Note 298 — Chapter XXI

This religious society, says Hannah Adams, “began to be distinguished about the middle of the seventeenth century. Their doctrines were first promulgated in England, by George Fox, about the year 1647, for which he was imprisoned at Nottingham, in the year 1649, and the year following at Derby. The appellation of Quakers, was given them by way of contempt; some say, on account of their tremblings under the impression of divine things; but they say it was first given them by one of the magistrates, who committed George Fox to prison, on account of his bidding him and those about him to tremble at the word of the Lord.” They have since called themselves Friends. The wild fanaticism of some of the early adherents of the sect, no more resembles the quiet demeanor of the pious Friends of the present day, than the policy of Massachusetts in 1656, was like the spirit of our own times.