ABSTRACT
The first Quakers believed that their mission was to reestablish the Apostolic purity of Christianity, and they were willing, even eager, to sacrifice themselves in pursuit of that goal. The purpose of this chapter is to show how suffering, an integral part of the story of early Quakerism, became the central feature of the eighteenth-century memory of the inchoate period. In earlier chapters, it has been argued that George Fox’s emergence as sole leader resulted from Margaret Fell’s active role in shaping the memory of these early years with the publication of his journal, creation of the Meeting on Sufferings, and editing of manuscript records like the letters housed in Swarthmoor Hall that became known as the Original Records of Sufferings.1 Fox did this with Fell’s help by reorganizing extant letters, signing his approval for those to be kept, and possibly eliminating those that detracted from his approved narrative of early Quakerism. This chapter shows what happened to Quaker suffering and ideas of martyrdom in the century following the Restoration in order to examine the devolution of the religious sect and development of the church. Those efforts, while attributed to Fox, were the result of Margaret Fell’s work to solidify Fox’s position and the institutional memory of his leadership role in the community.
