The volume of Epistles from which the present selection is made, was published in folio, in the year 1698. It is now extremely scarce. The letters which it contains were written, from about the year 1648 to 1690. They embrace a period of full forty years; and, being composed at such different times, and on such various occasions, they serve materially to illustrate the early history of our Society, and the real character and views of the chief instrument of its formation. This character and these views are, in the present day of ease, well worthy of our study. George Fox had received very little scholastic in struction, but he possessed a mind of no ordinary powers, cultivated too, in a particular direction, in a very remarkable manner. The true knowledge of God, not as an intellectual speculation, but as that which gives rest to the awakened conscience, was the great object of his longing search from youth to manhood; and in this search his almost constant companion was the Bible. There he conversed with Patriarchs and Prophets, with the Lord Jesus and his Apostles, till he became most intimate imbued.