126 QUAKERISM IX GUERNSEY. 



When once in England, Nicolas Naftel and his wife seem 

 to have devoted their whole time to the work and Ministry of 

 the Society. In company with the Gurneys, Barclays and 

 other Friends they embarked on an incessant round of Meetings 

 and travels. In 1816 Mrs. JNaftel volunteered to sro to North 

 America, making- Philadelphia her headquarters, and did not 

 return till 1818. She died in 1820 and was buried at 

 Chelmsford where they then lived. Four years later Nicholas 

 Naftel, with Nicholas, Joseph and Mary, his surviving 

 children, also decided to go to America. Nicholas, the 

 elder son, was however lost in the ship "Crisis" in the ice 

 floes off Newfoundland two years later, and Mary, his sister, 

 died the following year. 



In 1830 Nicholas Naftel returned to Guernsey, and in 

 1835 Joseph, his only surviving son, returned on a visit from 

 America and married Martha Dumaresq of St. Saviour's 

 Parish ; she went back with her husband to America, leaving 

 her father-in-law in Guernsey in rapidly failing health and 

 there he died, in 1842, aged 80 years ; his life having been, 

 like that of all the Quaker Pioneers, hard, but by no means 

 dull. 



It appears by the Minutes of the Friends that it was 

 proposed in 1803 that the Old Court House at the Plaiderie 

 should be bought for a Friends' Meeting house, but that idea 

 fell through, and we find in 1810 that £300 was granted by 

 the Parent Society for the purpose of building a Meeting 

 House in Guernsey, which was opened in 1811 and still exists 

 as the little simple " Friends' Meeting House " at Clifton. 



There is no doubt that the active benevolence of the early 

 Quakers and their resolute protest against every form of 

 cruelty and injustice were influences which made for good. 

 Bishop Gore, a witness not suspect in regard to excessive 

 sy mpathy with nonconformity, wrote, " If I am to judge 

 by the fruits of religion as I see them in life, I should be 

 disposed to rank the Friends among the highest in the Kingdom 

 of God." 



We all know of the large number of Quakers who, within 

 the last three years have taken up arms to defend their country 

 as well as of the great work their Fraternity has done behind 

 the lines in succouring those Belgians and French whose 

 houses and property have been pillaged and destroyed by the 

 Germans. 



