[1]
At the age of nineteen, George Fox, the son of a weaver of Drayton, with a
mind open to religious impressions, had accompanied some of his friends to
a neighbouring fair. The noise, the revelry, and the dissipation which he
witnessed, led him to thoughts of seriousness and self-reproach; and the
enthusiast heard, or persuaded himself that he heard, an inward voice,
calling on him to forsake his parents' house, and to make himself a
stranger in his own country. Docile to the celestial admonition, he began
to lead a solitary life, wandering from place to place, and clothed from
head to foot in garments of leather. He read the Scriptures attentively,
studied the mysterious visions in the Apocalypse, and was instructed in the
real meaning by Christ and the Spirit. At first, doubts and fears haunted
his mind, but, when the time of trial was past, he found himself inebriated
with spiritual delights, and received an assurance that his name was
written in the Lamb's Book of Life. At the same time, he was forbidden by
the Lord to employ the plural pronoun _you_ in addressing a single person,
to bid his neighbour good even or good-morrow, or to uncover the head, or
scrape with the leg to any mortal being. At length, the Spirit moved him to
[Footnote 1: Journals, passim; Thurloe, v.
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