A great convincement there was in Cumberland, Bishoprick, Northumberland, Westmoreland, Lancashire, and Yorkshire; and the plants of God grew and flourished, the heavenly rain descending, and God's glory shining upon them. Many mouths were opened by the Lord to His praise; yea, to babes and sucklings he ordained strength.
About this time the priests and professors fell to prophesying against us afresh. They had said long before that we should be destroyed within a month; and after that, they prolonged the time to half a year. But that time being long expired, and we mightily increased in number, they now gave forth that we would eat out one another. For often after meetings many tender people, having a great way to go, tarried at Friends' houses by the way, and sometimes more than there were beds to lodge in; so that some lay on the hay-mows. Hereupon Cain's fear possessed the professors and world's people; for they were afraid that when we had eaten one another out, we should all come to be maintained by the parishes, and be chargeable to them.
But after awhile, when they saw that the Lord blessed and increased Friends, as he did Abraham, both in the field and in the basket, at their goings forth and their comings in, at their risings up and their lyings down, and that all things prospered with them; then they saw the falseness of all their prophecies against us, and that it was in vain to curse whom God had blessed.
At the first convincement, when Friends could not put off their hats to people, or say You to a single person, but Thou and Thee;--when they could not bow, or use flattering words in salutation, or adopt the fashions and customs of the world, many Friends, that were tradesmen of several sorts, lost their customers at first, for the people were shy of them, and would not trade with them; so that for a time some Friends could hardly get money enough to buy bread.
But afterwards, when people came to have experience of Friends' honesty and faithfulness, and found that their yea was yea, and their nay was nay; that they kept to a word in their dealings, and would not cozen and cheat, but that if a child were sent to their shops for anything, he was as well used as his parents would have been;--then the lives and conversation of Friends did preach, and reached to the witness of God in the people.