George Keith

George Keith early became a Quaker, and was several times imprisoned for preaching and writing. Persecution drove him to England, from where he went with Fox, Penn, and others to Holland, which he made a base from which to preach a Quaker crusade.

 

Keith did not remain in accord with the views of the Quakers, but was involved in controversies on points of doctrine. He was twice imprisoned in England before sailing to America in quest of freedom, in 1683.

Peace did not await him in the New World, where quarrels among the Quakers grew vehement and bitter and led to the withdrawal of Keith's permission to preach and to his being fined. He was a prominent figure in all the religious disputes that troubled the young colony.

One issue of these quarrels was a memorable pamphlet by Keith and his adherents against buying slaves, the first Quaker protest against slavery. His opponents declared that they found fault with Keith not so much for his doctrine as for his "unbearable temper and carriage" and his refusal to withdraw charges made against other Quakers.

 

He returned to England, established a chapel of his own, and more and more diverged from the tenets he had crossed the sea to preach. The English Quakers banned him from their meeting houses as the Americans had done, and in 1700 he preached his farewell sermon to Quakers and was ordained an Anglican clergyman.

He was quickly enrolled by the S.P.G., whose first missionary he became. He crossed the Atlantic again and exhorted Presbyterians and Quakers alike "in the queen's name" to return to their Mother Church, but in 1740 returned finally to England, worn out with toil and travel.

The last ten years of his life were spent as rector of Edburton, unhappy years, for he was crippled with rheumatism, the living was desperately poor, and he had to sell his books. His strange and chequered career closed at 77.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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