The patience and fortitude with which they suffered, begat compassion, admiration, esteem.[*] A supernatural spirit was believed to support them under those sufferings, which the ordinary state of humanity, freed from the illusions of passion, is unable to sustain.
* The following story is told by Whitlocke, p.599.

Some Quakers at Hasington, in Northumberland, coming to the minister on the Sabbath day, and speaking to him, the people fell upon the Quakers, and almost killed one or two of them, who, going out, fell on their knees, and prayed God to pardon the people, who knew not what they did; and afterwards speaking to the people, so convinced them of the evil they had done in beating them, that the country people fell a quarrelling, and beat one another more than they had before beaten the Quakers.
The Quakers crept into the army; but as they preached universal peace, they seduced the military zealots from their profession, and would soon, had they been suffered, have put an end, without any defeat or calamity, to the dominion of the saints.

These attempts became a fresh ground of persecution, and a new reason for their progress among the people.
Morals with this sect were carried, or affected to be carried to the same degree of extravagance as religion.

Give a Quaker a blow on one cheek, he held up the other: ask his cloak, he gave you his coat also; the greatest interest could not engage him, in any court of judicature, to swear even to the truth: he never asked more for his wares than the precise sum which he was determined to accept.

This last maxim is laudable, and continues still to be religiously observed by the sect.
No fanatics ever carried further the hatred to ceremonies forms, orders, rites, and positive institutions.