Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Prose Works. 1892.
V. November Boughs22. George Fox (and Shakspere)
W
As indispensable foreground, indeed, for Elias Hicks, and perhaps sine qua non to an estimate of the kind of man, we must briefly transport ourselves back to the England of that period. As I say, it is the time of tremendous moral and political agitation; ideas of conflicting forms, governments, theologies, seethe and dash like ocean storms, and ebb and flow like mighty tides. It was, or had been, the time of the long feud between the Parliament and the Crown. In the midst of the sprouts, began George Fox—born eight years after the death of Shakspere. He was the son of a weaver, himself a shoemaker, and was “converted” before the age of 20. But O the sufferings, mental and physical, through which those years of the strange youth pass’d! He claim’d to be sent by God to fulfil a mission. “I come,” he said, “to direct people to the spirit that gave forth the Scriptures.” The range of his thought, even then, cover’d almost every important subject of after times, antislavery, women’s rights, &c. Though in a low sphere, and among the masses, he forms a mark’d feature in the age.
And how, indeed, beyond all any, that stormy and perturb’d age! The foundations of the old, the superstitious, the conventionally poetic, the credulous, all breaking—the light of the new, and of science and democracy, definitely beginning—a mad, fierce, almost crazy age! The political struggles of the reigns of the Charleses, and of the Protectorate of Cromwell, heated to frenzy by theological struggles. Those were the years following the advent and practical working of the Reformation—but Catholicism is yet strong, and yet seeks supremacy. We think our age full of the flush of men and doings, and culminations of war and peace; and so it is. But there could hardly be a grander and more picturesque and varied age than that.
Born out of and in this age, when Milton, Bunyan, Dryden and John Locke were still living—amid the memories of Queen Elizabeth and James First, and the events of their reigns—when the radiance of that galaxy of poets, warriors, statesmen, captains, lords, explorers, wits and gentlemen, that crowded the courts and times of those sovereigns still fill’d the atmosphere—when America commencing to be explor’d and settled commenc’d also to be suspected as destin’d to overthrow the old standards and calculations—when Feudalism, like a sunset, seem’d to gather all its glories, reminiscences, personalisms, in one last gorgeous effort, before the advance of a new day, a new incipient genius—amid the social and domestic circles of that period—indifferent to reverberations that seem’d enough to wake the dead, and in a sphere far from the pageants of the court, the awe of any personal rank or charm of intellect, or literature, or the varying excitement of Parliamentarian or Royalist fortunes—this curious young rustic goes wandering up and down England.
George Fox, born 1624, was of decent stock, in ordinary lower life—as he grew along toward manhood, work’d at shoemaking, also at farm labors—loved to be much by himself, half-hidden in the woods, reading the Bible—went about from town to town, dress’d in leather clothes—walk’d much at night, solitary, deeply troubled (“the inward divine teaching of the Lord”)—sometimes goes among the ecclesiastical gatherings of the great professors, and though a mere youth bears bold testimony—goes to and fro disputing—(must have had great personality)—heard the voice of the Lord speaking articulately to him, as he walk’d in the fields—feels resistless commands not to be explain’d, but follow’d, to abstain from taking off his hat, to say Thee and Thou, and not bid others Good morning or Good evening—was illiterate, could just read and write—testifies against shows, games, and frivolous pleasures—enters the courts and warns the judges that they see to doing justice—goes into public houses and market-places, with denunciations of drunkenness and money-making—rises in the midst of the church-services, and gives his own explanations of the ministers’ explanations, and of Bible passages and texts—sometimes for such things put in prison, sometimes struck fiercely on the mouth on the spot, or knock’d down, and lying there beaten and bloody—was of keen wit, ready to any question with the most apropos of answers—was sometimes press’d for a soldier, (him for a soldier!)—was indeed terribly buffeted; but goes, goes, goes—often sleeping out-doors, under hedges, or hay stacks—forever taken before justices—improving such, and all occasions, to bear testimony, and give good advice—still enters the “steeple-houses,” (as he calls churches,) and though often dragg’d out and whipt till he faints away, and lies like one dead, when he comes-to—stands up again, and offering himself all bruis’d and bloody, cries out to his tormenters, “Strike—strike again, here where you have not yet touch’d! my arms, my head, my cheeks.”—Is at length arrested and sent up to London, confers with the Protector, Cromwell,—is set at liberty, and holds great meetings in London.
Thus going on, there is something in him that fascinates one or two here, and three or four there, until gradually there were others who went about in the same spirit, and by degrees the Society of Friends took shape, and stood among the thousand religious sects of the world. Women also catch the contagion, and go round, often shamefully misused. By such contagion these ministerings, by scores, almost hundreds of poor travelling men and women, keep on year after year, through ridicule, whipping, imprisonment, &c.—some of the Friend-ministers emigrate to New England—where their treatment makes the blackest part of the early annals of the New World. Some were executed, others maim’d, par-burnt, and scourg’d—two hundred die in prison—some on the gallows, or at the stake.
George Fox himself visited America, and found a refuge and hearers, and preach’d many times on Long Island, New York State. In the village of Oysterbay they will show you the rock on which he stood, (1672,) addressing the multitude, in the open air—thus rigidly following the fashion of apostolic times.—(I have heard myself many reminiscences of him.) Flushing also contains (or contain’d—I have seen them) memorials of Fox, and his son, in two aged white-oak trees, that shaded him while he bore his testimony to people gather’d in the highway.—Yes, the American Quakers were much persecuted—almost as much, by a sort of consent of all the other sects, as the Jews were in Europe in the middle ages. In New England, the cruelest laws were pass’d, and put in execution against them. As said, some were whipt—women the same as men. Some had their ears cut off—others their tongues pierc’d with hot irons—others their faces branded. Worse still, a woman and three men had been hang’d, (1660.)—Public opinion, and the statutes, join’d together, in an odious union, Quakers, Baptists, Roman Catholics and Witches.—Such a fragmentary sketch of George Fox and his time—and the advent of ‘the Society of Friends’ in America.