BIO: George Fox, First Quaker (13 Jan 1691) GEORGE FOX, FIRST QUAKER (13 JAN 1691) This series includes biographical sketches of about ten Quakers. Most sketches are accompanied by sections on various topics related to the Quaker movement. A Table of contents, enabling the reader to find material on various Quakers and various aspects of Quakerism, can be reached by clicking . A reading list, sorted according to topic, can be reached by clicking . $$$ GEORGE FOX'S EARLY LIFE George Fox begins his JOURNAL by declaring the purpose of his writing: That all men may know the dealings of the Lord with me, and the various exercises, trials, and troubles through which he led me, in order to prepare and fit me for the work unto which he had appointed me, and may thereby be drawn to admire and glorify His infinite wisdom and goodness.... The Quaker movement, founded by George Fox, came to birth in the years during, and just before and after, the Puritan Revolution in England <@ 52 N 1 W>, years when the established authorities of both Church and State were overthrown, the King (see 30 Jan) and the Archbishop of Canterbury (see 10 Jan) beheaded, and the people on every level much engaged in disputation about the proper foundations of civil and of Christian society. One group was called the Seekers. Its members said that they were Christians, but were not satisfied with any existing Christian group, and that they were seeking to know the will of God. Many of the regiments in Cromwell's army organized themselves into Churches, following one persuasive preacher or another in their midst. Most of these died out. Fox's movement did not. George Fox was born in 1624 in a village in Leicestershire called Drayton-in-the-Clay (now Fenny Drayton) <52:35 N 1:29 W>, not far from Lutterworth <52:27 N 1:12 W>, where John Wyclif (see 31 Dec 1384) spent the last years of his life. In 1643, when he was nineteen, he began to experience spiritual anxieties which he did not understand. He went to the local clergy for advice, but they told him nothing that he found helpful. When he was twenty-three, in 1647, he experienced a sense of peace and reassurance that he spoke of as coming from a direct encounter with Christ, speaking from within him. He described his experience as follows: Now after I had that opening [Quaker term for "insight" or "realization" or "revelation"] from the Lord, that to be bred at Oxford or Cambridge was not sufficient to fit a man to be a minister of Christ, I regarded the priests [ministers of the Church of England] less, and looked more after the dissenting people [English term for Protestants not of the Church of England]. Among them I saw there was some tenderness [Quaker term for "receptiveness to the Quaker message and beliefs"], and many of them came afterwards to be convinced [Quaker term for "converted"], for they had some openings. But as I had forsaken the priests, so I left the Separate preachers also, and those called the most experienced people; for I saw there was none among them that could speak to my condition. And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could I tell what to do, then, Oh! then, I heard a voice which said, "There is one, even Jesus Christ, that can speak to thy condition;" and when I had heard it my heart did leap for joy. Then the Lord let me see why there was none upon earth that could speak to my condition, namely, that I might give him all the glory. For all are concluded under sin, and shut up in unbelief, that Jesus Christ might have the pre-eminence, who enlightens, and gives grace, faith, and power. Thus when God doth work, who shall let [=hinder] it? This I knew experimentally. My desires after the Lord grew stronger, and zeal in the pure knowledge of God, and of Christ alone, without the help of any man, book, or writing. For though I read the Scriptures that spake of Christ and of God, yet I knew him not by revelation, as he who hath the key did open, and as the Father of life drew me to his Son by his Spirit. The Lord led me gently 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 or books. Now I was come up in spirit through the flaming sword into the paradise of God. All things were new, and all the creation gave another smell unto me than before, beyond what words can utter. I knew nothing but pureness, and innocency, and righteousness, being renewed up into the image of God by Christ Jesus, so that I say I was come up into the state of Adam which he was in before he fell. What transformed Fox was grasping the vast difference between having information about a person and knowing that person more generally, between "knowledge-by-description" and "knowledge-by-acquaintance" (between "savoir" and "connaitre", between "saber" and "conocer", between "wissen" and "kennen", between (in King James English) "wit/wot" and "know"). Fox came to the conviction that faith means having not (only) information about Jesus, but (also) a direct, face-to-face knowledge of Jesus--that to be mighty in the Scriptures means not (only) to be well read and well schooled in the Scriptures, but (also) to participate in the same Spirit in which the Scriptures arose. He wrote: I knew God experimentally. I had the key that doth open. All creation gave unto me another smell; the Lord's power was now as in the days of the Apostles. I saw the Light of Christ that it shines through all; if but one person were raised by God's power to stand and live in the same Spirit that the prophets and apostles were in who gave forth the Scriptures, that person would shake the earth for ten miles round; I saw that there was an ocean of darkness and death but I saw that there was an infinite ocean of Light and Life and Love that flowed over the ocean of darkness; in that I SAW the infinite Love of God. Fox was a man of seemingly inexhaustible energy. It was rumored that he never slept at all. One man invited Fox home as his guest in the winter of 1651, and peered into his room that night just to see whether the rumor was true. (There were a few periods in his life when things were not going well for him or for the Quaker movement, when he had prolonged spells of depression and lethargy, and could not bestir himself to do anything. But these were exceptional intervals in a life generally lived on the run.) In December 1651 or perhaps a month or two later, Fox had walked a great distance with some companions. He says: "I lifted up my head and espied three steeple-house spires, and they struck at my life. I asked them what place that was, and they said, Lichfield <54:42 N 1:48 W>. Immediately the way of the Lord came to me that thither I must go." He left his companions and walked toward the city. About a mile from it, he met some shepherds tending sheep in a field. He took off his shoes, though it was winter, left them with the shepherds, and walked into the city and through the streets crying, "Woe to the bloody city of Lichfield." He saw what seemed a river of blood running down the street, and the market-place like a pool of blood. No one stopped him or questioned him, and he went back to the field and recovered his shoes. He tells us that when he got back to the shepherds, "the fire of the Lord was so in my feet and all over me, that I did not matter to put my shoes on again, and was at a stand whether I should do so or not, till I felt a freedom of the Lord to do so." He says that he had no idea at the time why Lichfield should be called the bloody city--he was simply obeying the Inner Light. Later, he was pleased to hear of a good reason--one that showed that he had responded to an authentic prompting, and not just his imagination. He learned that there had been an execution of about a thousand Christians in Lichfield under the Emperor Diocletian around AD 300. Some of those writing about Fox have looked for a reason in his unconscious mind rather than in revelation. They point out that there had been fighting and bloodshed in the city during the Civil War between the Royalists and the Puritans, and that Fox had doubtless heard of this. (Indeed, the three spires he speaks of would have been only two spires and a stump, because of the Puritan bombardment of the city.) Fox says that he did know of this, but that the fighting was no more severe in Lichfield than elsewhere. Again, "Lichfield" means "field of corpses," and Fox may have heard this. (A lich gate, or lych gate, is a roofed gateway traditionally found at the entrance to a churchyard, and was originally a place where a body was set down before being borne to the grave to be buried. The statement "A is like B" originally meant that A has the form, or the body, of B. New readers should note that etymology is my hobby.) It is also possible that Fox had heard as a youth, but had forgotten, that one Edward Wrightman (or Wightman?) (probably a Seeker) had been burned at Lichfield for heresy in 1612, only a dozen years before Fox was born, perhaps the last person to be burned for heresy in England. Another dissenter had been burned there in 1557. Some biographers think that this earlier martyr may have been an ancestor of Fox, and that Fox had a dimly remembered family tradition about him, but the evidence here is tenuous. Altogether, the incident has caused something of a stir. Quakers seem to be embarrassed by it, and William James, in general an admirer of Fox, uses it (VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE, 8f) as evidence that "from the point of view of his nervous constitution Fox was a psychopath or d‚traqu‚ of the deepest dye." I should have contented myself with calling his behavior at Lichfield mildly odd, but no occasion for concern. Perhaps that is because I spent a year at Berkeley in the 1960s. $$$ THE MOVEMENT CATCHES FIRE Pendle Hill <53:52 N 1:17 W> (for photos see www.pendle.net), a fairly steep hill 1827 feet high in Lancashire, has a commanding view of the Irish Sea <@ 54 N 4 W>. As Fox was walking through Lancashire in late May, 1652, he felt moved to climb the hill. There (as William Penn writes in his introduction to Fox's JOURNAL), he "had a vision of the great work of God in the earth, and of the way that he was to go forth in a public ministry, to begin it. He saw people thick as motes in the sun, that should in time be brought home to the Lord, that there might be but one Shepherd and one sheepfold in all the earth." Shortly after, on Sunday 6 June 1652 (Whitsunday or Pentecost), he arrived at Sedbergh <54:20 N 2:31 W>, where he attended a meeting at the home of an influential local official, Colonel Gervase Benson. He took over the meeting, preached at length, and converted Benson, whose influence with the courts proved a valuable asset for the movement. Fox stayed with Benson and on the following Wednesday (9 June) he went to the Sedburgh Whitsuntide Fair, where masters seeking servants and servants seeking masters were sounding each other out and negotiating terms of employment for a binding one-year contract (see the opera "Martha"). The Presbyterians, taking advantage of the expected crowds, had scheduled a lecture day. Fox stood in the churchyard preaching for several hours. He writes: There I declared the everlasting Truth of the Lord and the word of life for several hours, and that the Lord Jesus Christ was come to teach his people himself, and bring them off all the world's ways and teachers to Christ their way to God. The following Sunday, 13 June 1652 (Trinity Sunday), he arrived at Preston-Patrick <54:08 N 2:37 W>, where the Seekers were holding a morning service of preaching. After the service, he invited them all to hear him that afternoon at a desolate place called Firbank Fell , where there was a meadow with a natural rock pulpit. (A fell is an elevated wild field, a mountain moor or meadow.) There, after meditating in silence, he spoke for more than three hours to an audience of more than a thousand. He told the crowd that they "might all come to know Christ, their teacher, their counselor, their shepherd to feed them, and their bishop to oversee them, and to know their bodies to be the temples of God and Christ for them to dwell in." Many of the Seekers were immediately convinced and became his followers. Near the end of June, Fox presented himself at the doors of Swarthmore (or Swarthmoor) Hall just outside Ulverston <54:12 N 3:06 W>, Lancashire, the home of Judge Thomas Fell and his wife Margaret Fell, whose hospitality to visiting preachers was well- known. Margaret's maiden name was Askew, and it has been suggested that she descended from the family of Anne Askew, a famous Protestant martyr in the last years of Henry VIII. However, there is no reference to such a claim until long after the death of Margaret. Neither the Judge nor his wife was home, but it happened that the local minister arrived at the same time as George Fox, and the Fell children (they then had six daughters and a son) invited them both in. The two were engaged in heated dispute when Margaret returned home that evening. She listened to their exchange, invited Fox to spend the night, and listened the next day when the minister returned to renew the debate. Margaret was increasingly impressed. Thursday 1 July was market day, and a lecture day for the Presbyterians. Margaret went to church, Fox interrupted the service and set the congregation in an uproar. Margaret listened, was convinced, and sat weeping in her pew. On a Friday soon after (probably 16 July), Judge Thomas Fell arrived home to find almost his whole household, family and servants alike, followers of Fox. Fell was vice-chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and one of the most wealthy and powerful men in the region. Thomas Fell and his son George Fell never became Quakers, and there was always a bit of tension between Judge Fell and Fox, who, a few months after their first meeting, told Fell: "[Thou art] a child of disobedience whom the prince of the air [i.e., Satan] lodges in and rules, and thy heart is deceitful and not right before God." However, the Judge used his considerable influence to protect the budding Quaker movement, interceding with other judges on behalf of Quakers on trial, issuing warrants against those who had attacked them physically, lobbying on their behalf with members of Parliament, and in general giving them a voice and a patron in the corridors of power. Margaret was an enthusiastic convert, the rest of the family and household staff followed her lead, and Swarthmore Hall became a kind of base of Quaker operations. Margaret was an heiress and prosperous in her own right. She was literate, and managed the family businesses. Since Fox had no fixed address, her house became a mail drop for him and for the Quaker movement. Only a few months after she met Fox, Quakers were taking it for granted that they should report to her on matters affecting the movement, so that policy could be properly co-ordinated. She collected information from the field, and had multiple copies made and distributed. In February 1653 an imprisoned Quaker needed emergency funds for food (jailers were not required to feed the prisoners), and Margaret swiftly sent some money, and promptly found herself Acting Treasurer of the movement. In 1658, six years after Fox first met the Fells, Judge Thomas Fell died, and eleven years after that, in 1669, Margaret Fell married George Fox. Thus the two months beginning with Fox's experience at Pendle Hill were a turning point for the Quaker movement, one that gave it a jump start, put it on a solid base, and took it off the endangered species list. When Quakers wanted to celebrate the tricentennial of the Quaker movement, they counted from the summer of 1652. $$$ FOX IN CONFRONTATION Fox traveled about preaching, with results that could often be described as disturbing the peace. (He would have said, "False peace needs to be disturbed!") I was moved to open my mouth and lift up my voice aloud in the mighty power of the Lord, and to tell them the mighty day of the Lord was coming upon all deceitful merchandise and ways, and to call them all to repentance and a turning to the Lord God, and his spirit within them, for it to teach them, and tremble before the mighty God of Heaven and earth, for his mighty day was coming; and so passed through the streets. And many people took my part and several were convinced. And when I came to the town's end, I got upon a stump and spoke to the people, and so the people began to fight, some for me and some against me.... Fox and his followers were vehement in declaring that outward forms were worthless, and in denouncing the existing religious bodies, whether Roman, Anglican, Puritan, Baptist, or otherwise, for clinging to them. Thus in one Quaker document (sorry, I have garbled my notes and am not sure of the source here) we read: Q: What is a Christian? A: A Christian is one whose life has been changed, who is on fire with God. Hence, outward ceremonies (such as baptism) are irrelevant. Q: What is a minister? A: A minister is one who ministers. One who is on fire with God will ignite others. Nothing matters but the fire. Hence, credentials, education, certification, human authorization, and ceremonies (such as laying on of hands) are irrelevant. Q: What is the Church? A: The Church is the dwelling place of God. He dwells in the hearts of Christians, and not in temples made with hands. Hence church-buildings ("steeple-houses") are irrelevant. Q: How can I know the truth of God? A: Christ is always present to the believer, and will teach him as directly as He taught Peter and the other disciples in Galilee. Hence the learning of the clergy is irrelevant. Fox's chief message was the presence of Christ as the direct teacher of the believer. However, he was prepared to preach on other matters. England was full of soldiers whose promised pay was months or even years overdue. Fox sometimes preached on the sin of withholding wages that had been promised and earned, with special reference to the Army, and this disposed many soldiers to believe that here was a good man who should be protected from anyone who tried to keep him from speaking. One of Fox's favorite topics was the tithe. Under existing law, one tenth of the produce of agriculture, hunting, fishing, etc., and one tenth of the profits of most businesses, were to be paid to the local church authorities for the salaries of the clergy and other church expenses. The tithe was a highly visible tax, and bitterly resented, especially by those who were not convinced that their local priest or minister was a bargain, and Fox exploited this fact. When he stood up in the town square or in the middle of a church service and demanded an end to the tithe as an abomination before the Lord, he could count on the support of most of those present, except for the clergy and other tithe receivers. He quoted John 10:11-16 ("When the wolf approaches, the hireling flees, because he is a hireling, and cares not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep"), and he called the priests "hireling shepherds," unfaithful servants, successors of Judas Iscariot, who was the first hireling shepherd (John 12:6), using his ministerial office to line his own pockets. Fox brought this charge, not only against the Anglican priests, and against the Presbyterian ministers (who had continued to collect the tithe when the Anglicans were displaced by the overthrow of the monarchy), but against Baptist and Congregationalist ministers if they had salary agreements with their flock. A true minister, said Fox, did not charge for his services, although he might accept contributions. (Since Fox had inherited a small fortune, he could afford to preach without pay.) Naturally, this thesis caused an uproar among the clergy, most of whom were convinced that Fox was an agent of the Devil, and a menace to society. Today, most of us find the idea of a church payment collected under legal compulsion utterly alien, and are disposed to sympathize with Fox's position, and to see opposition to it as motivated by self-interest. Perhaps it will help if we consider the public schools instead. Let us suppose that some public figure today is declaring that no decent teacher would dream of accepting pay that the right practice is to teach for the sheer love of scholarship. Thus, children ought to be educated entirely at home by their parents and unpaid volunteers approved by their parents, who know their children and their needs far better than any government bureaucrat can. All schools should be shut down at once, all appropriations for education abolished, all teachers and other school employees cut loose and advised to find honest employment. Suppose, moreover, that this idea shows signs of catching on. My guess is that the National Education Association and the National Federation of Teachers would sound the alarm, and declare that civilization is trembling on the brink of the abyss, that our children, the hope of the country's future, are in peril, and that this enemy of education ought to be run out of town, or jailed for child abuse. Would such a reaction mean that all teachers are in fact mercenary scoundrels? Fox hated the tithe with a passion (and perhaps also saw that playing the tithe card was a sure win). Markets and fairs were announced by the ringing of bells, and so were church services. For Fox, the ringing of a church bell was a symbol of the fact that the clergy were selling the gospel, which ought to be given freely. Thus, church bells drove him into a rage. Steeples did likewise. I am not sure why. Perhaps it was because the steeples were often bell towers. Perhaps it was because he thought of them as idols he associated them with the sacred pillars raised to honor pagan deities in Biblical times, or with the maypoles that the Puritans detested as being pagan, or popish, or just plain frivolous. His favorite term of abuse for church buildings was "steeple-houses." He would not call them "churches," partly because he disapproved of what was taught in them, but also because he insisted that "church" meant the people of God, and that another word was needed for the building. Hence, if buildings meant for worship had no steeples, they were "meeting-houses," and potentially innocent; but if they had steeples, they were "steeple-houses," and dens of Satan. Here is a fragment of a sermon by Fox: Sound, sound abroad, you faithful servants of the Lord, and witnesses in His name...and prophets of the Highest, and angels of the Lord! Sound ye all abroad in the world, to the awakening and raising of the dead, that they may be awakened, and raised up out of the grave, to hear the voice that is living. For the dead have long heard the dead, and the blind have long wandered among the blind, and the deaf amongst the deaf. Therefore sound, sound ye servants and prophets and angels of the Lord, ye trumpets of the Lord, that ye may awaken the dead, and awaken them that be asleep in their graves of sin, death and hell, and sepulchres and sea and earth, and who lie in the tombs. Sound, sound abroad, ye trumpets, and raise up the dead, that the dead may hear the voice of the Son of God, the voice of the second Adam that never fell; the voice of the Light, and the voice of the Life; the voice of the Power, and the voice of the Truth; the voice of the Righteous, and the voice of the Just. Sound, sound the pleasant and melodious sound; sound, sound ye the trumpets, the melodious sound abroad, that all the deaf ears may be opened to hear the pleasant sound of the trumpet to judgement and Life, to condemnation and Light. Fox often said that, once heard, his message could not be denied, and he did everything in his power to let the message be heard, whether people wanted to listen or not. Wherever he could find an audience, he preached, and those who received his message became preachers likewise. They called themselves by various names, such as Children of Light, Publishers of the Truth, Officers of the Lamb, or Friends of the Truth. Eventually they came to call themselves simply Friends, and their group The Religious Society of Friends, taking the name from John 15:15-- "Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth; but I have called you friends." How they acquired the nickname "Quaker" is uncertain. In the earliest years of the movement, some members shook violently in the throes of religious excitement, and Barclay says that this gave rise to the term. But Fox reports that in 1650, having been haled into court in Derby on a charge of disturbing the peace, he said to the judge, one Justice Gervase Bennet, "I bid thee tremble before the word of God!" to which the judge replied, "I bid thee quake before the law," or, as otherwise quoted, "You are the Quaker, not I." In any event, the term originated outside the movement, but was soon adopted by Quakers themselves, and is not considered offensive. Far from being a meek, passive lot, the early Quakers were a rowdy, noisy, assertive band. They had a vision of a transformed world, and they fully intended to convert the world to their vision within a generation. Quaker missionaries made their way to America, the Vatican, Turkey, Africa, and even China. In England, probably there was no parish where they did not preach by 1660. They spoke at county fairs. They addressed crowds gathered to hear them, and crowds gathered to watch wrestling matches. They stood up in church and interrupted the preacher to give sermons of their own. They were disturbers of the peace. On several occasions, groups of Quakers took off their clothes and ran naked through the streets, "for a sign"--that is, announcing a Divine judgement to come (cf. Isaiah 20). Fox writes defending the practice in 1652. In 1661, an outside source seems to say that it is a common sight in Yorkshire <@ 54 N 1:30 W>. In 1671-1673, Fox visited Barbados <13:07 N 59:37 W> and other islands in the West Indies, and colonies in North America from Rhode Island <@ 41:30 N 72:30 W> to the Carolinas <@ 35 N 80 W>, spending time chiefly in Maryland <@ 39:30 N 77 W> and Rhode Island, to encourage Quakers who had settled there, and to preach to those outside the movement. Fox was often ungentle with those who rejected his message. He disagreed vigorously with Roger Williams, founder of the colony of Rhode Island, and expressed his disagreement in a pamphlet called, "The Boasting Baptist Badly Beaten." He wrote with relish of how those who persecuted or opposed or disagreed with him came to bad ends by the judgement of God. He was even harsher with fellow Quakers who questioned his leadership or his judgement. One of his followers, James Nayler, preached in London in July 1655 with remarkable success. Unlike earlier Quakers, he had no need to interrupt services to get an audience. People flocked to hear him at his own meetings. Ministers invited him to their churches so that they could debate him, and usually lost the debates. Quaker membership was growing spectacularly. He had an enthusiastic following, some of whom declared him to be a greater vessel of the message than Fox himself. One woman in particular, Martha Simmonds, praised him extravagantly, and then confronted Fox and told him that his heart was rotten and that Nayler would replace him as leader of the Society. Fox demanded that Nayler repudiate Simmonds. Nayler, in an agony of indecision, did nothing. Fox heard of this, and repudiated Nayler. Nayler was in prison in Exeter, and asked Fox to visit him there so that they might mend matters. Fox came, and joined Nayler and others in prison for prayer. The Naylerites present left their hats on when Fox began to pray. Fox took this as a deadly insult, amounting to a declaration that his prayers were not real prayers. Later, he asked Nayler to meet with him privately, without the Naylerites. Nayler refused, and Fox took this for a personal snub. Finally, Fox visited Nayler again. Nayler asked Fox for the kiss of Christian fellowship, and Fox offered his foot to be kissed, writing afterwards, "so the Lord moved me to slight him, and to set the power of God over him." Says one biographer: "Impossible not to wish that Fox had resisted the Inner Light for once!" Nayler refused, and they parted, with Fox firmly decided that Nayler was an enemy of the Truth, and a traitor to the Light. Subsequently Nayler was freed, rode in triumph into Bristol on Friday 24 October 1656 in an obvious imitation of Christ's ride into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, was arrested, condemned for blasphemy, and sentenced to be whipped, pilloried, branded, and imprisoned for an indefinite period, possibly for life (he was released after three years). More details are given under DANGERS OF SUBJECTIVISM. There was a petition circulated for clemency, but Fox refused to sign it. When Nayler was freed on 8 September 1659, Fox at first refused to see him. Their friends pleaded with Fox to be reconciled with the repentant Nayler, and finally in January or February Fox agreed to a meeting, but required Nayler to kneel before him and ask for his forgiveness. Nayler died 21 October 1660. Some would argue that this harshness is an inevitable consequence of Fox's premises. If I believe that every man has an Inner Light, and that the Light guides every honest, sincere man into the Truth, and if I find that someone, even after I have conversed with him, persists in holding views incompatible with mine, then I must conclude that at least one of us is not honest and sincere. Chances are that I shall have no difficulty in identifying the logical suspect. In the film "Friendly Persuasion," a Quaker youth has a difficult decision to make. His mother is sure of the right road for him, and gets him to promise to pray about the matter. He prays, and decides, and his mother says, in effect: "No, no, thee must keep praying for guidance until God makes it clear to thee that I am right." On the other hand, we note that it is not only believers in the Inner Light who are prone to take this approach. Suppose, for example, that I call myself a Bible-believing Christian, meaning thereby that I believe that God has given us in the Holy Scriptures a sure guide to the truth on all issues. Now suppose that on some issue, I find myself on one side, and another Bible- believing Christian on the other side. Am I not likely to conclude that he cannot really be a Bible-believing Christian? Again, we note that it is not only in a religious context that persons are disposed to take this approach. Suppose that I take reason, observation, and common sense as my guides to truth, and say that everyone ought to do so. I call this the Scientific Outlook. Now, suppose that some question is raised, such as how much of intelligence is hereditary. I carefully look at the evidence that others have gathered, perhaps conduct some studies of my own, apply reason and common sense to the data, and arrive at a conclusion. Jones goes through a similar procedure, arrives at another, quite different conclusion. What do I do? I discuss the data with Jones, and go with him step by step over the chain of reasoning that leads from the observations to the conclusion. He remains unmoved. I am forced to conclude, however reluctantly, that Jones lacks the Scientific Outlook! $$$ FOX'S LEGACY Addressing his followers around 1680 (in words reminiscent of Paul in Acts 20:17-37 or 2 Corinthians 11:22-29), he said: You have known the manner of my life, the best part of thirty years, since I went forth, and forsook all things; I sought not myself. I sought you and his glory that sent me; and when I turned you to him that is able to save you, I left you to him: and my travels have been great, in hungers and colds, when there were few, for the first six or seven years, that I often lay in woods and commons in the night; that many times it was a byword, that I would not come into houses, and lie in their beds. And the prisons have made my home a great part of the time, and in jeopardy daily. Fox died 13 January 1691 (1690 by the Julian Calendar, which did not change the year number until 25 March). Fox's Journal was published in 1694, edited (and sanitized a bit) by Thomas Ellwood, with a preface by William Penn, called "Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers." His account is always vigorous, but may not always be precise. Some historians believe that Fox sometimes edited documents, so as to make it clear that he had been right about something all along. This is behavior that is regarded as a serious character flaw by Quakers, and especially by Quaker historians. (See H Larry Ingle, "George Fox, Historian," QUAKER HISTORY 82 (1993): 28-35.) Again, he may sometimes have embellished his accounts of his dangers and his sufferings, the better to illustrate the protecting power of God. In describing his travels in North America, for example, he says that he was in danger from lions and tigers. This may be a bit exaggerated. When Fox died, there were about 50,000 Quakers in England and Ireland <@ 53 N 7 W>, out of a total population of about 5,000,000. In 1972 there were about 200,000 world-wide, distributed as follows: United States and Canada 119,000 Africa 45,000 Europe, including the British Isles 24,000 Latin America 6,000 Asia and elsewhere 6,000 (The last 6,000 is not given explicitly in my source, but was added by me to bring the total up to 200,000. On the other hand, it is possible that the 200,000 is a round number and should be 194,000.) PRAYER (traditional language): Almighty Father, we thank thee for calling George Fox and his companions to witness boldly before the powerful of the earth; and we pray that like them we may ever know thy Son Jesus Christ both as him who died for us and as him who now liveth in us by the power of the Holy Spirit; Grant this, O Father, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the same Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, now and ever. PRAYER (contemporary language): Almighty Father, we thank you for calling George Fox and his companions to witness boldly before the powerful of the earth; and we pray that like them we may always know your Son Jesus Christ both as him who died for us and as him who now lives in us by the power of the Holy Spirit; Grant this, O Father, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever.