There was a big battle in the Canary Islands. English ships sailed into the harbor and fought with Spanish ships. The Spanish had a big castle on the shore with forty cannons. They shot at the English ships.
The Bristol sailed up next to the Spanish admiral's ship. Each ship fired all its cannons at the other. The Spanish ship blew up and all its sailors jumped into the water.
Thomas took seven sailors from the Bristol and got into a little rowboat. They rowed up next to a big Spanish ship that was anchored in the harbor. All its sailors had gone on shore. Thomas and his men climbed onto the Spanish ship and set it on fire. It was such a big fire that two other ships next to it burned too.
Thomas and his men got off the burning ship and rowed their little boat back to the Bristol. Spanish soldiers shot at them from the shore. Two of Thomas's men were killed. One of them was sitting right next to Thomas.
The Bristol and all the other English ships sailed back out of the harbor. The cannons in the Spanish castle kept shooting at them. A cannonball flew right over Thomas's head and cut through a rope, but it missed him.
Thomas was a little frightened. He knew he had almost been killed in the battle. He didn't feel like he was ready to die. He didn't feel ready to meet God. He didn't even know whether God was pleased with him. He thought maybe God was trying to warn him to live better.
On Sunday all the sailors on the Bristol went to church. They had to go; that was the ship's rule. If they didn't want to go, Thomas would make them. The ship's minister was called the chaplain. He preached and prayed and read from the Bible.
"You are a good man, Thomas," said the chaplain. "You always make sure everyone comes to church."
But one Sunday two of the sailors didn't go to church. One of them said to the other, "I don't think going to church is doing me any good. I've been going to church all my life, and it still doesn't make me a good person. Look at how angry I get when any little thing goes wrong. God can't be pleased with that, can he?"
"I think that chaplain talks too much," said the second sailor. "I never get any help from his sermons. He just preaches because he gets paid to do it, and I don't think he knows any more about God than I do. I'd rather read the Bible by myself, because those are God's words."
"That's not the whole problem, though," said the first sailor. "I like the Bible too. But I still feel I'm missing something when I read it. It tells how God talked to people and showed them how to be good and brave, and how he saved them from dangers and made wonderful things happen for them. I don't feel I'm like the people in the Bible. I'm not hearing God's voice. I wish God would talk to me."
The other sailor said, "I've heard about some people who say that God talks to them. They don't go to listen to any of those preachers who get paid to talk. They think that if anyone can tell them how to be good, it's God. They get together on Sunday morning and sit quietly, and wait for God to talk to them. And they don't fill up the time by singing songs or reciting prayers. They don't say a word unless God tells them to. They say that they have to be very quiet to hear God speak to them; and they say that sometimes God does talk to them inside and show them how to live right. People call them Quakers, because sometimes when God speaks it makes them shake."
"I think those Quakers have a good idea," said the first sailor. "I'm sure God would like it better if we did that than if we went to church to hear the chaplain. Let's try it."
So those two sailors didn't go to church that Sunday. They found a quiet corner of the ship and sat down and waited. They were very quiet. They even tried to quiet their minds so that they could hear if God said something to them.
I don't know whether God said anything to those two sailors that Sunday or not. But I do know that the chaplain heard what they did, and he was very angry.
"Thomas," said the chaplain, "two of the sailors didn't come to church this week. They want to be Quakers. This is very bad. You must stop them before any more sailors become Quakers too."
So Thomas found the two men and beat them up. "Make sure you come to church next Sunday," he said.
But they didn't come to church next Sunday. They went to their quiet corner again and had their little Quaker meeting. When Thomas found them, he beat them up again.
Soon all the sailors knew about the two Quakers. "This is fun," some of them said. "Let's go watch Thomas Lurting beat up the two Quakers."
But other sailors said, "This is strange. Why do the Quakers keep letting Thomas beat them up? Why do they stay away from church and just sit quietly in a corner? Maybe they've found out something important. Maybe God really does talk to them. Maybe we should try it too."
Soon more sailors started coming to the Quaker meeting to sit quietly and listen to God. One Sunday there were three of them. Another Sunday there were four.
No matter how many Quakers there were, Thomas could always beat them all up. That was because they just sat their quietly and didn't hit back.
Thomas had a friend named Roger Dennis. One Sunday Roger came to the Quaker meeting. When Thomas saw Roger sitting their quietly with the other Quakers, he didn't know what to do. He didn't want to beat up his friend. And he was ashamed to let Roger see him beating up the others. He walked away sad and confused.
Thomas went to his room and prayed. "God," he said, "what can I do? I have to make the Quakers come to church. But when I saw my friend Roger there, I just couldn't do anything. What can I do?"
Thomas was quiet for a while. Then, somewhere down inside him, there was a kind of answer. "Don't beat up the Quakers," it said. "Let them have their quiet meeting." It wasn't really in words, but that was what it meant.
Thomas was surprised. Could that be God talking to him? If it was, he thought he had better pay attention. He wanted to be ready to meet God, in case he were killed in another battle.
So Thomas stopped beating up the Quakers. When the next Sunday came, he didn't try to stop them from having their meeting. He just went quietly to church with the other sailors.
The chaplain was angry. "I thought you were a good man, Thomas," he said. "But you have stopped doing your job. You are supposed to make everyone come to church."
"I don't think God wants me to do that," said Thomas.
"Yes he does," said the chaplain. "I should know. I'm the minister."
Thomas thought that was strange. He knew it couldn't be right to keep beating up people who never even hit him back. He decided the chaplain must be wrong.
Thomas went to church for a few more Sundays, but then he said to himself, "This is silly. Why should I keep listening to that chaplain talk about God? He doesn't know what God wants. Listening to him won't help me please God. I can pray by myself and read the Bible by myself in my own room. And maybe God will speak to me again like he did before."
So that is what Thomas did. He stayed in his own room on Sunday mornings and prayed and read the Bible. And sometimes it seemed like God said something to him. Usually it was about something Thomas had done wrong. It got so that Thomas actually liked it when God showed him what he'd done wrong. It made him feel like God really cared what he did. So he would say he was sorry and would promise to do better.
But Thomas got lonely, praying all by himself week after week. He wished he had some other people to pray with, so they could encourage each other to do the things God told them to do. So one day Thomas asked God whether there was anybody else he could pray with.
And God said, "Go meet with the Quakers."
"Oh!" said Thomas. "I can't do that. I'd rather die! Everyone laughs at those Quakers. They'd laugh at me even more, because I used to beat up the Quakers. I can't be a Quaker!"
"Yes, you can," said God. "Go do it."
Thomas wouldn't do it at first. He worried and worried about how people would laugh at him. But he couldn't get God to change his mind. Finally Thomas said to himself, "Oh, well, Quaker or not, I don't want to fight God."
So Thomas went to find his old friend Roger Dennis, who had become a Quaker. Together they went to Thomas's room and sat quietly for a little while. Then Roger gently said a few words. It seemed as if he knew everything Thomas had been thinking and worrying about. It made Thomas feel a little better about having to be a Quaker.
From then on, Thomas went to the Quaker meeting every week. Sure enough, some of the sailors laughed at him, and the chaplain was angrier than before. But Thomas soon felt better, because he knew he was doing what God wanted. And it was nice to have friends he could talk with about things God had said to him.
Soon more sailors started coming to the Quaker meeting. Before long there were fourteen of them.
One day some of the sailors on the Bristol got sick. They were so sick that some of them died. Other sailors caught the disease from them. Before long nearly everyone on the ship was getting sick. Most of the Quakers were sick too, including Thomas.
The Quakers loved each other a lot. Whenever one of them got sick, the others did everything they could to take care of him. Everyone else noticed how well the Quakers took care of each other. Soon other sailors who were sick started asking the Quakers to take care of them too. Thomas and his friends did as much as they could to help. After that nobody laughed at the Quakers any more.
Now the Bristol was a fighting ship, remember, and all this time England and Spain were still fighting whenever they got the chance. Often the Bristol would be sent into battle to fight a Spanish ship. All the sailors had to help with the fighting. They would try to kill the Spanish sailors and sink their ships; and of course the Spanish sailors were trying to do the same to them.
Thomas and his friends were very brave fighters. Soon the captain of the Bristol saw that the Quakers were the bravest men on his ship. So he always sent them to do the hardest fighting, because he knew they were brave enough to do it. He was very pleased with them, and thought they were the best sailors he had.
But the Quakers were not going to go on fighting much longer. And this is the way it happened.
The Bristol was sent to Barcelona on the coast of Spain. There were Spanish ships in the harbor, and a Spanish castle on the shore. The Bristol fired its cannons at the castle, and the soldiers in the castle fired their cannons back at the ship.
Thomas and some other sailors were working together at one of the cannons, loading it and shooting and loading it again. Thomas carefully aimed the cannon at one corner of the castle. "Now don't fire," he told the other sailors, "until I can go out on the deck to see where it hits, so that we can aim higher or lower." And he went out on the deck to look.
Just at that moment God spoke to Thomas. And what God said ran right through Thomas like a sword. It seemed to tear up his insides. God said, "Now what if you kill someone?"
Thomas was so surprised he didn't know whether he was dead or alive. He had never thought about it that way before. Suddenly he saw that God loved the Spanish soldiers in the castle as much as he loved the English sailors on the ship. He was sure that there wasn't any reason in the world that was important enough to kill someone for it.
Thomas didn't know what to do. He walked around on the deck just as if he'd forgotten there was a battle going on. Some of the sailors asked him, "Are you hurt?" "No," he answered, "I'm worried that we're doing something very wrong by fighting."
When night came, the Bristol sailed out to sea again, where the castle's cannons couldn't reach it.
Thomas asked Roger Dennis and another Quaker to come to his room. There he told them what had happened to him, and asked them whether God had showed them anything about fighting.
"If God lets us get home safe," they said, "we'll never fight again." And that was all they could say.
But Thomas answered, "Even if there's another battle tomorrow, I won't fight in it. I hope God brings us home safe. But safe or not, I know I mustn't fight."
The next morning they heard that some of the Spanish soldiers had been killed on the shore. It made Thomas very sad.
One of the Quakers asked the captain to let him leave the ship and go home. "I can't fight any more," he said.
"If you don't fight when there's a battle," said the captain, "I'll stick my sword in your guts."
"God won't like it," said the Quaker. That made the captain so mad that he hit him with his cane and his fist.
Then the captain wrote out a big sign and hung it up in the middle of the ship. "If any sailor won't fight in a battle," it said, "the other sailors may kill him."
The Bristol went out to sea again, away from the Spanish castle. For many days everything was quiet. There was nothing to be seen except the sea and the ship and the sky. But everyone wondered what would happen the next time they had to fight.
Then one morning the lookout saw another ship coming. It was far off, but it was coming straight toward them. It was very large. It looked like it might be a Spanish warship. The captain gave orders that everyone must get ready to fight.
Thomas was standing on the deck and heard the captain give the order. He knew that whatever happened it was going to be hard. He prayed to God for strength to do what was right, and he asked God what he should do. And God answered, "Get the Quakers together and have a meeting."
"How in the world can we have a meeting in all this uproar?" thought Thomas. But he went below deck and called two or three of the Quakers, and they called the rest. Soon all fourteen Quakers were together in Thomas's room.
Thomas told the others what had happened to him during the battle at Barcelona. "I hope God will save us from this trouble," he said. "You must all do what God tells you. But I say, if we aren't going to fight, let's not run away from the captain. Let's stand in the middle of the deck where the captain can see us, so that he knows what we're doing."
Then Thomas went out and stood on the deck. He wasn't afraid of anything any more, except afraid of disobeying God. He stood quietly for a while, watching the captain. Then he looked around and saw all the other Quakers coming out to join him. He thought he had never seen anything so beautiful as those fourteen Quakers coming quietly to tell the captain they couldn't fight. He felt like he was ready to die if that would help save his friends from danger.
The captain came running up. He grabbed one of the Quakers by the collar, threw his hat overboard, hit him with a cane, and dragged him away to his place by one of the cannons. Then he fetched his sword and ran back toward the group of Quakers, who were still standing on the deck. He looked like he was ready to fight a battle with the Quakers all by himself.
Then God spoke to Thomas. "The captain's mad enough to kill someone. But don't worry: I'm holding my sword over his head. Go walk up to him and let him stab you if he wants to."
Thomas shook all over. He wasn't afraid; but what God said was like a fire, and it went through him and all over him. He turned to Roger and said, "I have to go to the captain."
"Don't go unless you have to," said Roger.
"I have to," said Thomas.
"Then I'll go too," said Roger.
Thomas walked straight toward the captain. Roger followed.
The captain looked angrily at Thomas and waved his sword.
Thomas stood right in front of the captain. He looked right at the captain's face.
The captain looked at Thomas.
Thomas looked at the captain.
Then the captain's face turned pale, and he turned around and ran the other way.
Thomas stood there a little longer. Then he said to Roger, "The captain's gone. Let's go back to our friends." And they did.
All this time the other ship had been coming closer and closer to the Bristol. At last it got so close that the sailors on the Bristol could see its flags and its captain's uniform.
And then they saw that it wasn't a Spanish ship after all. It was from Genoa, in Italy, and it was friendly to the English. So there wasn't a battle that day.
Except for Thomas's battle with the captain -- the battle he won without fighting.
That night the captain said to Thomas, "I hope you won't be angry with me. I was just so mad I didn't know what I was doing."
"I'm not angry," said Thomas. "But try not to get so mad. What if you kill someone?"
Finally the Bristol came back to England. Thomas and Roger and all the other Quakers left the ship and went home. They found other work to do. Thomas got a job on another ship, carrying wheat to feed people. And he never fought again.
Not even the time he met the pirates.
But that's another story.