o pour light and life into her soul, which was an
even greater thing than saving her body from death. Many other
prisoners did Fox help and comfort in Derby Gaol;[2] but though he
could soften the sufferings of others he could not shorten his own.
Once again Justice Bennett sent his men to the prison, this time with
orders to take the Quaker by force and compel him to join the army,
since he would not fight of his own free will.

'But I told him,' said Fox, '"that I was brought off from outward
wars." They came again to give me press money, but I would take none.
Afterwards the Constables brought me a second time before the
Commissioners, who said I should go for a soldier, but I said I was
dead to it. They said I was alive. I told them where envy and hatred
is, there is confusion. They offered me money twice, but I refused it.
Being disappointed, they were angry, and committed me a close
prisoner, till at length they were made to turn me out of Gaol about
the beginning of winter 1651, after I had been a prisoner in Derby
almost a year; six months in the House of Correction, and six months
in the common gaol.'

Thus at length Derby prison was left behind; but the seeds that the
prisoner had planted in that dark place sprang up and flourished and
bore fruit long after he had left.

Eleven years later, the very same Gaoler, who had been cruel to Fox at
the first, and had then had the vision and repented, wrote this letter
to his former prisoner. It is a real Gaoler's love-letter, and quite
fresh to-day, though it was written nearly 300 years ago.

'DEAR FRIEND,' the letter begins,

'Having such a convenient messenger I could do no less than give
thee an account of my present condition; remembering that to the
first awakening of me to a sense of life, God was pleased to
make use of thee as an instrument. So that sometimes I am taken
with admiration that it should come by such means as it did;
that is to say that Providence should order thee to be my
prisoner to give me my first sight of the truth. It makes me
think of the gaoler's conversion by the apostles. Oh! happy
George Fox! that first breathed the breath of life within the
walls of my habitation! Notwithstanding that my outward losses
are since that time such that I am become nothing in the world,
yet I hope I shall find that these light afflictions, which are
but for a moment, will work for me a far more