Читать книгу A Book of Quaker Saints - L. V. Hodgkin - Страница 16

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Perhaps some boys and girls have said many times since the War began: 'I wish Friends did not think it wrong to fight for their King and Country. Why did George Fox forbid Quakers to fight for the Right like other brave men? Is it not right to fight for our own dear England?'

But did George Fox ever forbid other people to fight? He was not in the habit of laying down rules for other people, even his own followers. Let us see what he himself did when, as a young man, he was faced with this very same difficulty, or an even more perplexing one, since it was our own dear England itself in those days that was tossed and torn with Civil War.

First of all, listen to the story of a man who tamed a Tiger:—

Far away in India, a savage, hungry Tiger, with stealthy steps and a yellow, striped skin, came padding into a defenceless native village, to seek for prey. In the early morning he had slunk out of the Jungle, with soft, cushioned paws that showed no signs of the fierce nails they concealed. All through the long, hot day he had lain hidden in the thick reeds by the riverside; but at sunset he grew hungry, and sprang, with a great bound, up from his hiding-place. Right into the village itself he came, trampling down the patches of young, green corn that the villagers had sown, and that were just beginning to spring up, fresh and green, around the mud walls of their homes. All the villagers fled away in terror at the first glimpse of the yellow, striped skin. The fathers and mothers snatched up their brown babies, the older children ran in front screaming, 'Tiger! Tiger!' Young and old they all fled away, as fast as ever they could, into the safest hiding-places near at hand.

One man alone, a Stranger, did not fly. He remained standing right in the middle of the Tiger's path, and fearlessly faced the savage beast. With a howl of rage, the Tiger prepared for a spring. The man showed no sign of fear. He never moved a muscle. Not an eyelash quivered. Such unusual behaviour puzzled the Tiger. What could this strange thing be, that stood quite still in the middle of the path? It could hardly be a man. Men were always terrified of tigers, and fled screaming when they approached. The Tiger actually stopped short in its spring, to gaze upon this perplexing, motionless Being who knew no fear. There he stood, perfectly silent, perfectly calm, gazing back at the Tiger with the look of a conqueror. Several long, heavy minutes passed. At length the villagers, peeping out from their hiding-places, looking between the broad plantain leaves or through the chinks of their wooden huts, beheld a miracle. They saw, to their amazement, the Tiger slink off, sullen and baffled, to the jungle, while the Stranger remained alone and unharmed in possession of the path. At first they scarcely dared to believe their eyes. It was only gradually, as they saw that the Tiger had really departed not to return, that they ventured to creep back, by twos and threes first of all, and then in little timid groups, to where the Stranger stood. Then they fell at his feet and embraced his knees and worshipped him, almost as if he had been a god. 'Tell us your Magic, Sahib,' they cried, 'this mighty magic, whereby you have managed to overcome the Monarch of the Jungle and tame him to your will.'

'I know no magic,' answered the Stranger, 'I used no spells. I was able to overcome this savage Tiger only because I have already learned how to overcome and tame THE TIGER IN MY OWN HEART.'

That was his secret. That is the story. And now let us return to George Fox.

Think of the England he lived in when he was a young man, the distracted England of the Civil Wars. Think of all the tiger spirits of hatred that had been unloosed and that were trampling the land. The whole country lay torn and bleeding. Some bad men there were on both sides certainly; but the real misery was that many good men on each side were trying to kill and maim one another, in order that the cause they believed to be 'the Right' might triumph.

'Have at you for the King!' cried the Cavaliers, and rushed into the fiercest battle with a smile.

'God with us!' shouted back the deep-voiced Puritans. 'For God and the Liberties of England!' and they too laid down their lives gladly.

Far away from all the hurly-burly, though in the very middle of the clash of arms, George Fox, the unknown Leicestershire shepherd lad, went on his way, unheeded and unheeding. He, too, had to fight; but his was a lonely battle, in the silence of his own heart. It was there that he fought and conquered first of all, there that he tamed his own Tiger at last—more than that, he learned to find God.

'One day,' he says in his Journal, 'when I had been walking solitarily abroad and was come home, I was taken up into the love of God, and it was opened to me by the eternal light and power, and I therein clearly saw that all was to be done in and by Christ, and how He conquers and destroys the Devil and all his works and is atop of him.' He means that he saw that all the outward fighting was really part of one great battle, and that to be on the right side in that fight is the thing that matters eternally to every man.

Another time he writes: 'I saw into that which was without end, things which cannot be uttered and of the greatness and infiniteness of the love of God, which cannot be expressed by words, for I had been brought through the very ocean of darkness and death, and through and over the power of Satan by the eternal glorious power of Christ; even through that darkness was I brought which covered over all the world and shut up all in the death. … And I saw the harvest white and the seed of God lying thick in the ground, as ever did wheat that was sown outwardly, and I mourned that there was none to gather it.'

When George Fox speaks of the 'seed,' he means the tender spot that there must always be in the hearts of all men, however wicked, since they are made in the likeness of God. A tiny, tiny something, the first stirring of life, that God's Spirit can find and work on, however deeply it may be buried (like a seed under heavy clods of earth), if men will only yield to It. In another place he calls this seed 'THAT OF GOD WITHIN YOU.' And it is this tender growing 'seed' that gets trampled down when fierce angry passions are unloosed in people's hearts, just as the tender springing corn in the Indian village was trampled down by the hungry Tiger. George Fox believed that that seed lay hidden in the hearts of all men, because he had found it in his own. Everywhere he longed to set that seed free to grow, and to tame the Tiger spirits that would trample it down and destroy it. Let us watch and see how he did this.

One day when he was about twenty-five years old, he heard that some people had been put in prison at Coventry for the sake of their religion. He thought that there must be a good crop of seed in the hearts of those people, since they were willing to suffer for their faith, so he determined to go and see them. As he was on his way to the gaol a message came to him from God. He seemed to hear God's own Voice saying to him, 'MY LOVE WAS ALWAYS TO THEE, AND THOU ART IN MY LOVE.' 'Always to thee.' Then that love had always been round him, even in his loneliest struggles, and now that he knew that he was in it, nothing could really hurt him. No wonder that he walked on towards the gaol with a feeling of new joy and strength. But when he came to the dark, frowning prison where numbers of men and women were lying in sin and misery, this joyfulness left him. He says, 'A great power of darkness struck at me.' The prisoners were not the sort of people he had hoped to find them. They were a set of what were then called 'Ranters.' They began to swear and to say wicked things against God. George Fox sat silent among them, still fastening his mind on the thought of God's conquering love; but as they went on to say yet wilder and more wicked things, at last that very love forced him to reprove them. They paid no attention, and at length Fox was obliged to leave them. He says he was 'greatly grieved, yet I admired the goodness of the Lord in appearing so to me, before I went among them.'

For the time it did seem as if the Tiger spirits had won, and were able to trample down the living seed. But wait! A little while after, one of these same prisoners, named Joseph Salmon, wrote a paper confessing that he was sorry for what he had said and done, whereupon they were all set at liberty.

Meanwhile, George Fox went on his way, and travelled through 'markets, fairs, and divers places, and saw death and darkness everywhere, where the Lord had not shaken them.' In one place he heard that a great man lay dying and that his recovery was despaired of by all the doctors. Some of his friends in the town desired George Fox to visit the sufferer. 'I went up to him in his chamber,' says Fox in his Journal, 'and spake the word of life to him, and was moved to pray by him, and the Lord was entreated and restored him to health. When I was come down the stairs into a lower room and was speaking to the servants, a serving-man of his came raving out of another room, with a naked rapier in his hand, and set it just to my side. I looked steadfastly on him and said "Alack for thee, poor creature! what wilt thou do with thy carnal weapon, it is no more to me than a straw." The standers-by were much troubled, and he went away in a rage; but when news came of it to his master, he turned him out of his service.'

Although that particular man's Tiger spirit had been foiled in its spring, the man himself had not been really tamed. Perhaps George Fox needed to learn more, and to suffer more himself, before he could really change other men's hearts. If so, he had not long to wait.

Shortly after this, it was his own turn to be imprisoned. He was shut up in Derby Gaol, and given into the charge of a very cruel Gaoler. This man was a strict Puritan, and he hated Fox, and spoke wickedly against him. He even refused him permission to go and preach to the people of the town, which, strangely enough, the prisoners in those days were allowed to do.

One morning, however, Fox was walking up and down in his cell, when he heard a doleful noise. He stopped his walk to listen. Through the wall he could hear the voice of the Gaoler speaking to his wife—'Wife,' he said, 'I have had a dream. I saw the Day of Judgment, and I saw George there!' How the listener must have wondered what was coming! 'I saw George there,' the Gaoler continued, 'and I was afraid of him, because I had done him so much wrong, and spoken so much against him to the ministers and professors, and to the Justices and in taverns and alehouses.' But there the voice stopped, and the prisoner heard no more. When evening came, however, the Gaoler visited the cell, no longer raging and storming at his prisoner, but humbled and still. 'I have been as a lion against you,' he said to Fox, 'but now I come like a lamb, or like the Gaoler that came to Paul and Silas, trembling.' He came to ask as a favour that he might spend the night in the same prison chamber where Fox lay. Fox answered that he was in the Gaoler's power: the keeper of the prison of course could sleep in any place he chose. 'No,' answered the Gaoler, 'I wish to have your permission. I should like to have you always with me, but not as my prisoner.' So the two strange companions spent that night together lying side by side. In the quiet hours of darkness the Gaoler told Fox all that was in his heart. 'I have found that what you said of the true faith and hope is really true, and I want you to know that even before I had that terrible vision, whenever I refused to let you go and preach, I was sorry afterwards when I had treated you roughly, and I had great trouble of mind.'

There had been a little seed of kindness even in this rough Gaoler's heart. Deeply buried though it was, it had been growing in the darkness all the time, though no one guessed it—the Gaoler himself perhaps least of all until his dream showed him the truth about himself. When the night was over and morning light had come, the Gaoler was determined to do all he could to help his new friend. He went straight to the Justices and told them that he and all his household had been plagued because of what they had done to George Fox the prisoner.

'Well, we have been plagued too for having him put in prison,' answered one of the Justices, whose name was Justice Bennett. And here we must wait a minute, for it is interesting to know that it was this same Justice Bennett who first gave the name of Quakers to George Fox and his followers as a nickname, to make fun of them. Fox declared in his preaching that 'all men should tremble at the word of the Lord,' whereupon the Justice laughingly said that 'Quakers and Tremblers was the name for such people.' The Justice might have been much surprised if he could have known that centuries after, thousands of people all over the world would still be proud to call themselves by the name he had given in a moment of mockery.

Neither Justice Bennett nor his prisoner could guess this, however; and therefore, although his Gaoler's heart had been changed, George Fox still lay in Derby Prison. There was more work waiting for him to do there.

One day he heard that a soldier wanted to see him, and in there came a rough trooper, with a story that he was very anxious to tell. 'I was sitting in Church,' he began. 'Thou meanest in the steeple-house,' corrected Fox, who was always very sure that a 'Church' meant a 'Company of Christ's faithful people,' and that the mere outward building where they were gathered should only be called a steeple-house if it had a steeple, or a meeting-house if it had none. 'Sitting in Church, listening to the Priest,' continued the trooper, paying no attention to the interruption, 'I was in an exceeding great trouble, thinking over my sins and wondering what I should do, when a Voice came to me—I believe it was God's own Voice and it said—"Dost thou not know that my servant is in prison? Go thou to him for direction." So I obeyed the Voice,' the man continued, 'and here I have come to you, and now I want you to tell me what I must do to get rid of the burden of these sins of mine.' He was like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress, with a load of sins on his back, was he not? And just as Christian's burden rolled away when he came to the Cross, so the trooper's distress vanished when Fox spoke to him, and told him that the same power that had shown him his sins and troubled him for them, would also show him his salvation, for 'That which shows a man his sin is the Same that takes it away!'

Fox did not speak in vain. The trooper 'began to have great understanding of the Lord's truth and mercyes.' He became a bold man too, and took his new-found happiness straight back to the other soldiers in his quarters, and told them of the truths he had learnt in the prison. He even said that their Colonel—Colonel Barton—was 'as blind as Nebuchadnezzar, to cast such a true servant of God as Fox was, into Gaol.'

Before long this saying came to Colonel Barton's ears, and then there was a fine to do. Naturally he did not like being compared with Nebuchadnezzar. Who would? But it would have been undignified for a Colonel to take any notice then of the soldiers' tittle-tattle; so he said nothing, only bided his time and waited until he could pay back his grudge against the sergeant. A whole year he waited—then his chance came. It was at the Battle of Worcester, when the two armies were lying close together, but before the actual fighting had begun, that two soldiers of the King's Army came out and challenged any two soldiers of the Parliamentary Army to single combat, whereupon Colonel Barton ordered the soldier who had likened him to Nebuchadnezzar to go with one other companion on this dangerous errand. They went; they fought with the two Royalists, and one of the two Parliamentarians was killed; but it was the other one, not Fox's friend. He, left alone, with his comrade lying dead by his side, suddenly found that not even to save his own life could he kill his enemies. So he drove them both before him back to the town, but he did not fire off his pistol at them. Then, as soon as Worcester fight was over, he himself returned and told the whole tale to Fox. He told him 'how the Lord had miraculously preserved him,' and said also that now he had 'seen the deceit and hypocrisy of the officers he had seen also to the end of Fighting.' Whereupon he straightway laid down his arms.

The trooper left the army. Meanwhile his friend and teacher had suffered for refusing to join it. We must go back a little to the time, some months before the Battle of Worcester, when the original term of Fox's imprisonment in the House of Correction in Derby was drawing to a close.

At this time many new soldiers were being raised for the Parliamentary Army, and among them the authorities were anxious to include their stalwart prisoner, George Fox. Accordingly the Gaoler was asked to bring his charge out to the market-place, and there, before the assembled Commissioners and soldiers, Fox was offered a good position in the army if he would take up arms for the Commonwealth against Charles Stuart. The officers could not understand why George Fox should refuse to regain his liberty on what seemed to them to be such easy terms. 'Surely,' they said, 'a strong, big-boned man like you will be not only willing but eager to take up arms against the oppressor and abuser of the liberties of the people of England!'

Fox persisted in his refusal. 'I told them,' he writes in his Journal, 'that I knew whence all wars arose, even from men's lusts … and that I lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars. Yet they courted me to accept their offer, and thought I did but compliment them. But I told them I was come into that covenant of peace which was before wars and strifes were. They said they offered it in love and kindness to me, because for my virtue, and such like flattering words they used. But I told them if that was their love and kindness, I trampled it under my feet. Then their rage got up, and they said, "Take him away, Gaoler, and put him into the prison among the rogues and thieves."'

This prison was a much worse place than the House of Correction where Fox had been confined hitherto. In it he was obliged to remain for a weary half-year longer, knowing all the time that he might have been at liberty, could he have consented to become an officer in the army. His relations, distressed at his imprisonment, had already offered £100 for his release, but Fox would not accept the pardon this sum might have obtained for him as he said he had done nothing wrong. He was occasionally allowed to leave the horrible, dirty gaol, with its loathsome insects and wicked companions, and walk for a short time in the garden by himself, because his keepers knew that when he had given his word he would not try to escape from their custody.

As time went on, many dismal people (looking on the gloomy side of things, as dismal people always do) began to shake their heads and say, 'Poor young man, he will spend all his life in gaol. You will see he will never be set free or get his liberty again.' But Fox refused to be cast down. Narrow though his prison was, Hope shared it with him. 'I had faith in God,' his Journal says, 'that I should be delivered from that place in the Lord's time, but not yet, being set there for a work He had for me to do!' Work there was for him in prison truly. A young woman prisoner who had robbed her master was sentenced to be hanged, according to the barbarous law then in force. This shocked Fox so much that he wrote letters to her judges and to the men who were to have been her executioners, expressing his horror at what was going to happen in such strong language that he actually softened their hearts. Although the girl had actually reached the foot of the gallows, and her grave had already been dug, she was reprieved. Then, when she was brought back into prison again after this wonderful escape Fox was able to pour light and life into her soul, which was an even greater thing than saving her body from death. Many other prisoners did Fox help and comfort in Derby Gaol;[2] but though he could soften the sufferings of others he could not shorten his own. Once again Justice Bennett sent his men to the prison, this time with orders to take the Quaker by force and compel him to join the army, since he would not fight of his own free will.

'But I told him,' said Fox, '"that I was brought off from outward wars." They came again to give me press money, but I would take none. Afterwards the Constables brought me a second time before the Commissioners, who said I should go for a soldier, but I said I was dead to it. They said I was alive. I told them where envy and hatred is, there is confusion. They offered me money twice, but I refused it. Being disappointed, they were angry, and committed me a close prisoner, till at length they were made to turn me out of Gaol about the beginning of winter 1651, after I had been a prisoner in Derby almost a year; six months in the House of Correction, and six months in the common gaol.'

Thus at length Derby prison was left behind; but the seeds that the prisoner had planted in that dark place sprang up and flourished and bore fruit long after he had left.

Eleven years later, the very same Gaoler, who had been cruel to Fox at the first, and had then had the vision and repented, wrote this letter to his former prisoner. It is a real Gaoler's love-letter, and quite fresh to-day, though it was written nearly 300 years ago.

'DEAR FRIEND,' the letter begins,

'Having such a convenient messenger I could do no less than give thee an account of my present condition; remembering that to the first awakening of me to a sense of life, God was pleased to make use of thee as an instrument. So that sometimes I am taken with admiration that it should come by such means as it did; that is to say that Providence should order thee to be my prisoner to give me my first sight of the truth. It makes me think of the gaoler's conversion by the apostles. Oh! happy George Fox! that first breathed the breath of life within the walls of my habitation! Notwithstanding that my outward losses are since that time such that I am become nothing in the world, yet I hope I shall find that these light afflictions, which are but for a moment, will work for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. They have taken all from me; and now instead of keeping a prison, I am waiting rather when I shall become a prisoner myself. Pray for me that my faith fail not, and that I may hold out to the death, that I may receive a crown of life. I earnestly desire to hear from thee and of thy condition, which would very much rejoice me. Not having else at present, but my kind love to thee and all friends, in haste, I rest thine in Christ Jesus.

'THOMAS SHARMAN.

'Derby, the 22nd of the fourth month, 1662.'

This Gaoler was one of the first people whose Tiger spirits were tamed by George Fox. But he certainly was not the last. Fox himself had told the soldiers in Derby market-place that he could not fight, because he 'lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars.' As a friend of his wrote, after his death many years later: 'George Fox was a discerner of other men's spirits, AND VERY MUCH A MASTER OF HIS OWN.'