THE TESTIMONY OF GEORGE ROOKE CONCERNING

WILLIAM EDMUNDSON

A testimony lives in my heart to give to the memory of my true and worthy friend, William Edmundson. He was a man with whom I have had some acquaintance above thirty years, but we were more intimately and nearly acquainted about the last fifteen years, it having been my lot to be often with him in the service of the Gospel, both in England and Ireland, sometimes among Friends and sometimes in places where none were who bore the name of Quakers. In all places where we traveled, his service for God was great, to the stopping of the mouths of gainsayers, and convincing many of the way of truth, directing and turning people's minds from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that many became the seals of his ministry which he delivered in great plainness, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

In his travels he was very careful not to make the Gospel chargeable and had a great zeal against the hireling teachers who sought for their gain from their quarter and looked after the fleece more than the flock. And for his testimony against such, he often went through great sufferings both in body and goods, as the book of Sufferings and his following journal show.

Of his travels in America I shall not say much, leaving it to them that were more acquainted with his service there, and his own account thereof in the ensuing pages, though I have heard him say that he went through great exercises among them, both in body and spirit, there arising many vain and unruly talkers among them who gave great trouble to the churches, and it fell to his lot often to deal with such. He was a man fitted for such service beyond any other that ever I was acquainted with. And great was his care to have such made manifest and a stop put to them so that they might proceed no further, wherever he met with them. But especially that such might be kept out of men's meetings, for he was careful that the authority of truth in men's and women's meetings might be kept up, where the Lord's business was managed, that the members thereof might be faithful men and faithful women, fearing God and hating covetousness, that so true judgment and justice might be maintained in all these meetings without respect of persons, and judgment placed on all unruly and disorderly persons, that God's house might be kept clean, which holiness becomes for ever.

He was not one who sought after popularity but was rather shy, not intimate with any of whom he had not a trial and true knowledge, nor willing to lay hands suddenly on any. But of those he had found faithful, he was a great encourager in the Lord's service. I have often heard him say that it was great satisfaction to him to see Friends come up in the service the Lord had fitted them for. And great was his concern to stir up those the Lord had gifted to answer their respective services by doing their day's work in their day, while ability of body and understanding was continued. He was an excellent pattern to us all, in that he spared not himself while his abilities were continued to him, but even to old age did perform service and travels beyond the ordinary course of nature, in which he would often say, the Lord was his song and his strength, who had carried him through many and various exercises and perils of divers sorts. The greatest trials he met with were from false brethren who opposed the good order of truth which the Lord has established among us, whose oppositions, both private and more public, he like a rock, immovably withstood, and as a fixed star in the firmament of God's power did remain, holding his integrity to the last.

He was one that truly sympathized with his suffering brothers and sisters, not sparing himself to obtain their relief and enlargement when closely confined in prison for their testimony against the hireling teachers and the great oppression of tithes, by applying himself to the persons concerned, and sometimes to the chief governors. He was a man of an undaunted spirit, grave, meek, free from affectation in speech and carriage, and therefore fit to stand before princes. And in such services he was often very successful, the Lord opening a way and prospering his endeavors. The gain of all he was ready to consecrate to the Lord and not to any abilities of his own, whether natural or acquired, having a large share of the former, though he had not much of the latter; being a man of no great learning as to the outward. Yet he had the tongue of the learned, so as to speak a word in season to the conditions and capacities of most, for he was sound and profound in the mysteries of life and salvation.

This eminent elder and overseer in the house of God was one of the first instruments in the hand of God in this generation to publish his everlasting truth through this benighted island and direct the inhabitants thereof to the inshining light of Jesus Christ, the glorious Sun of righteousness. In the discharge of his service in the ministry, he persevered with such constancy, faith, and fidelity that it pleased his great Lord to bestow on him, as an additional favor, a large understanding in the right ground of government and discipline in the church, in which he earnestly labored for universal love, unity and good order, through all the churches of Christ, preferring the honor of God before all things else. Many times things would open in him to admiration, showing to rich men and the eager getters of this world the danger they were in of hurting themselves by hindering their growth in the truth.

Nay, I cannot set forth the service he had among us. But this I am sure of, the churches of this nation will have a great loss of him. For indeed the care of the churches was daily upon him, and too few there are to stand in the gap against iniquity or who will expose themselves as he did in dealing plainly with every one, not letting sin pass unreproved nor faults untold, sharply reproving obstinate offenders, but mildly admonishing the sensible and penitent. A man of truth indeed who sometimes did tell us that he was glad when he looked back and considered how he had spent his time since the day it pleased the Lord to lay his hand upon him and call him into the ministry and by a careful search, could not find that he was behind with his day's work.

When he was taken sick he sent for me before my return from the Yearly Meeting at London. And the next day after I came home, I went to see him and found him very weak but very sensible, and he freely imparted his mind to me in several things, and particularly about the regulation of men's and women's meetings, "of which regulation," said he, "there is absolute need." And he believed some would come to see the necessity thereof more than they yet had.

I stayed with him about four or five days, in which time I observed nothing proceed out of his mouth, save what showed his concern for truth and the good order of it. And when I went to take leave of him, he said, "We have had many good meetings together. I believe that we shall meet in heaven," and this he spoke very tenderly. In a few days after this he departed this life in a good old age and full of days, being aged near eighty-five years and a minister fifty-seven years. And I doubt not but he hath obtained a reward of durable riches, a crown of righteousness, and his memorial is blessed, for he was a father in Israel in his day.

Though he was a man oppressed, afflicted, and troubled in his life time, yet now he is where the voice of the oppressor is no more heard, but the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest from their labors, and their works do follow, receiving the reward of peace and sentence of "well done, faithful and good servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." That we may all so labor as to be counted worthy thereof, with this our aged Friend at last, is the sincere desire and travail of thy friend, who wisheth the welfare of all men, both here and hereafter.

George Rooke