expressions in which the duty of patience under injuries is
enjoined he deduced the doctrine that selfdefence against pirates
and assassins is unlawful. On the other hand, the plain commands
to baptize with water, and to partake of bread and wine in
commemoration of the redemption of mankind, he pronounced to be
allegorical. He long wandered from place to place, teaching this
strange theology, shaking like an aspen leaf in his paroxysms of
fanatical excitement, forcing his way into churches, which he
nicknamed steeple houses interrupting prayers and sermons with
clamour and scurrility,31 and pestering rectors and justices with
epistles much resembling burlesques of those sublime odes in
which the Hebrew prophets foretold the calamities of Babylon and
Tyre.32 He soon acquired great notoriety by these feats. His
strange face, his strange chant, his immovable hat and his
leather breeches were known all over the country; and he boasts
that, as soon as the rumour was heard, "The Man in Leather
Breeches is coming," terror seized hypocritical professors, and
hireling priests made haste to get out of his way.33 He was
repeatedly imprisoned and set in the stocks, sometimes justly,
for disturbing the public worship of congregations, and sometimes
unjustly, for merely talking nonsense. He soon gathered round him
a body of disciples, some of whom went beyond himself in
absurdity. He has told us that one of his friends walked naked
through Skipton declaring the truth.34 and that another was
divinely moved to go naked during several years to marketplaces,
and to the houses of gentlemen and clergymen.35 Fox complains
bitterly that these pious acts, prompted by the Holy Spirit, were
requited by an untoward generation with hooting, pelting,
coachwhipping and horsewhipping. But, though he applauded the
zeal of the sufferers, he did not go quite to their lengths. He