But George Fox declined it on the idea,
that, as pardon implied guilt, his innocence would be called in question
by his acceptance of it. The king, however, replied, that "he need not
scruple being released by a pardon, for many a man who was as innocent
as a child, had had a pardon granted him." But still he chose to decline
it. And he lay in gaol, till, upon a trial of the errors in his
indictment, he was discharged in an honourable way.
As a minister of the gospel, he was singularly eminent. He had a
wonderful gift in expounding the scriptures. He was particularly
impressive in his preaching; but he excelled most in prayer.
Here it was, that he is described by William Penn, as possessing the
most awful and reverend frame he ever beheld. His presence, says the
same author, expressed "a religious majesty." That there must have been
something more than usually striking either in his manner, or in his
language, or in his arguments, or in all of them combined, or that he
spoke "in the _demonstration_ of the spirit and with power," we are
warranted in pronouncing from the general and powerful effects produced.
In the year 1648, when he had but once before spoken in public, it was
observed of him at Mansfield, at the end of his prayer, _"that it was
then, as in the days of the apostles, when the house was shaken where
they were.
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