Artist & Tune
Reference
About the Song
The lyrics for this song are taken almost word for word from a 1663 epistle written by George Fox, the central founder of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), to Friends suffering imprisonment in English jails for their beliefs. Read a longer quote from Fox's 1663 epistle. (This is quote is in an online library of Quakerism that Rise Up Singing co-author Peter Blood has been building at https://inwardlight.org/)
Guthe wrote the song while he was a student at the Quaker retreat center, Pendle Hill, in 1983 while he was studying about the beginnings of Quakerism in England in the mid-17th century. It was reported that the Quaker Mary Dyer had to be gagged while being led to the gallows on Boston Common on 1 June 1660 because she was singing and preaching to those who followed her to the gallows.
This song was included in the Quaker songbook "Go Cheerfully" and a recording that accompanied the songbook.