itary skill is displayed both in sa ima of ternal arrangement of this ringe.

e, belonged to the chief of the C of

Their lodges are built in a couch an

at and above the ground; the grout co

n from two to three fet. The is
is several sticks of lumber wach ties
d these are from ten to liten bet ita
eranged as to form a circle.

n timbers other timbers are range
-end resting upon the ground and the
together at the top, forming a
Upon this framework a netin
together by strips of bark, is placed
> whole, dry grass is thrown, to prevent
falling through. The roof is then co
to the thickness of from two to the
lodges are from fifty to seventy-fire

555

THE WOOD RIVER MASSACRE.
of whom were her own; two were children of Abel
Read before the Illinois State Lyceum, December 6, 1832. Moore, and two of William Moore. Not far from,
[BY THOMAS LIPPINCOTT.]
probably a little after, the same time, two men of the
AMONG the various incidents of the early settle- neighbourhood passed separately, I believe, along
ments of Illinois, and those of the last war with the road, in the opposite direction to that in which

or first instance, to have been exam Great Britain, that have commanded the attention of Mrs. Reagan went; and one of them heard at a cer-
have seen in print, that well deserves to be preserved answer, and for a repetition of which he did not de-
among the records of frontier hardihood and suffer- lay. But he remembered and told it afterwards.
ing. I refer to the massacre of a woman and six When it began to grow dark, the families became
in children, by the Indians, in the forks of Wood river, uneasy at the protracted absence of their respective
in 1814. The following is given as an authentic members; and William Moore came to Abel's, and
sketch of the facts, taken from the lips of captain not finding them there, passed on towards Mr. Rea-
Abel Moore and his wife, who were sufferers in the gan's, to discover what had become of his sister-in-
transaction.
law and children; and nearly about the same time,
his wife went across the angle directly towards the
same place. Mr. Moore had not been long absent
from his brother's, before he returned with the infor-
mation that some one was killed by the Indians. He
had discerned the body of a person lying on the
ground, but whether man or woman, it was too dark
for him to see without a closer inspection than was
deemed safe. The habits of the Indians were too
well known by these settlers, to leave a man in Mr.
Moore's situation, free from the apprehension of an
ambuscade still near.

Travellers who have passed on the direct road from
Edwardsville to Carrollton, will remember at a plea-
sant plantation on the banks of the east branch of
Wood river, a short distance from the dwelling-house
The fire is built in the centre, the sand powder-mill of Mr. George Moore, an old buil-
through the aperture left for the press ding, composed of rough, round logs, the upper sto-
Around the fire mattresses, mandary of which projects about a foot on every side, be-
lows or rushes, are placed upon theyond the basement. This, in times of peril, was a
serve as apologies for chairs. A cablock-house, or in the common phrase, a fort, to
together with a few spoons made which the early settlers resorted for safety. Pursu-
horns, complete the furniture of the ing the road about two miles, to an elevated point on
The chief Jutan is at this time, the bank of the west fork, where the road turns ab-
noted and popular Indian belongings ruptly down into the creek, another farm, now in block-house. Mr. Moore desired his brother's fami-
der the protection of our governme possession of a younger member of the family of ly to go directly to the fort, while he should pass
Moores, exhibits the former residence of Reason by his own house to take his family with him. But
portioned. His countenance india Reagan; and midway between these two points, the night was now dark, and the heavy forest was at
humour, while a peculiar twinkling resides captain Abel Moore, on the same spot which that time scarcely opened here and there by a little
as once his true character- he occupied at the period to which our narrative re-farm, while the narrow road wound through among
William Moore lived nearly south of Abel's the tall trees, from the farm of Abel Moore, to that
Ling, artful, intriguing warrior. E lates.
warfares with the neighbouringthes ar on a road which passes towards Milton. Upper Al- of his brother, George Moore, where the fort was
The women and children therefore chose
hear ample evidence that he is tatton is from two to three miles, and Lower Alton
to accompany William Moore, though the distance
of personal courage or a knowledged four or five miles distant from the scene of action.
It appears, that while the gallant rangers were was nearly doubled by the measure.

is somewhat above the ordinary s

upon

fare and its tacticks.

In the fall of 1822, Jutan sustained is Scouring the country, ever on the alert, the inhabi

was young and beautiful, and acco
ear previous to Washington, where she

nts, all of which Jutan attributed

The first thought that occurred, was to flee to the

erected.

who for several years had huddled together in through the dark woods, may be more

forts, for fear of the Indians, had, in the summer of
1814, attained to such a sense of security, that they

escaping further depredations. In the forks of Wood

The feelings of the group as they groped their imagined than described. Sorrow for the supposed loss of relatives and children, was mingled with hor

ttracted much attention, and received went to their farms and dwellings, with the hope of ror at the manner of their death, fear for their own harms. At her death, he refused a river, were some six or eight families, whose men of their dearest friends lay mangled on the cold

he whole nation was put in mourning
e upper part of the face of ever
nd child. After the usual time

ying before interment, she was consis
h. A deep grave was dug upe

safety, and pain at the dreadful idea, that the remains

were for the most part in the ranging service, and ground near them, while they were denied the privi
whose women and children were thus left to labour lege of seeing and preparing them for sepulture.
for and defend themselves. The block-house which Silently they passed on till they came to the
I have described, was their place of resort on any dwelling of William Moore; and when they ap-
alarm; but the inconvenience and difficulty of clus-proached the entrance, he exclaimed, as if relieved

Il, a short distance from the villagertering so thickly, induced them to leave it as soon as from some dreadful apprehension,thank God, Pol

ly is not killed.'

6

How do you know?' inquired

Nor had the hardy inhabitants forgotten, amidst one. 'Because, here is the horse she rode.' My their dangers, the duties of social life, nor their high- informant then first learned that his brother-in-law er obligations to their Creator. The Sabbath shone, had feared, until that moment, that his wife was the not only upon the domestic circle, as gathered round victim that he had discovered. the fireside altar, but its hallowed light was shed on groups collected in the rustic edifices which the piety of the people had erected for divine worship.

as deposited, together with every acce
her while living, including
ue, which had been presented to s
ton city. The grave was then
al manner, after setting several str
und which the earth was thrown. 3
mpleted, Jutan ordered three of his best
made fast to the posts, and ch
ch was accordingly done. One of
= intended to convey the deceased
distant and happy land for whi
ed, while the other two were
Is and chattels."

Army and Nor
is possible to have almost all
appiness, yet to feel little less th

As they let down the bars, Mrs. William Moore came running out, exclaiming, they are all killed by the Indians, I expect.' The mourning friends went in for a short time-but hastily departed for the block-house, whither by daybreak, all or nearly all the neighbours, having been warned by signals, repaired to sympathise and tremble.

It was on the Sabbath, the tenth of July, 1814, that the painful occurrence took place, which I now record. Reason Reagan had gone to attend divine worship at the meeting-house, some two or three miles off, leaving his wife and two children at the I have mentioned that Mrs. William Moore went, house of Abel Moore, which was on the way. About as well as her husband, in search of her sister and four o'clock in the afternoon, Mrs. Reagan went over children. Passing by different routes, they did not to her own dwelling, to procure some little articles of meet on the way, nor at the place of death. She convenience, being accompanied by six children, two jumped on a horse, and hastily went in the nearest

direction, and as she went, carefully noted every | emotions, were of a character too awful, too sacre discernible object, until at length, she saw a human to admit of minute observation then-or accurse figure lying near a burning log. There was not description now? The seventh, however, was not sufficient light for her to discern the size, sex, or then buried. The child found alive, received every condition of the person, and she called the name of possible attention; medical aid was procured with one and another of her children, again and again, great difficulty, but in vain. It followed within a supposing it to be one of them asleep. At length day or two at most. she alighted, and approached to examine more closely. What must have been her sensations on placing her hand upon the back of a naked corpse, and feeling, by further scrutiny, the quivering flesh from which the scalp had been torn! In the gloom of night, she could just discern something, seeming like a little child, sitting so near the body as to lean its head, first one side, and then the other, on the insensible and mangled body. She saw no further, but thril-less foes. Abel Moore, who was one of the rangers led with horror and alarm, remounted her horse and hastened home; and when she arrived, quickly put a large kettle of water over the fire, intending to defend herself with scalding water, in case of an attack.

There was little rest or refreshment, as may well be supposed, at the fort, that night. The women and children of the vicinity, together with the few men who were at home, were crowded together, not knowing but that a large body of the savage foe might be prowling round, ready to pour a deadly fire upon them at any moment. A neighbour and six of the children of the little settlement, were probably lying in the wood, within a mile or two, dead and mangled by that dreadful enemy! What subjects of thought and feeling! About three o'clock, a messenger was despatched to Fort Russell with the tidings.

On the arrival of the messenger at Fort Russell, a fresh express was hastened to captain (now general) Samuel Whiteside's company, which was on Ridge prairie, some four miles east of Edwardsville. It was about an hour after sunrise, on Monday morning, when the gallant troop arrived on the spot having rode some fifteen miles-ready to weep with the bereaved, and to avenge them of their ruth

then on duty, and of course absent at the catastrophe, was permitted to remain at home to assist in burying his children and relatives, and the company dashed on, eager to overtake and engage in deadly conflict with the savages. I regret that I have no recent account of the particulars of this interesting pursuit; and that my memory does not hold them with suffcient distinctness to warrant an attempt at the narra tion. At Indian creek, in what is now Morgan county, some three or four of the Indians were seen, and one killed; and it is a current report among the rangers that not one of the ten that composed the party, survived the fatigue of the retreat before the eager troop.-Western Monthly Magazine.

THE WESTERN HUNTER.

In the morning, the inhabitants undertook the AMONG the early emigrants to the west, whose oripainful task of ascertaining the extent of their calam-ginal features attract and fix attention, we think that ity, and collecting the remains for burial. The whole party, Mrs. Reagan and the six children, were found lying at intervals, along the road, tomahawked and scalped, and all dead, except the youngest of Mrs. Reagan's children, which was sitting near its mother's corpse, alive, with a gash, deep and large, on each side of its little face. It were idle to speak of the emotions that filled the souls of the neighbours, and friends, and fathers, and mothers, and husband, who gathered round to behold this awful spectacle. There lay the mortal remains of six of those whom, but yesterday, they had seen and embraced, in health; and there was one helpless little one, wounded, and bleeding, and dying, an object of painful solicitude, but scarcely of hope.

the Hunter is entitled to a conspicuous place. The profession which he adopted, and the world in which he lived, were full of charms to his captivated fancy. There was the valley of flowers to gladden his eye. There was the woodland melody to enchant his ear. There were the fountains of crystal waters to quench his thirst, and the delicious banquet of the chase to regale his appetite. There were his companions, his rifle and his hounds, to keep alive his warm affections, while above and around him was an ever-present sublimity to fill his soul with awe. Even the extremest toils and perils were cheerfully encountered; for while they gave an astonishing acuteness to the sen ses, and imparted vigour and elasticity to the frame, they stirred up tumultuous feelings, and called into exercise, to render perfect, his powers of invention. Far removed, for long periods of time, from any hu man intercourse, he converses with the echoes of the forest, or communes in silence with his Maker and the divinity that dwells within. He is happy in the solitude of the deep woods, and rejoices in the an pleness of his undisputed range. But the tide of emigration swells, and roars, and sweeps onward. He hears the axe of industry, and sees the smoke from the intruder's dwelling overshadowing his fair hunt ing-grounds. The buffalo and the deer have already It was a solemn day, observed my informant, to taken their flight. Gazing for a moment at the enfollow seven bodies to the grave, at once, from so croachments of civilization, he turns his face towards small a settlement; and they too, buried under such the setting sun, and uttering a malediction upon the painful circumstances. Could we have followed hand that so ruthlessly wars with nature's peace, he that train to the grave in which their little church plunges again into the far depths of the wilderness, and cemetery were embowered, would we not feel that he may roam unmolested in his own approthat the procession, the occasion, the ceremony, the priate home.-Ibid.

To women and youth, chiefly was committed the painful task of depositing their dear remains in the tomb. This was performed on the six already dead, on that day. They were interred in three graves, which were carefully dug, so as to lay boards beneath, beside, and above the bodies-for there could no coffins be provided in the absence of nearly all the men and the graves being filled, they were left to receive in aftertimes, when peace had visited the settlement, a simple covering of stone, bearing an inscription descriptive of their death.

GEORGE FOX AND THE QUAKERS. [From Bancroft's History of the United States.] The nobler instincts of humanity are the same in every age and in every breast. The exalted hopes that have dignified former generations of men, will be renewed as long as the human heart shall throb. The visions of Plato are but revived in the dreams 25 of Sir Thomas More. A spiritual unity binds together every member of the human family; and of L every heart contains an incorruptible seed, capable Ex of springing up and producing all that man can know mpany of God, and duty, and the soul. An inward voice, suncreated by schools, independent of refinement, lu arenge de opens to the unlettered mind, not less than to the re, who was polished scholar, a sure pathway into the enfrancourse absens aachisements of immortal truth. main at home was.

was made in less than three centuries. So rapid was the diffusion of ideas of freedom, so palpable was the advancement of popular intelligence, energy and happiness, that to whole classes of enthusiasts the day of perfect enfranchisement seemed to have dawned; legislation, ceasing to be partial, was to be reformed and renewed on general principles, and the reign of justice and reason was about to begin. In the language of that age, Christ's kingdom on earth, his second coming was at hand. Under the excitement of hopes, created by the rapid progress of liberty, which, to the common mind was an inexplicable mystery, the blissful centuries of the millen-> nium promised to open upon a favoured world.

Political enfranchisements had been followed by the emancipation of knowledge. The powers of nature were freely examined; the merchants always tolerated or favoured the pursuits of science. Galileo had been safe at Venice, and honored at Amsterdam or London. The method of free inquiry, applied to chymistry, had invented gunpowder, and changed the manners of the feudal aristocracy; applied to geography, had discovered a hemisphere, and circumnavigated the globe, made the theatre of commerce wide as the world; applied to the mechanical process of multiplying books, had brought the New Testament, in the vulgar tongue, within the reach of every class; applied to the rights of persons and property, had, for the English, built up a system of common law, and given securities to liberty in the interpretation of contracts. Under the guidance of Bacon, the inductive method, in its freedom, was about to investigate the laws of the outward world. and reveal the wonders of divine Providence, asʼdisplayed in the visible universe.

This is the faith of the people called QUAKERS. latives, and the - A moral principle is tested by the attempt to reduce e and eage it to practice. I regret that The history of European civilization is the history Geulars of this is of the gradual enfranchisement of classes of society. bory does not hul 25 The feudal sovereign was limited by the power of to warrant an atap the military chieftains, whose valour achieved his n creek, in what conquests. The vast and increasing importance of hree or four of the commercial transactions gave new value to the muand it is a current nicipal privileges of which the Roman empire had not one of the ten the bequeathed the precedents; while the intricate the fatigue of the questions that were perpetually arising for adjudicaWestern Monthly Magation, crowded the ignorant military magistrate from the bench, and reserved the wearisome toil of deliberation for the learning of his clerk. The emancipation of the country people followed. In every European code, the ages of the feudal influence, of mercantile ambition, of the enfranchisement of the yeomanry, appear distinctly in succession.

THE WESTERN HUNT

TS

he early emigrants to the
res attract and fix attentis
is entitled to a conspica
It is the peculiar glory of England, that her free
were full of charms to har people always had a share in the government. From
which he adopted, and the
as the valley of flowers w the first, her freeholders had legislative power as
as the woodland meletes well as freedom; and the tribunals were subjected to

and the delicious anger a majority of her labourers were serfs; many husbandile apetite. There wen's/is men were bondmen, as the name implies; but the

On the continent of Europe, Descartes had already applied the method of observation and free inquiry to the study of morals and the mind. In England, Bacon hardly proceeded beyond the province of natural philosophy. He compared the subtile visions. der's web, and sneered at them as frivolous and empty; but the spider's web is essential to the spi

above and around him was an every part of England, the instinct for popular ad- voice, Bacon paid the terrible penalty of a life disd his hounds, to keep alive established liberties of freeholders quickened, in der's well being, and for his neglect of the inner and perils were cheerfully the ancient institutions; they lived in the heart of Freedom, as applied to morals, was cherished in

above and and with it. Dr. Vancement. The Norman invasion could not uproot

they gave an astonishing and imparted vigour and

removed, for long periods of time

the nation, and rose superiour to the conquest

graced by flattery, selfishness, and mean compliance. England among the people, and therefore had its The history of England is therefore marked by an developement in religion. The Anglo-Saxons were

ry, conducted by tillers, and carters, and ploughmen,

pressed Anglo-Saxons looked for shelter to the

-stirred up tumultuous floriginal, constant and increasing political activity of a religious people. Henry II. had as little regard reise, to render perfect, his post the people. In the fourteenth century, the peasant- for the Roman See as Henry VIII.; but the opn intercourse, he converses with the demanded of their young king, a deliverance from church, and invoked the enthusiasm of Thomas à est, or communes in silence with the bondage and burdens of feudal oppression; in Becket to fetter the Norman tyrant, and bind the Norleness of his undisputed range. human destiny, awakening in the common mind, be- If, from the day of his death, the hierarchy abandone divinity that dwells within. Hest the fifteenth century, the last traces of villenage were man aristocracy in iron shackles. The enthusiast fell litude of the deep woods, and wiped away; in the sixteenth, the noblest ideas of a victim to the church, and to Anglo-Saxon liberty. ration swells, and roars, and scame the central point, round which plebeian sects ed the cause of the people, that cause always found the intruder's dwelling overshahr franchised yeomanry began to feel an instinct for not fear to deny dominion to vice, and to claim it for

of

taken their flight. Gazing for s croachments of civilization, he

with

to a flame, would not rest till it had attempted a de-
mocratic revolution. The best soldiers of the Long

;

clergy, rising against Rome and against domestick tyranny, had a common faith, and common political

plunges again into the far depths farmer's sons, fighting as they believed, for their own The inferiour gentry espoused Calvinism, and fled hand that so ruthlessly red the battle on Marston Moor were farmers and becoming independent, planted Plymouth colony.

that he may roam unmolested in priate home-hid

cause. The progress from the rout of Wat Tyler to
the victories of Naseby and Worcester, and Dunbar,

to Massachusetts. The popular movement of intellectual liberty is measured by advances towards the

liberty of prophecying, and the liberty of conscience. | for comfort, but found no comfort with them. His The moment was arrived when the plebeian mind should make its boldest efforts to escape from hereditary prejudices; when the freedom of Bacon, the enthusiasm of Wickliffe, and the politicks of Wat Tyler, were to gain the highest unity in a sect; when a popular, and, therefore, in that age, a religious party, building upon a divine principle, should demand freedom of mind, purity of morals, and universal enfranchisement.

The sect had its birth in a period of intense publick activity when the heart of England was swelling with passions, and the public mind turbulent with factious leaders; when zeal for reform was invading the church, subverting the throne, and repealing the privileges of feudalism; when Presbyterians in every village were quarreling with Anabaptists and Independents, and all with the Roman Catholics and the English church.

The sect could arise only among the common people, who had every thing to gain by its success, and the least to hazard by its failure. The privileged classes had no motive to develope a principle before which their privileges would crumble. "Poor mechanicks," said William Penn, "are wont to be God's great ambassadors to mankind." "He hath raised up a few despicable and illiterate men," said the accomplished Barclay, "to dispense the more full glad tidings reserved for our age." It was the comfort of the Quakers that they received the truth from a simple sort of people, unmixed with the learning of schools; and almost for the first time in the history of the world, a plebeian sect proceeded to the complete enfranchisement of mind, teaching the English yeomanry the same method of free inquiry, which Socrates had explained to the young men of Athens.

misery urged him to visit London; and there the religious feuds convinced him that the great profes sors were dark. He returned to the country, where some advised him to marry, others to join Cromwell's army; but his excited mind continued its conflicts; and, as other young men have done from love, his restless spirit drove him into the fields, where he walked many nights long by himself, in misery too great to be declared. Yet at times a ray of heavenly joy beamed upon his soul, and he reposed, as it were, serenely on Abraham's bosom.

He had been bred in the church of England. One day, the thought rose in his mind, that a man might be bred at Oxford or Cambridge, and yet be unable to explain the great problem of existence. Again he reflected that God lives not in temples of brick and stone, but in the hearts of the living; and from the parish priest, and the parish church, he turned to the dissenters. But among them he found the most ex perienced unable to reach his condition.

Neither could the pursuit of wealth detain his mind from its struggle for fixed truth. His desires were those which wealth could not satisfy. A king's diet, palace, and attendance, had been to him as nothing. Rejecting the "changeable ways of reli gious" sects, the "brittle notions" and airy theories of philosophy, he longed for "unchangeable truth," a firm foundation of morals in the soul. His inquir ing mind was gently led along to principles of endless and eternal love; light dawned within him; and though the world was rocked by tempests of opin ion, his secret and as yet unconscious belief was firmly stayed by the anchor of hope.

nature;" and the elements and the stars oppressed his imagination with a vision of pantheism. But as he continued musing, a true voice arose within him, and said, "there is a living God." At once the clouds of scepticism rolled away; mind triumphed over matter, and the depths of conscience were cheered and irradiated by light from heaven. His soul enjoyed the sweetness of repose, and he came up in spirit from the agony of doubt into the paradise of contemplation.

The strong mind of George Fox had already risen above the prejudices of sects. The greatest danger remained. Liberty may be pushed to dissoluteness, The simplicity of truth was restored by humble and freedom is the fork in the road where the byinstruments, and its first messenger was of low de- path leads to infidelity. One morning, as Fox sat gree. George Fox, the son of "righteous Christo- silently by the fire, a cloud came over his mind; a pher," a Lancashire weaver, by his mother descend-baser instinct seemed to say, "All things come by ed from the stock of the martyrs, distinguished even in boyhood by frank inflexibility and deep religious feeling, became in early life an apprentice to a Nottingham shoemaker, who was also a landholder, and, like David and Tamerlane, and Sixtus V., was set by his employer to watch sheep. The occupation was grateful to his mind, for its freedom, innocency, and solitude; and the years of earliest youth passed away in prayer and reading the Bible, frequent fasts, and reveries of contemplative devotion. His boyish spirit yearned after excellence; he was haunted by Having listened to the revelation which had been a vague desire of an unknown, illimitable good. In made to his soul, he thirsted for a reform in every the most stormy period of the English democratick branch of learning. The physician should quit the revolution, just as the Independents were beginning strife of words, and solve the appearances of nature to make head successfully against the Presbyterians, by an intimate study of the higher laws of being. when the impending ruin of royalty and the hierar- The priests, rejecting authority and giving up the chy made republicanism the doctrine of a party, and trade in knowledge, should seek oracles of truth in inspiration the faith of fanaticks, the mind of Fox, as the purity of conscience. The lawyers, abandoning it revolved the question of human destiny, was agita- their chicanery, should tell their clients plainly, that ted even to despair. The melancholy natural to he who wrongs his neighbour does a wrong to him youth heightened his anguish; abandoning his self. The heavenly-minded man was become a di flocks and his shoemaker's bench, he nourished his vine and a naturalist, and all of God Almighty's inexplicable grief by retired meditations, and often making. walking solitary in the chase, sought in the gloom of the forest for a vision of God.

He questioned his life; but his blameless life was ignorant of remorse. He went to many "priests"

Thus did the mind of George Fox arrive at the conclusion, that truth is to be sought by listening to the voice of God in the soul. Not the learning of the universities, not the Roman See not the English

church not dissenters, not the whole outward world can lead to a fixed rule of morality. The law in the heart must be received without prejudice, cherished without mixture, and obeyed without fear.

Such was the spontaneous wisdom by which he was guided. It was the clear light of reason, dawning as through a cloud. Confident that his name was written in the Lamb's book of life, he was borne by an irrepressible impulse, to go forth into the briery and brambly world, and publish the glorious principles which had rescued him from despair and infidelity, and given him a clear perception of the immutable distinctions between right and wrong. At the very crisis when the House of Commons was abolishing monarchy and the peerage, about two years and a half from the day when Cromwell went on his knees to kiss the hand of the young boy who was duke of York, the Lord, who sent George Fox into the world, forbade him to put off his hat to any, high or low; and he was required to thee and thou all men and women, without any respect to rich or poor, to great or small. The sound of the church bell in Nottingham, the home of his boyhood, struck to his heart; like Milton and Roger Williams, his soul abhorred the hireling ministry of divines for money; and on the morning of a first-day, he was moved to go to the great steeple-house, and cry against the idol. "When I came there," says Fox, "the people looked like fallow ground, and the priest, like a great lump of earth, stood in the pulpit above. He took for his text these words of Peter We have also a more sure word of prophecy;' and told the people this was the scriptures. Now the Lord's power was so mighty upon me, and so strong in me, that I could not hold; but was made to cry out, Oh, no! it is not the Scriptures, it is the Spirit.""

| in the open air; forced from the shelter of the hum ble alehouse, he slept without fear under a haystack or watched among the furze. His fame increased, crowds gathered like flocks of pigeons, to hear him. His frame in prayer is described as the most awful, living, and reverent ever felt or seen; and his vigorous understanding, soon disciplined by clear convictions to natural dialectics, made him powerful in the public discussions to which he defied the world. A true witness, writing from knowledge, and not report, declares that by night and by day, by sea and by land, in every emergency of the nearest and most exercising nature, he was always in his place, and always a match for every service and occasion. By degrees "the hypocrites" feared to dispute with him; and the simplicity of his principle found such ready entrance among the people, that the priests trembled and scud as he drew near; so that it was a dreadful thing to them when it was told them, "The man in leathern breeches is come."

The converts to his doctrine were chiefly among the yeomanry; and Quakers were compared to the butterflies that live in felts. It is the boast of Barclay, that the simplicity of truth was restored by weak instruments, and Penn exults that the message came without suspicion of human wisdom. It was wonderful to witness the energy and the unity of mind and character which the strong perception of speculative truth imparted to the most illiterate mechanicks; they delivered the oracles of conscience with fearless freedom and natural eloquence; and with happy and unconscious sagacity, spontaneously developed the system of moral truth, which, as they believed, existed as an incorruptible seed in every soul.

Every human being was embraced within the sphere of their benevolence. George Fox did not fail, by letter, to catechize Innocent XL. Ploughmen and milkmaids, becoming itinerant preachers, sounded the alarm throughout the world, and appealed to the consciences of Puritans and Cavaliers, of the Pope and Grand Turk, of the negro and the savage. The plans of the Quakers designed no less than the establishment of a universal religion; their apostles made their way to Rome and Jerusalem, to New England and Egypt; and some were even moved to go toward China and Japan, and in search of the unknown realms of Prester John.

This principle contained a moral revolution. If it flattered self-love and fed enthusiasm, it also established absolute freedom of mind, trod every idolatry under foot; and entered the strongest protest against the forms of a hierarchy. It was the principle for which Socrates died and Plato suffered; and now that Fox went forth to proclaim it among the people, he was every where resisted with angry vehemence, and the priests and professors, magistrates and people, swelled like the raging waves of the sea. At the Lancaster sessions forty priests appeared against him at once. To the ambitious Presbyterians, it seemed The rise of the people called Quakers is one of as if hell were broke loose; and Fox, imprisoned, the memorable events in the history of man. It and threatened with the gallows, still rebuked their marks the moment when intellectual freedom was bitterness as "exceeding rude and devilish," resist- claimed unconditionally by the people as an inaliening and overcoming pride with unbending stubborn-able birthright. To the masses in that age all reness. Possessed of vast ideas which he could not flection on politicks and morals, presented itself untrace to their origin, a mystery to himself, like Crom-der a theological form. The Quaker doctrine is phiwell and so many others who have exercised vast losophy, summoned from the cloister, the college, influence on society, he believed himself the special and the saloon, and planted among the most despised ward of a favouring Providence, and his doctrine the of the people. spontaneous expression of irresistible, intuitive truth. Nothing could daunt his enthusiasm. Cast into jail among felons, he claimed of the public tribunals a release only to continue his exertions; and as he rode about the country, the seed of God sparkled about him like innumerable sparks of fire. If cruelly beaten, or set in the stocks, or ridiculed as mad, he still proclaimed the oracles of the voice within him, and rapidly gained adherents among the country people. If driven from the church he spoke

As poetry is older than critics, so philosophy is older than metaphysicians. The mysterious question of the purpose of our being is always before us and within us; and the little child, as it begins to prattle, makes inquiries which the pride of learning cannot solve. The method of the solution adopted by the Quakers was the natural consequence of the origin of their sect. The mind of George Fox had the highest systematick sagacity; and his doctrine, developed and rendered illustrious by Barclay