FRIEND

George Fox was "born a seeker. . . into a seeking age," and if the "experimental" process by which he arrived at his convictions must be taken largely on faith, his courageous dedication to speaking his personal truth and the persecutions he and his followers suffered are placed within the context of the theological fervor which affected all classes of people in post-Reformation England. A curious blend of mystic and hard-headed reformer (subject at times to "nervous" illnesses and believing that he had the gift of tongues), Fox himself remains an enigma which the cautious comparisons to present day radicals cannot explain ("he would not cut his hair. . . spoke out against the conditions in prisons, the low place of women in society. . ."), but the author (a recent convert to Quakerism) combines a tone of responsible questioning with a flair for dramatizing Fox's confrontations with authority, and the final chapters on the evolution of Quakerism add a broadening perspective.