236 • Survivingacknowledged, “and therefore would many be freed from them.” Yet they
should know also that neither persecution nor plague had visited them with-
out the Lord’s permission. This was not a judgment but a test of their faith:
“spurs of Gods mercy and love to provoke you to watchfulness, to obedience
and to faithfulness to the Almighty.” Let them even see this pestilence as a
God-given opportunity to reach out materially and spiritually to the ungodly
who were without the hope of the Friends and ripe for conversion in their
suffering.^5 This was strong spiritual medicine, not easily swallowed. Could
these English men and women really hold to their faith and pass it on to
nonbelievers with pestilence and prison a constant threat? Caton believed
they could, exhorting them with the example of the Dutch Friends, who en-Fig. 13 .Plague pits and a funeral procession outside London’s wall in 1665. The first
frame features plague pits in a large churchyard outside London’s wall, with grave-
diggers, bearers, coffins, and shrouded bodies. In the second frame a very long pro-
cession of persons in mourning clothes escorts a black-draped coffin despite the pro-
hibition of this public ritual.Courtesy of the Museum of London