Annals of 7.28-18 The Early Friends. BY FRANCES ANNE BUDGE. SECOND SERIES. [Reprinted from "THE FRIENDS' QUARTERLY EXAMINER," "I clearly saw that all was done, and to be done, in PHILADELPHIA: HENRY LONGSTRETH. No. 738 SANSOM STREET. Annals of the Early Friends. RICHARD DAVIES. "Is sin an acknowledged mighty evil? so is grace an acknowledged ALMIGHTY remedy."-W. H. BUCKS. "BE of good comfort, our son is not as was reported of him; we hope to have comfort in him yet." So spoke Richard Davies' mother to her husband, after looking tenderly in her son's face and assuring herself that, notwithstanding all the stories that had reached her, he was not bewitched by the Quakers: and her heart was touched as he told her of the loving kindness of his Lord. At this time Richard Davies was about the age of twenty-two. He was born in the year 1635, at Welshpool, Montgomeryshire. When twelve years old the sense of his unfitness for death led him to leave his playfellows and to associate with those who he believed lived in the fear of the Lord. Sometimes in one parish, sometimes in another, he attended various meetings of the Independents, until he could repeat their sermons and discourse on the Scriptures, if not to the edification of his hearers at least to their satisfaction and to his own elation. At the age of fourteen his father placed him with a shopkeeper, to whom he intended to bind him as |