The Romans, in their purer times, considered the stage to be so disgraceful, that every Roman was to be degraded, who became an actor, and so pernicious to morals, that they put it under the power of a censor, to control its effects.
But the stage, in the time of Charles the second, when the Quakers first appeared in the world, was in a worse state than even in the Grecian or Roman times.

If there was ever a period in any country, when it was noted as the school of profligate and corrupt morals, it was in this reign.

George Fox therefore, as a christian reformer, could not be supposed to be behind the heathen philosophers, in a case where morality was concerned.

Accordingly we find him protesting publicly against all such spectacles.

In this protest, he was joined by Robert Barclay and William Penn, two of the greatest men of those times, who in their respective publications attacked them with great spirit.