It was about the Quakers that there had begun to be the most violent excitement among the guardians of social order throughout the British Islands .-- It was then six or seven years since they had first been heard of in any distinct way, and four since they had received the name QUAKERS.

A Derbyshire Justice of the Peace, it is said, first invented that name for them, because they seemed to be fond of the text Jer.v.22, and had offended him by addressing it to himself and a brother magistrate: "Fear ye not me?
saith the Lord; will ye not tremble at my presence ?" But Robert Barclay's account of the origin of the name in his _Apology for the Quakers_ (1675) is probably more correct, though not inconsistent.

He says it arose from the fact that, in the early meetings of "The Children of the Light," as they first called themselves, violent physical agitations were not unfrequent, and conversions were often signalized by that accompaniment.

There was often an "inward travail" in some one present; "and from this inward travail, while the darkness seeks to obscure the light, and the light breaks through the darkness, which it will always do if the soul gives not its strength to the darkness, there will be such a painful travail found in the soul that will even work upon the outward man, so that often-times, through the working thereof, the body will be greatly shaken, and many groans and sighs and tears, even as the pangs of a woman in travail, will lay hold of it: yea, and this not only as to one, but ...

sometimes the power of God will break forth into a whole meeting, and there will be such an inward travail, while each is seeking to overcome the evil in themselves, that by the strong contrary workings of these opposite powers, like the going of two contrary tides, every individual will be strongly exercised as in a day of battle, and thereby trembling and a motion of body will be upon most, if not upon all, which, as the power of Truth prevails, will from pangs and groans end with a sweet sound of thanksgiving and praise.