Omniana/Volume 2/Quaker Preaching
213. Quaker Preaching.
Sewel, who is more generally known by his Dutch and English Dictionary than as an English writer, was the grandson of a Brownist who emigrated from Kidderminster and settled at Utrecht. His mother, Judith Zinspenning, visited England, and was much esteemed there among the Quakers. He relates a curious anecdote of her. "She was moved to speak at the meeting at Kingston, where William Caton interpreted for her. At another time, being in a meeting at London, and he not present, and finding herself stirred up to declare of the loving kindness of the Lord to those that feared him, she desired one Peter Sybrands to be her interpreter, but he, though an honest man, yet not very fit for that service, one or more friends told her, they were so sensible of the Power by which she spoke, though they did not understand her words, yet they were edified by the life and power that accompanied her speech, and therefore they little mattered the want of interpretation. And so she went on without any interpreter." The good Quaker relates this anecdote with perfect simplicity, and yet he thought church-music an abomination! In these cases how much wiser are the Romanists in their generation than the children of light!