Note 19 — Chapter III
Reading edition
The date of the marriage of George Fox and Margaret Fell, in the Bristol Register of Friends, is 27th of 8th Month, 1669.
Margaret Fell, it will be remembered, was the widow of Judge Fell of Swarthmore Hall. It is remarkable with what high esteem and Christian love this devoted woman appears to have been regarded by our early and most eminent Friends. She seems to have been generally acknowledged as a faithful nursing-mother of the flock; and she often addressed them, when in bonds or otherwise, with letters of consolation and encouragement. (See numerous letters to and from her in Barclay’s Letters, &c., of Early Friends). It is also probable she contributed largely from her means to the relief of their outward necessities. Having faithfully fulfilled her allotted labours, she died much beloved and lamented, at her own house at Swarthmore, in 1702, being near the eighty-eighth year of her age, and having survived George Fox about twelve years.
Some remarkable expressions of assured happiness fell from her lips during her last illness, if that could be called an illness, which was the decay of nature. At one time, under the meltings of heavenly love, she said, “Oh my sweet Lord! into thy holy bosom do I commit myself freely; not desiring to live in this troublesome, painful world—it is all nothing to me—for my Maker is my husband.” A little before her departure she called her daughter Rachel to her, saying, “Take me in thy arms”—after which she said, “I am in peace!”