MAN IN LEATHER BREECHES
THE JOURNAL OF GEORGE FOX, edited by John L. Nickalls; Cambridge University Press. English price, 21/-. (GEORGE FOX, founder of the Society of Friends, was born in Leicestershire in 1624. As William Penn writes in the preface to the first publication of his Journal, he was "an original, being no man’s copy"; and his great courage and unshakeable faith will be apparent to any reader. In Cromwell’s time religion was the source of fear, dispute and ‘hatred which political opinion ha’ now become. It is unfortunate that Fox’s fervour and organising ability did not goto swell the main stream of Christian thought and action rather than add yet another denomination to churches multiplying by fission. But his emphasis on good works and his placing the inward light of the Holy Spirit before Scriptural authority were greatly beneficial. In the 17th Century, however, Quakerism was no synonym for respectability. Fox and his followers were imprisoned in the foulest dungeons, stoned, starved, beaten and persecuted: and this Journal is in the main the story of his sufferings and nfinistry. The style (in parts modernised by the editor) is entirely plain and of an excellent clarity. Like Bunyan, Fox on occasion makes natural use of symbol and metaphor; and in his narrative the inward and outward events rub shoulders, as it were- , And there came one of his servants with a naked sword and run at me ere I was aware of him, and set it to my side, and there held it, and I looked up at him in his face and said to him, ‘‘Alack for thee, it's no,more to me than a straw." And lying at a Friend’s house, I felt the evil spirit to work again to purpose, being always on my watch, I saw, as it were, a grim, black fellow, who was fettering of my legs with a cord, that I had much ado to preserve my feet from him. ‘ Oliver Cromwell said farewell to Fox with tears in his eyes; but one would be somewhat afraid to meet him ih the flesh, for he seemed to have the gift of seeing through stone walls and into the minds of men. The Journal of this extra-
ordinaty man is a_ spiritual autobiography of unsurpassed interest.
James K.
Baxter
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 724, 29 May 1953, Page 13
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385MAN IN LEATHER BREECHES New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 724, 29 May 1953, Page 13
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