ause in their thought it was a name associated with the "apostasy,"
and they preferred to call themselves "the Seed," or "the Children of the
Light." These were, as I have sufficiently shown, names already in use.

It is an interesting fact that this "Epistle" dates the beginning of the
new era as 1652--"it is now {342} about seven years since the Lord raised
us up in the North of England and opened our mouths in this His
Spirit"[11]--and that it locates the springing forth of "the Seed" in the
North of England. It was, we are now well aware, out of the
Seeker-groups of the northern counties of England that the new "Society"
was actually born, and it grew, like a rolling snowball, as it gathered
in the prepared groups of "Seekers," both north and south in England, and
a little later in America.[12]

The creation of the Quaker "Society" was not the work of any man; the
groups were there before the formative leader appeared on the scene. In
fact the very term "Quaker," which was soon fixed upon the new movement
as the popular name for it, had already been in use--at least as far back
as 1646--for the members of some of these highly emotional communities.
As soon as these groups--intense in their expectations--found a leader
who was already raised to an impelling conviction of immediate contact
with God and of definite illumination by the living Christ, and possessed
of an overmastering _sense of mission_, the effect was extraordinary.
The account of what happened is, we may be sure, none too strong: "The
gift of God's eternal Spirit was poured upon us as in days of old, our
hearts were made glad, our tongues were loosed, and we spake with new
tongues as the Lord gave us utterance and as His Spirit led us."[13]
Profound psychological experiences occurred; they felt themselves
baptized together, fused and formed into one group-spirit, swept into
trembling as by a mighty rushing wind, and carried beyond their common
ordinary range of thought and power and utterance. Their
group-experiences of a common divine Spirit coming upon their lives from
beyond themselves, their discovery that God was in their midst, that
gifts were conferred upon them, and, above all, Fox's compelling sense of
apostolic mission--a conviction which was, as it always is,
contagious--were {343} grounds enough to change these Seeker-groups into
the seed and nucleus of a Body possessed of the faith that the
long-expected Church of the Spirit had at l