Excerpt from Preface
I have preferred ... to write for older boys and girls who will wish for a true account of suffering bravely borne; though without undue insistence on the physical side. For to tell the stories of these lives without the terrible, glorious account of the cruel beatings, imprisonments, and even martyrdom in which they often ended here, is not truly to tell them at all. The tragic darkness in the picture is necessary to enhance its high lights.
The stories are intended in the first place for Quaker children, and are written throughout from a Quaker standpoint, though with the wish to be as fair as possible not only to our staunch forefathers, but also to their doughty antagonists. Even when describing the fiercest encounters between them, I have tried to write nothing that might perplex or pain other than Quaker listeners; above all, to be ever mindful of what George Fox himself calls 'the hidden unity in the Eternal Being.'
