Sing and Rejoice

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. 

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.