190 WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS V 



familiarity or friendship with young or old/ 1 

 "About the beginning of the year 1647 I was 

 moved of the Lord to go into Darbyshire." Fox 

 hears voices and he sees visions, some of which he 

 brings before the reader with apocalyptic power in 

 the simple and strong English, alike untutored 

 and undefiled, of which, like John Bunyan, his 

 contemporary, he was a master. 



" And one morning, as I was sitting by the fire, 

 a great cloud came over me and a temptation beset 

 me ; and I sate still. And it was said, All things 

 come ly Nature. And the elements and stars came 

 over me ; so that I was in a manner quite clouded 

 with it. ... And as I sate still under it, and let it 

 alone, a living hope arose in me, and a true voice 

 arose in me which said, There is a living God who 

 made all things. And immediately the cloud and 

 the temptation vanished away, and life rose over 

 it all, and my heart was glad and I praised the 

 living God " (p. 13). 



If George Fox could speak, as he proves in this 

 and some other passages he could write, his as- 

 tounding influence on the contemporaries of Milton 

 and of Cromwell is no mystery. But this modern 

 reproduction of the ancient prophet, with his 

 " Thus saith the Lord," " This is the work of the 

 Lord," steeped in supernaturalism and glorying in 

 blind faith, is the mental antipodes of the philo- 

 sopher, founded in naturalism and a fanatic for 

 evidence, to whom these affirmations inevitably 



