truth. And set singing was to be dispensed with, like set forms of
prayer, and only edifying as prompted by the Spirit. He even objected
to splendid places for the worship of God, and dispensed with
steeples, and bells, and organs. The sacraments, too, were needless,
being mere symbols, or shadows of better things, not obligatory, but
to be put on the same footing as those Jewish ceremonies which the
Savior abrogated. The mind of Fox discarded all aids to devotion, all
titles of honor, all distinctions which arose in pride and egotism.
Hypocrisy he abhorred with his whole soul. It was the vice of the
Pharisees, on whom Christ denounced the severest judgments. He, too,
would denounce it with the most unsparing severity, whenever he
fancied he detected it in rulers, or in venerated dignitaries of the
church, or in the customs of conventional life. He sought simplicity
and sincerity in all their forms. Truth alone should be his polar
star, and this would be revealed by the "inner light," the peculiar
genius of his whole system, which, if it led to many new views of duty
and holiness, yet was the cause of many delusions, and the parent of
conceit and spiritual pride--the grand peculiarity of fanaticism in
all ages and countries. What so fruitful a source of error as the
notion of special divine illumination?

No wonder that Fox and his followers were persecuted, for they set at
nought the wisdom of the world and the customs and laws of ages. They
shocked all conservative minds; all rulers and dignitaries; all men
attached to systems; all syllogistic reasoners and dialectical
theologians; all fashionable and worldly people; all sects and parties
attached to creeds and forms. Neither their inoffensive lives, nor
their doctrine of non-resistance, nor their elevated spiritualism
could screen them from the wrath of judges, bishops, and legislators.
They were imprisoned, fined, whipped, and lacerated without mercy. But
they endured their afflictions with patience, and never lost their
faith in truth, or their trust in God. Generally, they belonged to the
humbler classes, although some men illustrious for birth and wealth
joined their persecuted ranks, the most influential of whom was
William Penn, who lived to be their intercessor and protector, and the
glorious founder and legislator of one of the most flourishing and
virtuous colonies that, in those days of tribulation, settled in the
wilderness of North America; a colony of me