It was not until 1844 that the sect obtained complete
religious liberty in England.
[Sidenote: Quakers]
A most remarkable departure from conventional forms was made under the
leadership of George Fox, the son of a weaver, whose followers, loosely
organized as the Society of Friends, were often derisively called
Quakers, because they insisted that true religion was accompanied by
deep emotions and quakings of spirit. Although severely persecuted,
[Footnote: In 1685 as many as 1460 Quakers lay in English prisons.] the
Quakers grew to be influential at home, and in the colonies, where they
founded Pennsylvania (1681). Their refusal to take oaths, their quaint
"thee" and "thou," their simple and somber costumes, and their habit of
sitting silent in religious meeting until the spirit should move a
member to speak, made them a most picturesque body. Professional
ministers and the ceremonial observance of Baptism and the Lord's
Supper, they held to be forms destructive of spontaneous religion. War,
they said, gave free rein to un-Christian cruelty, selfishness, and
greed; and, therefore, they would not fight.
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