outer. Nature will be an open
Book of Parables in which he can read the truth of Eternity, the world
will be a clear mirror in which he can see the things of the Spirit and
he will know what will cure both soul and body. The "Depth of God
within the Soul," the Inner Light, is the precious Pearl, the
never-failing Comfort, the Panacea for all diseases, the sure Antidote
even against death itself, the unfailing Guide and Way of all
Wisdom.[30]

Here, then, were two very enthusiastic disciples of Boehme who took
their master's teaching very seriously, who on the whole grasped its
essential meaning, were possessed and penetrated by the _idea_ of a
deeper eternal world manifesting itself in the temporal, and who gave
their lives to the difficult task of making Boehme's message {220}
available to their own people and to their own perplexed age. They
were not "occultists." They did not run into enthusiastic vapourings,
nor did they strain after psychic experiences which would relieve them
of the stress and strain of achieving the goal of life through the
formation of balanced character and the practice of social virtues,
though, as we shall see, some of the readers of their translations took
the risky course, and ended in the fog rather than in the clear light.

The question has naturally been raised whether Boehme exercised any
direct influence upon the early Quaker movement.[31] There is at
present no way of proving that George Fox, the chief exponent of the
movement, had actually read the writings of the Teutonic philosopher or
had consciously absorbed the views of the latter, but there are so many
marks of influence apparent in the _Journal_ that no careful student of
both writers can doubt that there was some sort of influence, direct or
indirect, conscious or unconscious. The works of Boehme were, as we
have seen, all available in English, during the great formative period
of Fox's life, from 1647 to 1661. There can be no question that they
were read by the serious _Seekers_ in the period of the Commonwealth.
Thomas Taylor, who was one of the finest fruits of the Seeker movement,
bears in 1659 a positive testimony to the spiritual value of Jacob
Bewman's (Behmen) writings. Taylor received a letter from Justice
William Thornton of Hipswell in Yorkshire, warning him to beware of
"the confused Notions and great words of Jacob Bewman and such like
frothy scriblers." Taylor replies: "For thy light expressions of Jac