Fresh streams shall oft his strength restore, And Joy, when Life's short journey's o'er, The Optimist's Consolation. Wild winter rages, all his floods pour down; W. To the fierce blast the mountain-spirits moan; On the Christian Sabbath. This day a glad refreshment brings Here Gratitude, adoring, sings The sinner shall His Name confess, The humbler creatures of his hand To celebrate thy glories, Lord! All nature now combines; Th' Angelic Host with sweet accord In heavenly rapture joins. W. Ackworth School Jubilee on Negro Emancipation. W. (Official!) Friends' School, Ackworth, 8th of Eighth Month, 1834. This day week, the 1st of the Month, having been the day of the commencement of freedom to the Blacks in our Colonies, it was thought by some of the Children's friends, that it should be spent in a manner calculated to leave that auspicious event engraven on their memories— that it should be a JUBILEE; a day of rejoicing, with those who would have to rejoice in the acquisition of so great a benefit. Accordingly, Medals in commemoration of the day having been pro cured; and distributed to the boys and girls severally, at the close of an examination of their proficiency in the knowledge of Holy Scripture and Christian doctrine, the Juniors were to be seen, during this and the following day, decorated with this Order of Civil Liberty, appended by various coloured ribbands to their necks. The vacation of two days, which had attended the Annual Meeting for the affairs of the Institution, was prolonged to the end of the week,—prizes, in the form of approved books, were distributed to the more deserving; and something, in that way, given to all. After which the children were encouraged in every due manifestation of hilarity and joy; the refreshment of Coffee and butter-cakes, being set out for them, on the Girls' play-green, in the evening. Among the other novelties, a public meeting of the Scholars was convened; at which Resolutions (grave and well worded as those of more splendid assemblies) were moved and seconded by speakers of four-foot growth: and a premium having been held out for the best poem on Negro Emancipation, the inspiration was found redundantly availing, and copies of verse (by boys and girls both) flew about like butterflies on a Summer's morning. But some Friends from the South, who were the life and soul of these divertisements, having carried off the best of them, I shall not here let down the cause by printing from the remainder; concluding that these verses, which were really passable, will appear somewhere. Suffice it for me, as Censor morum, to record the gratifying fact, that after all this excitement, in the course of which the most lively clapping of favoured speakers—a thing unheard of in former times-was indulged in (such is the power of good habits) we had the same serious faces at our First-day morning-meeting following the lively scene, as if nothing had occured to cause a ripple on the tranquil stream of events, in our little secluded community. Ed. P. S. and N. B. The Boys gave up their weekly pence, and the Girls raised a most liberal subscription (their means considered) in aid of Negro Education. RESOLUTIONS moved and passed by the Children of both sexes at Friends' School, Ackworth (in company with a few of their Seniors) on occasion of the Abolition of British Colonial Slavery. 1. "That this Meeting is of the judgment, that to hold our Fellow-men in a state of Slavery, to buy and sell them like cattle, and to drive them to their work with the cruel Cart-whip, is wholly inconsistent with the natural rights of man, and with the principles of the Christian religion. 2. That this Meeting unites in the feeling of humble gratitude to the Author of all good, who has condescended so to bless the efforts of Christians of every denomination in this country, that the curse of Slavery throughout the British Empire is this day ended, and that all the Slaves are free! 3. "That this Meeting feels a peculiar interest in the welfare of the Negro Children, and earnestly desires that they may be so educated in the blessed doctrines and precepts of Christianity, that, under Divine Grace they may become FREE INDEED. CHARLES ELCOCK, PRINTER, PONTEFRACT. ART. I.-A Chronological Summary of events and circumstances connected with the origin and progress of the doctrines and practices of the Quakers. (Continued from p. 73.) A. D. Prosecutions and Exchequer processes, with distraints upon 1678-9. informations for Religious meetings continuing heavy upon the Society, their case is further pressed upon the attention of the Government. George Whitehead says of this period, Because of these our sufferings on divers sorts of prosecutions and processes-application was often made to the King, and sometimes to the Judges before they went their several circuits, for some redress and relief from those hardships and severe sufferings :-But we found little redress from the Judges in those days, after divers applications to them, except when the King gave some instructions thereunto.' On the 16th of the 11th Month, 1679, George Whitehead, William Mead and John Osgood, being introduced by William Chiffins, Esq. Closet-keeper to the King (as he had given leave and appointed) laid before him The Case of the people called Quakers, who are still sufferers by prosecutions upon Old Statutes, made against Popish recusants: The Case stated that, two years ago, their Sufferings had been represented to the King and his Privy Council; to-wit that by the late and unwonted prosecutions upon the 23rd and 28th Elizabeth and 3rd James, two thirds of their lands, tenements, hereditaments, leases and farms, for two or three years then last past were seized into the king's hands, and process made out of his Exchequer twice yearly, to collect the rents and profits thereof; for which the bailiffs seldom take less than double; their distress frequently amounting to more than the yearly value of the whole estates! That the King had upon that occasion referred them to the Parliament, who (says Whitehead) 'by a Committee then examined by witnesses and records the justness and reasonableness of our complaints, and had true resentments thereof; but before they could yield us any relief were prorogued, and soon after dissolved.' That the like being done to the succeeding Parliament, they were pleased to insert a Clause in a Bill then before them, to distinguish betwixt Papists and Protestants, which would have tended to redress our grievances-but the King also proroguing that Parliament, before the said Bill had past its last customary reading in the Upper House, we are still left under the said heavy pressures.-We therefore in true Christian humility desire, that the King will be pleased to grant a present stay, or cessation of process, until we can have a more effectual redress in a Parliamentary way.' (a) A List of the Sufferers was at the same time presented to the King, who received it with fair words, admitting that it was very unreasonable they should suffer thus; declaring himself against prosecuting any for conscience; promising he would consider of their case, and advise with the Lord Chancellor and Attorney General about it; and appointing the next Council-day for moving it, and Shepard to give them notice. Shepard was a noted sort of a witty person and courtier, who much attended the King and was intimate with him.' Whitehead says, they were sensible the king was at that time (as he had himself known him at others) touched in conscience, and somewhat tenderly affected with these accounts of extreme and long continued sufferings; but that he had persons about him who were not our friends, and had too much influence upon him: and he concludes with some reflections upon the duty and satisfaction of calling for justice; and persevering in this service under present ill success, in the hope of a future reward. We shall now see how this honest and noble-minded man was rewarded for that season. A. D. On the 21st of the First Month (b) George Whitehead and 1679. Thomas Burr are taken out of a Meeting for worship, held on a First-day, at Norwich, by Thomas Seamans one of the Sheriffs, and examined by Francis Bacon, Recorder of the City, who commits them to the Common-jail of the City for a seditious conventicle; following the Mittimus in two days more by a second warrant, charging them with refusing the Oath of Allegiance. After five weeks' imprisonment they are brought up at Quartersessions, and in spite of a strenuous defence, in which the Court refused to hear them out (George Whitehead being haled away (a) Christian Progress, p. 374. (b) Following the former date, or a little more than two months after, the year then ending in the Third month. A. D. from the bar speaking) are committed anew to prison by an Order 1679. of Sessions, for refusing the Oath of Allegiance they lie till the 12th of July, 1680,' and are then discharged by proclamation in open Court, under a new Recorder. The account of these, and other irregular and arbitrary proceedings of the same Recorder, occupies 112 pages of the work in small 8vo. above quoted; as published separately in the same year. It is full of documentary matter, and shews in a strong light the implacable highchurch enmity and sanguinary threatening conduct of Bacon; who, in about five days after the re-commitment of the Friends, was voted out of office by the Cominon Council. He had been for some years a violent persecutor of the Society; and we have an account, here, of many whom he had proceeded against by imprisonment and distraint of their goods, representing them as Papists and Jesuits. The publication ends with A copy of an address from our suffering friends in Norwich in the year 1679, directed to the Knights and Burgesses for the county of Norfolk and city of Norwich ;-signed by Samuel Duncon and fifteen more of the Citizens and inhabitants of Norwich.' The above is but a sample of what was doing at this time to the Society at large :-for some further account of which take the following cases from the SUFFERINGS. They will show the variety of ways in which Friends were now troubled about the oaths, and for nonconformity. Bedfordshire and Herts: 1678. Two Friends, John Barton and Henry Newman, are committed to gaol for not paying the sums of 2s. 2d and 1s. 1d. respectively for Church-rates, on writs de excommunicato capiendo; on which they lay, the one three years and a half, the other above two and a half. (c) Berkshire: 1678. Michael Reynolds of Faringdon, on an execution for Tithes, at the suit of Robert Pye, Impropriator, had his corn and cattle taken away to the value of £97 6s. 9d., for one year's tithe of land of £55 yearly rent. Robert Ewer, being chosen Tithing-man at a Court Leet and refusing to swear, suffered distress of his goods to the value of 40s. (d) Bucks: 1678. John Stratton of Ivigoe, a poor husbandman, was imprisoned twenty one months, away from a wife and eight children, for not appearing before the Surrogate of the Bishop of Lincoln, to answer a charge of absenting from his parish church, and for not receiving the sacrament. (e) Cambridgeshire: 1678. Thomas Amey of Great Abingdon, imprisoned in Cambridge Castle on a writ de excommunicato capiendo, at the suit of John Boulton, vicar, for a claim of oblations and tithe of wild pigeons, remained there a year and a half. (ƒ) Cheshire: 1679. John Simcock, for speaking some words of exhortation at a funeral, had his goods taken away to the value of £100. In the preceding year he had taken from him, for a fine for preaching, eight cows and eleven heifers worth £90. Sir Philip Egerton disgraced himself, by encouraging the lawless plunder of Informers; saying he would justify them if they sold cattle at 12d. a piece. (g) Derbyshire: 1678. For small tithes of about 1s. 6d. value, Eleanor Robotham, a widow about sixty years of age, was found to have been two years a prisoner. And William Beard, for absence from the public worship, was fined £220 as a Popish Recusant and imprisoned. (h) |