CHAPTER VII.

THE QUAKERS AND THE INDIANS.

WHEN his little audience next assembled round the chair, Grandfather
gave them a doleful history of the Quaker persecution, which began in
1656, and raged for about three years in Massachusetts.

He told them how, in the first place, twelve of the converts of George
Fox, the first Quaker in the world, had come over from England. They
seemed to be impelled by an earnest love for the souls of men, and a
pure desire to make known what they considered a revelation from Heaven.
But the rulers looked upon them as plotting the downfall of all
government and religion. They were banished from the colony. In a little
while, however, not only the first twelve had returned, but a multitude
of other Quakers had come to rebuke the rulers and to preach against the
priests and steeple-houses.

Grandfather described the hatred and scorn with which these enthusiasts
were received. They were thrown into dungeons; they were beaten with
many stripes, women as well as men; they were driven forth into the
wilderness, and left to the tender mercies of tender mercies of wild
beasts and Indians. The children were amazed hear that the more the
Quakers were scourged, and imprisoned, and banished, the more did the
sect increase, both by the influx of strangers and by converts from
among the Puritans, But Grandfather told them that God had put something
into the soul of man, which always turned the cruelties of the
persecutor to naught.