HUSTLED A KING

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 13, 16 July 1934, Page 4

HUSTLED A KING

A NOTABLE QUAKER

LIFE AND WORK IN ENGLAND

A MAN OF COURAGE

Westmorland Friends are to celebrate tho tercentenary of Edward Burrough, one of the most notabl of' the .early Quaker "Publishers of Truth," the majority of whom went from .Westmorland, Lancashire, or Yorkshire, says a writer in tho '"Manchester' Guardian." Burrough was born'at Underbarrow, about four miles from Kendal, but the actual date of his birth is a little uncertain. The most generally accepted year ia 1634. . Little known outside the Society of Friends and not as widely as he ought to be within, Burrough was a man of some note in his day, though he only lived to be 2S.

Whether Burroughs ancestral home at Undcrbarrow still stands is not known, though Tullythwaito, another farm which comes into his story, can be traced. His father was a "statesman"—a yeoman farmer—and a strong churchman. Young Edward, though he went regularly to church, seems-to ,hava got lHtle good there, and in. some of his writings he speaks disparagingly of his worship at this period as "readihg and singing and rubbling over a prayer." Theology, however, already interested him, and he left the State Church to join the Presbyterians. When he met Pox, the Quaker leader, in June, 1G52, though only eighteen or nineteen years of age, he was one of the village's most successful disputants in an age when ijeople talked religion as today we talk polities or sport. .

CONVERTED BY FOX.

[ That June, Fox, who had newly •founded the group of "Seekers" at Preston Patrick, a village some three or four miles inland from the main road between Kendal and Lancaster, walked into Kendal and on, down the steep escarpment today known as Scout Sear, to Underbarrow, whore his new friends at Preston Patrick probably knew of a group similar to themselves. Fox, in his "Journal," speaks of great disputings on the way, "especially with Edward Burrough." That night there was a great. supper party of "professors" (religious people) at Tullythwaitc, and Burrough, though he speaks of himself as a reluctant convert, was convinced.

The Quaker preaching that was to bring him into prison and palace seems to have begun at once, first among'his neighbours, but later as far away as Bristol and London. A first result was that his parents disowned him. He was without means of his own all the remainder of his life.

Burrough and his companions persisted with their ministry in face of imprisonment and much ill-treatment. Young as he was, he seems to have had great power both as a preacher and in his personal dealings. There is a description "of his intervention in p. rowdy mooting at the Bull and Mouth, London, where as soon as he began to speak "tho whole multitude became exceedingly calm and. - attentive, and departed peaceable and with seeming satisfaction." Many recorded incidents illustrate his courage. It is told how he entered the wrestling ring "at Moorfields and started to preach there, just as the undefeated champion was calling for more opponents.

REBUKED CROMWELL.

Courage of another kind was shown by his stern'reproof s. to rulers. That he could not be cowed by Magistrates was shown early, at' Bristol; when he refused to buy his freedom by leaving the city. The failure.of an appeal on behalf of Friend sufferers drew a stinging letter Cromwell himself. A sentence in a letter ho sent to the Committee of Safety so well expressed the Quaker attitude to politics that it has its place in the Friends' Books of Discipline today: "We are not "for names', nor men, nor titles of government, but wo are. for justice and mercy and truth and. peace,-and true, freedom . and that goodness,- -rigliteousness, meekness, temperance, peace, and unity with God and with one another

may abound."

• With Fox, it will bo remembered, Cromwell was on terms almost of affection. Burroughs leaning seems to have been, rather to Charles 11, to whom, at the Eestoration, he sent a letter mingling welcome and warning. An incident in his relations with Charles is perhaps the most spectacular of his life. He had obtained an interview with the King on behalf of Friends in New England who were in danger of martyrdom. One, William Leddra, had already been put to death. Burrough told Charles that "a vein of innocent blood .had been opened in his Dominions which, if not stopped, would •overrun all." Charles replied^ "But I will stop that vein/ Edward, in the words of an old memoir, "requested him to act. speedily," and, thus "hustled,"' Charles called a secretary and set to work at once.

A day or two later Edward found the mandamus ready but the King pleading that he ' had no occasion to send a ship to Now England. Edward inquired if he would be willing to grant his deputation to one called a Quaker. The King replied, "Yes: To whbm you will." And so, as told by Whittier in the poem "The King's Missive," an order of clemency for twenty-seven, imprisoned Friends was delivered to .the rulers of New England by one whoni they had banished on pain of death.

After Charles 11, who is said to have had.''a warm regard for him, the.most notable person. Burrough influenced was Thomas Ellwood, tho amanuensis of Milton and editor of Fox's "Journal." The two met in 1659, when Ellwood attended his first Quaker meeting, at Chalfont St. Peter, Bucks. Of this meeting Ellwood wrote: "I drank in his words' with desire, for they aiot only answered, my understanding but- they' warmed' niy heart with a certain, heat that I- had not till theu fQlt from the .ministry of any man." In 1662, parting from 'Friends1 in Bristol .Burrough ;said: "I am going up to London again, to lay'down my life." A few weeks, later-ho died in Newgale, where' conditions- were so terrible that there were said to be a hundred prisoners in one room. And order sent by Charles for. Buvrough's and other prisonerß'-release is said to have been kept back Isy Sir E. Browne. : " :

Burrough • left voluminous writings, in the main fiorcely controversial. ..Among his1 opponents •■ was Bunyan', with^ whom he disputed' about -tho significance: of ■'. ■. the historical Jesus, whom Bunyan feared Friends did not sufficiently' honour.' Burrough, much more than, other early Friends, remained under the' influence of the Calvinism and speculative theology' of his youth, but he: was true to tho Quaker, demand' for faith expressed in life and to' the insistence on1 the directs ness of tho divine dealing with oaeh individual. '■;.--■-'

A Leisure Time League originated by the Young Men?s, Christian Association of Calgary, Caua'da, with 32: members, now, only six months-later, has a membership of more than. ,600,- meeting daily in. somp class of educational or .physical activity. "Volunteer leaders ■instruct in ■first-aid;, track, and field sports, gymnastics, physical,. (lulti^re; .life-saving, languages, v.shqrthc'jiicl,:' bookkeeping, nmsjicj etg;-•.. -.•...:..,■.■■;.