George Fox, born the son of a weaver in Leicestershire, England, like others found little to sustain him in contemporary religion. At the age of 19, he began his search for truth and founded a movement that before his death in 1691 numbered over 50,000 members in England alone.

The Truth is one and the same always. Though ages and generations pass away—one generation goes and another comes; yet the Word, and the Power, and the Spirit of the Living God endures for ever and changes not.

– Margaret Fell Fox,
A Brief Collection of Remarkable Passages Relating to..., 1710

Oppression in the extreme appears terrible: but oppression in the more refined appearances remains to be oppression; and where the smallest degree of it is cherished it grows stronger and more extensive. To labor for a perfect redemption from this spirit of oppression is the great business of the whole family of Christ Jesus in this world.