h the spring and summer in that
particular year. Old people smiled and nodded to one another as they
said: 'None of us ever remembers a spring like this before!'

The tender leaves and buds and flowers undid their wrappings in a
hurry to be first to catch sight of the sun, whose warm fingers had
awakened them, long before their usual time, from their winter sleep.
All over England the spring flowers had a splendid time of it that
year.

Even the few scattered primroses living in what Southerners call 'the
cold grey North' were obviously enjoying themselves. Their smooth,
pale-yellow faces opened wider, and grew larger and more golden, day
by day: while new, soft, pointed buds came poking up through their
downy green blankets in unexpected places. Moreover, the warm weather
lasted right through the summer. Not only did far more primroses
flower than usual, but also, after they had faded, there was plenty of
warmth to ripen the precious seed packet that each one had carried at
its heart. No wonder the children clapped their hands, that joyous
spring, when their treasures were so plentiful; but they feared that
they would never have such good luck again, even if they lived to be
as old as the old people who had 'never seen such a spring before.'

It was not until a year later that the delighted children discovered
that the long spell of sunshine and the Enchanter Wind had worked a
lasting magic. The ripened seed had been scattered far and wide. The
primroses had come to the North to stay; and new Paradises were
springing up everywhere.

Now this is a primrose parable of many things, and worth remembering.
Among other things it is an illustration of the change that was
wrought all over England by the preaching of George Fox.

Think once again of the long bleak years of his youth, when he was
struggling in a dark world into which it seemed as if no ray of light
could pierce; when he and everyone else seemed to be frozen up in a
wintry religion, without life or warmth. Then think how at length he
felt the sap rising in his own soul, turning his whole being to the
Light, as he found 'there is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to
thy condition.' This discovery taught him that in all other men's
hearts too, if they only knew, there was 'that of God.' Henceforward,
to proclaim that Light to others and the seed within their own hearts
that responds to the beams of the Sun of Righteousness, was the
service to which Georg