetter in Warwickshire, and reasoned with him about the ground of despair and temptations; but he was ignorant of my condition; he bade me take tobacco and sing psalms. Tobacco was a thing I did not love, and psalms I was not in a state to sing; I could not sing. Then he bid me come again and he would tell me many things; but when I came he was angry and pettish; for my former words had displeased him. He told my troubles, sorrows and griefs to his servants so that it got among the milk-lasses. It grieved me that I should have opened my mind to such a one. I saw they were all miserable comforters, and this brought my troubles more upon me. Then I heard of a priest living about Tamworth, which was accounted an experienced man, and I went seven miles to him; but I found him like an empty hollow cask. I heard also of one called Dr. Craddock of Coventry, and went to him. I asked him the ground of temptations and despair, and how troubles came to be wrought in man? He asked me, "Who was Christ's Father and Mother?" I told him Mary was His Mother, and that He was supposed to be the son of Joseph, but He was the Son of God. Now, as we were walking together in his garden, the alley being narrow, I chanced, in turning, to set my foot on the side of a bed, at which the man was in a rage, as if his house had been on fire. Thus all our discourse was lost, and I went away in sorrow, worse than I was when I came. I thought them miserable comforters, and saw they were all as nothing to me; for they could not reach my condition. After this I went to another, one Macham, a priest in high account. He would needs give me some physic, and I was to have been let blood; but they could not get one drop of blood from me, either in arms or head , my body being, as it were, dried up with sorrows, grief and troubles, which were so great upon me that I could have wished I had never been born, or that I had been born blind, that I might never have seen wickedness or vanity; and deaf, that I might never have heard vain and wicked words, or the Lord's name blasphemed. When the time called Christmas came, while others were feasting and sporting themselves, I looked out poor widows from house to house, and gave them some money. When I was invited to marriages I went to none at all, but the next day, or soon after, I would go to visit them; and if they were poor, I gave them some money; for I had wherewith both to keep myself from being chargeable to others, and to administer something to the necessities of those who were in need.'

Three years passed in this way, and then at last the first streaks of light began to dawn in the darkness. They came, not in any sudden or startling way, but little by little his soul was filled with the hope of dawn:

Silently as the morning Comes on when night is done, Or the crimson streak, on ocean's cheek, Grows into the great sun.

He says, 'About the beginning of the year 1646, as I was going into Coventry, a consideration arose in me how it was said, "All Christians are believers, both Protestants and Papists," and the Lord opened to me, that if all were believers, then they were all born of God, and were passed from death unto life, and that none were true believers but such, and though others said they were believers, yet they were not.'

Possibly George Fox was looking up at the 'Three Tall Spires' of Coventry when this thought came to him, and remembering in how many different ways Christians had worshipped under their shadow: first the Latin Mass, then the order of Common Prayer, and now the Puritan service. 'At another time,' he says, 'as I was walking in a field on a first day morning, the Lord opened to me "That being bred at Oxford or Cambridge was not enough to fit and qualify men to be ministers of Christ:" and I wondered at it because it was the common belief of people. But I saw it clearly as the Lord had opened it to me, and was satisfied and admired the goodness of the Lord, who had opened the thing to me this morning.... So that which opened in me struck I saw at the priests' ministry. But my relations were much troubled that I would not go with them to hear the priest; for I would go into the orchard or the fields with my Bible by myself.... I saw that to be a true believer was another thing than they looked upon it to be ... so neither them nor any of the dissenting people could I join with.

'At another time it was opened in me, "That God who made the world did not dwell in temples made with hands." This at the first seemed strange, because both priests and people used to call their temples or churches dreadful places, holy ground and the temples of God. But the Lord showed me clearly that He did not dwell in these temples which men had made, but in people's hearts.'

In this way George Fox had found out for himself three of the foundation truths of a pure faith:--

Now that George Fox was sure of these three things, it troubled him less if he was with people whose beliefs he could not share.

The first set of people he came among believed that women had no souls, 'no more than a goose has a soul' added one of them in a light, jesting tone. George Fox reproved them and told them it was a wrong thing to say, and added that Mary in her song said, 'My soul doth magnify the Lord, My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour,' so she must have had a soul. George by this time had learned to know his Bible so well in the long quiet hours out of doors, when it had been his only companion, that it was easy to him to find the exact quotation he wanted in an argument. It was said of him, later on, by wise and learned men, that if the Bible itself were ever to be lost it might almost be found again in the mouth of George Fox, so well did he know it.

The next set of people he came to were great dreamers. They guided their lives in the daytime according to the dreams they had happened to dream during the night. And I should think a fine mess they must have made of things! George helped these dreamers to know more of realities, till, later on, many of them came out of their dream-world and became Friends.

After this at last he came upon a set of people who really did seem to understand him and to care for the same things that he did. They were called 'Shattered Baptists,' because they had broken off from the other Baptists in the neighbourhood who 'did the Lord's work negligently' and did not act up to what they professed. This was the very same fault that had driven George forth from among the professors at the beginning of his long quest. It is easy to imagine that he and these people were happy together. 'With these,' he says, 'I had some meetings and discourses, but my troubles continued and I was often under great temptations. I fasted much, walked abroad in solitary places many days, and often took my Bible and sat in hollow trees and lonesome places till night came on, and frequently in the night walked about by myself.... O the everlasting love of God to my soul, when I was in great distress! when my troubles and torments were great, then was His love exceeding great.... When all my hopes in all men were gone so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could I tell what to do, then, O then, I heard a Voice which said, "There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition." When I heard it, my heart did leap for joy.'

This message was like the rising of the sun to George Fox. The long night of darkness was over now, the sun had risen, and though there might be clouds and storms ahead of him still he had come out into the full clear light of day.

'My desires after the Lord grew stronger,' he writes, 'and zeal in the pure knowledge of God and of Christ alone, without the help of any man, book, or writing.... Then the Lord gently led me along and let me see His love which was endless and eternal, surpassing all the knowledge that men have in the natural state or can get by history and books. That love let me see myself as I was without him.... At another time I saw the great love of God, and was filled with admiration at the infiniteness of it.'

The truths that George Fox is trying to express are difficult to put into words. It is the more difficult for us to understand what he means because his language is not quite the same as ours. Other words besides 'priest' and 'professor' have altered their meanings. When he speaks of having had things 'opened' to him, we should be more likely to say he had had them revealed to him, or had had a revelation. Perhaps these 'openings' and 'seeings' that he describes, though they meant much to him, do not sound to us now like very great discoveries. They are only what we have been accustomed to hear all our lives. But then, whom have we to thank for that? In large measure George Fox himself.

In the immense bush forests that cover an unexplored country or continent the first man who attempts to make a track through them has the hardest task. He has to guess the right direction, to cut down the first trees, to 'blaze a trail,' to help every one who follows him to find the way a little more easily. That man is called a Pioneer. George Fox was a pioneer in the spiritual world. He discovered a true path for himself, a path leading right through the thick forest of human selfishness and sin and out into the bright sunshine beyond. In his lonely Quest through those years of struggle he was indeed 'blazing a trail' for us. If the track we tread nowadays is smooth and easy to tread, that is because of the pioneers who have gone before us. Our ease has been gained through their labours and sufferings and steadfastness.

The track was not fully clear even yet to George Fox. He had more to learn before he could make the right path plain to others; more to learn, but chiefly more to suffer. To strengthen him beforehand for those sufferings, he was given an assurance that never afterwards entirely left him. 'I saw the Infinite Love of God. I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death; but an infinite ocean of light and love which flowed over the ocean of darkness. In that also I saw the infinite love of God, and I had great openings.' The Quest was ended. Faith was pure, and Joy was sure at last.

'Now was I come up in spirit, through the flaming sword, into the Paradise of God. All things were made new, and all the creation gave another smell to me beyond what words can utter. I knew nothing but pureness, innocency, and righteousness, being renewed up to the image of God by Christ Jesus.... Great things did the Lord lead me into, and wonderful depths were opened to me, beyond what can by words be declared; but as people come into subjection by the Spirit of God, and grow up in the Image and Power of the Almighty they may receive the word of wisdom that opens all things, and come to know the hidden unity in the Eternal Being.'

'Thus travelled I in the Lord's service, as He led me.'

FOOTNOTES:

The 7th month would be September, because the years then began with March.

Among all the children of Drayton village who watched eagerly for the door to open into the Purefoy Chapel on Sundays, when the Squire's family were at home, none watched for it more intently than blue-eyed Cecily, the old huntsman's granddaughter. Cecily's parents were both dead, and she lived with her grandfather in one of the twin lodges that guarded the Manor gates. Old Thomas had fought at the Squire's side abroad in years gone by. Now, aged and bent, he, too, watched for that door to open, as he sat in his accustomed place in the church with Cecily by his side. Old Thomas's eyes followed his master lovingly, when Colonel Purefoy entered, heading the little procession,--a tall, erect, soldierly-looking man, though his hair was decidedly grey, and grey too was the pointed beard that he still wore over a small ruff, in the fashion of the preceding reign.

Close behind him came his wife. The village people spoke of her as 'Madam,' since, although English born, and, indeed, possessed of considerable property in her own native county of Yorkshire, she was attached to the Court of Queen Henrietta Maria, and had caught something of the foreign grace of her French mistress.

But it was the two children for whose coming Cecily waited most eagerly, as they followed their parents. Edward Purefoy, the heir, a tall, handsome boy, came in first, leading by the hand his dainty little sister Jocosa, who seemed too fairy-like to support the stately family name, and who was generally known by its shorter form of Joyce.

Last of all came a portly waiting-maid, carrying a silky-haired spaniel on a cushion under each arm. These petted darlings, King Charles' own special favourites, were all the rage at Court at this time, and accompanied their masters and mistresses everywhere, even to church, where--fortunate beings--they were allowed to slumber peacefully on cushions at their owners' feet throughout the long services, when mere human creatures were obliged at any rate to endeavour to keep awake.

Cecily had no eyes to spare, even for the pet-dogs, on the eventful Sunday when the Squire and his family first appeared again at church after an unusually long absence. For there was little Mistress Jocosa, all clad in white satin, like a princess in a fairy tale, and as pretty as a picture. And so the great Court painter, Sir Anthony Vandyck, must have thought, seeing he had chosen to paint her portrait and make a picture of her himself in this same costume, with its stiff, straight, shining skirt, tight bodice, pointed lace collar, and close-fitting transparent cap that covered, but could not hide, the waves of dark crisp hair. When Cecily discovered that a string of pearls was clasped round the other little girl's neck, she gave a long gasp of delight, a gasp that ended in an irrepressible sigh. For, a moment later, this dazzling vision, with its dancing eyes, delicate features, and glowing cheeks, was lost to sight. All through the remainder of the service it stayed hidden in the depths of the high old family pew, whence nothing could be seen save the top of the Squire's silver head, rising occasionally, like an erratic half moon, over the edge of the dark oak wood.

Not another glimpse was to be had of the white satin princess; there was no one to look at but the ordinary village folk whom Cecily could see every day of her life: young George Fox, for instance, the Weaver's son, who was staring straight before him as usual, paying not the smallest heed to the entrance of all these marvellous beings. Fancy staring at the marble tomb erected by a long dead Lady Jocosa, and never even noticing her living namesake of to-day, with all her sparkles and flushes! Truly the Weaver's son was a strange lad, as the whole village knew.

A strange boy indeed, Joyce Purefoy thought in her turn, as, passing close by him on her way out of church, she happened to look up and to meet the steady gaze of the young eyes that were at the same time so piercing and yet so far away. She could not see his features clearly, since the sun, pouring in through a tall lancet window behind him, dazzled her eyes. Yet, even through the blurr of light, she felt the clear look that went straight through and found the real Joyce lying deep down somewhere, though hidden beneath all the finery with which she had hoped to dazzle the village children.

Late that same evening it was no fairy princess but a contrite little girl who approached her mother's side at bed-time.

'Forgive me, mother mine, I did pick just a few cherries from the tree above the moat,' she whispered hesitatingly 'I was hot and they were juicy. Then, when you and my father crossed the bridge on our way to church and asked me had I taken any, I,--no--I did not exactly forget, but I suppose I disremembered, and I said I had not had one.'

'Jocosa!' exclaimed her mother sternly: 'What! You a Purefoy and my daughter, yet not to be trusted to tell the truth! For the cherries, they are a small matter, I gave you plenty myself later, but to lie about even a trifle, it is that, that I mind.'

The little girl hung her head still lower. 'I know,' she said, 'it was shameful. Yet, in truth, I did confess at length.'

'True,' answered her mother, 'and therefore thou art forgiven, and without a punishment; only remember thy name and take better heed of thy Pure Faith another time. What made thee come and tell me even now?'

'The sight of the broken spear in church,' stammered the little girl. 'That began it, and then I partly remembered....'

She got no further. Even to her indulgent mother , Joyce could not explain how it was, that, as the glance from those grave boyish eyes fell upon her, out of the sunlit window, her 'disremembering' became suddenly a weight too heavy to be borne.

Jocosa Purefoy never forgot that Sunday, or her childish fault.

The visits of the Squire and his family to the old Manor House were few and far between. The estates in Yorkshire that Madam Purefoy had brought to her husband on her marriage were the children's real home. It was several years after this before Cecily saw her fairy princess again. The next glimpse was even more fleeting than their appearance in church, just a mere flash at the lodge gates as Jocosa and her brother cantered past on their way out for a day's hunting. Old Thomas, sitting in his arm-chair in the sun, looked critically and enviously at the man-servant who accompanied them. 'Too young--too young,' he muttered. His own hunting days were long past, but he could not bear, even crippled with rheumatism as he was, that any one but he, who had taught their father to sit a horse, should ride to hounds with his children.

Cecily had some envious thoughts too. 'I should like very well to wear a scarlet riding-dress and fur tippet, and a long red feather in my hat, and go a-hunting on old Snowball, instead of having to stop at home and take care of grandfather and mind the house.'

After she had closed the heavy iron gates with a clang, she pressed her nose between the bars and looked wistfully along the straight road, carried on its high causeway above the fens, down which the gay riders were swiftly disappearing.

But, in spite of envious looks, the gaiety of the day was short-lived. During the very first run, Snowball put her foot into a rabbit-hole, and almost came down. 'Lamed herself, sure enough,' said the man-servant grimly. No more hunting for Snowball that day. The best that could be hoped was that she might be able to carry her little mistress's light weight safely home, at a walking pace, over the few miles that separated them from Drayton. Joyce could not return alone, and Edward would not desert his sister, though he could not repress a few gloomy remarks on the homeward way.

'To lose such a splendid dry day at this season! Once the weather breaks and the floods are out, there will be no leaving the Manor House again for weeks, save by the causeway over the fens!'

Thus it was a rather melancholy trio that returned slowly by the same road over which the ponies' feet had scampered gaily an hour or two before.

When the chimneys of Drayton were coming in sight, a loud 'Halloo' made the riders look round. A second fox must have led the hunt back in their direction after all. Sure enough, a speck of ruddy brown was to be seen slinking along beneath a haystack in the distance. Already the hounds were scrambling across the road after him, while, except for the huntsman, not a solitary rider was as yet to be seen anywhere.

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