My brother whispered to me that he was no
Friend, but a noted ranter, a noisy, unsettled man. He screamed
exceeding loud, and stamped with his feet, and foamed at the mouth, like
one possessed with an evil spirit, crying against all order in State or
Church, and declaring that the Lord had a controversy with Priests and
Magistrates, the prophets who prophesy falsely, and the priests who bear
rule by their means, and the people who love to have it so. He spake of
the Quakers as a tender and hopeful people in their beginning, and while
the arm of the wicked was heavy upon them; but now he said that they,
even as the rest, were settled down into a dead order, and heaping up
worldly goods, and speaking evil of the Lord's messengers. They were a
part of Babylon, and would perish with their idols; they should drink of
the wine of God's wrath; the day of their visitation was at hand. After
going on thus for a while, up gets a tall, wild-looking woman, as pale
as a ghost, and trembling from head to foot, who, stretching out her
long arms towards the man who had spoken, bade the people take notice
that this was the angel spoken of in Revelation, flying through the
midst of heaven, and crying, Woe! woe! to the inhabitants of the earth!
with more of the like wicked rant, whereat I was not a little
discomposed, and, beckoning my brother, left them to foam out their
shame to themselves.
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