I just came across a pretty amusing (not to mention a little scary) passage in a letter to Margaret Fell from Francis Howgill (an important early Quaker minister), in an article I and some other Friends in the Boston area may read together soon for our fledgling early Quaker reading group.
Describing a recent convert in Ireland, he writes:
She was a baptiste and they Cast her out for heresy…, she declare agaynst the prest [priest] in publicke and was moved to declare agaynest the baptists and one day the markett day toke a load of Bookes of the highest prestes in the nation and burned them In the street, and these things are a good smell.
Wow, book-burning quakers! a good reminder to be wary of blanket idolization of our forbears!
Yeah, I was shocked too. Though I think it’s somewhat of a different thing to do that as an act of defiance against the powers that be than to do it *as* the powers that be against a minority…