According to Dr. Trueblood, it was Barclay who gave the stamp of permanence to Quakerism. What might well have been an evanescent sect without his leadership went on to wield a worldwide influence out of all proportion to its modest size. Here is the first biography ever written about the life and thought of this contemporary and friend of William Penn and George Fox. Robert Barclay was a devoted family man, and a scholar whose Apology is the most widely read and distributed of all of the many volumes of Quaker literature in three hundred years. He was a very effective traveling minister and often endured imprisonment for his beliefs. His hope for an asylum for all who suffered religious persecution underlined his great interest in colonization in the New World. He was Governor of East Jersey, and a close friend of King James II, whose relative he was. The author portrays the milieu and the growth of early Quakerism and its leaders with force and immediacy. He further shows us that Robert Barclay's contemporary significance is great indeed. Dr. Trueblood discusses in this context his essentially democratic outlook, and his attitudes on the question of war and the role of the pacifist. Extensive research went into the wealth of information and colorful detail included in the book. Just recently the code to Barclay's shorthand, the key to his Notebook which has remained undeciphered for centuries, was successfully broken. And then, in 1967, came the discovery of his diaries, long presumed lost forever."

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