himself in public at three different meetings, consisting either of
priests and professors, as he calls them, or professors and people. In
Warwickshire he met with a great company of professors, who were praying
and expounding the scriptures, in the fields. Here he discoursed
largely, and the hearers fell into contention, and so parted. In
Leicestershire he attended another meeting, consisting of Church people,
Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, where he spoke publicly
again. This meeting was held in a church. The persons present discoursed
and reasoned. Questions were propounded, and answers followed. An answer
given by George Fox, in which he stated that "the church was the pillar
and ground of truth, and that it did not consist of a mixed multitude,
or of an old house, made up of lime, stones, and wood, but of living
stones, living members, and a spiritual household, of which Christ was
the head," set them all on fire. The clergyman left the pulpit, the
people their pews, and the meeting separated. George Fox, however, went
afterwards to an Inn, where he argued with priests and professors of all
sorts. Departing from thence, he took up his abode for some time in the
vale of Beevor, where he preached Repentance, and convinced many. He
then returned into Nottinghamshire, and passed from thence into
Derbyshire, in both which counties his doctrines spread. And, after
this, warning Justices of the Peace, as he travelled along, to do
justice, and notoriously wicked men to amend their lives, he came into
the vale of Beevor again. In this vale it was that he received,
according to his own account, his commission from divine authority, by
means of impressions on his mind, in consequence of which he conceived
it to be discovered to him, among other things, that he was "to turn the
people from darkness to the light." By this time he had converted many
hundreds to his opinions, and divers meetings of Friends, to use his own
expression, "had been then gathered."