DKF 692 PREFACE. HE motive that has prompted the preparation of the present THE work, has been the hope that, by thus bringing the substance of the principal parts of the narratives of other writers into a more condensed form, the members of the religious Society of Friendsespecially the young may be induced to make themselves familiar with its rise, and the severe trials that attended its early progress: that thus they may become better acquainted with the character of the instruments employed by the Head of the Church to gather Friends into a distinct body, the manner in which He prepared them for the service, and the consistent system of Scriptural doetrine they inculcated, under the teaching and help of his Holy Spirit. Want of correct information on these points, has led some to slight or undervalue the religious attainments and Christian standing of those extraordinary men and women, who, amid contumely and suffering, of which few now have an adequate conception, reasserted the simplicity and spirituality of the Gospel, proclaimed anew some of its cardinal truths, that had been long obscured or disregarded, demonstrated the inconsistency therewith of the man-made ordinances and will-worship, existing in the professing Church, and exemplified, in life and conversation, the selfdenying requirements of the divine law written in the heart. They were bold and uncompromising witnesses for the truth as it is in Jesus; and if, occasionally, one rose up among them, who, from an untempered zeal, and the peculiar spirit of the time, was betrayed into extravagances, of which the body did not approve, iii |