First-hand individual experience of this kind has always
appeared as a heretical sort of innovation to those who witnessed
its birth. Naked comes it into the world and lonely; and it has
always, for a time at least, driven him who had it into the
wilderness, often into the literal wilderness out of doors, where
the Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, St. Francis, George Fox, and so many
others had to go. George Fox expresses well this isolation; and
I can do no better at this point than read to you a page from his
Journal, referring to the period of his youth when religion began
to ferment within him seriously.
"I fasted much," Fox says, "walked abroad in solitary places many
days, and often took my Bible, and sat in hollow trees and
lonesome places until night came on; and frequently in the night
walked mournfully about by myself; for I was a man of sorrows in
the time of the first workings of the Lord in me.
"During all this time I was never joined in profession of
religion with any, but gave up myself to the Lord, having
forsaken all evil company, taking leave of father and mother, and
all other relations, and traveled up and down as a stranger on
the earth, which way the Lord inclined my heart; taking a chamber
to myself in the town where I came, and tarrying sometimes more,
sometimes less in a place: for I durst not stay long in a place,
being afraid both of professor and profane, lest, being a tender
young man, I should be hurt by conversing much with either.
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