CHAPTER XXIII 



PENNSYLVANIA, THE QUAKER COLONY 



It ought to be part of every man's religion to see that his country 

 is well governed. WILLIAM PENN. 



Liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without 

 liberty is slavery. Idem, 1682. 



THE Society of Friends had an important part in that 

 " romance of broad spaces and daring wills," the settle- 

 ment and growth of the American Colonies. The early 

 settlers on that continent were many of them men and 

 women of strong convictions, thoughtful and self-reliant, 

 who had broken away from the church-systems of Europe. 

 Men of this stamp were ready to listen to the message of 

 the Inward Light, and to giv$, heed to the Quaker 

 preachers, who from the year 16^0 onwards, in unbroken 

 succession, crossed the Atlantic to proclaim it. 1 Even 

 where intolerance prevailed the steadfast persistence of 

 the Friends made its way, and the blood of the martyrs 

 shed on Boston Common proved as in an earlier day the 

 seed of the Church. Nowhere did George Fox find a 

 people more prepared to accept his spiritual gospel than 

 in the coast towns of America, and in the lonely settle- 

 ments along the Albemarle. 



In the first half century of their existence, when 

 Friends were an active growing people, they took a large 

 share in the public life of the new communities and helped 

 to build them on a foundation of true freedom. Rhode 



1 Between 1661 and 1771 about 132 religious visits, often including many 

 months of travel, were paid by preachers of the society from Europe. Proud, 

 Pennsylvania, ii. 338, note. Edmund Peckover found 5000 persons in attend- 

 ance at New England Yearly Meeting in 1743. Journ. Friends' Hist. Soc. 

 i. 102. 



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