{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_61802/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_61802","id":"gutenberg_61802","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61802","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Society of Friends"],"text":"QUAKER STRONGHOLDS\n\n\n                                   BY\n                        CAROLINE EMELIA STEPHEN\n                  AUTHOR OF \u201cTHE SERVICE OF THE POOR\u201d\n\n\n                              PHILADELPHIA\n                  HENRY LONGSTRETH, 740 SANSOM STREET\n                                  1891\n\n\n\n\n                               CONTENTS.\n\n\n  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE\n   Introduction                                                        1\n  I. Organization                                                      6\n  II. The Inner Light                                                 20\n  III. Worship                                                        51\n  IV. Free Ministry                                                   91\n  V. Special Testimonies                                             118\n  VI. Our Calling                                                    157\n   Appendix                                                          199\n\n\n\n\n                          QUAKER STRONGHOLDS.\n\n\n\n\n                             INTRODUCTION.\n\n\nWhether Quakerism be, as some Friends believe, destined to any\nconsiderable revival or not, it seems at least certain that any\nimportant revival of religion must be the result of a fresh recognition\nand acceptance of the very principles upon which the Society of Friends\nis built. What these principles and the practices resulting from them\nreally are, is a subject on which there is a surprising amount of\nignorance amongst us, considering how widely spread is the connection\nwith and interest about Friends amongst the members of other\npersuasions. One seldom meets any one who has not some link with the\nSociety, and yet it is rare to find any one not belonging to it at all\naccurately informed as to its point of view or its organization. The\nnotorious disinclination of Friends to any attempts at proselytizing,\nand perhaps some lingering effects of persecution, probably account for\nthe very common impression that Friends\u2019 meetings are essentially\nprivate\u2014mysterious gatherings into which it would be intrusive to seek\nadmission. Many people, indeed, probably suppose (if they think about it\nat all) that such meetings are no longer held; that the Society is fast\ndying out, and the \u201csilent worship\u201d of tradition is a thing of the\npast\u2014impracticable, and hardly to be seriously mentioned in these days\nof talk and of breathless activity.\n\nSome such vague impression floated, I believe, over my own mind, when,\nsome seventeen years ago, I first found myself within reach of a\nFriends\u2019 meeting, and, somewhat to my surprise, cordially made welcome\nto attend it. The invitation came at a moment of need, for I was\nbeginning to feel with dismay that I might not much longer be able\nconscientiously to continue to join in the Church of England service;\nnot for want of appreciation of its unrivalled richness and beauty, but\nfrom doubts of the truth of its doctrines, combined with a growing\nrecognition that to me it was as the armour of Saul in its elaboration\nand in the sustained pitch of religious fervour for which it was meant\nto provide an utterance. Whether true or not in its speculative and\ntheoretical assumptions, it was clear to me that it was far from true as\na periodical expression of my own experience, belief, or aspiration. The\nmore vividly one feels the force of its eloquence, the more, it seems to\nme, one must hesitate to adopt it as the language of one\u2019s own soul, and\nthe more unlikely it is that such heights and depths of feeling as it\ndemands should be ready to fill its magnificent channels every Sunday\nmorning at a given hour. The questionings with which at that period I\nwas painfully struggling were stirred into redoubled activity by the\ndogmatic statements and assumptions with which the Liturgy abounds, and\nits unbroken flow left no loophole for the utterance of my own less\ndisciplined, but to myself far more urgent, cries for help. Thus the\nhour of public worship, which should have been a time of spiritual\nstrengthening and calming, became to me a time of renewed conflict, and\nof occasional exaltation and excitement of emotion, leading but too\nsurely to reaction and apathy.\n\nI do not attempt to pass any judgment on this mental condition. I have\ndescribed it at some length because I cannot believe it to be altogether\nexceptional, or without significance. At any rate, it was fast leading\nme to dread the moment when I should be unable either to find the help I\nneeded, or to offer my tribute of devotion in any place of worship\namongst my fellow-Christians. When lo, on one never-to-be-forgotten\nSunday morning, I found myself one of a small company of silent\nworshippers, who were content to sit down together without words, that\neach one might feel after and draw near to the Divine Presence,\nunhindered at least, if not helped, by any human utterance. Utterance I\nknew was free, should the words be given; and before the meeting was\nover, a sentence or two were uttered in great simplicity by an old and\napparently untaught man, rising in his place amongst the rest of us. I\ndid not pay much attention to the words he spoke, and I have no\nrecollection of their purport. My whole soul was filled with the\nunutterable peace of the undisturbed opportunity for communion with God,\nwith the sense that at last I had found a place where I might, without\nthe faintest suspicion of insincerity, join with others in simply\nseeking His presence. To sit down in silence could at the least pledge\nme to nothing; it might open to me (as it did that morning) the very\ngate of heaven. And since that day, now more than seventeen years ago,\nFriends\u2019 meetings have indeed been to me the greatest of outward helps\nto a fuller and fuller entrance into the spirit from which they have\nsprung; the place of the most soul-subduing, faith-restoring,\nstrengthening, and peaceful communion, in feeding upon the bread of\nlife, that I have ever known. I cannot but believe that what has helped\nme so unspeakably might be helpful to multitudes in this day of shaking\nof all that can be shaken, and of restless inquiry after spiritual good.\nIt is in the hope of making more widely known the true source and nature\nof such spiritual help that I am about to attempt to describe what I\nhave called our strongholds\u2014those principles which cannot fail, whatever\nmay be the future of the Society which for more than two hundred years\nhas taken its stand upon them. I wish to trace, as far as my experience\nas a \u201cconvinced Friend\u201d enables me to do so, what is the true life and\nstrength of our Society; and the manner in which its principles, as\nactually embodied in its practice, its organization, and, above all, its\nmanner of worship, are fitted to meet the special needs of an important\nclass in our own day.\n\n  Mount Pleasant,\n      West Malvern, 1890.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER I.\n                             ORGANIZATION.\n\n\nThe actual organization of the Society of Friends is, I believe, by no\nmeans familiarly known outside its own borders, and a slight sketch of\nit may be neither uninteresting in itself, nor out of place as a\npreliminary to the endeavour to explain our general position. I propose,\ntherefore, to give such an outline of our constitution as a Society, so\nfar as I have become acquainted with it. The fullest details respecting\nit are to be found in the \u201cBook of Discipline,\u201d which is the authorized\nexponent of all such matters.\n\nThis book has been recently revised, and the edition of 1883[1] (a large\noctavo volume) contains the latest regulations on all points of internal\ngovernment. The Yearly Meeting also publishes annually a volume of\nExtracts from its proceedings, a full statement of accounts and\nstatistics, and a summary of the reports received from the subordinate\nmeetings all over the country.\n\nEvery \u201cparticular meeting,\u201d that is, every congregation meeting\nhabitually for worship on the first (and generally also on one other)\nday of the week, is one of a group of meetings for worship (usually\nabout five or six), which meet together once a month, for the\ntransaction of business and of discipline, and which together form what\nis therefore called a Monthly Meeting. Each Monthly Meeting, again, is\none of a group of probably four or five Monthly Meetings, which in like\nmanner unite to form a Quarterly Meeting, at whose quarterly sittings\nmatters of larger importance are considered, and the eighteen Quarterly\nMeetings of Great Britain form in their turn the London Yearly Meeting,\nwhich is the supreme authority in the Society. It may in a certain sense\nbe said, indeed, that it _is_ the Society of Friends of Great Britain,\nfor every Friend is a member of the Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly\nMeetings to which he or she belongs, and is entitled to a voice in all\ntheir deliberations. The Yearly Meeting assembles in May, and its\nsittings, which are held, as they have been from the first, in\nDevonshire House, Bishopsgate Street, last generally about a fortnight.\nThe actual attendance is, of course, small in comparison with the number\nof members. At the present time the Society in Great Britain consists of\nabout fifteen thousand members, and the annual gatherings in Bishopsgate\nStreet number perhaps from twelve to fifteen hundred.\n\nThe men and women sit separately, or it would perhaps be more correct to\nsay that the men and the women Friends have each a separate Yearly\nMeeting; the women\u2019s Yearly Meeting being of considerably later date\nthan the men\u2019s. It was established in 1790, and it deals in general with\nmatters of less importance, or at any rate of more restricted scope,\nthan the men\u2019s meeting. It is, however, not unusual for men Friends,\n\u201cunder religious concern,\u201d to visit the women\u2019s meeting, nor for women\nFriends on a similar ground to visit that of the men.\n\n\u201cJoint sittings\u201d\u2014meetings, that is, of men and women Friends in one\nbody\u2014are also held occasionally, when any question of special interest\nto all the members is to be considered, and on these occasions the women\nare free to take their full share in the discussions. These occasional\ncombinations are the more easily practicable, because, strange as it may\nseem to most people, no question is ever put to the vote. From the\nearliest times, all decisions have been arrived at by what may be called\na practical unanimity. The Yearly Meeting, like every other meeting for\n\u201cbusiness\u201d or \u201cdiscipline,\u201d has its clerk, who, with one or more\nassistants, performs the combined functions of chairman and secretary.\nWhen any question has been fully considered, it is the duty of the clerk\nto interpret the sense of the meeting, and to prepare a minute\naccordingly; which minute, being read to the meeting, often receives a\ncertain amount of verbal, or even of substantial modification, in\naccordance with the suggestions of individual Friends; but, when entered\nupon the books, is accepted as embodying the decision of the meeting.\nShould there be any considerable division of judgment upon any important\nquestion, it is usually, if possible, adjourned till the next Yearly\nMeeting; and this plan has, I believe, been almost invariably found\nsufficient to bring about the practical unanimity required for a final\nsettlement of the question. It is certainly a very remarkable fact that\nso large a body should transact all its affairs without ever voting, to\nthe full satisfaction of the great majority of those concerned.\n\nThe Quarterly and Monthly Meetings are, in most respects, repetitions on\na smaller scale of the Yearly Meeting. The business of all these\nsubordinate meetings is transacted, like that of the Yearly Meeting,\nwithout voting, and settled similarly through the action of the clerk\nwhen a practical unanimity is arrived at. Each Monthly Meeting appoints\n\u201crepresentatives\u201d to the next Quarterly Meeting, and the Quarterly\nMeetings in like manner appoint \u201crepresentatives\u201d to the Yearly Meeting.\nThese Friends have no very definite function to perform, but their names\nare called over, and their presence or absence noted at the opening of\neach meeting to which they are sent; and they are expected to serve in a\ngeneral way as a special medium of communication between the larger and\nthe smaller meetings to which they belong.\n\nIn like manner, upon any subject affecting the Society at large, the\nYearly Meeting communicates with the Quarterly Meetings, who in their\nturn diffuse the impulse through their own Monthly and particular\nmeetings, till it reaches every individual member; and, in return,\ninformation respecting every meeting for worship is from time to time\ngiven to the Monthly Meetings, to be by them in a condensed form\nreported to the Quarterly Meetings, and so eventually presented to the\nYearly Meeting in London. All these ascending and descending processes\nare carried on with minute accuracy and regularity, and are duly\nrecorded at every stage in the books of each meeting. There is thus a\ncomplete system of circulation, as of veins and arteries, by which every\nindividual member is brought within reach of the Society at large, and\nthrough which information, influence, and discipline are carried to and\nfrom the centre and the extremities.\n\nThe \u201cdiscipline\u201d of the Society is a matter of extreme interest, as to\nwhich I cannot venture to say with any confidence how far our recognized\nideal is actually carried out in practice. There is no doubt that of\nlate years considerable changes have taken place, mainly in the\ndirection of a relaxation of discipline with regard to comparatively\ntrivial matters. Certain \u201cqueries\u201d have from the earliest times been\nappointed by the authority of the Yearly Meeting, to be read and\nconsidered at certain seasons in the subordinate meetings, and to most\nof these queries (some relating to various branches of Christian\nmorality, and some to regularity in attendance at meetings and\nconformity to established standards of simplicity in dress and language)\nit was formerly the practice to require detailed answers from each\nparticular meeting, to be in due course transmitted in a summarized form\nto the Yearly Meeting itself. In 1861, however, the Yearly Meeting\nissued directions that a certain number of these queries should be\nmerely \u201cconsidered,\u201d but not answered. In 1875 this method was adopted\nwith regard to nearly all the queries, and at present those only which\nrelate to the regularity of attendance at meetings for worship and\nbusiness are answered.[2] This change has a very obvious significance,\nand I believe that its effect is even more marked than would be\nunderstood by any one not accustomed to the extreme care and gravity\nwith which these matters were formerly pondered and reported upon in\neach \u201cpreparative meeting\u201d (_i.e._ each particular meeting sitting\nspecially with a view to preparing the business to be transacted at any\napproaching Monthly Meeting), and again at each stage of the progress of\nthe report towards its final presentation by the Quarterly to the Yearly\nMeeting. Dress and language and other external matters are now\npractically left entirely to the individual conscience, as is surely\nwisest. With regard to weightier matters, such as strict integrity in\nbusiness, sobriety, and correctness of moral conduct, etc., there is\nstill, I hope and believe, a considerable reality of watchful care\nexercised through specially appointed members. In every Monthly Meeting\nthere are Friends holding the offices of elder and overseer. The\nbusiness of the elders is to watch over the ministers in the exercise of\ntheir gift; that of the overseers to see to the relief of the poorer\nmembers, the care of the sick, and other such matters; to watch over the\nmembers generally with regard to their Christian conduct, to warn\nprivately any who may be giving cause of offence or scandal, and in case\nof need to bring the matter before the Monthly Meeting, to be dealt with\nas it may require. Should the Monthly Meeting think it necessary to\ndisown a member for persisting in conduct not consistent with our\nChristian profession, or for any other reason, the member in question\nmay appeal to the Quarterly Meeting, and from its decision to that of\nthe Yearly Meeting, which is in all cases final.\n\nThe London Yearly Meeting has two standing committees for the\ntransaction of such of its affairs as need attention more frequently\nthan once a year. One of these represents the Yearly Meeting at large,\nand has charge of its money matters and other general business; it bears\nthe curious and suggestive title of the \u201cMeeting for Sufferings,\u201d from\nhaving been originally occupied mainly in relieving Friends under\npersecution. The other is a committee of the Yearly Meeting on Ministry\nand Oversight, and is called the \u201cMorning Meeting.\u201d\n\nMeetings on Ministry and Oversight are held in every Quarterly and\nMonthly Meeting as well as at the Yearly Meeting. They are composed of\nall the recorded ministers, the elders and overseers of each meeting,\ntogether with (in some Quarterly Meetings) some Friends described as\nassociate members, who attend them as it were not officially, but by a\nstanding invitation. These meetings are concerned, of course, with\nquestions relating to the special offices exercised by their members.\n\nThe ministers are, as is well known, not appointed or set apart by any\nhuman ordination, nor are any of them ever paid, or liable to be called\nupon by any human authority, for any ministerial services. By the word\n\u201cministers\u201d we mean simply those, be they men or women, who have\nreceived a gift and call to minister, that is to offer vocal service, in\nmeetings for worship. When any Friend has exercised such a gift for a\nconsiderable time, in a manner which is recognized by the other members\nas evincing a true vocation, the Monthly Meeting proceeds to record the\nfact on the books of the meeting. This acknowledgment is made merely for\nthe sake of \u201cgood order,\u201d and is not supposed to confer any additional\npower or authority on the minister \u201crecorded.\u201d The ministers are\nperfectly free to continue their ordinary occupations, and many of them\nare, in fact, engaged in earning their own living in trades, business,\nor professions.\n\nWhen a minister, in the exercise of his or her gift, feels called to\ntravel to any distant place, it is thought right that the \u201cconcern\u201d\nshould be laid before the Monthly Meeting, and, should it be an\nimportant or distant concern, before the Quarterly and, in some cases,\neven the Yearly Meeting also; when the meetings in question will, if\nthey feel \u201cunity\u201d with it, give the minister a minute or certificate to\nthat effect, which serves as an introduction and guarantee in whatever\nmeetings the minister may visit during that \u201cservice.\u201d In such cases the\nministers\u2019 travelling expenses are paid from one Monthly or Quarterly\nMeeting to another, and it is usual for them to be welcomed into the\nhouses of some of the Friends belonging to the meetings visited. The\nextent to which Friends do thus travel, both in England and abroad, \u201cin\nthe service of Truth,\u201d is something of which few people outside the\nSociety have any idea. Between England and America there is a continual\ninterchange of such visits, and the very copious biographical literature\nof the Society teems with the records of journeys undertaken \u201cunder an\nimpression of religious duty,\u201d and lasting sometimes for months, or even\nyears, before the Friend could \u201cfeel clear\u201d of the work. No limit is\never set beforehand to such work. It is felt to be work in which the\ndaily unfolding of the Divine ordering must be watched and waited for.\n\nSuch is a general outline of what may be called the machinery of the\nSociety. It remains to state briefly its distinguishing tenets before\nproceeding to consider the spirit and inner spring from which these\noutward developments have arisen, and from which they derive all their\nsignificance and value.\n\nI have already referred to the peculiarity which lies at the root of all\nthe rest; namely, our views as to the nature of the true gospel\nministry, as a call bestowed on men and women, on old and young, learned\nand unlearned; bestowed directly from above, and not to be conferred by\nany human authority, or hired for money; to be exercised under the sole\nand immediate direction of the one Master, the only Head of the Church,\nChrist the Lord. As a consequence of this view, Friends have, as is well\nknown, refused as a matter of conscience to pay tithes, or in any way to\ncontribute to the maintenance of a paid ministry, and of the services\nprescribed by the Established Church.\n\nClosely connected with these views on ministry, is our testimony against\nthe observance of any religious rites or ceremonies whatever. Neither\nbaptizing with water, nor the breaking of bread and drinking of wine,\nare recognized by us as Divinely ordained institutions of permanent\nobligation, and neither of these ceremonies is practised by us. We\nbelieve that the coming of Christ put an end to the old dispensation of\noutward observances, and that the whole drift of His teaching was\nagainst the attaching of importance to such things. The passages\nrelating to His last supper with His disciples, and those in which He\nspeaks of His permanent influence upon them under the images of bread,\nblood, etc., seem to us much more intelligible and impressive when\nunderstood without reference to the sacramental theories which have been\nengrafted upon them. The one baptism \u201cwith the Holy Ghost and with\nfire,\u201d and the continual spiritual communion to be enjoyed in feeding on\nthe bread of life, are felt by us to be of the very essence of true and\nspiritual worship; but we believe them to be entirely independent of any\noutward observances. We therefore feel that no other condition is needed\nfor the highest acts of worship than the presence and the right\nspiritual disposition of the worshippers.\n\nThe rejection of any separate priesthood, and of all outward\nobservances, is the main divergence between us and other Christians. We\nhave always maintained a testimony against war as inconsistent with the\nfull acceptance of the spirit of Christ, and against oaths as distinctly\nforbidden by Him. We have also been led to abandon the pursuit of\nchanging fashions, and to cherish a plainness in dress and language of a\nmarked character, now fast changing its type, but not, we trust, really\ndisappearing. These minor testimonies are probably more widely known\nthan the more fundamental ones; and though concerned with comparatively\ntrivial matters, they also spring from a deep root of principle. It is a\nremarkable fact that from time to time religious bodies have sprung up\nin various parts of the world who, without any communication with us,\nhave adopted similar views on many, if not all, of these points. This\nfact, as well as the continuance and the widely spread influence of our\nown Society, seems to show that its roots lie deep in some fundamental\nprinciples of truth.\n\nI am now about to attempt to deal with those principles, not in the way\nof analysis or with any attempt at precision of language, but as a\nrecord of their practical working, as gathered mainly from personal\nexperience. It is not, I confess, without some anxiety that I, as a\nnew-comer, enter upon this task. In the preceding sketch of matters of\nfact, it has of course been easy to guard against any serious\nmisstatements; but in the following chapters I must deal with matters\nless easily verifiable. It seems to me in some respects hardly possible\nthat any one not born and bred in the Society should be fully qualified\nto unfold its principles and practices. There is, on the other hand, in\nthe very fact of having entered it from without, a special qualification\nfor the office of interpreting them to outsiders. It will, I hope, be\nremembered that I have no kind of claim to speak in any sense in the\nname of the Society. My object is to explain (so far as the experience\nof ten years\u2019 membership may enable me) the secret of its strength and\nof its attraction for others; and for this attempt one brought up\noutside its pale, and speaking in a purely individual capacity, may well\nfeel a special freedom. If I cannot pretend to possess the entirely\ncorrect accent of a born Friend, I may be none the less intelligible to\nthose amongst whom my own Christian principles were imbibed and\nnourished until the years of maturity.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER II.\n                            THE INNER LIGHT.\n\n\nThe one corner-stone of belief upon which the Society of Friends is\nbuilt is the conviction that God does indeed communicate with each one\nof the spirits He has made, in a direct and living inbreathing of some\nmeasure of the breath of His own life; that He never leaves Himself\nwithout a witness in the heart as well as in the surroundings of man;\nand that in order clearly to hear the Divine voice thus speaking to us\nwe need to be still; to be alone with Him in the secret place of His\npresence; that all flesh should keep silence before Him.\n\nThis belief may be more precisely stated, explained, and as we think\njustified, by those who are competent to deal with it in a philosophical\nmanner. The founders of our Society were not philosophers, but spoke of\nthese things from an intense and abundant personal experience, which led\nthem with confidence to appeal to the experience of all sorts and\nconditions of men for confirmation of their doctrine as to the light\nwithin. And they were not disappointed. The history of the sudden\ngathering of the Society, of its rapid formation into a strongly\norganized body, and of the extraordinary constancy, zeal, and integrity\ndisplayed by its original members, is a most impressive proof of the\ntrueness of their aim.[3]\n\nI have no ambition to clothe the fundamental doctrine of our Society in\nany less popular language than that in which it was originally preached.\nI would rather, even did necessity not compel me, be content to appeal,\nas did the early Friends, to common experience. My aim is to explain for\npractical purposes, and in modern as well as simple language, the way in\nwhich our whole constitution as a Society, and our various special\ntestimonies, have resulted from this one main principle.\n\nWhen questioned as to the reality and nature of the inner light, the\nearly Friends were accustomed in return to ask the questioners whether\nthey did not sometimes feel something within them that showed them their\nsins; and to assure them that this same power, which _made manifest_,\nand therefore was truly light, would also, if yielded to, lead them out\nof sin. This assurance, that the light which revealed was also the power\nwhich would heal sin, was George Fox\u2019s gospel. The power itself was\ndescribed by him in many ways. Christ within, the hope of glory; the\nlight, life, Spirit, and grace of Christ; the seed, the new birth, the\npower of God unto salvation, and many other such expressions, flow forth\nin abundant streams of heartfelt eloquence. To \u201cturn people to the light\nwithin,\u201d to \u201cdirect them to Christ, their free Teacher,\u201d was his daily\nbusiness.\n\nFor this purpose he and his friends travelled continually up and down\nthe country, holding meetings everywhere, and finding a never-failing\nresponse to their appeal, as is proved by the bare numbers of those who,\nwithin a very few years, were ready to encounter persecution, and to\nmaintain their testimony through long years of imprisonment and\nsufferings. In the earlier days of the Society the doctrine of the inner\nlight was clearly one readily understood and accepted by the ordinary\nEnglish mind. In our own day it is usually spoken of as a mysterious\ntenet, springing up now and again in the minds of isolated enthusiasts,\nbut indigenous only in Oriental countries, and naturally abhorrent to\nthe practical common sense of our own people.\n\nThe difference arises, I think, from the fact that there are circles\nwithin circles, or spheres within spheres, and that the light to which\nthe early Friends bore witness was not confined to that innermost\nsanctuary of whose very existence, perhaps, none but a few \u201cmystics\u201d are\nconscious; but that, while proceeding from those deepest depths, it was\nrecognized as also lighting up conscience, and conduct, and all the\ntangible outer framework of life; and that it was called \u201cwithin\u201d not\nalone in the sense of lying nearer the centre of our being than anything\nelse, but also in the (to ordinary minds) more intelligible sense of\nbeginning at home\u2014of being the reward of each man\u2019s own faithfulness, of\nbeing independent of priests and ordinances. The religion they preached\nwas one which enforced the individual responsibility of each one for his\nown soul; it was a portable and verifiable religion\u2014a religion which\nrequired truth in word and deed, plain dealing and kindness and\nself-control, and which did not require ceremonial observances or\npriestly guarantees; a religion in which practice went for more than\ntheory, and all were expected to take their stand on one level, and\ntheir share in the worship and the business of \u201cthe Church.\u201d It is easy\nto see how such preaching as this would commend itself to English\nindependence. It surely commends itself to the unchanging sense of truth\nin the human heart, and will be welcomed whenever it is preached from\nfirst-hand experience of its power.\n\n\u201cThat which you seek without you have already within you.\u201d The words\nwhich changed the life of Madame Guyon will never lose their power while\nhuman nature is occupied with the struggle for a state of stable\nequilibrium. The perennial justification of Quakerism lies in its\nenergetic assertion that the kingdom of heaven is within us; that we are\nnot made dependent upon any outward organization for our spiritual\nwelfare. Its perennial difficulty lies in the inveterate disposition of\nhuman beings to look to each other for spiritual help, in the feebleness\nof their perception of that Divine Voice which speaks to each one in a\nlanguage no other ear can hear, and in the apathy which is content to go\nthrough life without the attempt at any true individual communion with\nGod.\n\n\u201cThe kingdom of heaven is within us.\u201d No Christian, surely, can dispute\nthe truth of this deep word of Christ Himself. But its interpretation\nhas a wide range. In his own lips it was used in opposition to the \u201cLo\nhere! and lo there!\u201d for which he was preparing His disciples. They were\nnot to be hurried away into a search for Christ in all directions, but\nwere to remember that His kingdom (surely implying His living presence)\nis in the hearts of His people. He Himself makes none of those abstruse\ndistinctions between consciousness and being, accident and essence,\nsubject and object, or even superficial and profound, and so forth,\nwhich it has been the delight of many of His most devoted followers to\ninterweave with this simple expression \u201cwithin you.\u201d\n\nI think it is inevitable that the more deeply we penetrate into the\nrecesses of the human mind, the more we should have a sense of\napproaching an inner sanctuary, and that there is a very real and deep\nsense in which this word \u201cwithin you\u201d may be understood as meaning\n\u201cabove all in your inmost depths.\u201d But this is not its original or its\nobvious meaning. In the teaching of our Lord there is a frequent\nreference to the distinction of inward or outward, but the distinction\nis drawn in a broad and simple manner. It is oftenest a demand upon our\nsincerity and thoroughness, not upon our powers of introspection\u2014an\nappeal on behalf of the weightier matters of the Law as compared with\ntrivial and ceremonial observances. It would scarcely, I think, be true\nto say that the doctrine of an \u201cinner light,\u201d as we understand it, is\nexplicitly laid down in the Gospels, although, to my own mind, that\ndoctrine appears to be an almost inevitable inference from their\nteaching. I am not, however, attempting to deal with the question on its\nmerits. I only wish to draw attention to the wide range of meaning\ncovered by such expressions as \u201cthe light within,\u201d and \u201cthe inner\nlight.\u201d\n\nBoth by our Master Himself, and by the Friends who originally preached\nHim as the Light, the figure of light was used in a broad and popular\nsense. Light is the most obvious and the most eternally satisfying\nfigure for Divine truth. It is, however, hardly more obvious or more\nsatisfying than the other figure so commonly, and almost\ninterchangeably, used by the same teachers, of breath\u2014inspiration. I\nscarcely know whether it would convey most truth to say that the\ncornerstone of our Society was a belief in \u201cthe light within,\u201d or in\n\u201cimmediate inspiration.\u201d I doubt whether the two ideas are in all\nrespects altogether distinguishable. Belief in the fact to which they\nboth refer, of an actual Divine influence communicated to every human\nspirit, is our real corner-stone.[4]\n\nThe fact of inspiration is denied by no Christian\u2014the full recognition\nof its present and constant operation is in some degree a peculiarity of\nFriends. It is not uncommon outside the Society to hear expressions\nimplying that Divine inspiration is a thing of the past; a quite\nexceptional gift, familiar only in apostolic times. It seems to me that\nthis limitation of its range amounts almost to a denial of its reality.\nI can hardly understand the idea that God did occasionally long ago\nspeak to human beings, but that He never does so now. It seems, at any\nrate, inconsistent with any worthy sense of His unchangeableness.\n\nMany of us have come to believe that one of the greatest hindrances to a\nreal belief in or recognition of inspiration has been the exceedingly\ncrude and mechanical conception of it as attributed to the letter of\nScripture. From this hard and shallow way of thinking about inspiration,\nFriends have generally been preserved in proportion as they have held\nfirmly the old Quaker doctrine of the inner light. Some, no doubt, have\ngone too far in the direction of transferring the idea of infallibility\nfrom the Bible to themselves. But, on the whole, I believe the doctrine\nof Fox and Barclay (_i.e._, briefly, that the \u201cWord of God\u201d is Christ,\nnot the Bible, and that the Scriptures are profitable in proportion as\nthey are read in the same spirit which gave them forth) to have been a\nmost valuable equipoise to the tendency of other Protestant sects to\ntransfer the idea of infallibility from the Church to the Bible.\nNothing, I believe, can really teach us the nature and meaning of\ninspiration but personal experience of it. That we may all have such\nexperience if we will but attend to the Divine influences in our own\nhearts, is the cardinal doctrine of Quakerism. Whether this belief,\nhonestly acted on, will manifest itself in the homespun and solid, but\nonly too sober morality of the typical everyday Quaker, or whether it\nwill land us in the mystical fervours of an Isaac Penington, or the\napostolic labours of a John Woolman or a Stephen Grellet, must depend\nchiefly upon our natural temperament and special gifts. The range of the\ndifferent forms taken by the doctrine is as wide as the range of human\nendowment and experience. A belief which is the common property of the\nprophet and the babe will, of course, yield every variety of practical\nresult.\n\nIt is a belief which it is hardly possible to inculcate by anything more\nor less than a direct appeal to experience, to the witness within; and\nthere is the further difficulty, that the experience to which we can\nappeal only as sharers in it, must be expressed in language very often\nand very naturally misunderstood. The assertion, however guarded, that\none has actual experience of Divine inspiration in one\u2019s own person, is\nvery apt to sound like a claim to personal infallibility. Yet in reality\nnothing can be further from the mark. The first effect of the shining of\nlight within is to show what is amiss\u2014to \u201cconvince of sin.\u201d It is not\nclaiming any superiority to ordinary human conditions to say, in\nresponse to such an appeal as that of the Friends just referred to,\n\u201cYes, I have indeed been conscious of a power within making manifest to\nme my sins and errors, and I have indeed experienced its healing and\nemancipating power as well as its fiery purgings and bitter\ncondemnations. That which has shown me my fault has healed me; the light\nhas led and is leading me onwards and upwards out of the abyss, nearer\nand nearer to its own eternal Source; and I know that, in so far as I am\nobedient to it, I am safe.\u201d What is such a reply but an acknowledgment\nthat \u201cthe light, the Spirit, and grace of Christ\u201d have indeed been an\nindwelling, inbreathing power in one\u2019s own heart? If it be a claim to\ninspiration, it is a claim which implies no merit and no eminence in him\nwho makes it; it is made on ground common to the publican, the prodigal,\nand the sinner, to Magdalen and to Paul. It is the history of every\nchild returning to the Father\u2019s house.\n\nBut it is not every one to whom it would be natural to describe this\nexperience in language so mystical as this, nor would the mystic\u2019s\nexperience be likely to stop short at anything so simple and elementary\nas the process just described. And here we are confronted with the real\n\u201cpeculiarity\u201d of Quakerism\u2014its relation to mysticism. There is no doubt\nthat George Fox himself and the other fathers of the Society were of a\nstrongly mystical turn of mind, though not in the sense in which the\nword is often used by the worshippers of \u201ccommon sense,\u201d as a mild term\nof reproach, to convey a general vague dreaminess. Nothing, certainly,\ncould be less applicable to the early Friends than any such reproach as\nthis. They were fiery, dogmatic, pugnacious, and intensely practical and\nsober-minded. But they were assuredly mystics in what I take to be the\nmore accurate sense of that word\u2014people, that is, with a vivid\nconsciousness of the inwardness of the light of truth.\n\nMysticism in this sense is a well-known phenomenon, of which a multitude\nof examples may be found in all religions. It is, indeed, rather a\npersonal peculiarity than a form of belief; and therefore, although from\ntime to time associations (our own, for one) have been based upon what\nare called mystical tenets, there can scarcely be anything like a real\nschool of mysticism\u2014at any rate, in Europe. Mysticism, as we know it, is\nessentially individual. It refuses to be formulated or summed up. In one\nsense it is common to all religious persuasions; in another, it equally\neludes them all. We can easily understand what constitutes a mystic, but\nthe peculiarity itself is incommunicable. Their belief is an open\nsecret. They themselves have ever desired to communicate it, though\ncontinually feeling the impossibility of doing so by words alone. It is\nthe secret of light\u2014an inward light clothing itself in life, and living\nto bring all things to the light.\n\nMystics, as I understand the matter, are those whose minds, to their own\nconsciousness, are lighted from within; who feel themselves to be in\nimmediate communication with the central Fountain of light and life.\nThey have naturally a vivid sense both of the distinction and of the\nharmony between the inward and the outward\u2014a sense so vivid that it is\nimpossible for them to believe it to be unshared by others. A true\nmystic believes that all men have, as he himself is conscious of having,\nan inward life, into which, as into a secret chamber, he can retreat at\nwill.[5] In this inner chamber he finds a refuge from the ever-changing\naspects of outward existence; from the multitude of cares and pleasures\nand agitations which belong to the life of the senses and the\naffections; from human judgments; from all change, and chance, and\nturmoil, and distraction. He finds there, first repose, then an awful\nguidance; a light which burns and purifies; a voice which subdues; he\nfinds himself in the presence of his God. It is here, in this holy of\nholies, that \u201cdeep calleth unto deep;\u201d here that the imperishable,\nunfathomable, unchanging elements of humanity meet and are one with the\nDivine Fountain of life from whence they flow; here that the well of\nliving waters springeth up unto eternal life.\n\n\u201cThe kingdom of heaven is within you.\u201d Personal religion is a real and a\nliving thing only in proportion as it springs from this deep inward\nroot. The root itself is common to all true believers. The consciousness\nof its \u201cinwardness\u201d is that which distinguishes the mystic. How it\nshould be that to some minds the words \u201cinward and outward\u201d express the\nmost vivid and continuous fact of consciousness, while to others they\nappear to have no meaning at all; how it comes that some are born\nmystics, while to others the report of the mystic concerning the inner\nlife is a thing impossible to be believed and hardly to be\nunderstood;\u2014these are psychological problems I cannot attempt to\nunravel. If, however, a certain correspondence between the inward and\nthe outward do really exist (and this, I suppose, will hardly be denied,\nwhatever may be the most philosophically accurate way of expressing it),\nthe faculty of discerning it must needs be a gift. I believe, indeed,\nthat the power in this direction which distinguishes such mystics as,\n_e.g._, Thomas \u00e0 Kempis, Jacob Boehme, Tauler, F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, Madame Guyon,\nGeorge Fox, William Law, St. Theresa, Molinos, and others, is\nessentially the same gift which in a different form, or in combination\nwith a different temperament and gifts of another order, makes poets. It\nis the gift of seeing truth at first-hand, the faculty of receiving a\ndirect revelation. To have it is to be assured that it is the common\ninheritance, the \u201clight which lighteth every man that cometh into the\nworld.\u201d Preachers like those I have just mentioned always appeal to it\nwith confidence as to a witness to be found in every heart. And surely\nexperience confirms this conviction of theirs. It is in degree only that\ntheir gift is exceptional. They may have the sight of the eagle, but\nthey see by the same light as the bat.\n\nNow, the obvious tendency of a vivid first-hand perception of truth, or\nlight, is to render the possessor of it so far independent of external\nteachers. And we all know that in point of fact such _illuminati_ always\nhave shown a disposition to go their own way, and to disregard, if not\nto denounce, traditional teaching, which has brought them into frequent\ncollisions with ecclesiastical and other authorities. Those of the\nChurch of Rome have, with their wonted sagacity, as much as possible\nsought to turn this strange power to account, while providing\nsafety-valves for the unmanageable residue.\n\nIt is the easier to do this because of the two marked characteristics of\nmystics\u2014quietness and independence. Mystics are naturally independent,\nnot only of ecclesiastical authority, but of each other. This is\nnecessarily implied in the very idea of first-hand reception of light.\nWhile it must always constitute a strong bond of sympathy between those\nwho recognize it in themselves and in each other, it naturally\nindisposes them to discipleship. They sit habitually at no man\u2019s feet,\nand do not as a rule greatly care to have any one sit at theirs.\nMysticism in this sense seems naturally opposed to tradition. No true\nmystic would hold himself bound by the thoughts of others. He does not\nfeel the need of them, being assured of the sufficiency and conscious of\nthe possession of that inward guidance, whether called light, or voice,\nor inspiration, which must be seen, heard, felt, by each one in his own\nheart, or not at all. But the duty of looking for and of obeying this\nguidance is a principle which may be inculcated and transmitted from\ngeneration to generation like any other principle. Its hereditary\ninfluence is very perceptible in old Quaker families, where a unique\ntype of Christian character resulting from it is still to be met with.\n\nQuietness naturally accompanies the belief in this inward guidance, not\nonly because in the Divine presence all that is merely human necessarily\nsinks into silent insignificance, but also because it is instinctively\nfelt that it is only in stillness that any perfect reflection from above\ncan be formed in the mirror of the human spirit. The natural fruit of\nmysticism is quietism.\n\nI have no means of estimating the actual prevalence of mystical and\nquietist principles in the Society of Friends at the present time. But I\nam sure that our Society is the natural home for the spirits of all\nthose who hold them, for it is the one successful embodiment of these\nprinciples in a system of \u201cChurch government.\u201d Every arrangement is made\nto favour and to maintain the practice of looking for individual inward\nguidance, and to give the freest scope to its results. Everything which\ntends to hinder obedience to it is abandoned and discouraged. I shall\nendeavour to trace the working of this aim in various special directions\nhereafter. I must now endeavour to explain as well as I can what it is\nprecisely that I understand by that inward light, voice, or Divine\nguidance which we Friends believe it our duty and our highest privilege\nin all things to watch for.\n\nI do not, indeed, claim that my own share in this deepest region of\nhuman experience amounts to more than a faint and intermittent\nglimmering of what I know to be possible. I earnestly desire to explain\nto others what to myself has been especially blessed and helpful in the\ndeepest unfoldings, whether by word or in life, of Quaker principles;\nbut I feel that the task would demand for its full accomplishment not\nonly greater powers than mine, but also the assistance which can be\ngiven only by something more than candour in the reader\u2014by a real desire\nto help out the stammering utterance, and to supply the gaps left by\nindividual shortcomings. To such a helpful auditor, therefore, I will in\nimagination address myself.\n\nFaithfulness to the light is the watchword of all who hunger and thirst\nafter righteousness\u2014of all seekers after the kingdom of heaven. Is this\nmerely an equivalent for the more commonplace expression, \u201cobedience to\nconscience\u201d? Surely not. Conscience, as we all know, is liable to\nperversion, to morbid exaggerations, to partial insensibility, to twists\nand crotchets of all sorts, and itself needs correction by various\nexternal standards. Conscience, therefore, can never be our supreme and\nabsolute guide. Whether it can ever be right to disobey it, must depend\non the precise meaning we attach to the words \u201cconscience\u201d and \u201cright,\u201d\nand into this puzzle I have no intention of entering. In a broad and\npractical sense, we all know that if there were nothing above\nconscience, conscience would assuredly lead many of us into the ditch;\nnay, that, for want of enlightenment from above, it actually has led\nmany there. The light by which our consciences must be enlightened, the\nlight in obedience to which is our supreme good, must be something purer\nthan this fallible faculty itself. It must be that power within us, if\nany such power there be, which is one with all the wisdom, all the\ngoodness, all the order and harmony, without us; one with \u201cthe power,\nnot ourselves, which makes for righteousness;\u201d one with \u201cthe eternal\nwill towards all goodness.\u201d It must be a power as all-pervading and\nimmanent in the spirit of man as is the power of gravity (or whatever\nyet more elementary force gravity may be resolved into) in the outer\nworld he inhabits. It must be the power in which we live and move and\nhave our being\u2014the power and the presence of God.\n\nI do not attempt\u2014idle indeed would be the attempt in such hands as\nmine\u2014to contribute anything towards the arguments in favour of Theism.\nTo those who do not believe in the existence of the living God, the\nwhole subject upon which I am engaged must be without interest or\nsignificance. And I leave it to others to reconcile, or to show that we\nneed not attempt to reconcile, the existence of evil with the\nomnipotence of God. The mystery in which all our searchings after a\ncomplete theory concerning the Author of our being must needs lose\nthemselves need not perplex, though it may overshadow, those practical\nquestions as to our own right attitude towards Him with which alone I am\nconcerned. I assume faith in Him and allegiance to Him as the very\nground under our feet; if this be not granted, it is idle to go further.\nMy reason for going so far even as I have done in this direction (the\ndirection, I mean, of inquiring into our fundamental assumptions) is\nthat I cannot help thinking that our Quaker faith respecting immediate\nDivine guidance rests upon a wider basis of common conviction than is\nusually supposed. I believe it to be the legitimate, though by no means\nthe frequent, result of any sincere belief in God, however attained\u2014not\nmerely an outgrowth from one peculiar form of Christianity. The coldest\nand most cautious Theist can say no less than that God does in some\nsense direct the course of this world and of all that is in it. The most\necstatic mystic can bear witness to nothing beyond the fact that God\ndoes in deed and in truth pervade and sway the inmost recesses of his\nown being. Is not this the very same truth, seen under the magnifying\nand amplifying power of first-hand experience?\n\nTo me it seems idle to attempt to find any resting-place between\nconvinced atheism on the one hand, and absolute self-surrender to the\nindwelling influence of the Divine Spirit on the other; the barrier, if\nthere be any barrier, is surely not so much a logical as a moral\nhindrance. Believing in God, and worshipping Him with one\u2019s whole heart,\ntrusting Him absolutely and loving Him supremely, seem to me to be but\nvarious stages in the growth of one seed. I know, alas! but too well,\nthat this growth is slow, and that it meets with obstacles and checks at\nevery moment. I know that our faith has not only to struggle, but to\nstruggle through the darkness, and that it may be challenged at every\nstep by difficulties which it cannot solve. But I cannot admit that\nthere is any consistency or reason in treading the path of faith\nhalf-way. I cannot admit that it is reasonable to believe in God as the\nSupreme Being, and unreasonable to seek His living presence and\ndirection in the minutest details of our everyday life. With Him,\nsurely, our distinctions of great and small disappear, and \u201cthe darkness\nis no darkness at all.\u201d \u201cWhither shall I go then from Thy presence? If I\ngo down into hell, and remain in the uttermost parts of the earth, even\nthere shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me.\u201d\n\nBut many will say, This may all be quite true, but how are we to\ndistinguish between the voice of God and the many other voices which\ndistract our attention from it? How, if God is everywhere, does the\npractical result differ from His being nowhere? To the full extent of my\nability I recognize this great difficulty. It seems to throw us back for\nguidance upon those very powers whose insufficiency we have just\nrecognized. If I reply, God is to be recognized in \u201cwhatsoever things\nare true, whatsoever things are pure, and lovely, and of good report,\u201d\nyou may well retort, And how, except through our fallible consciences,\nshall we discern truth, purity, loveliness?\n\nI believe that the difficulty of distinguishing between the will, or the\nvoice, or the light of God, and the wills and voices and lights of a\nlower kind from which it is to be distinguished, is not only not to be\nignored, but that the very first step towards learning the lesson is to\nrecognize that it is a lesson, and a hard one\u2014nay, a lifelong\ndiscipline. But just as the child trusts instinctively, absolutely,\nhelplessly, before it has even begun to attempt to understand its\nparents, so, surely, we may and must trust God first and unreservedly,\nbefore we begin slowly and feebly, yet perseveringly, to acquaint\nourselves with Him. And as the trust of the full-grown son or daughter\nis a nobler thing than the trust of the infant, so the experience of\nwisdom and prudence has doubtless a revelation of its own\u2014a precious\naddition to that essential revelation which is made in the first place\nto babes, and to the wise only in so far as they too have childlike\nhearts. To have our senses exercised to discern between truth and\nfalsehood, light and darkness, order and disorder, the will of God and\nthe will of the flesh, is, I believe, the end and object of our training\nin this world. There is no royal road to it. Yet can we honestly say\nthat it is impossible?\n\nIf, then, it is only by a slow and gradual process that we can rise to\nanything like a true knowledge (even according to our human measure) of\nGod, must it not be by a slow and gradual process alone that He can make\nHis voice and His guiding touch distinguishable by us and intelligible\nto us? Is it any wonder if those who do not attribute to Him so much as\nthe broad obvious laws by which we are all hedged in from gross\nwrong-doing and error, should fail to recognize the reality or the\nsignificance of those delicate restraining touches by which the spirits\nwhich yield themselves to His care are moulded into some faint likeness\nto the Son of His love? Must not the first step towards entering into\nthe meaning of that which is personal and individual be the acceptance\nof what is equally applicable to all?[6]\n\nThat individual and immediate guidance, in which we recognize that \u201cthe\nfinger of God is come unto us,\u201d seems to come in, as it were, to\ncomplete and perfect the work rough-hewn by morality and conscience. We\nmay liken the laws of our country to the cliffs of our island, over\nwhich we rarely feel ourselves in any danger of falling; the moral\nstandard of our social circle to the beaten highway road which we can\nhardly miss. Our own conscience would then be represented by a fence, by\nwhich some parts of the country are enclosed for each one, the road\nitself at times barred or narrowed. And that Divine guidance of which I\nam speaking could be typified only by the pressure of a hand upon ours,\nleading us gently to step to the right or the left, to pause or to go\nforward, in a manner intended for and understood by ourselves alone.[7]\n\nWhen I say I have been \u201crightly guided\u201d to this or that step, I mean\nthat, being well within the limits prescribed by morality, by personal\nclaims, by the closest attention to the voice of conscience, I have yet\nfelt that there was still a choice to be made as between things equally\ninnocent but probably not equally excellent\u2014a choice, perhaps, between\ndifferent levels almost infinitely remote from each other\u2014and that in\nmaking that choice I have acted under an impelling or restraining power\nnot of my own exerting. I generally mean, further, that in making the\nchoice I have looked, and probably asked, for light from above, and that\nthe results of such choice have tended to confirm the belief that my\naction has been prompted by One who could see the end from the\nbeginning, who knew things hidden from myself, and \u201cunderstood my path\nlong before;\u201d in short, that I have been led as the blind by a way I\nknew not. Is not such experience as this witnessed to by multitudes of\nChristians, especially as they advance in life? For it may take long\nyears of patience before the last pieces are fitted into the puzzle, so\nas to enable us to judge of the intention of the whole.\n\nI am well aware that I am speaking of a region of experience in which\nthere is abundant room for self-deception. I know that those who, out of\nthe abundance of the heart, speak very freely of these things with their\nlips are apt not only to shock one\u2019s sense of reverence, but to betray a\ndeplorable want of logic in the inferences they draw from trifling\nfacts\u2014facts whose significance to themselves cannot possibly be conveyed\nto others, and may indeed very likely be in large measure fanciful or\neven distorted. I think that we are wrong when we attempt to found any\nsort of proof or argument in favour of what is called \u201ca particular\nprovidence\u201d exclusively upon the occurrences of our own lives. People\nforget that what is most convincing to themselves, because it was within\nthe four walls of their own experience that it happened, is for that\nvery reason least convincing to others\u2014that is, in the way of argument,\nthough the _impression_ may, of course, be sympathetically shared, and\nmay rightly have special weight with those who have reason to trust the\nspeaker. But, as a general rule, I believe that reverence and reason\ncombine to demand that the personal and intimate dealings of Divine\nProvidence with each one should be mainly reserved for personal and\nintimate use and edification. Proof or argument as to the general truth\nthat God does guide His people individually must be founded upon a wider\nbasis than is afforded by any one person\u2019s experience. I believe that\nthere are abundant reasons, of a far-reaching and deep kind, to justify\neach one in looking for the minutest individual guidance. I cannot,\nindeed, as I have already stated, understand how those who believe in a\nprovidential order at all can limit it to the larger outlines, or, as is\nso often done in practice, to the pleasing results of the Divine\ngovernment. If we believe, in any real and honest sense, that the\nordering of all human affairs is in the hands of one supreme Ruler, how\ncan we stop short of believing that the minutest trifle affecting any\none of us is under the same all-pervading care? It would, I think, be as\nreasonable to say that God created animals, but left it to each one to\ndevelop its own fur or feathers. And, again, if we attribute our\npreservation from danger to Him, how can we flinch from the parallel\nbelief that by His ordinance also we were exposed to it; yes, and in\nsome cases doomed to suffer the worst it can wreak upon us \u201cwithout\nreprieve\u201d?\n\nTherefore I believe that, before we can hope to enter into that intimate\nand blessed communion with God which transfigures all life, two great\nconditions must be fulfilled. We must have settled it in our hearts that\neverything, from the least to the greatest, is to be taken as His\nlanguage\u2014language which it is our main business here to learn to\ninterpret\u2014and we must be willing to face all pain as His discipline.\n\nI know, of course, that these two conditions can be perfectly fulfilled\nonly as the result of much discipline and much experience of the very\nguidance in question. But their roots\u2014docility and courage\u2014are in some\nmeasure implanted in us long before we begin to think about such\nquestions as the government of the world or the ordering of our lives.\n\nIt is, I believe, in the last of these two demands of logic, the demand\nupon our courage, that the moral hindrance to a full belief in Divine\nguidance mainly lies. People cannot bring themselves to _feel_ that the\ninfliction of pain can be the act of One whom they desire to know as\nLove. Yet this is the very central demand of Christianity. What is\ncourage but the willingness to encounter suffering, the readiness to\ntake up the cross?\n\nIn the strength of the Spirit of Christ, the everlasting Son of the\nFather, we _can_ rise to this victory of trust; we can meet life without\nflinching, and read its darkest riddles in the light of the revelation\nof Divine love which He has won for us by His own suffering and death.\nSeen in that light, it is, according to the universal testimony of the\nsaints, a gentle, though often most severe, unfolding of depth within\ndepth of heavenly wisdom\u2014gentle beyond words in its methods, yet\ninexorable in its conditions. At every step the fiery baptism must be\nencountered. The deep things of God cannot be reached except through the\nvery destruction of the perishing flesh. It is through death that we\nenter into life. But as we do enter into it, we can truly look back and\nsay that His ordering has been better than our planning\u2014that His\nthoughts are high above our thoughts, as the heaven is above the earth.\n\nOur goal must be a heavenly one if we are to judge truly of His\nguidance. The home to which, if we trust Him, He will assuredly lead us,\nis no earthly home; but Zion\u2014the heavenly Jerusalem; the beautiful city\nof peace, which can be entered only through much tribulation. Those who\nare looking for smooth roads and luxurious resting-places, may well say\nthey perceive no sign of guidance at all. The Divine guidance is away\nfrom self-indulgence, often away from outward success; through\nhumiliation and failure, and many snares and temptations; over rough\nroads and against opposing forces\u2014always uphill. Its evidence of success\nis in the inmost, deepest, most spiritual part of our existence. It is\nidle indeed to talk of it to those whose faces are not set Zion-wards.\nIt will bring them none of the results in which they have their reward.\nThose who know the voice of the Divine Guide, and those who deny that it\ncan be heard, are not so much contradicting each other as speaking\ndifferent languages\u2014or rather speaking in reference to different states\nof existence.\n\nI have been speaking of \u201clight,\u201d \u201cvoice,\u201d \u201cguidance,\u201d as almost\nequivalent and interchangeable expressions for our consciousness of the\npresence of God with us and in us. In the expression \u201cinspiration\u201d we\nhave further the symbol of His power\u2014of the upbearing, purifying,\nenergizing gift of His own Spirit. Here words almost fail; and fresh\ncare is needed, whether in speaking or in hearing, as we draw near to\nthose depths which \u201ccannot be uttered.\u201d I pause on the threshold of the\ninner chamber of the heart, the holy place of true worship.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER III.\n                                WORSHIP.\n\n\nOur manner of worship is the natural (as it seems to me even the\ninevitable) result of the full recognition of the reality of Divine\ninspiration\u2014of the actual living present sufficient fulness of\nintercourse between the human spirit and Him who is the Father of\nspirits. Who that truly expects to hear the voice of God can do\notherwise than bow in silence before Him?\n\n\u201cDevotion,\u201d says Bishop Butler in one of his sermons,[8] \u201cis retirement\nfrom the world He has made, to Him alone; it is to withdraw from the\navocations of sense, _to yield ourselves up to the influences of the\nDivine presence_, and to give full scope to the affections of gratitude,\nlove, reverence, trust, and dependence; of which infinite Power, Wisdom,\nand Goodness is the natural and only Object.\u201d No words could more fully\nor worthily express the intention of a Friends\u2019 meeting\u2014of one of those\n\u201cmeetings for worship\u201d which are, as is well known, \u201cheld on a basis of\nsilence,\u201d but in which free course is allowed to whatever Divine\ninfluence may prompt of vocal prayer, preaching, testimony, or prophecy;\nthose meetings in which each one, it is felt, should in the first place\nenter into the inmost sanctuary of his own heart, and be alone with God;\nbeing still, that His voice may be clearly heard within, before the lips\ncan be rightly opened to show forth His praise or His counsels to\nothers. From the depths of that stillness words do from time to time\narise\u2014words uttered in simple obedience to the upspringing of the\nfountain from within. This is what we mean by being \u201cmoved by the\nSpirit,\u201d and I do not see how a worthier or a truer expression could be\nfound for the perfect ideal of spiritual worship.\n\nThat mysterious diversity which is interwoven with all our likeness, and\nbelongs to the very nature common to us all, makes it impossible for one\nto judge for another as to the manner of worship most likely to be\nvitally helpful to him. I cannot tell how far my own feeling about\nFriends\u2019 meetings may arise from an idiosyncrasy. I do not pretend to\nfeel, as did some of the early Friends, that all pre-arrangement is in\nitself unlawful or sinful. I can well understand the point of view of\nthose who believe that the majestic and time-hallowed words of such a\nLiturgy as the Anglican afford the nearest possible approach to a worthy\nmanner of public worship. I can even understand, though with less of\nsympathy, the feelings of those who dread lest the utterances of their\nuntutored fellow-worshippers should disturb their own endeavours to\nattain to a devotional frame of mind. But though, for these and other\nreasons, I am prepared to admit that the extreme of simplicity and\nfreedom maintained in our own meetings might not prove helpful to every\none, and though I have no desire to conceal the too obvious fact that we\ncontinually fall very far short of our ideal, I yet must avow my own\nconviction that that ideal of public worship is the purest which has\never been recognized, and also that it is practically identical with\nthat which seems to have been recognized in the days of the apostles. I\nfurther believe that there are many, in these days especially, to whom\nit is the one manner of worship which is still practically possible, as\nbeing absolutely free from anything entangling to the conscience, or\nopen to controversy. I have already[9] spoken of the indescribable\nrelief which it afforded to my own mind at a time when I was sorely\nharassed by difficulties\u2014common to how many in these days!\u2014as to the\nsincerity of appropriating for my own use forms which, however\nbeautiful, are open to so much and such serious question. What I felt I\nwanted in a place of worship was a refuge, or at least the opening of a\ndoorway towards the refuge, from doubts and controversies\u2014not a fresh\nencounter with them. Yet it seems to me impossible that any one harassed\nby the conflicting views of truth with which just now the air is thick\nshould be able to forget controversy while listening to such language as\nthat of the Book of Common Prayer. It seems to me that nothing but\nsilence can heal the wounds made by disputations in the region of the\nunseen. No external help, at any rate, has ever in my own experience\nproved so penetratingly efficacious as the habit of joining in a public\nworship based upon silence. Its primary attraction for me was in the\nfact that it pledged me to nothing, and left me altogether undisturbed\nto seek for help in my own way. But before long I began to be aware that\nthe united and prolonged silences had a far more direct and powerful\neffect than this. They soon began to exercise a strangely subduing and\nsoftening effect upon my mind. There used, after a while, to come upon\nme a deep sense of awe, as we sat together and waited\u2014for what? In my\nheart of hearts I knew in whose Name we were met together, and who was\ntruly in the midst of us. Never before had His influence revealed itself\nto me with so much power as in those quiet assemblies.\n\nAnd another result of the practice of silent waiting for the unseen\nPresence proved to be a singularly effectual preparation of mind for the\nwilling reception of any words which might be offered \u201cin the name of a\ndisciple.\u201d The words spoken were indeed often feeble, and always\ninadequate (as all words must be in relation to Divine things),\nsometimes even entirely irrelevant to my own individual needs, though at\nother times profoundly impressive and helpful; but, coming as they did\nafter the long silences which had fallen like dew upon the thirsty soil,\nthey went far deeper, and were received into a much less thorny region\nthan had ever been the case with the words I had listened to from the\npulpit.\n\nIn Friends\u2019 meetings also, from the fact that every one is free to\nspeak, one hears harmonies and correspondences between very various\nutterances such as are scarcely to be met with elsewhere. It is\nsometimes as part-singing compared with unison. The free admission of\nthe ministry of women, of course, greatly enriches this harmony. I have\noften wondered whether some of the motherly counsels I have listened to\nin our meeting would not reach some hearts that might be closed to the\nmasculine preacher.\n\nBut it is not only the momentary effect of silence as a help in public\nworship that constitutes its importance in Quaker estimation. The\nsilence we value is not the mere outward silence of the lips. It is a\ndeep quietness of heart and mind, a laying aside of all preoccupation\nwith passing things\u2014yes, even with the workings of our own minds; a\nresolute fixing of the heart upon that which is unchangeable and\neternal. This \u201csilence of all flesh\u201d appears to us to be the essential\npreparation for any act of true worship. It is also, we believe, the\nessential condition at all times of inward illumination. \u201cStand still in\nthe light,\u201d says George Fox again and again, and then strength comes\u2014and\npeace and victory and deliverance, and all other good things. \u201cBe still,\nand know that I am God.\u201d It is the experience, I believe, of all those\nwho have been most deeply conscious of His revelations of Himself, that\nthey are made emphatically to the \u201cwaiting\u201d soul\u2014to the spirit which is\nmost fully conscious of its own inability to do more than wait in\nsilence before Him. The possibilities of inward silence can be but\ndistantly referred to in words. The clearness of inward vision which\nsometimes results from it must be experienced to be fully understood;\nthe things revealed to that vision are rather to be lived in than\nuttered. But the fact that a strenuous endeavour to lay aside all\ndisturbing influences, and to allow all external vibrations to subside,\nis an important, if not an essential, preparation for the reception of\neternal truth, seems to be indisputable. To be quiet must surely always\nbe a gain. To rule one\u2019s own spirit, and to acquire the power of\nproclaiming at least a truce within, must surely be recognized by the\nleast \u201cmystical\u201d as a rational and wholesome exercise of self-control.\n\nIt is, to my own mind, a singular confirmation of the depth of truth in\nthe Quaker ideal, that it embraces in its application such widely\nvarying degrees of spirituality. The \u201cinward silence\u201d which to the\nmystic means the gateway of the unspeakable, the limpid calmness of the\nmirror in which heaven\u2019s glory is to be reflected, commends itself also\nto the sternest rationalist as the beginning of fortitude. And the\nexperience of some of us (whom I may, perhaps, venture to describe as\nrational mystics) proves the exceeding value of the habit of seeking\nafter inward silence as a real life-discipline. Not only at the times\nset apart for definite acts of worship\u2014though, whether in public or in\nprivate, it is from the heart of this stillness that the voice of\ndeepest prayer and praise springs up\u2014but also in all the daily warfare\nof the Christian life, in encountering joy or sorrow, temptation or\nperplexity, the first condition and the highest reward of victory is\nequanimity. \u201cBe not thou greatly moved;\u201d \u201cFret not thyself, else shalt\nthou be moved to do evil.\u201d There is no need to multiply the words of the\nwise on this head. We all surely have gone through times when \u201che opened\nnot his lips\u201d expresses the only possible attitude in which we can hope\nto win through. Silence and resolution, indeed, seem almost like\ndifferent aspects of the same thing. And silence is assuredly an art to\nbe acquired, a discipline to be steadily practised, before it can become\nthe instinctive habit and unfailing resource of the soul. The wise Roman\nCatholic teachers all enjoin this discipline upon those who desire to\nlearn \u201cperfection.\u201d Friends inculcate it rather by example than by\nprecept, though abundant recognition of its importance is to be found in\nQuaker writings. But I am specially concerned with the practical results\nof our manner of worship; and I am bound to say that, to myself, the\npractice of quietness in life is markedly facilitated by the habit of\njoining in a worship \u201cbased on silence.\u201d\n\nThe connection between our practice of silence and our belief in\ninspiration is, I think, obvious. How can we listen if we do not cease\nto speak? How can we receive while we maintain an incessant activity? It\nis obvious that \u201ca wise passiveness\u201d is essential to the possibility of\nserving as channels for any Divinely given utterance. On this subject of\nbeing \u201cmoved by the Spirit,\u201d there seems often to be the strangest\ndifficulty in people\u2019s minds. They imagine that Friends claim the\npossession of something like a miraculous gift\u2014something as baffling to\nordinary reason as the speaking in unknown tongues of the Irvingites.\nSpeaking under correction, and with a sense that the matter reaches to\nunknown depths, I should say that this was quite a mistake. What Friends\nundoubtedly believe and maintain is that to the listening heart God does\nspeak intelligibly; and further, that some amongst His worshippers are\ngifted with a special openness to receive, and power to transmit in\nwords, actual messages from Himself. Is this more than is necessarily\nimplied in the belief that real communion with Him is not only possible,\nbut is freely open to all?\n\nWe do not regard those who have the gift of \u201cministry\u201d as infallible, or\neven as necessarily closer to God than many of the silent worshippers\nwho form the great majority in every congregation. We feel that the gift\nis from above, and that on all of us lies the responsibility of being\nopen to it, willing to receive it, should it be bestowed, and to use it\nfaithfully while entrusted with it. But we fully recognize that to do\nthis perfectly requires a continual submission of the will, and an\nunceasing watchfulness. We know that to \u201ckeep close to the gift\u201d is not\nan easy thing. We know that the singleness of eye which alone can enable\nany one always to discern between the immediate guidance of the Divine\nSpirit and the mere promptings of our own hearts, is not attained\nwithout much patience, and a diligent and persevering use of all the\nmeans of instruction provided for us. We recognize the value of such\ncorrections even as may come through the minds of others; for, although\nthe servant is responsible only to his own Master, and we desire\nearnestly to beware of any dependence on each other in such matters, yet\nit has (as I have already mentioned) been thought right that some\nFriends should be specially appointed to watch over the ministers in the\nexercise of their gift. The \u201celders,\u201d to whom this task is entrusted, do\nin fact often offer not only encouragement or counsel, but at times\nadmonition and even rebuke, when they believe it to be needed. It is\nthus clear that the Society has always held with the Apostle Paul that\n\u201cthe spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.\u201d The great\ncare and caution shown in all the arrangements of the Society with\nrespect to ministry bear witness to its recognition of the deep truth,\nthat, the more precious the treasure, the more serious the risks to\nwhich the earthen vessels enclosing it are exposed.\n\nThe question is often asked, How can you distinguish between a message\nfrom above and the suggestions of your own imagination?[10] The only\nanswer which can be given to this question is, that to do so for\npractical purposes does indeed require all the heavenly wisdom and all\nthe humble sincerity of heart of which we are capable. Worship, to those\nwho believe that God is, and is indeed to be worshipped in spirit and in\ntruth, is surely the highest function of the human spirit. To attain to\nsuch a transparency of heart and mind as shall admit of our serving as\nchannels for the worship of others, and for the Divine response to such\nworship\u2014ladders, as it were, on which the angels of God may ascend and\ndescend in the place of worship\u2014is, indeed, an aim which must transcend\nall merely human power. We need for it the continual renovation of Him\nwho is Light\u2014\u201cthe Way, the Truth, and the Life.\u201d But dare any, who call\nthemselves believers on Him, doubt that such renovation is open to us?\n\nI can understand those who think all worship idle, or worse than idle; I\ncannot understand those who think it can be acceptably performed without\nthe help of the Spirit Himself making intercession for us, and with us,\nand in us, or that this help will fail any true worshipper. Yet, if we\ndo believe this help is given, are we not looking to be \u201cmoved by the\nSpirit\u201d? Is the expectation peculiar to any one body of Christians?\nSurely not. What _is_ peculiar to us Friends is the dread of limiting or\ninterfering with the immediate influences of the Divine Spirit by the\nuse of fixed forms of words, and by outward observances or pressure of\nany kind.\n\nAs I have already said, I do not feel that ours is the only lawful\nmanner of worship; I do not even think it at all clear that it would be\nfor all people and at all times the most helpful. But I do believe it to\nbe the purest conceivable. I am jealous for its preservation from any\nadmixture of adventitious \u201caids to devotion.\u201d I believe that its\nabsolute freedom and flexibility, its unrivalled simplicity and gravity,\nmake it a vessel of honour prepared in an especial manner for the\nconveyance of the pure water of life to many in these days who are\nhindered from satisfying their souls\u2019 thirst by questionable additions\nto the essence of Divine worship.\n\nI know that, in Friends\u2019 meetings as elsewhere, one must be prepared to\nmeet with much human weakness and imperfection; many things may be heard\nin them which are trying to the flesh\u2014yes, and perhaps to the spirit\nalso. Certainly many things may be heard which are open to criticism,\nfrom an intellectual and literary point of view. Let no one go to\nFriends\u2019 meetings with the expectation of finding everything to his\ntaste. Yet even mere taste, if duly cultivated, must recognize the value\nof a certain weight and simplicity, arising, no doubt, from the habitual\npractice of inward silence, by which they are often distinguished. This\nis, however, a point upon which no one who is alive to the real\nsignificance of such meetings as ours would care to dwell. Criticism\nfades away abashed in the presence of what is felt to be a real, however\nfaltering, endeavour to open actual communication with the Father of\nspirits, and with each other as in His presence and in His name. To my\nown mind, any living utterance of a human voice pleading for itself and\nfor the objects of its love in words fresh from the heart, has a power\nand a pathos infinitely beyond that of the most perfect expression of\ndevotion read or recited according to an appointed order.[11]\n\nIt is an important peculiarity of our meetings that the responsibility\nfor their character is felt to be shared by all. I do not mean that all\nour members are in fact alive to their own share of this responsibility.\nThe service is, no doubt, often far too much left to one or more willing\nspeakers. But I do not believe that it would be possible amongst Friends\nfor anything like the sense of dependence on one individual to arise\nwhich seems naturally to result from the idea of a priestly order. And,\nat any rate, the idea is kept continually before us of a company coming\ntogether on one level, each of whom is free and encouraged to bring his\nindividual offering of praise and prayer, whether silent or vocal. It is\na familiar thought amongst Friends that no one should expect in a\nmeeting for worship \u201cto eat the bread of idleness.\u201d And the practice\nwhich is so frequent amongst us of ministering Friends travelling from\nmeeting to meeting in the exercise of their gift, causes a stirring of\nthe waters, and keeps up the sense of the freedom of all to take their\npart whenever and wherever a word may be given them.\n\nThere is one other result of the absence of pre-arrangement in our\nmeetings which I cannot altogether pass over. It is that no shelter is\nprovided under cover of which one can remain in doubt whether one is or\nis not actually engaged in worship on one\u2019s own account. A liturgy or a\nhymn may bear along in its current many a vague half-formed tendency\ntowards worship; and I dare not say that it may not thus sometimes fan\nthe spark into a flame, or save the smoking flax from being altogether\nquenched. But it does seem to me that it also often prevents our\nrecognizing our own poverty, and stifles many an individual cry for\nhelp, which the sense of that poverty would tend to awaken. At any rate,\nthe worst that can very well happen, if a silent meeting fails to help,\nis that it is _nothing_. It would scarcely seem possible that it should\ndelude any one into a hollow sense of having been engaged in a religious\nservice. But here I am aware of being near the treacherous ground of\nidiosyncrasy, and I do not wish to press the point.\n\nHitherto I have been speaking of our meetings for public worship. But,\nas Friends love to say, our worship does not begin when we sit down\ntogether in our public assemblies, nor end when we leave them. The\nworship in spirit and in truth is in no way limited by time and place.\nThe same idea of a waiting \u201cin the silence of all flesh\u201d to hear the\nvoice of the Lord speaking within us, characterizes the Friends\u2019 private\ntimes of worship; or, as the more cautious expression is, of \u201creligious\nretirement.\u201d Friends are so possessed with the sense of our inability to\noffer acceptable prayer in our own time and will, that where others\nspeak of family prayers, and hours of prayer or devotion, Friends prefer\nthe expressions \u201cfamily reading\u201d and \u201creligious retirement.\u201d\n\nAnd not only in name, but in method, are these times marked with the\nsame peculiar character as our public meetings. In Friends\u2019 families of\nthe old-fashioned type (which are more numerous still, I fancy, than\nmany people suspect) the family meeting consists simply of the reading\nof a portion of Scripture, and then a pause of silence, which may or may\nnot be broken by words of prayer or of testimony. Many Friends formerly\n(and some, I believe, still feel the same) objected on conscientious\ngrounds to their children\u2019s learning to use any form of prayer, even the\nLord\u2019s Prayer. The children shared from the first in the united silence\nof the family, and could not fail to know what it meant; but in some\nfamilies it was rarely or never broken by vocal prayer. A silent pause\nbefore meals is the Friends\u2019 equivalent for \u201csaying grace\u201d\u2014a practice\nwhich I own I think has much to recommend it. Here, again, there is, of\ncourse, the opportunity for words, should words spontaneously rise to\nthe lips of any of those present.\n\nWhen we penetrate into the inmost chamber of private worship differences\nof method can no longer be traced by human eye. It is not possible for\nany one to judge of the practice of others in this respect; nay, there\nseems an impropriety in following individuals into this sacred region,\neven in thought. Sectarian differences must here be left behind. But for\nthat very reason I may here appeal with the greater fulness of\nconfidence to the sympathy of all who pray, in the attempt, from which I\nfeel it impossible to refrain, to explain the way in which a belief in\npresent inspiration is, as I think, inseparable from belief in the\nreality and the rightness of prayer.\n\nI trust that I shall not be thought presumptuous for entering upon this\nsubject. There are many qualifications for it which I do not possess.\nBut on matters of common and urgent interest the very absence of\ndistinguishing power or knowledge may give a certain value to the\nresults of actual personal experience, as lessening the distance across\nwhich the helping hand has to reach out.\n\nI believe that the permanent effect for good or for evil of the present\nshaking and upheaval of thought amongst us must be mainly determined by\nits relation to prayer. No immediate result of the outbreak of free\ndiscussion of all things in heaven and earth during the last thirty\nyears has been so agonizing to devout persons, nor so gravely threatens\nspiritual health, as the paralysis which in many cases it has seemed to\nbring upon the spirit of prayer. We meet daily with open denials of the\nreasonableness of prayer\u2014of the possibility of entering into any real\ncommunication with the Divine Being. Few amongst us can have altogether\nescaped the paralyzing influence of the flood of unsolved, and\napparently insoluble, moral problems, and at the same time of new and\nabsorbingly interesting views of material things, into which this\ngeneration has been plunged. The mere demand on the attention is\npowerful enough to drain away great part of the mental power formerly\nemployed in seeking after God.\n\n              \u201cIt seems His newer will,\n  We should not think of Him at all, but trudge it;\n  And of the world He has assigned us make\n  What best we can,\u201d\n\nsays A. H. Clough; and he utters, I am sure, a widely spread feeling.\nPeople\u2019s very love of truth seems to themselves to be enlisted in\npursuing the streams which lead them away from the Fountain of truth.\nAnd the pursuit of scientific truth is assuredly in its place a\ncontribution to our knowledge of God, though made by workers who may but\ntoo easily themselves lose sight of Him in their engrossing\npreoccupation with His works.\n\nBut the tendency to put prayer to silence is not merely thus indirect.\nThe one idea which seems at present more forcibly to have grasped the\npopular imagination, is that of the universal and inexorable dominion of\nunchanging law. And the inference is not unnatural, \u201cThen it is useless\nto pray.\u201d The result is an awful silence\u2014not of the flesh, indeed, but\nof the spirit. Men and women have come to feel themselves alone in a new\nand fearful sense\u2014alone as in the valley of dry bones, with no\nexpectation of any Divine breath to cause them to stand up upon their\nfeet, a united host of living servants of the living God.\n\nI trust that I shall not be suspected of any intention of grappling with\nthe problem of free-will and necessity. I know, at least, enough to be\naware that there is at the end of every avenue of human thought an\nimpenetrable mystery. But I also know that the region in which\nphilosophers join issue upon the question of necessity lies far beyond\nthe range of any such practical questions as I am engaged with. I know\nthat the controversy is not decided, and, so far as we can see, does not\nvisibly approach towards a decision; I know also that no conceivable\nagreement of philosophers as to the most accurate way of stating facts\ncan alter the facts themselves with which we have to do. I do not hope\nto express myself with philosophical accuracy; but I can, and will,\nspeak plainly and truly of my own experience in this matter of prayer.\n\nThere was a time when I myself was silenced by the paralyzing influences\nof which I have spoken\u2014when the heavens seemed as brass, and to ask for\nanything seemed like flying in the face of one vast foregone conclusion;\nas though a moth should dash itself against an iceberg. But I have come\nto believe that the truth against which I had thus, so to speak,\nstumbled in the dark, was not that prayer is unreasonable, but that my\nideas of prayer were unworthy.\n\nThat the will of God is unchangeable, is assuredly the very foundation\nof all reasonable trust in Him, and is recognized by saints and\nphilosophers alike. But does not the imagination easily confound\nunchangeableness with immovableness? Are not the laws of motion as fixed\nas those of space? What can be more full of movement than the flames of\nfire? Yet are they less unchangeable in their nature than a bar of iron?\nIs it not through a reliance upon the unchangeable properties of\nmaterial things that we are able to change the whole face of the earth?\nAnd should we not remember that the unchangeable order which all things,\nvisible and invisible, obey, includes the mystery of perpetual\n\u201cvariation,\u201d and even of life itself?\n\nIt seems to me that when our imagination smites everything with\nrigidity, it is really playing us a trick. Those who are at all\ncompetent to expound the theory of necessity are earnest to show that it\nin no way contradicts the efficacy of effort in any possible direction.\nThey have need to be earnest about it, for the imagination is but too\nready for a pretext to hoist the flag of despair, and the will to throw\nup the game of life, and to sink into the sleep of apathy.\n\nIf we are right in thinking of God as the Fountain of life and thought,\nthe Father of spirits\u2014and to those who deny this it is idle for me to\naddress myself\u2014it can surely not be unreasonable for the spirits He has\nmade to seek to hold communion with Him. What _is_ often unreasonable is\nthe nature of our requests, and our idea of the possibility of their\nbeing granted. Here it is that I have had to recognize the unworthiness\nof many of my own thoughts and expressions about prayer, and that I\ncontinually meet with what seems to me unfit and inadequate in the\nlanguage of others. It cannot be an unimportant thing that we should\nendeavour to sift out what is untenable and unbecoming from our thoughts\nand words on this subject.\n\nTwo things have, as I believe, mainly tended to lower our idea of\nprayer, until, in minds where it is but a theory, it has been shattered\nagainst the hard facts of science. We have narrowed it to the idea of\nasking for things, and we have thought of it chiefly as a means of\ngetting them.\n\nThis is surely a degradation of the idea of prayer, even though the\nthings asked for be what are called \u201cspiritual blessings.\u201d The word\n\u201cprayer\u201d may, it is true, be used in the restricted sense of making\nrequests; but in that case let it be distinctly understood and kept in\nmind that it is but a part\u2014the lowest and least essential part\u2014of\nworship or communion with God. It is of prayer in the larger sense\u2014not\nrequest, but communion\u2014that we may rightly and wisely speak as the very\nbreath of our spiritual life; as the power by which life is\ntransfigured; as that to which all things are possible. But this\ndistinction between request and communion is _not_ habitually kept in\nmind by those who write and speak of prayer, nor even by all those who\npractise it. It seems to me as if many even deeply experienced\nChristians were using all their energy to encourage and stimulate above\nall that part of prayer which has surely the most of the merely human\nand carnal in it, rather than to show forth that nobler part to which\nthis should be but the innocent and natural prelude. If we fall back, as\nwe must perpetually do, upon our Lord\u2019s own leading principle of using\nthe human relation of parent and child as the highest and most\ninstructive type of the relation between God and the human spirit, we\nshall surely feel that the child, in learning to speak to its father and\nto understand his voice, has far other and larger hopes and purposes\nthan that of getting things from him. The human parent may use the\nchild\u2019s innocent and natural wishes as one means of attracting its\nattention, but would surely be grievously disappointed if the child\nnever looked beyond the advantages to be reaped by the power of speaking\nto its father\u2014never rose to the perception that intercourse with him was\nin itself the greatest of human joys, not a mere means to an end.\n\nAnd in the same sort of sense I feel that, when people insist upon \u201cthe\nefficacy of prayer,\u201d they are insisting upon its very lowest use; and\nthat the concentration of attention upon this lowest use creates a\nserious stumbling-block, which hinders faith in two ways.\n\n1. It suggests a _test_ which is not and cannot be uniformly favourable.\nWhatever the power of prayer may be\u2014and words, I believe, must wholly\nfail to express it\u2014particular requests are certainly not always granted.\nOur Lord explicitly prepares us for the refusal of blind requests, and\nour own good sense and our daily experience combine to make it\nabundantly clear that many requests are, and must always be, refused.\n\n2. And more than this, there is, I believe, nobility enough in every\nheart capable of real prayer to cause a recoil from the idea of using it\nonly for the purpose of obtaining advantages, be they of what kind they\nmay. I believe, that is, that the modern perplexity about prayer arises\nnot only from a difficulty in imagining God as One who can be influenced\nby our desires, but largely also from a latent sense that, even if true\nin fact, that is a very inadequate conception of Him to whom our worship\nshould be addressed, and who must assuredly know better than we do what\nthings we have need of\u2014from a recoil, in short, against the low and\ncoarse and unworthy tone of much that is urged on the other side.\n\nTherefore I think that in the long-run an immeasurable gain will result\nto faith from modern outspokenness in recognizing the difficulties of\nthis subject. Prayer, if regarded as an attempt to wrest favours from\nour heavenly Father by dint of mere importunity, is doomed to many\ndisappointments, and stands sorely in need of their purifying\ndiscipline. Prayer is not really prayer\u2014that is, it is not true\ncommunion with God\u2014till it rises above the region in which wilfulness is\npossible, to the height of \u201cNot my will, but Thine, be done.\u201d\n\nImportunity may, indeed, prevail to win attention from a reluctant or\ndrowsy human ear. Our Lord Himself reminds us of this fact to reprove\nthe faint-heartedness which would allow itself to be discouraged by\ndelay. But the ear of the Father is ever open to our prayers. We cannot\nthink that importunity is needed to rouse His attention. The hindrance\nwhen He refuses, or delays to grant, our requests must be of a very\ndifferent kind. If once we recognize that He hears us always, and that\nin everything that happens we may hear His voice answering us, we are\nforced also to recognize that severe discipline is as truly a part of\nHis answer as tender indulgence. Both are welcomed by the childlike\nheart; both are part of the language we have patiently to learn to\ninterpret.\n\nBut then comes the question, What is there to convince us that we are\nlistened to at all, if the answer is everything equally? If it is in the\nwhole course of events that we are to look for the answer, and that\ncourse is as often as not contrary to our prayer, how are we justified\nin saying that prayer is ever answered?\n\nIt is the answer to this question, What is it that does, in fact,\nproduce a reasonable conviction that we are listened to? which, I think,\ninvolves that theory of inspiration which Friends, more markedly than\nany other body of Christians, have always avowed and acted upon. But, in\ntrying to reply to it, I wish it to be distinctly borne in mind that I\nam giving, for what it is worth, the result of my own personal exercises\nof mind, not undertaking to state recognized Quaker doctrine.[12]\nDifficulties, though probably in essence the same from generation to\ngeneration, come before each generation in a fresh form, and need to be\nfreshly met by individual experience.\n\nThat which produces a reasonable conviction that prayer is answered\nmust, surely, be the sense of Divine guidance of which I have already\nspoken in the last chapter. The general grounds for our common belief in\nGod as the Father of spirits are too deep and too wide for me to set\nforth. As I have already said, I assume such a belief as the groundwork\nof all that I am attempting to unfold. That which enables each one of us\nwho believe in Him to discern His voice is, as already suggested, a\ntouch as of a hand upon our arm\u2014a dealing with our own spirit and life\nof so personal and individual and significant a nature as that we cannot\nhelp feeling that \u201cthe finger of God is come unto us.\u201d\n\nIf this be, indeed, the right direction in which to look for answers to\nprayer, then the whole subject is withdrawn from the region in which\npositive proof or disproof are possible. Our interpretation of such\nindividual experiences is that upon which the whole controversy turns,\nand this must of necessity result from the nature of our previous belief\nrespecting much more general truths. It will always be open to those who\ndisbelieve in God to call His signs \u201cmere coincidences.\u201d It is surely\nnot therefore the less reasonable for those who do believe in Him to be\non the watch for every possible faintest indication of His pleasure.\nThere must be in this, as in all other matters, a preparation of heart\nand mind before any sign, however eloquent, can take effect upon us. In\npoint of fact, we know that the sense of receiving a personal\ncommunication from above is not always excited by the granting of a\npetition. After we have asked and received, no less than when we have\nasked and not received, we are sometimes inclined to say, \u201cAfter all,\ndoes my prayer make any difference? would not things have happened just\nin the same way if I had not prayed?\u201d This is a question to which, in\ntruth, I believe that we must be content (so far, at least, as regards\nany particular instance) to remain without an answer. We can never\nreally know what would have happened if we had not prayed.\n\nTo say this is, of course, by no means to deny that our prayer has made\na real though unknown difference. It is, on the contrary, almost\npositively to assert the action of unmeasured and unfathomable\ninfluences. We cannot measure the whole results of any action, however\ninsignificant; but the whole tendency of modern \u201cscientific\u201d thought,\nand of belief in \u201cnecessity,\u201d at any rate, goes to show that all things\nare so interdependent that an action without results is almost\ninconceivable. Necessitarians, of all people, are bound to admit this.\nThe action of prayer cannot, however, be traced by human eyes, and the\nlonging to know precisely _what_ difference our prayer makes to the\ncourse of events is, I believe, a longing which can never be gratified\nin this world.\n\nYet a power which we cannot precisely measure may make itself\ncontinually felt, and the power of prayer is in some lives a matter of\nperpetually renewed if incommunicable experience. The testimony of those\nwho can thankfully and reverently say that their prayers are answered in\na manner that is wonderful in their own eyes, is too familiar and too\nsacred to all of us to need insisting upon. Its weight is, I believe,\nstrictly speaking, immeasurable. But it is in a manner naturally veiled\nfrom hasty or external observation, and is, therefore, easily\ndisregarded. When fully considered, it will be found to consist mainly\nin combinations of circumstances by no means incredible in themselves.\nIt is not the accuracy of the facts recorded by those to whom prayer is\na reality, but the explanation of their combination, which is generally\nin question. If I am right in supposing that we can never trace the\nprecise relation of cause and effect between prayer and the answer, this\ndifficulty\u2014the difficulty, I mean, of exhaustively explaining\nsignificant combinations of circumstances\u2014is not surprising. It is the\nnatural result of our being out of our depth.\n\nBut although the whole region into which we plunge when we begin to\nspeak of the answer to our prayers is of necessity unfathomable by us,\nwe may with advantage remember that there are some special difficulties\nbesetting any attempt to share with others the experiences which have\nnaturally and rightly most weight with ourselves; and that by\ndisregarding these difficulties we convert them into stumbling-blocks.\n\nOne main difficulty of this kind lies in the fact that the outward\nevents of which we can speak most freely, which we can, as it were,\nwithout impropriety call others to witness, must be more or less public\nin their nature; such as, _e.g._, the preservation of lives dear to us,\npolitical or national events, favourable changes of weather, and so\non\u2014things as to which it is not upon any theory reasonable to suppose\nthat they can be determined with reference only to the wishes or the\nprayers of any one individual. Even if they went according to my\npersonal wishes and prayers, there would be a manifest impropriety in\nclaiming them as having been thereby brought about. If I pray that the\nsun may rise to-morrow morning, it does not need much faith to feel sure\nI shall not be refused, but it would be grossly improper to claim that\nthe event had occurred \u201cin answer to my prayers.\u201d When the Prince of\nWales recovered from his fever, there were many who would have thought\nit impious to doubt that his recovery was actually _caused_ by the many\nprayers which were undoubtedly offered on his behalf. Other people were\nand will remain convinced that he would equally have recovered in any\ncase. Who can attempt to decide between these opinions with any show of\nauthority? Indeed, it appears to me that both are presumptuous. Surely\nit is enough for children to know that their desire is fulfilled,\nwithout inquiring into the motives (if, indeed, we should dare to\nattribute motives to God) by which the parents\u2019 fulfilment of it was\nprompted.\n\nIn the case of many events (such as battles, weather, and so on) which\nmust necessarily be unfavourable to the wishes of one side and\nfavourable to the other, we know that some prayers must be granted while\nsome are refused. Who will attempt to trace the proportion between\nrequest and result? or to treat the influence of prayer in such matters\nas admitting of either proof or disproof?\n\nBut when we come to the circumstances of each individual life, the case\nis very different. We do not get rid of mystery even here. Our\nknowledge, even of our own lives, is altogether imperfect and\nfragmentary; but to pretend to know no more about the ordering of them\nthan we do about the universe would be mere dishonesty. We _can_ trace a\ncorrespondence between our desires and their accomplishment when it\noccurs in our own lives, such as it would be mere impertinence to try to\ntrace between, _e.g._, our desires and the history of a nation. You may\ncall it superstition to say, \u201cI prayed for strength and my request was\ngranted, for strength was given me;\u201d but you cannot accuse me of gross\nimpropriety in thus associating my prayer and the event, as you would if\nI said, \u201cI prayed that the sun might rise, and my request has been\ngranted.\u201d It is within our own personal experience that we must look for\nthe answer which we can rightly appropriate.\n\nBut, then, in proportion as the event is brought within the personal\nsphere of one individual, it is necessarily removed from that of others.\nThose parts of our personal and separate experience of which we can\nspeak freely are almost necessarily superficial. I do not doubt that\neven trifles are a part of the Divine language to individuals, but\ntrifles cannot with propriety be appealed to for the purpose of\nconvincing others. Those personal experiences, on the other hand, which\nare at once deep enough and individual enough to be the fittest subjects\nof prayer (in the sense of special request), and to be met by responsive\n\u201cprovidences\u201d of a peculiarly impressive kind, are almost always such\nas, for a very different reason, we are unable to mention with much\nfreedom. The whole cogency of the reasoning which is rightly conclusive\nto oneself, in short, generally depends upon facts of personal feeling,\nand upon minute correspondences of events with intricate chains of\nprevious experience, such as human language would fail to transmit, even\ndid a right instinct of modesty not forbid the attempt. We are,\ntherefore, in this matter very much shut up (and I think there is in the\nfact a beautiful fitness) to the individual and separate teaching of\nlife. I believe that we cannot (if it be true) too clearly and\nunflinchingly make the assertion that our private experience has\nconvinced us of the reality of the Divine response to prayer; but also,\nthat we cannot be too cautious how we try to utter such experience\nitself. Simple-minded people, who live much in the practice of prayer,\nand whose habitual expectation of a Divine response is continually (and\nto themselves often wonderfully) fulfilled, are often exposed to the\nsnare of making public what should be sacredly kept for themselves\nalone, or at least shared only with those who \u201chave ears to hear.\u201d Much\nmischief is, I fear, often done by the too free and ready communication,\nespecially in print, of \u201cremarkable answers to prayer;\u201d of incidents\nwhich, overpoweringly eloquent as they may well be to those whom they\nconcern, are but an idle tale to strangers\u2014a tale the telling of which\nsometimes lends itself but too easily to the mere love of signs and\nwonders. They also often lay bare the most painful effects of\nunconscious self-importance\u2014the most glaring tendency to refer\neverything to oneself as the centre, and to ignore the legitimate share\nof others in the events referred to. One is almost inclined to say of\nsuch stories that, the more wonderful they are, the less edifying they\nare likely to be.\n\nFor it is not in such outward and tangible events as these, not in the\nthings which can be passed from hand to hand like coins, that the real\npower and soul-subduing influence of a Divine communication is most\nunmistakably felt. It is the still small voice which overcomes; the\ngentle combination of perhaps very ordinary circumstances, which, when\ncombined, acquire the significance of a distinct message. Just as when\nwe see letters brought together and placed under our eyes, which\ntogether form a word replying to our thought, we infer that they have\nbeen so arranged by some one who knew what was in our minds; so, to\nthose of us who habitually not only ask but watch for Divine\ninstruction, there occur again and again combinations of events,\nadjustments even of the minutest details, which produce a quite\nirresistible sense that the finger of God is pointing the lesson He\nwould have us learn.\n\nIt is idle to ask those who never listen whether and how God answers\nprayer. The very possibility of discerning the answer implies docility\nand willingness of heart. The High and Holy One that inhabiteth eternity\ndwells with him who is of an humble and contrite spirit, and such only\ncan learn to know His voice.\n\nTo those who in any degree do know His voice, it gradually becomes clear\nthat prayer and its answer are inseparable. The answer is as the answer\nof the atmosphere to the lungs, of light to the eyes. The humble and\ncontrite heart opens its doors to its Maker, and is filled with His\npresence. Then, indeed, the light shines within; then the very breath of\nour life is breathed into us by the Spirit of God. Inspiration\u2014the\ninbreathing power from above, by which alone all that is heavenly in us\nis brought about,\u2014this is the other aspect of worship.\n\nTrue worship, therefore, implies inspiration. It is the inspired prayer\nwhich transfigures life\u2014which is mighty with the might of the Fountain\nfrom whence it flows. While we separate worship and inspiration we can\nnever think worthily of either. I do indeed believe that the very desire\nof our heart is often granted to us in reply to our petition. I do not\nventure to speak confidently as to the precise relation of cause and\neffect which may exist between any petition and its fulfilment. There\nmust, I believe, be some such real relation; but to my own mind it often\nseems more probable and more reverent to suppose, where the\ncorrespondence is very marked, that the prayer has been in the nature of\na prophetic utterance, of a Divine foreshadowing, than that our wish\nshould have been allowed to become the efficient cause of the Divine\naction. A prayer which has been answered by the perfect fulfilment of\nits requests shows, I believe, that the offerer of it was so far under\nDivine influence; that his will was to that extent at least in harmony\nwith the Divine will. This is a word of blessed encouragement for the\none to whom it comes, which it is not always wise or right to proclaim\nfrom the housetop. \u201cUpliftings unto prayer\u201d (to quote one more of the\ndeep words of A. H. Clough) are surely among the sacred things of which\nwe should not lightly lift the veil. I do not think that those who have\nany true and deep experience of what it is to hold communion, however\nfaltering and intermittent, with our God will be forward to attempt to\ndivest it of its mystery, while yet they must earnestly desire to set\nforth to others what they have learnt of its power and its blessedness.\nFor the sake of the many who honestly desire to know the truth upon this\ndeepest and most urgent of all common interests, I think that we who\nhave some such experience are bound to seek to clothe it in fit and\nworthy language.\n\nLet us, therefore, recognize and avow, when occasion serves, that\nprayer, worship, or communion with God is a larger, deeper, fuller thing\nthan mere asking and having. Let us acknowledge that the simplest and\nmost inarticulate cry for help\u2014the voice of the \u201cinfant crying in the\nnight, and with no language but a cry\u201d\u2014is as sure to enter the ear of\nthe Father of spirits as the deepest prayer ever uttered by saint or\nmartyr. Let us remember that, according to the teaching of our Lord\nHimself, the one voice which is more sure (if degrees of sureness there\ncan be) than any other of being listened to by the good Shepherd, is the\nvoice of the one who has strayed the furthest from the fold, and is the\nmost deeply conscious of being afar off\u2014the voice of the lost sheep over\nwhose first turning towards home the very angels in heaven rejoice with\na special joy. But let us never forget that in the homeward path there\nare heights beyond heights; that as any spirit is drawn upwards by the\nFather\u2019s love and care, it becomes more and more filled with the light\nof His countenance, more interpenetrated by that light which shines\nclearest in the dark places through which every upward-tending spirit\nmust assuredly pass. Let us not forget that the reward of faithfulness\nin that which is least is the call to enter into that which is\ngreater\u2014deeper and higher and fuller of Divine significance; that those\n\u201cinfluences of the Divine presence\u201d to which it is the essence of true\nworship to \u201cyield ourselves\u201d must penetrate into the inmost recesses of\nour being, and bring every thought into subjection to the law of\nChrist\u2014that law of the Spirit of life, by which all that is of the flesh\nis gradually purged away as by a consuming fire\u2014and that to live in the\nspirit of prayer is to live more and more continually and intimately in\nthe presence of Him before whom the angels veil their faces, and who is\nof purer eyes than to behold iniquity. So that it may well be, or rather\nit can only be, in fear and in trembling that this wonderful salvation\nof entrance into His presence can be worked out. The prayers which are\nowned by Him are not prayers which can be offered in the will of man, or\nwhich can be used as a means of gratifying the desires of the flesh or\nof the reason; they are the breathings of the spirit struggling to\nreturn to Him who gave it, or rejoicing in the light of His countenance.\nThe spirit which is being made free from the law of sin and death cannot\nlook backwards towards the things of earth. Its path is onwards and\nupwards, ever \u201cinto light,\u201d and its breathings are the vibrations\ncommunicated to it from the Source and Centre of light; they obey a law\nas unchangeable as the laws of light itself, and their function is to\ndestroy and to consume away the perishing, worn-out raiment of the\nspirit, to free it from defilements and hindrances, and to bring it\nforth in the fulness of time \u201cinto the glorious liberty of the children\nof God,\u201d the rightful \u201cinheritance of the saints in light.\u201d Surely we\nmay with reverence say that, in a true and a deep sense, God Himself is\nthe Answer to prayer.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IV.\n                             FREE MINISTRY.\n\n\nOur ministry may be said to be free in several distinct senses.\n\n1. It is open to all.\n\n2. Its exercise is not subject to any pre-arrangement.\n\n3. It is not paid.\n\nWe believe that the one essential qualification for the office of a\nminister is the anointing of the Holy Spirit; and that this anointing is\npoured out without respect of persons upon men and women, upon old and\nyoung, upon learned and unlearned. The gift is, we believe, a purely\nspiritual one, as much beyond our control as the rain from heaven; yet\nas unfailing, as abundant, as necessary to fertility.\n\nOur views of this matter differ from those of other Christians, not in\nthe fact that we recognize the free gift of this holy anointing, not\neven in the fact that we repudiate the idea of its being purchasable by\nmoney, but in the fact that our idea of ministry refers exclusively to\nthe offering of spontaneous spiritual ministrations. All would surely\nagree that it is impossible for any one to offer acceptable prayer, or\nto sow in other hearts the living seed of the kingdom, without a\ndistinct gift from above. It is obvious that we cannot give what we have\nnot received. It is also surely undeniable that what we have freely\nreceived we should freely give; that the gift of God cannot be bought\nfor money, nor restricted in its exercise to humanly prepared channels.\nNo one who believes in the reality of the gift of \u201cprophecy\u201d\u2014of\nspeaking, that is, from the immediate promptings of the Spirit of\nTruth\u2014would dare to seek either to purchase or to restrain such\nutterances. \u201cWhere the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.\u201d Our\ndoctrine of a free ministry, of course, supposes a real belief in the\ncontinual inbreathing of that Divine Spirit, giving both light and\nutterance through His own chosen vessels for the help of all. It also\ngoes a step further, and regards such spiritual ministrations as\nall-sufficient. Here is the real point of divergence between us and our\nfellow-Christians. The vast majority of them regard something more than\nthese purely spiritual ministrations as essential to a full allegiance\nto our common Lord.\n\nOther Christian bodies have from very early times recognized a\ndistinction between clergy and laity, and have regarded at least two\nsacraments as having been instituted by Christ Himself, and as being in\nsome sense or other \u201cnecessary to salvation;\u201d and the greater number, or\nat any rate the largest, of these bodies have habitually adopted the use\nof liturgical forms of public worship.\n\nAt the root of our abstinence from all these generally accepted\npractices, there lies the one conviction of the all-sufficiency of\nindividual and immediate communication with the Father of our spirits;\nand a profound belief that by His coming in the flesh our Lord Jesus\nChrist did, in fact, open a new and living way of access to God, which\nsuperseded and blotted out the former dispensation of rites and\nceremonies, investing all believers with the function of \u201ckings and\npriests\u201d (calling them, that is, both to exercise dominion and to offer\nacceptable sacrifices in His name), and enabling them to show forth the\nnature and results of that worship in spirit and in truth, which was no\nlonger to be in any sense confined to temples made with hands, and of\nthat kingdom which is \u201cnot meat and drink, but righteousness and peace\nand joy in the Holy Ghost.\u201d\n\nIt was a bold thing indeed for the early Friends to break loose at once\nfrom the whole ecclesiastical system, with its venerable and\nlong-established claim to be the divinely ordained channel of spiritual\nnutriment. In doing so, they no doubt took up an attitude of hostility\ntowards the \u201chireling priests,\u201d and their \u201csteeple-houses\u201d and\n\u201cso-called ordinances,\u201d which, however comparatively intelligible it may\nhave been at the time, was yet not only highly obnoxious, but would even\nseem to have led them into some degree of injustice.\n\nAfter sixty or seventy years of severe persecution, however, borne with\nextraordinary patience as well as constancy, their right to carry out\ntheir own manner of worship was fully allowed; and by a strange result\nof changes, partly within the Society itself and partly in the\nsurrounding mental atmosphere, Friends, from being regarded as\npeculiarly pestilent heretics, came to be looked on as the most harmless\nand least obnoxious of Nonconformists. I believe, however, that this can\nbe the case only as long as we are content to acquiesce in a purely\npassive and dwindling state. Any attempt to promulgate our peculiar\nviews must necessarily give offence. We may, perhaps, no longer think it\na duty to denounce the institution of a separate clergy, and the\nobservance of \u201cso-called ordinances,\u201d as positively unlawful or sinful.\nBut to say plainly that we consider them as superfluous, requires hardly\nless boldness, and is scarcely likely to be more palatable. The fact,\nhowever, cannot be disguised; and in spite of the pain which, in these\ndays of free and lively interchange of sympathy, is involved in taking\nup any clear ground of separation, no true Friend would desire in the\nslightest degree to disguise or to veil our ancient testimony against\noutward observances and their accompanying institution of a paid\nministry.\n\nIt is, however, a great help in doing so to be able to point to the very\nremarkable fact of the existence during more than two centuries of a\nbody of people whose lives bear abundant witness to the reality of their\nChristian profession, amongst whom these \u201cordinances\u201d have been\naltogether disused.\n\nFor my own part, I would rather leave that fact to speak for itself than\nattempt to trace all the inferences which may, I think, be fairly drawn\nfrom it. Yet the question whether the clerical and sacramental system is\nindeed an essential part of Christianity, or a human accretion, is too\nprofoundly important to the future of Christianity itself to be lightly\npassed over. Are there not many, in these days especially, who would\nwillingly listen to the Christianity of Christ Himself, could they but\nfind it disentangled from the enormously \u201cdeveloped\u201d Christianity of the\ndominant Churches?\n\nI am far from venturing to claim that the Society of Friends does\nactually exhibit a perfect living instance of what has been called\n\u201cprimitive Christianity revived,\u201d but I do believe its ideal to be the\ntrue, and the only true one; that of a Church, or \u201cgathered people,\u201d\nliving with the one object of obeying the teaching of Christ Himself to\nthe very uttermost\u2014His own teaching, not that of those who have spoken\nin His name, even though they be apostles, except in so far as they\nspeak in accordance with it. To _live_ the Sermon on the Mount, and the\nrest of the gospel teaching, and in all things to listen for the living\nvoice of the good Shepherd, watching constantly that no human tradition\ndivert our attention from it,\u2014this is our acknowledged aim and bond of\nunion as a Society. Our conviction of its sufficiency is the ground of\nour existence as a separate body.\n\nWe believe that neither the division of Christian people into clergy and\nlaity, nor the use of sacramental ceremonies, were enjoined by Christ\nHimself. It is clear that both these practices quickly arose amongst the\nearly Christians; but remembering that the early Christians were but\nfallible human beings like ourselves, and that they were undeniably far\nfrom clear what rites and ceremonies were to be observed, we do not feel\nthat their practice is to be our guide.\n\nThe institution of a separate clergy and that of the sacraments form, of\ncourse, essentially one system. The early Friends went to the root of\nthe matter when they abandoned at once the whole of what they called\n\u201cmountain and Jerusalem worship,\u201d as opposed to the worship in spirit\nand in truth, which is not limited to any time or place.\n\nI have not the slightest intention of taking upon myself the attempt to\nshow that they were right in doing so. The grounds of their action are\nfully set forth and defended with undeniable vigour and ability by\nRobert Barclay, in his famous \u201cApology.\u201d My humbler endeavour will be to\ndescribe the perplexities which prepared my own mind thankfully to\naccept what to myself appears to be a thoroughly satisfactory\ndisentanglement of essential Christianity from whatever can be honestly\nregarded as unintelligible, and unworthy of its lofty and spiritual\ncharacter.\n\nI must own at the outset that I have never been able clearly to\nunderstand the grounds upon which the \u201cordinances\u201d in question are\nregarded as essential parts of Christianity, nor have I ever found it\npossible to arrive at a thoroughly satisfactory explanation of their\nprecise (supposed) effects. I am, of course, not ignorant of the general\nnature of those grounds or supposed results. But a broad space of\nobscurity seems to separate the actual transactions out of which the\n\u201cordinances\u201d arose from the earliest known records of the institutions\nthemselves; and it is notorious that theologians differ very widely in\ntheir views of the spiritual results produced either by ordination or by\na due participation in the sacraments, and also of the conditions\nnecessary to their \u201cvalidity.\u201d\n\nIt is here that the practical pinch of the system is felt. Were the\nmatter one of purely speculative interest, how gladly would I and other\nunlearned people have left it in the hands of those better qualified to\ndeal with it! But it is a question of urgent practical importance,\nwhich, as regards at least one of the sacraments, no devout person can\nescape. Every adult member of the Church of England (every one, that is,\nwho is so in a religious sense) is confronted with a solemn challenge to\ndo, or to leave undone at his peril, an act involving vast and\nmysterious consequences for good or for evil to his spiritual welfare.\nNo middle course is possible, and the Church Prayer-book promises no\nsafety either in its performance or omission. To \u201cpartake unworthily\u201d is\nrepresented as involving vague and awful dangers\u2014dangers possibly,\nthough not clearly, greater than those which would be incurred by\nomitting an act \u201cgenerally necessary to salvation.\u201d But how to be sure\nof partaking worthily? \u201cA true penitent heart and lively faith ... a\nlively and steadfast faith in Christ our Saviour ... and perfect charity\nwith all men,\u201d\u2014if these are the necessary _preparations_ for being \u201cmeet\npartakers of these holy mysteries,\u201d failing in which we do but \u201ceat and\ndrink our own damnation\u201d by venturing to partake of them, is it any\nwonder if the troubled heart is held in a state of continual uneasiness,\nand shrinks almost equally from the act and from its omission?\n\nSuch, at least, was my own painful and long-continued experience. The\ninjunction to \u201cexamine one\u2019s self\u201d as a safeguard against unworthy\nparticipation did but increase the perplexity and distress. For how can\nself-examination fail to increase the sense of unworthiness? and how is\nit possible for any one to imagine himself competent to be judge in his\nown case?\n\nI do not forget that the Prayer-book suggests (not to say prescribes) a\nrefuge from such perplexities in an application to \u201csome discreet and\nlearned minister of God\u2019s Word\u201d for \u201cabsolution, and ghostly counsel and\nadvice.\u201d I quite recognize the consistency of this suggestion, which\nseems to me to confirm the obvious remark already made, that the\nsacerdotal and sacramental system hangs together, and must be adopted or\nrejected as a whole. In my own case, Protestantism was too strong to\nallow of my accepting this legitimate corollary of the Church of England\ndoctrine respecting the Lord\u2019s Supper. To have recourse to confession\nand absolution was an impossibility to me, as I believe it to be even\nyet to the great majority of Englishwomen, and as it is assuredly likely\nalways to be to Englishmen. But I doubt whether any satisfactory\nresting-place short of it is to be found for those who fully adopt the\nAnglican view of sacraments.\n\nI do not mean to represent the perplexities and scruples I have spoken\nof as having constituted the whole of my experience in this matter, or\nto say that I was quite unable to meet them in a manner more or less\nprovisionally satisfactory to myself. It is true that out of\nperplexities and scruples sprang doubts and questionings (with which,\nindeed, the very air I breathed was thick), so that during the twenty\nyears in which I was a regular communicant in the Church of England, I\nwas never able to feel that my own practice was based upon thoroughly\nclear and solid ground of ascertained truth. Yet in spite of, or rather\nalongside of, all scruples and questionings as to the real intention of\nour Lord\u2014if, indeed, He had any intention at all\u2014with regard to any\nspecial commemoration of His death by the use of bread and wine, I did\nearnestly, throughout those years, according to the measure of my\nability, endeavour to solve the problem in practice\u2014to make the act of\noutward \u201ccommunion\u201d a real occasion of renewed self-dedication, and of\ninward and spiritual feeding on the bread of life. Such times were,\nindeed, often occasions of deep spiritual blessing; but I never could\ndiscern that they were so in any other sense than that in which every\nreal act of prayer, of penitence, of self-dedication, and of\nthanksgiving must necessarily be so. The whole blessing appeared to me\nto be of a spiritual kind, and due to spiritual causes. The connection\nbetween the use of bread and wine and these spiritual sources of\nblessing never became clear to me. The more profound the blessedness of\ncommunion with Christ and with His people, the less conceivable did it\nseem that it should depend upon the official performance of an elaborate\nrite.\n\nThe Bible, to which in this Protestant country we are always referred\nfor the solution of the difficulties as to which Catholics consult their\npriests, appeared to me to afford no help whatever in defining the\nconditions necessary to a right participation, nor in directing one\u2019s\nchoice between the various sacramental theories to be met with in our\ndays. All schools of theology equally appeal to it, and it is obvious\nthat a book cannot decide between rival interpretations of itself. It\ndid, however, distinctly help me towards the conclusion that there might\nbe no need to choose between these various theories at all. To my\nunassisted reason it appeared that the effect of comparing any, even the\nmildest, modern eucharistical theory with the accounts to be found in\nthe New Testament of our Lord\u2019s parting supper with his disciples, was\nchiefly to show that a vast and unexplained addition to, or at the least\ndevelopment of, the original idea had taken place since these accounts\nwere written. The whole form of words used in the Communion Service\nseems to me to convey meanings almost immeasurably different from\nanything which I could myself have extracted from the one brief\nexpression, \u201cDo this in remembrance of me.\u201d Left to myself and to\nScripture, the Gospel narratives would never have suggested the idea of\nany intention to institute a ceremony at all, far less to invest its\nobservance with possibilities so awful both for good and for evil, not\nonly in case of omission, but even in case of inadequate observance. To\nmy own mind, the narratives of the Last Supper in Matthew and Mark,\nwhich contain no allusion to any possible repetition of the feast,\nappeared quite as complete, quite as significant, as that of Luke, which\ngives the addition, \u201cDo this in remembrance of me.\u201d The allusions in the\nEpistle to the Corinthians to some disorderly practices in that Church\ncertainly make it clear that they had adopted a practice of meeting to\n\u201cshow the Lord\u2019s death till He come\u201d by eating bread and drinking wine;\nand the apostle\u2019s reference to a Divine communication to himself of the\ncircumstances of the Last Supper certainly seems to show that he\nbelieved them to have sufficient ground for doing so; but, on the other\nhand, the words which he there ascribes to Christ, \u201cDo this, _as oft as\nye drink it_, in remembrance of me,\u201d have always seemed to me to be\ndistinctly incompatible with the idea of a command to eat bread and\ndrink wine _in order_ to commemorate His death, and would rather suggest\na reverent remembrance of Him on all social occasions, and perhaps\nespecially when meeting for the Passover or any other religious feasts.\nI was thus fully ripe for the view so vigorously put forth in Barclay\u2019s\n\u201cApology,\u201d[13] as held by Friends.\n\nI have allowed my thoughts to fall into a somewhat autobiographical\nform, because the appearance of egotism seems to me preferable to the\nreal presumption of going beyond one\u2019s knowledge, and also because I am\nanxious to show how unavoidably (and at the same time, I believe,\ninnocently) one may become entangled in questions too deep and too\nperplexing for ordinary minds, in the mere honest endeavour to obey at\nonce the teachings of Jesus Christ and of the Church.\n\nTo myself it was the greatest relief, at a time when I had thus been\ndriven to choose between obedience to my own conscience on the one hand,\nand outward communion with my fellow-Christians on the other, and when I\nhad for two years, with pain and grief, excommunicated myself\naccordingly\u2014it was at that moment the greatest relief to find a body of\nChristians who held the simple, and, to my mind, the one worthy view of\nChristianity, as a dispensation entirely spiritual in its nature; a\nstate of enlightenment and true worship in which forms and shadows had\npassed away, and the substance alone was to be laboured for. It was in\nthe quiet meetings already described that I myself first learnt the full\nmeaning of the words, \u201cbaptizing into the Name ... and the communion of\nthe body of Christ.\u201d The outward observances by which these \u201choly\nmysteries\u201d are typified in the devotions of other bodies had been to me\nrather a hindrance than a help. I cannot help suspecting that they are\nso to many.\n\nFor if not a help, they must be a hindrance. It may, to people in some\nstages of education, or in some countries, be a natural and real way of\nreceiving or expressing truth, to perform ceremonial acts. I cannot\nthink that it is the spontaneous language of intelligent devotion in our\nown time and country. To my own mind the great crowning lesson imparted\nby our Divine Master, in the solemn farewell hours of His last evening\nwith His disciples, is lowered and eclipsed when considered as the\ninstitution of a ceremony, and shines out again in its fulness of\nmajestic pathos when regarded as an embodied or acted parable. His\nrepeated warnings to His disciples against their inveterate tendency to\ntake His words literally, and to interpret them as referring to the meat\nthat perishes instead of as being spirit and life, sound in one\u2019s ears\nwhen one feels oppressed by what (forgive me the irrepressible truth) to\nsome of us seems the unintelligent practice of continually repeating a\nform used by Christ once for all to show forth the central truth of His\nlife-giving life on earth.\n\nIt is the fear that, in wrapping the \u201cwords of eternal life\u201d in a\ngarment of superstitious usage, they are being inevitably buried out of\nthe reach of those who need them the most, which prompts me to speak\nthus boldly. Whatever lowers our religion to a matter of outward\nobservance, whatever seems to give to unreasoning participation in\noutward acts a place on the same level with that inward continuance in\nthe Word of Christ which makes His disciples free, is surely a human and\na grievous barrier in the homeward path which He came to open to all.\n\nThose who feel as we do about the meaning of our Lord on the occasion of\nHis last supper with His disciples, will naturally incline to take a\nsimilar view of His meaning in the few references made by Him to the\nsubject of baptism. The word is obviously used in the New Testament in\nseveral different senses. If we believe (as is at least suggested by the\nwords of the Apostle Paul) that there is but \u201cone baptism,\u201d we must\nsurely suppose it to be that baptism \u201cwith the Holy Ghost and with fire\u201d\nwhich John foretold as the office of Him for whom he himself, with his\n\u201cbaptism with water,\u201d was preparing the way;\u2014He who was to increase as\nJohn decreased, and who said of Himself, after He had \u201cfulfilled all\nrighteousness\u201d by submitting to John\u2019s baptism, that He had yet \u201ca\nbaptism to be baptized with\u201d\u2014assuredly not an outward one.\n\nWith the observance of rites and ceremonies, the need for a separate\npriesthood passes away. It is, I believe, undisputed that the word\n\u201cpriest\u201d is used in the New Testament only with reference to the high\ncalling of all believers; the calling to offer themselves as living\nsacrifices, holy, acceptable to God.\n\nIt appears to us that this priestly office of all believers is greatly\nobscured, and the sense of religious responsibility weakened, by the\ndelegation to a separate and official class of persons of the function\nof conducting the devotions of the congregation. The exclusive\nemployment of one man as spokesman for the whole congregation must of\nnecessity quench in others any impulse to offer vocal ministrations, at\nany rate during the time of public worship; and in regard to daily life,\nthe idea of a \u201ccure of souls\u201d seems equally inconsistent with the Quaker\nidea of \u201cwatching over one another for good,\u201d as being a duty resting\nmore or less on all the members of a meeting.\n\nThere are, of course, many other Church offices besides the essentially\npriestly one of offering the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving which\nare fulfilled, and often nobly fulfilled, by the clergy of the Church of\nEngland. These other offices, such as teaching, visiting the sick,\nattending to the relief of the poor, etc., are surely in no way\ninseparable, though they are popularly undistinguished, from that claim\nto the priesthood against which Friends have always protested. It may be\nan open question whether all the civilizing, softening, philanthropic,\nand beneficent influences exercised by the clergy could be brought to\nbear with equal effect upon the population, especially of country\ndistricts, if the idea of an essential distinction between them and the\nlaity were suddenly obliterated. The question what would be the\npractical result of such an obliteration, or, in other words, of the\nadoption of Friends\u2019 principle of a free ministry, is at any rate\nscarcely within the visible horizon. It would certainly be impossible to\nany candid person in these days to speak without respect and admiration\nof the clergy generally, and without deep reverence of many amongst\nthem. The days are long past when such phrases as a \u201chireling ministry\u201d\ncould have been indiscriminately used concerning a body of men whose\nlives are in innumerable instances so visibly and nobly disinterested.\nIt is an obvious, though too common mistake, to confound the conditions\nof any service with the motives from which it is undertaken. But it is\nnevertheless a very grave question what effect the fact that ordination\nto the clerical office opens to any young man of ordinary abilities and\nrespectability the gates of an honourable profession, by which he may\nlawfully earn his bread and maintain a family, is likely to have upon\nthe spiritual character of the ministerial office. Surely the Quaker\nprinciple that no spiritual ministrations should ever be subject to\npayment is at least one that must commend itself as ideally the highest.\nIt may, however, very naturally be asked whether in practice it admits\nof a sufficient provision being made for the instruction and edification\nof congregations.\n\nAnd here there is, of course, a deep-seated divergence of feeling and\nthought at the bottom of the difference in practice between Friends and\nother Christian bodies. We Friends believe that it is not necessary that\neach congregation should be placed under the spiritual care of a pastor.\nWe believe that it is the right and the duty of each individual\nChristian to approach the Divine presence in his own way\u2014to sit under\nthe immediate teaching of Christ Himself, and to be ready to take his\nshare, if at any time called upon by the one Head of the Church, in\noffering prayer, praise, thanksgiving, or exhortation, for the help,\ncomfort, and edification of all. Should no vocal services be offered in\nany meeting, we do not therefore feel that it has failed of its effect\nas an occasion of united worship.\n\nSome small meetings are frequently, if not habitually, held entirely in\nsilence; in all our meetings there is some space left for that worship\nwhich is beyond words. The responsibility for the lively and healthy\nstate of each meeting is, or should be, felt to rest upon all its\nmembers, both collectively and individually.\n\nIt is obvious that a ministry so jealously guarded as ours from all\nexternal pressure can be kept in vigorous exercise only as the result of\na deep and widely diffused religious experience. Serious, though by no\nmeans insuperable, difficulties do undoubtedly arise in the practical\napplication of this fundamental principle of our Society. Our\nfaithfulness to it is being severely tested by modern conditions; and\nupon that faithfulness our very life as a Society must, I believe,\ndepend. There is in the comparatively aggressive attitude we have\nassumed of late years, as well as in the great pressure upon time and\nstrength exerted by modern activities of all kinds, a constant\ntemptation to adopt methods less pure, less severely disinterested, than\nthose to which we are pledged by all our traditions. Unless we have\nfaith and patience enough to maintain the freedom of our ministry even\nat the cost of some sacrifice of popularity, I believe that our light\nmust inevitably be extinguished just when it is most urgently\nneeded.[14]\n\nThe admission of the ministry of women seems naturally to flow from the\ndisuse of all but spontaneous spiritual ministrations. For such\nministrations experience shows women to be often eminently qualified.\n\nThe whole of the Quaker view of ministry depends upon the frank\ndisregard of outward and visible signs in favour of the inward and\nspiritual grace. To make both essential, or each essential to the other,\nseems necessarily to land one in impenetrable intricacies, if not in a\nvicious circle. If one of the two alone is essential, there can of\ncourse be no question which it is. Whether inward and spiritual graces,\nin other words, holiness, can flourish without the use of outward\nobservances, must ultimately be a question of experience and\nobservation. \u201cBy their fruits ye shall know them.\u201d It might perhaps be\ndifficult for one born and bred in the Society to appeal explicitly to\nthis test. But having entered it within the last few years, I may\nperhaps without impropriety say that Friends need surely not shrink from\nthe inquiry whether the practical standard of holiness amongst their\nmembers is on a level with that of other Christians. If it be so\u2014if\nlove, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness,\nand temperance be not lacking amongst us\u2014surely we may well ask, Wherein\ndoes our free ministry fail of its due effect?\n\n\u201cIt fails,\u201d some would no doubt reply, \u201cnot in the quality, but in the\nquantity of its results. However excellent the results in the life and\nconversation of Friends individually, they are not a growing body, and\ntherefore not a healthy branch of the Church at large.\u201d I shall deal\nelsewhere with the subject of our long dwindling in former times, and\nour present slow increase in numbers. I will content myself here with\nthe obvious reply that the numerical increase or decrease of a\ndenomination can never afford a satisfactory test of the spiritual\nfruitfulness of its ministry; mere numbers being always affected by many\nother causes, some of which have but little connection with spiritual\nhealth. It even gives but a very doubtful measure of the mere numbers to\nwhom the influence of the preaching in question may extend. It must, no\ndoubt, be admitted that the personal and the numerical tests are apt to\nyield conflicting results; that the purest form of religion is rarely\nthe most popular, though it is likely to have the most lasting, and, in\nthe end, the most widely spread, influence. But if purity and popularity\nare in any sense incompatible, can we hesitate as to the direction\ntowards which we should lean?[15]\n\nI have said that our corner-stone and foundation is our belief that God\ndoes indeed communicate with each one of the spirits He has made in a\ndirect and living inbreathing of some measure of the breath of His own\nlife. That belief is not peculiar to us. What is peculiar to us is our\ntestimony to the freedom and sufficiency of this immediate Divine\ncommunication to each one. The ground of our existence as a separate\nbody is our witness to the independence of the true gospel ministry of\nall forms and ceremonies, and of all humanly imposed limitations and\nconditions. We desire to guard this supreme function of the human spirit\nfrom all disturbing influences as jealously as the mariner guards his\ncompass from anything which might deflect the needle from the pole; and\nfor the same reason\u2014that we believe the direct influence of the Divine\nMind upon our own to be our one unerring Guide in the voyage of life,\nand that the faculty by which we discern it is but too easily drawn\naside by human influences. There is, surely, a very deep significance\nand value in the Protestant instinct of independence in this deepest\nregion. The Quaker tradition of \u201cnon-resistance\u201d has attracted a degree\nof popular attention which is, I think, out of all proportion to that\nbestowed on the profound and stubborn independence of Quakerism\u2014its\nresolute vindication of each man\u2019s individual responsibility to his\nMaker, and to Him alone. The supreme value assigned by Friends to\nconsistency of conduct\u2014to strict veracity and integrity, and other plain\nmoral duties\u2014has, I believe, an intimate connection with their\nabandonment of all reliance upon outward observances, or official\nsupport and absolution. \u201cThe answer of a good conscience\u201d comes into\nprominence when all extraneous means of purification are discarded. And\nwhen outward ordination is seen to be insufficient to enable any one\neffectually to minister to the deep needs of a troubled spirit, then\nthat ministry which is truly the outcome of the fiery \u201cbaptisms\u201d of\nDivinely appointed discipline assumes its true dignity in our eyes as\nthe only real qualification for reaching the witness in other hearts.\n\nI doubt whether any other Protestant sect recognizes the preciousness of\nthe discipline of suffering as it is recognized by Friends. That it is\nonly through deep experience, both of inward exercises and of outward\nsorrows, that any one can become fully qualified to hold forth the Word\nof life to others, is signified by the familiar Quaker expression, \u201ca\ndeeply baptized minister.\u201d So strongly have some Friends felt this\nnecessity that they have come to distrust, if not to condemn, whatever\nappears to them \u201csuperficial\u201d or easily produced in ministry. A holy\nawe, deepening at times, I believe, into even too anxious a restraint,\nhas ever surrounded the exercise of our emphatically \u201cfree\u201d\nministry\u2014free from all human and outward moulding, precisely in order\nthat it may be the more sacredly reserved to the Divine and inward\nmoulding and restraining as well as impelling power.\n\nThe danger of our profoundly \u201cinward\u201d ideal is, of course, in its\nliability to generate scruples, and a degree of morbid\nintrospectiveness, especially in the exercise of this particular gift.\nRecognizing fully the deep truth that many \u201cbaptisms\u201d have to be passed\nthrough by those to whom the priceless gift of ministry is entrusted,\nand that peculiar trials are apt to precede every special replenishing\nof the sacred vessel, Friends have sometimes gone on to hold it almost a\nprofanation to speak in meetings for worship except as the immediate\nresult of some such painful exercises. It is easy to see the danger of\nany such limitation of the manner in which the Divine pleasure may be\nintimated to individuals. It seems both probable and agreeable to\nexperience that a truly spiritual ministry should vary greatly both in\nits form and in its degree of depth, in various minds. There is\nobviously a childlike as well as a profound utterance of prayer and\npraise, and surely of \u201ctestimony\u201d or \u201cprophecy\u201d also. But to recognize\nthis diversity is not in the slightest degree to lower our idea of the\nindispensableness of a Divine warrant for utterance. The scrupulous\njealousy which would limit all ministry to one type is a very different\nthing from that spirit of holy fear which must in this matter, above\nall, be the beginning of wisdom. I think that those who are the most\nready to accept with reverence whatever is offered in simple obedience,\nthe most desirous themselves to learn simply to obey, will also be the\nfirst to feel that no one should venture to break the silence in which\ninward prayer may be arising from other hearts except under the\ninfluence (to use the time-honoured Quaker expression) of \u201ca fresh\nanointing from above.\u201d The nearest approach to a description of what we\nhold to be a right ministry would seem to be\u2014words spoken during, and\narising from, actual communion with God.\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER V.\n                          SPECIAL TESTIMONIES.\n\n\nThere are certain points of Christian practice upon which we have been\naccustomed to lay a degree of stress amounting to peculiarity, although\nour \u201ctestimony\u201d in regard to them does not involve any opposition to the\nbeliefs of other Christian bodies, as does that which we have just been\nconsidering respecting the freedom of the ministry and the disuse of\nordinances. The idea of \u201ctestimony,\u201d or practical witness-bearing to a\nstricter obedience to the teaching of Jesus Christ than is thought\nnecessary by the mass of those who are called by His name, has been\nstrongly impressed upon Friends from the very outset, and the\npersecutions which it brought upon them did but burn it irrevocably into\nthe Quaker mind.\n\nThe preaching of the early Friends was, above all things, a preaching of\nrighteousness. I think I cannot be wrong in saying that a greater value\nhas from the first been attached by Friends to practice, as compared\nwith doctrine, than is the case with most other Christian bodies.\nObedience to the light which convinces of sin was the sum and substance\nof George Fox\u2019s preaching, and through his epistles and other writings\nthere runs a vigorously practical tone which seems to have been\nresponded to with equal vigour by those whom he addressed.\n\nThe early Friends certainly did, as a rule, wonderfully practise what\nthey preached; and their character for integrity was very quickly, and\nhas been permanently, recognized. It seems to myself inevitable that the\nappeal to the witness in each heart should reach deeper, and bring forth\ncorrespondingly better fruit of obedience, when disentangled from all\nreliance on external passports to Divine favour. Not only the idea of\nany possible \u201cefficacy of sacraments\u201d as apart from righteousness of\nlife, but also the idea of \u201csubstitution\u201d as distinguished from actual\nexperience of the transforming power of the righteousness of Christ,\nwere vigorously rejected by the early Friends; and in this insistence\nupon the identity of righteousness with salvation lay, as I believe, the\nmain secret of their strength. At any rate, there has been a remarkably\nsteady endeavour to maintain a high and definite standard of Christian\nmorality, partly by means of the discipline of the Society, partly by\nfamily tradition, discipline, and example. Certain \u201ctestimonies,\u201d _i.e._\npractices conscientiously adopted, inculcated, and watched over, have\nbeen handed down from generation to generation with a jealous care\nwhich, though sometimes overshooting its mark and tending to produce\nreaction, has nevertheless moulded the very inmost springs of action,\nand produced and maintained a distinct and somewhat singular type of\nChristian character.\n\nThe essence of Quaker \u201ctestimony\u201d is a practical witness-bearing\u2014a\nlifting up in practice of the highest possible standard of\nuncompromising obedience to the teaching of Jesus Christ, both as\nrecorded in the Gospels, and as inwardly experienced as the Light\u2014the\nSpirit of Truth. Friends have, as a matter of fact, felt certain things\nto be inconsistent with this teaching which, by the great body of those\nwho profess and call themselves Christians, are not regarded as being\nso. They have attacked these things not so much in words as by enjoining\nand observing a strict abstinence from them at any cost, in a spirit not\nunlike that of the Rechabites of old. The original Quaker idea was\nbefore all things to have \u201cclean hands;\u201d to stand clear of evil in one\u2019s\nown person, but to abstain in silence unless specially called to\nspeak.[16]\n\nIt is, of course, impossible to abstain on conscientious grounds from\nwhat is freely practised by others without giving some offence. Any\nsingularity of this kind will inevitably be understood as casting some\nshade of disapprobation, if not of actual blame, on the common practice.\nI do not see how we can avoid this offence unless we are content to sink\nto the level of least enlightenment. We must, I believe, nerve ourselves\nto endure the giving of it, remembering that the disciple is not above\nhis Master, and that there was a time when our Master Himself had \u201cno\nhonour in His own country.\u201d If they have heard His word, they will hear\nours also. Meanwhile we may take heart from the knowledge that conduct\ndestined to have permanent influence must often displease for a time.\n\nThe early Friends, or \u201cchildren of light,\u201d as they sometimes called\nthemselves, seem to have been drawn together in a kind of spontaneous\nunanimity on the main points in which their view of Christian duty\ntranscended that of those about them. The Yearly Meeting, which was not\nconstituted till 1672 (or twenty-four years from the date of George\nFox\u2019s beginning to preach), finding the \u201ctestimonies\u201d against war,\noaths, and superfluities already in full practice, expressly recognized\nthem as belonging to \u201cour Christian profession,\u201d and directed inquiry as\nto the faithfulness of Friends in maintaining them to be made in certain\nqueries addressed from time to time to all the subordinate meetings.\n\nThe practice of addressing such queries to the subordinate meetings is\nmaintained to this day, although the queries themselves have from time\nto time been altered, and of late years the greater number of them are\ndirected to be seriously considered, but not answered. This change in\nour practice has probably not been without a balance of advantage and\ndisadvantage. The system of requiring answers to the queries was, in\ntruth, a very powerful engine of discipline, for they were considered\nand answered with scrupulous care and precision, and, in case of an\nunfavourable report, individuals who were regarded as failing to\nmaintain the testimonies of the Society were liable to be \u201cput under\ndealing,\u201d and, in case of obstinacy, to eventual disownment. This\nultimate penalty of disobedience was in former times inflicted for much\nslighter causes than would at the present day render any one liable to\nit.[17]\n\nIt seems to me that there is a serious danger inherent in the very\nnature of collective testimonies, especially those which imply the\nlifting up of a standard of exceptional severity and purity, lest that\nwhich is in some, perhaps even in the majority, sincere and spontaneous\nshould be adopted at second hand, and without personal warrant, by\nothers, and should thus become a mere hollow profession. For this reason\nI am thankful that a much greater degree of freedom is now allowed to\nour members in all matters as to which there is room for a conscientious\ndifference of opinion. Our strength seems to me to depend largely upon\nour consistency in appealing to the gospel rather than to the law\u2014in\ntrusting to the purifying power of an indwelling, informing Spirit,\nrather than to any external framework of regulations. To do anything\nwhich can stimulate the profession of more or higher enlightenment than\nis actually possessed, is indeed a signal and a grievous departure from\nour own avowed principles; and I believe that no surer method could be\ndevised for bringing our Society into disrepute and decay than the\nattempt to require a pre-arranged uniformity with regard to those\nspecial testimonies which imply special enlightenment.\n\nThe loftier and more delicate the ideal, the greater the risk of\nformulating and attempting to impose it. It seems to me that our wisdom\nis to insist more and more boldly upon obedience to the broad plain laws\nof duty which all Christians recognize as laid down for us by those\nrecorded words of our Master Himself, which are our one supreme\nstandard; and at the same time to leave more and more scope for the\nworking out in detail of all the lovely and harmonious yet varying\nresults of individual faithfulness to the promptings of His Spirit in\neach heart. Any distinct breach of the moral law, any falling below that\nstandard of \u201cpeaceable innocent life\u201d which is acknowledged by all as\nthe test of the reality of light within, may and should surely be made a\nmatter of Church discipline\u2014a matter, that is, in which brethren should\nwatch over one another for good, and obedience to which must be a\ncondition of sound fellowship. But when discipline descends to the\nregulation of details whose whole significance and value depend upon\ntheir being prompted by conscience, under the living and ever-present\nguidance of the light, then surely the human is intruding upon the\nprovince of the Divine, and we are checking and hampering and weakening\nthat very moulding from within which it is our chief object as a Society\nto watch for and to yield to in all things.\n\nBut while all attempts at collective self-discipline must involve a\ndanger of hollowness, which means weakness, if not actual insincerity,\nit is to be remembered, on the other hand, that there is in association\nnot only a well-known source of strength, but a very valuable shelter; a\nprotection to right instincts of modesty. In maintaining any\nexceptionally high standard of action, especially in matters of detail,\nthere is a real safety as well as comfort in united action. While we are\ntreading in the steps of our honoured predecessors, however freely we\nmay have chosen our path, we are not tempted to claim that we discovered\nit; nor need we anxiously vindicate it as though it were but the\nprompting of some individual scruple or preference. In the practical\nresults of the collective exercises of a considerable body of\nfellow-disciples, we do, I believe, in fact find, as we might reasonably\nexpect to find, a peculiar purity and propriety. It is not difficult to\njustify the wisdom by which our special testimonies have been worked\nout, though it is easy also to see the mischief of too rigid an\nenforcement of them.\n\nOur Society, like the United Kingdom, enjoys the elasticity resulting\nfrom the absence of any written constitution, and the precise working of\nits discipline is by no means easily traced. Its \u201ctestimonies,\u201d though\nclearly recognized and notorious, are not formulated or defended in any\nauthoritative document. The \u201cBook of Discipline\u201d consists, as I have\nsaid, of extracts from \u201cEpistles\u201d and \u201cAdvices\u201d circulated from time to\ntime by the Yearly Meeting. These are in the nature of brotherly\nexhortations, which assume our principles as undisputed; and though\ncarefully worded, they do not deal in definitions or arguments. Our\ntestimonies are, in fact, to a degree which is, I think, hardly\nunderstood outside the Society, the result of individual and spontaneous\nobedience to the bidding of individual conscience, and to the guiding of\nthe Divine light shining in each heart, rather than of conformity to\nrules enforced or even precisely laid down by any human authority. They\nare collective, but unformulated; subjects for discipline, yet not\nprescribed or regulated; familiar and even notorious peculiarities, yet\nvarying indefinitely in the degree in which they are maintained by\nindividuals.\n\nThe traditional reverence for individual conscience is still so strong\nthat the precise nature of the obstacle felt by Friends to any\nparticular course of conduct is apt to be shrouded in some degree of\nmystery. The phraseology of the Society, which is almost a separate\nlanguage, vividly conveys this sense of an insuperable but (to\noutsiders) mysterious restraint. \u201cTruth requires\u201d that certain things\nshould be done or left undone. A Friend \u201cfeels a stop in his mind,\u201d or\n\u201cis not easy to proceed with\u201d some undertaking. Such and such a thing\n\u201cappears\u201d (to John Woolman, for instance) \u201cto be distinguishable from\npure wisdom.\u201d\n\nThere are, as is well known, individual Friends who have abundantly\nargued, on general grounds, the moral questions involved in our\n\u201ctestimonies.\u201d Friends have never been wanting in pugnacity, whatever\ntheir scruples as to the use of \u201ccarnal weapons\u201d or of violent language.\nBut yet their practice has in the main been felt out rather than thought\nout; their testimonies are instances of problems solved by going forward\nrather than of theories built up through any speculative process; and in\nregard to each one of them every true Friend feels that to his own\nMaster he stands or falls, and that there is but one Example to which he\nought to look, and one Guide whom he desires to obey. As in regard of\nour public ministry, so in the lesser matters of everyday life and\npractice, we jealously guard our individual liberty from human\ninterference in order that it may be the more unreservedly subjected to\nall Divine influences.\n\nAnd not only do we guard our own liberty\u2014we refrain from attempting to\nlimit that of others. If our conscientious abstinence from certain\npractices is inevitably understood as in some sense casting a shadow of\nreproach or blame upon those practices, we yet are careful to abstain\nfrom condemning those who are acting in obedience to their own measure\nof light. I believe we must with boldness and humility acknowledge that\nsuch practical witness-bearing as we believe ourselves called to implies\nthat we are as \u201ca city set on a hill.\u201d We do not attempt to lay down\nrules applicable at once and equally to all. The homeward road cannot be\naltogether the same for dwellers on the hill and dwellers on the plain;\nthe goal alone is one.[18]\n\nThe most important and the best known of the special testimonies of\nwhich I have now to speak is that which has been steadily borne by our\nmembers against all war. Friends have ever maintained and acted upon the\nbelief that war and strife of all kinds are opposed to the spirit and\nthe teaching of Christ, and have felt themselves, as His disciples,\nprecluded from engaging in them. They have steadfastly refused to take\nup arms at the bidding of any human authority, or in the presence of any\ndanger. This course of conduct has, of course, brought them into\nfrequent collision with the civil power, and needs for its\njustification, as Friends are the first to acknowledge, the warrant of a\nhigher than any national authority.\n\nIt is, indeed, an awful position which we have thus been bold to take\nup\u2014the position of those who feel themselves called upon to act as the\nsalt of the earth, as leaders who refuse to be led. I do not hesitate to\nconfess that this attitude of possible resistance to the demands of our\ncountry in the presence of a common danger was the one part of the\nQuaker ideal which I for a time seriously hesitated to accept. So long\nas I understood it to be accompanied by or based upon any condemnation\nof those who conscientiously believe that their duty to God requires\nthem to yield unqualified obedience to the demands of their country for\nmilitary service, I was unable to accept it. But when I came to\nunderstand that the Quaker testimony against all war did not take the\nform of any ethical theory of universal application, but was simply the\nacting out in one\u2019s own person and at one\u2019s own risk of obedience to\nthat which one\u2019s own heart had been taught to recognize as Divine\nauthority, even where its commands transcended and came into collision\nwith those of the nation, I felt at once that the position was not only\nperfectly tenable, but was the only one worthy of faithful disciples.\n\nSo long as our country is but very imperfectly Christianized, it is\nimpossible not to recognize that an insuperable contradiction may at any\ntime arise between the demands upon our loyalty and obedience which may\nbe made in its name, and those of the spirit of Christ. It would\nassuredly not be acting in His spirit to make light of disobedience to\nlaw; but neither can any Christian hesitate for a moment when called\nupon to choose which Master he shall obey. It seems to me that if any\nman be prepared in the true spirit of a martyr to rise above his\ncountry\u2019s sense of right, and to serve his country in the highest sense\nby disobeying and withstanding such of its requirements as in his heart\nhe believes to be wrong and ungodly, it is impossible to withhold from\nsuch a man the respect and the admiration which we all feel for the\nmartyrs of old. I do not see how the national standard of duty can be\nraised\u2014how, in other words, the nation can ever be thoroughly\nChristianized\u2014except through individual faithfulness, at all costs and\nat all risks, to a higher view of duty than that held by the nation at\nlarge.\n\nHere, of course, we are confronted with the question, _Is_ our view of\nduty truly a higher one than that of the nation at large? Does the\nteaching of Jesus Christ really call us to abstain from all warfare?\n\nIt seems to me that not only Friends\u2019 testimony, but the teaching of our\nMaster Himself on this subject have been much, and in a sense\ninevitably, misunderstood. The subject is profoundly complex, and much\nof what is said and written about it sounds altogether unsubstantial and\nunpractical, because neither the depth and intricacy of the evil, nor\nthe far-reaching and full significance of the principles opposed to it,\nare sufficiently felt. \u201cI say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but\nwhosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other\nalso.\u201d Surely this does not point to an abject submission or a tame\nindifference, but to an _undaunted_ persistence in blessing\u2014a fearless\novercoming of evil with good. It is an appeal to an unchanging and\nfundamental principle, rather than a mere rule of conduct. The whole\npassage breathes a spirit of ardent confidence in the supremacy of\ngoodness; in the power of the Perfect One who makes His sun to shine\nupon the just and the unjust, and sends rain upon the unthankful and the\nevil; it is a call to us to be perfect, even as our Father is perfect;\nnot a suggestion that we should abandon or relax our conflict with evil,\nbut an assurance that we are not at its mercy\u2014that He who is with us is\nstronger than all they who can be against us, and that in His strength\nwe can and must meet evil with good and overcome it.\n\nThose who would follow Him who thus spoke, must rise above all personal\nconsiderations, and above every temptation to retaliate\u2014not fall below\nthem. This, surely, was the spirit in which William Penn won his\nvictories in the early days of Pennsylvania\u2014the bloodless victories\nwhich make his name to this day a word of love and honour amongst the\nIndians, with whom his treaty of peace was never broken. It was not by\nlying down like sheep to be slaughtered by them, but by going forward to\nmeet them with open hands and a trusting heart, and by honourably and\ngenerously recognizing their rights and paying them a fair price for\ntheir lands, that he and his followers turned suspicion and hatred into\nfirm friendship.\n\nWe are called to rise above the level of fighting pagans, not to fall\nbelow it. There is, indeed, a lower depth than that of the military\nspirit\u2014the depth of complacent mammon-worship. To our shame be it\nconfessed that this spirit may clothe itself under the profession of\n\u201cnon-resistance.\u201d When the salt so loses its savour, it is truly fit for\nnothing but to be cast out and trodden underfoot. But we are concerned\nhere not with the deplorable caricature of that \u201ctestimony against all\nwar\u201d which has for two hundred years been at once the boast and the\nreproach of Quakerism, but with its essence and true significance. These\nlie in the fact that Friends have, one by one, individually and\nunitedly, been led by obedience to the spirit of Christ to abstain from\nfighting and from all concern, so far as it has been possible to clear\nthemselves from it, in strife of any kind. This is surely clear and\nsolid ground to take, and quite distinct from any attempt or necessity\nfor laying down general and comprehensive formul\u00e6 of conduct applicable\nto all cases, to all persons and all bodies. To formulate such general\nrules is, in truth, foreign to the spirit of Quakerism. To yield one\u2019s\nself unreservedly to Divine guidance; resolutely, and at whatever cost,\nto refuse to participate in that which one\u2019s own conscience has been\ntaught to condemn;\u2014this is the ancient and inestimable Quaker ideal. It\nis surely the best, the most effectual, the most Christian way of\nwitnessing against evil, and of arousing the consciences of others.\n\nThere is not, I believe, any possibility of dispute, I will not say\namongst Christians, but amongst rational beings, as to the enormity of\nthe evil of strife and discord, whether between nations or between\nindividuals. The question upon which we Friends differ from other\nChristians is not the question whether peace be desirable\u2014whether it be\nnot, in fact, the goal of all political effort\u2014but what are the means by\nwhich it is to be attained or maintained. Other Christians do not deny\nthat quarrelling is contrary to the spirit of Christ, and we do not deny\nthat a holy warfare is to be continually maintained against evil in\nevery form. But we regard the opposing of violence by violence as a\nsuicidal and hopeless method of proceeding; we feel, as Christians, that\nthe weapons of our warfare are not carnal. We cannot, by taking military\nservice, place ourselves at the absolute disposal of a power which may\nat any time employ its soldiers for purposes so questionable and often\nso unhallowed.\n\nTo abstain, on these grounds, from all participation in warfare is\nsurely a quite different thing from laying down any general theory as to\nthe \u201cunlawfulness\u201d of war. I own that it does not appear to me to be\nright or wise to blame those who are acting in obedience to their own\nviews of duty, however much they may differ from our own. I do not think\nit can serve any good purpose to ignore the force of the considerations\nby which war appears to many people to be justified. I would even go\nfurther, and admit that, under all the complicated circumstances of the\nworld (including historical facts and treaty obligations), there are\ncases in which men may be actually bound to fight in what they believe\nto be a just cause; although it does not, I believe, follow that every\nindividual would be justified in taking part in such warfare. Would any\none say that at the time of the Indian Mutiny the Governor-General of\nIndia ought not to have permitted the use of arms for the protection of\nthe women and children? I doubt whether any Friend would be found to\nmaintain this. But it is equally to be remembered that no true Friend\ncould well have occupied the position of the Governor-General. No nation\nwhich had from the beginning of its history been thoroughly Christian\ncould, I suppose, have found itself in the position which we occupied in\nIndia in 1857. Were all the world, in the true and full sense of the\nword, Christian, such events obviously would not occur. Had we been from\nthe first a thoroughly Christian nation, our whole history must have\nbeen different, and would (as we Friends believe) have been infinitely\nnobler.\n\nWe do not profess to lay down any general rule, by obedience to which\nwar can be instantly dispensed with by nations in their unregenerate\nstate, and without a sacrifice. A fully Christian nation has never yet\nbeen seen on earth. It may well be that such a nation, could it now come\nsuddenly into existence, would meet with national martyrdom. Meanwhile\nit is the imperfection of our Christianity and the mixed and complex\nnature of national affairs which make it so difficult to apply to\nnational action any pure principles of conduct. This is not to deny the\nexistence of such principles. To recognize the difficulty, nay, the\nimpossibility, of suddenly or sweepingly applying them to practice, is\nnot to deny their leavening power. When we Friends speak of what is\n\u201cright,\u201d we refer not to any external and rigid rule of conduct, but to\nthat which in each individual case is truly the best and the highest\ncourse open to the individual. To say this is not to say that right is\nin itself variable. It is only to say what will, I think, be denied by\nfew, that the human ideal of right is progressive, not stationary.\n\nWe do, however, further say, what undoubtedly _is_ denied by many, that\nthe ideal revealed to us in the life and the words of Jesus Christ our\nLord, and gradually being worked out in His own people through His\never-present inward influence, is the highest and the purest\nconceivable; and that, therefore, all real progress must be an approach\ntowards Him. It is this Christian ideal which, as it gains possession of\nthe human mind, must extinguish the spirit which leads to strife and\nwarfare.\n\nIt is commonly supposed that Friends have some special scruple about the\nuse of physical force in any case. This is, I believe, by no means true\nof the Society at large, although the popular notion may very likely be\nfounded upon fact as regards individuals. As a body, Friends have always\nrecognized \u201cthe just authority of the civil magistracy,\u201d and have, I\nbelieve, never disputed the lawfulness of the use of \u201cthe sword\u201d\n(whatever may be meant by that expression) in maintaining that\nauthority.[19] George Fox himself repeatedly reminded magistrates that\nthey should not \u201cbear the sword in vain,\u201d but that they should use it\nfor the punishment of evil-doers, not of those who did well.\n\nIt is not, as I understand it, the use of physical force, or even the\nsuffering caused by the use of it, which really makes war hateful in\nChristian eyes; but the evil passions, the \u201clusts\u201d from which it\nsprings, and to which, alas! it so hideously ministers. The\ndispassionate infliction of punishment by an impartial and a lawful\nauthority surely stands upon a quite different footing from that \u201cbiting\nand devouring one another\u201d which, whether between nations or between\nindividuals, it is the very aim and object of law to suppress. Suffering\ninflicted for the purpose of maintaining peace cannot, I think, be\ncondemned by the advocates of peace unless it be on the ground of\nfailure.\n\nI own that I personally cannot but recognize that upon this view certain\nwars appear to be not only inevitable but justifiable, as partaking of\nthe nature of national police operations. I cannot, therefore, regard\nall war as wholly and unmitigatedly blamable, although I can hardly\nimagine any war which does not both come from evil and lead to evil.\n\nAgain, there are treaty obligations requiring us in certain cases to\ntake up arms for the protection of weaker nations, from which we could\nnot suddenly recede without a breach of national good faith. It surely\ndoes not become us, in our zeal for peace, to make light of, or\noverlook, such considerations as this. They should, I think, in the\nfirst place lead us to abstain from sweeping generalizations, and from\nblaming those who are ready to lay down their lives in obedience to\ntheir country\u2019s call and in our defence, or the defence of the oppressed\nin other countries; while yet we resolutely maintain our own obedience\nto that higher authority by which we have, as we believe, been taught a\nbetter way\u2014a way incompatible with outward strife\u2014of giving our lives\nfor the common weal. We should be very careful how we call that a wicked\naction which a good man may honestly do in obedience to his own sense of\nduty; we should be still more careful lest, while professing to take\nhigher ground, we do in fact fall far short of such men in our lives;\nbut we must, for all that, be faithful to the light we have.\n\nAnd, in the second place, it seems to me that the true inference from\nthe consideration of the complicated conditions of international affairs\nis that the time is not yet ripe for the assumption of all offices of\npublic authority by thorough-going Christians. Our place surely still is\nmainly to leaven, not to govern, the world.\n\nThe world must become the kingdom of the Lord and of His Christ before\nwars and fightings will cease from amongst men. And the world is very\nfar as yet from acknowledging that dominion in anything but words. Yet\nwe do \u201cprofess and call ourselves Christians\u201d; we do live in the full\nlight of the everlasting gospel; and however it may be rejected or\ndiscarded, however far even those who profess it may be from entering\ninto its spirit, it has yet, in spite of ourselves, raised us out of the\npossibility of consistent paganism. We cannot return to the old\ncondition of things, in which nations thought it no shame to strive each\nfor its own petty objects, and to be reckless of each other\u2019s interests.\nThere is no satisfactory resting-place for us now on any lower level\nthan that which Christ has brought to light. Under the name of\n\u201caltruism,\u201d this is recognized even by those who think of Christianity\nas a worn-out superstition. We who believe it to be the power of God\nunto salvation are surely bound to yield ourselves heart and soul to its\nemancipating influence\u2014to its indestructible, irresistible appeal to us\nto \u201clive as brethren.\u201d As in the beginning it was felt by some at least\nto be as clear as daylight that \u201cChristians cannot fight,\u201d so now, not\nonly amongst Friends, but in many another Christian body, the same\nspirit is working, and consciences are awakening to the utter\nincompatibility of strife and retaliation and reckless\nself-aggrandizement with the spirit of brotherhood which lies at the\nvery foundation of Christianity. They had need to awake; now, at the\neleventh hour, with all Europe making itself ready for war, it may yet\nbe that the few in whom the fire of Christian zeal is burning in its\npurity may see their cause and the cause of their Master begin to\nprevail against overwhelming odds. But whether the nations will hear or\nwhether they will forbear, wherever two or three Christians meet\ntogether, there still will be a protest against strife and selfishness.\n\nA protest against strife and selfishness; not only against strife, but\nagainst \u201cthe greedy spirit which leads to strife.\u201d If we are willing to\ngo down to the root in this matter, if we truly desire to do what in us\nlies towards ridding the earth not only of wars and fightings, but of\nall forms of oppression and cruelty, must we not recognize that the very\nfirst step is to be ourselves freed from covetousness?\n\nFor who can doubt that it is mainly about outward and material things\nthat nations or individuals are led into quarrels? Who will venture to\nsay that, if none of us desired either to get or to keep more than our\nshare of this world\u2019s goods, there would be anything like the amount of\nfighting, or of preparation for it, which now devastates the earth? We\nmay be skeptical about the possibility of any general acceptance of\narbitration or disarmament. To be skeptical about the possibility of\npersonal disinterestedness would imply a very different sort of\nblindness. It seems to me that in struggling to rise and to raise others\nmore and more clearly above the greedy spirit which leads to war, is the\nbest hope for many of us of contributing in any real sense to the cause\nof peace on earth.\n\nIt was long ago recognized by Friends that (to use the words of John\nWoolman) \u201cin every degree of luxury are the seeds of war and\noppression.\u201d The connection between luxury and cruelty is, indeed,\nalmost a truism, but it is one of those truisms of which it is\nunfortunately easy to lose sight; and I fear that even amongst Friends\nthe familiar testimonies against all war and against superfluities are\napt to be held without any vivid sense of their vital connection.\n\nNo one, surely, will deny that the selfish desire of mere pleasure, when\nallowed to rule, will feed itself at the expense of suffering and\nprivation to others; that it does cause that scramble for gain in which\nthe weak are trampled upon, and every furious passion is stimulated.[20]\nThe difficulty in regard to bearing a practical testimony against\nsuperfluities is not that which some of us feel in the case of war\u2014that\nwe do not know where to take hold, that our personal and daily conduct\nseems to have no immediate bearing upon questions of international\npolicy, and that the whole problem eludes our grasp by its very\nvastness. It is, rather, that we do not _like_ to put our shoulder to\nthe wheel of simplifying life for ourselves and others; that we do not\nsee the beauty of severity; that we love softness, or yield to it for\nwant of any purifying fire of hope.\n\nBut yet, in one form or another, often extravagantly, foolishly, even\ninjuriously, an ineradicable instinct has prompted Christians in all\ntimes to free themselves from luxurious and self-indulgent ways of\nliving; to walk as disciples of Him who \u201chad not where to lay His head;\u201d\nto lay aside, not only every sin, but every weight, that so they may run\nthe race set before them, not as beating the air, but as those who\nstrive for the victory.\n\nIt is, indeed, not easy to define the precise kind or amount of luxury\nwhich is incompatible with Christian simplicity; or rather it must of\nnecessity vary. But the principle is, I think, clear. In life, as in\nart, whatever does not help, hinders. All that is superfluous to the\nmain object of life must be cleared away, if that object is to be fully\nattained. In all kinds of effort, whether moral, intellectual, or\nphysical, the essential condition of vigour is a severe pruning away of\nredundance. Is it likely that the highest life, the life of the\nChristian body, can be carried on upon easier terms?\n\nThe higher our ideal of life, the greater, indeed, must be the\nsacrifices which it will require from us. As we rise from the lower to\nthe higher objects of life, many things of necessity become superfluous\nto us\u2014in other words, we become independent of them, or outgrow them.\nThis is a widely different idea from that of ascetic self-discipline or\nself-mortification; and it is surely a sounder and a worthier idea.\n\nThe Quaker ideal, as I understand it, requires a continual weighing of\none thing against another\u2014a continual preference of the lasting and deep\nover the transient and superficial. \u201cWeightiness\u201d is one of the Friends\u2019\ncharacteristic and emphatic forms of commendation. To sacrifice any deep\nand substantial advantage to outward show is abhorrent to the Quaker\ninstinct. To \u201cstretch beyond one\u2019s compass\u201d grasping at shadows, and\nencumbering oneself with more than is needed for simple, wholesome\nliving, is at variance with all our best traditions.\n\nIf we bear in mind the essentially relative meaning of the word\n\u201csuperfluous,\u201d it is obvious that such a testimony against\n\u201csuperfluities\u201d does not require any rigid or niggardly rule as to\noutward things. To my own mind, indeed, this view of the matter seems to\nrequire at least as clearly the liberal use of whatever is truly helpful\nto \u201cour best life\u201d as the abandonment of obstructing superfluities. No\ndoubt a testimony against superfluities is very liable to degenerate\ninto formality, and to be so misapplied as to cut off much that is in\nreality wholesome, innocent, and beautiful. Art has to a great extent\nbeen banished from many Quaker homes; and a considerable amount of\ninjury has no doubt been done by such rigid severity, and perhaps still\nmore by the very natural consequent reaction. But it would, I believe,\nbe quite a mistake to suppose that the extreme plainness in dress and\nother surroundings adopted by the stricter Friends, and formerly made a\nmatter of discipline by the Society, was originally adopted with any\nintention of self-mortification or asceticism.[21]\n\nI believe that asceticism is in a very deep sense contrary to the real\nQuaker spirit, which desires in all things to abstain from any\ninterference \u201cin the will of man\u201d with Divine discipline and guidance,\nand which would, I believe, regard the idea of self-chosen exercises in\nmortification of the flesh with the same aversion as it entertains for\npre-arranged forms of worship. Friends, no doubt, have often believed\nthemselves required to submit to the adoption of the plain dress \u201cin the\ncross\u201d to natural inclination, and have felt it a valuable exercise to\ndo so; but the plainness was not devised for that purpose, but chosen\n(or rather, as Friends would say, they were led into it by Truth)\nbecause of its inherent suitableness and rightness. It is an outcome of\nthe instinctively felt necessity of subordinating everything to\nprinciple. Its chief significance is that of a protest against bondage\nto passing fashions, and for this reason it is a settled costume. It is\nalso felt that our very dress should show forth that inward quietness of\nspirit which does not naturally tend towards outward adornment, and the\nFriends\u2019 recognized dress is therefore one of extreme sobriety in colour\nand simplicity in form.\n\nIt is a significant fact that there is really no such thing as a\nprecisely defined Quaker costume. The dress is certainly precise enough\nin itself, and to the naked eye of the outside observer it may appear to\npresent an undeviating uniformity; but it is really not a uniform in the\nsense in which a nun\u2019s or a soldier\u2019s dress is a uniform. It is in all\nrespects a growth, a tradition, a language; and it is subject to\nconstant though slow modification. Any perfectly unadorned dress of\nquiet colour, without ornament or trimming, if habitually worn, is in\nfact, to all intents and purposes, the Quaker costume, though one or two\ndetails have by a sort of accident acquired a traditional meaning as a\nbadge, which one may adopt or not according to one\u2019s feeling about\nbadges. Some Friends nowadays object on principle to anything of the\nkind. Others still see a \u201chedge\u201d or shelter in them. Others, again, feel\nthat they serve a useful and innocent purpose in enabling Friends\nreadily to recognize one another, and that it is not amiss for them to\nbe easily recognized even by outsiders. But the one important matter of\nprinciple which the Society as a body have recognized, is that it is a\nwaste of time and money for which Christian women can hardly fail to\nfind better employment, to condescend to be perpetually changing the\nfashion of one\u2019s garments in obedience to the caprice or the\nrestlessness of the multitude. \u201cPlain Friends\u201d are those who are\nresolved to dress according to the settled principles which commend\nthemselves to their own mind, not enslaving themselves to passing\nfashion.\n\nIt is easy to say that they do but exchange one bondage for another.\nThat may, indeed, have been the case at times, and may even still be so\nin some families or meetings. But the crystallizing into rigid\nformality, though a possible tendency, is no real part of the true\nQuaker ideal. My own strong feeling is that the adoption of a settled\ncostume, at any rate in mature life and from conviction, is not only the\nright and most dignified course on moral grounds, but also that it has\nin actual experience afforded one more proof of the truth that the lower\naims of life can thrive only in proportion as they are kept in\nsubordination to the higher. The freedom from the necessity of perpetual\nchanges, which commends itself to Friends as suitable to the dignity of\n\u201cwomen professing godliness,\u201d has also the lower advantage of admitting\na gradual bringing to perfection of the settled costume itself. We all\nknow how exquisite, within its severely limited range, can be the\nresult. The spotless delicacy, the precision and perfection of plain\nfine needlework, the repose of the soft tints, combine, in the dress of\nsome still lingering representatives of the old school of Quakerism, to\nproduce a result whose quiet beauty appeals to both the mind and the eye\nwith a peculiar charm. I cannot think that such mute eloquence is to be\ndespised; or that it is unworthy of Christian women to be careful that\ntheir very dress shall speak a language of quietness, gentleness, and\npurity\u2014that it shall be impressive even with a touch of eternity.\n\nThis principle of Christian simplicity should, in our view, run through\neverything\u2014dress, furniture, habits of life, and forms of speech; all\nshould be severely purged from redundance, and from mere imitation and\nconventionality. The \u201cplain language,\u201d best known as leading to the use\nof _thee_ and _thou_ for _you_ in speaking to one person, and of first,\nsecond, etc., for the days of the week and the months, instead of the\nordinary names \u201cderived from heathen deities,\u201d was an instance of this\nendeavour to winnow away every superfluity and every taint of flattery\nand superstition from our speech. These special peculiarities of speech\nare, as is well known, completely dropped by many of the present\ngeneration of Friends. The changes which have taken place in two hundred\nyears in our language and habits have deprived these expressions of much\nof their original significance, and the tendency of the present time is\nno doubt towards the effacing of all peculiarities. But some special\nattention is still paid amongst us to simplicity and guardedness of\nlanguage in a wider sense, and surely this is an object well worthy of\nattention on the highest as well as the lowest grounds.\n\nThe idea of a scrupulous guard over the lips, which is so strongly\ncharacteristic of all Friends at all worthy of the name, culminates in\ntheir united testimony against oaths. This has, indeed, been always\nregarded by Friends as a matter of simple obedience to a plain command\nof Jesus Christ; and I think that nothing but long habit could reconcile\nany sincere disciple to the ordinary interpretation of His words as\nintended to forbid \u201cprofane swearing\u201d only.[22] Many others besides\nFriends have felt this scruple; but to our Society belongs the\nindisputable credit of having, through a long and severe course of\nsuffering for their \u201ctestimony,\u201d obtained a distinct recognition of the\nsufficiency in their case of a plain affirmation, thereby vindicating a\nprinciple which is beginning to be generally recognized\u2014the principle of\nhaving but one rule for all cases, that of plain truth; of being as much\nbound by one\u2019s word as one\u2019s bond. I think it can hardly be questioned\nthat, through this simple and unflinching course of obedience to the\nplain injunction of Jesus Christ, Friends have done much to raise the\nstandard of veracity in our country.[23]\n\nThe refusal to pay tithes is a part of the testimony against a paid\nministry, of which I have sufficiently spoken in the last chapter; and I\nneed here only say that in all these cases of resistance to the demands\nof authority, for military service, for oaths, or for tithes, the idea\nhas been that of witnessing at one\u2019s own cost against unjust or\nunrighteous demands. It is, I think, fair to claim that it is at one\u2019s\nown cost that one refuses a demand even for money when it is made by\nthose who have the power to take the money or its equivalent by force,\nand when no resistance is ever offered to their doing so. Friends have\nagain and again submitted patiently to the levying of much larger sums\nthan those originally claimed, as well as to severe and sometimes\nlifelong imprisonments, and other penalties, rather than by any act of\ntheir own give consent to exactions which they believed to be\nunrighteous in their origin or purpose. While such unmistakable proofs\nof disinterestedness were given, the motive for withholding money could\nhardly be misunderstood. With regard to tithes, however, the\ncircumstances have, since the Tithes Commutation Act, become so\ncomplicated, that few Friends now feel a refusal to pay them a suitable\nmethod of testifying against a paid ministry, and the Yearly Meeting has\nplaced on record this sense of the alteration of the state of the case\nin a minute dated 1875:[24] \u201cThis meeting believes that the time has\narrived when the mode of bearing this testimony must be left to the\nindividual consciences of Friends.\u201d\n\nAmongst lesser matters as to which Friends have made a stand upon\nprinciple against prevailing customs, may be mentioned \u201cthe\nsuperstitious observance of days,\u201d especially that of fasts or\nthanksgivings prescribed by the civil government (a power which we do\nnot regard as competent to prescribe religious exercises), and the\npractice of wearing mourning, and placing \u201cinscriptions of a eulogistic\ncharacter\u201d on tombstones. In Friends\u2019 burial-grounds nothing beyond the\nname, and the dates of birth and death, is permitted. The objections to\nwearing mourning are obvious, both on the ground of unnecessary expense\nand trouble at a time when the mind should surely be left as much as\npossible undisturbed, and also on that of its being an expression (and\nan expression so formal as to be of doubtful sincerity) of grief and\ngloom in regard to providential dispensations which, however painful, we\nshould desire to accept with cheerful submission. There is obviously\nmuch to be said for this application of the principle of simplifying our\ncustoms, and adjusting our dress and other surroundings to the permanent\nrather than the transient circumstances of our lives.\n\nTo simplify life to the very uttermost\u2014is not this truly in itself a\nworthy aim; nay, the one inexorable condition of excellence?\n\nWe have just now been engaged with comparatively trivial matters\u2014straws\nwhich show as no more solid thing can do which way the wind blows. These\nthings are important, not in themselves, but in relation to the\nprinciples in honest obedience to which they have been worked out.\nSimplicity\u2014\u201cthe simplicity which is in Christ\u201d\u2014the simplicity, not of\nexclusion, but of Divine all-subduing supremacy\u2014this is the keynote of\nour ideal; and it is a keynote to which the human heart must always in\nsome degree respond. At the bottom of all art, of all beauty, and\nsurely, we may say, of all goodness, lies the principle of\nsubordination\u2014the necessity of a perpetual choice between the permanent\nand the transient, the essential and the superficial. Quakerism is an\nhonest endeavour to carry out this principle in the Christian life; to\nweigh \u201cin the balance of the sanctuary\u201d the meat that endureth against\nthe meat that perisheth; to cleave to the eternal at the sacrifice, if\nnecessary, of all that is temporal.\n\nI am, of course, not absurd enough to claim that this endeavour is\npeculiar to Quakerism. My object throughout is to show what are the\neternal and unassailable principles of truth to which Quakerism appeals,\nto which it clings as to its strongholds. And I believe that the severe\nsifting away of non-essentials which lies at the foundation of our\nrevolt from accepted ecclesiastical practices, and which has ramified in\ndetail into these minor testimonies, often rigidly and at times even\nlaughably worked out by individuals, is a process more and more urgently\nneeded in these days of rapid growth in all material and intellectual\nresources.\n\nThe permanent danger of giving our labour and our lives \u201cfor that which\nsatisfieth not\u201d was surely never more desperate than in these days of\nhurry and fulness, when merely to stand still needs a resolute effort of\nwill. Are not half the lives we know carried along in a current they\nknow not how to resist towards objects they but vaguely recognize, and\nin their heart of hearts do not value? Was the bondage of outward things\never more oppressive than it is to many of those who are ostensibly, and\nought to be really, in a position of entire outward independence? How\nmany of us have attained to the unspeakable repose of having our centre\nof gravity in the right place, of leaning upon nothing that can fail?\n\nThere is no royal road to ridding ourselves of superfluities. It is a\nlifelong process of severe purification, which at every turn demands the\nsacrifice of the lower to the higher. But as this severity is the\nnecessary price of attaining what is highest, so also it is the one\nspell by which life and significance and value can be given to what is\nlower. If it burns it also brightens; while it destroys it irradiates. I\nbelieve it to be in all things true that nothing can have its full value\nexcept when rightly subordinated to that which is of more importance\nthan itself. If you sacrifice the higher to the lower, you not only make\na bad bargain, but you injure the very object which you thus purchase.\nThat of which you make an idol turns to dust in the process. The idol\nwhich you have the courage to pluck from its throne may come to life\nthrough that very act. From the closest human affection down to the most\ntrivial outward adornment, all lovely things owe their perfection of\nloveliness to being held in their due subordination to what is yet\nhigher. \u201cHe that will lose his life shall save it;\u201d a hard saying,\nindeed,\u2014with the hardness of the imperishable rock in which is our\nfortress and our stronghold.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VI.\n                              OUR CALLING.\n\n\nI have endeavoured to explain what are those principles and practices\ninto which we as a body have been led through what we believe to be\nobedience to the Spirit of Truth. I know that in some respects we seem\nto our fellow-Christians to have mistaken the voice of our Guide, and to\nbe, through ignorance perhaps, but yet lamentably, excluding ourselves\nfrom the most precious privileges, if not consciously disregarding the\nmost sacred injunctions. It is a very solemn question upon which we thus\njoin issue with almost all the Churches of Christendom;\u2014What is, in\nfact, essential Christianity?\n\n\u201cBy their fruits ye shall know them.\u201d It would ill become me to attempt\nany estimate of the fruitfulness of that branch of the Christian Church\nwhich I have joined as compared with the branch of it in which I was\nbrought up. I have been occupied throughout with our ideal, not with the\ndegree of our fulfilment or failure to fulfil it. I feel bound, however,\nto say that I cannot reconcile the fact of the signs of life and\nspiritual energy which I find within as well as without the Society with\nthe idea that either branch of the Church is really cut off from the\nroot of the living Vine. Does it follow that our peculiar principles and\npractices are of no consequence?\n\nI cannot myself believe that this is a legitimate conclusion from the\nadmitted fact that undeniably holy and Christian lives are led within as\nwell as without our borders. That fact does, I think, show at least that\neverything does not depend either upon the observance or the disuse of\noutward ordinances\u2014it shows that either course may be pursued in good\nfaith and without destruction to the Christian life; but it is not\ninconsistent with the belief that results of profound importance to the\ncharacter of our Christianity are involved in this question of\nordinances and orders, and that it therefore behoves us to seek the\nutmost clearness with regard to it.\n\nThis question is the very key of the position of the Society of Friends\nas a separate body. It is as witnesses to the independence of spiritual\nlife upon outward ordinances that we believe ourselves especially called\nto maintain our place in the universal Church in the present day.\n\nThe importance of our separate position is perhaps somewhat obscured in\nthe eyes of some amongst us by the fact that we can no longer assume the\nvehemently aggressive attitude of the early Friends, as against\nChristians of other denominations. They believed it to be their duty to\nattack the \u201chireling priests\u201d of their day as guilty of \u201capostasy,\u201d and\nupholders of the mysterious powers of darkness. In our own day such\njudgments would imply either the grossest ignorance or else downright\ninsanity. We cannot help knowing, and rejoicing to know, that a large\nproportion of the clergy are amongst the most devoted and disinterested\nof the children of light, using their official position, as well as\nevery other power of body and mind, for the promotion of the kingdom of\nGod and the spread of the gospel. We desire nothing better than to fight\nbeside them, shoulder to shoulder, against the common enemy; and we are,\nin fact, often associated with them in efforts of this kind.\n\nIn like manner, it would be impossible for Friends in these days to\nspeak in the tone of the founders of the Society, as though we possessed\na degree of light in comparison of which all other Christians must be\nconsidered as groping in thick darkness. The early Friends sometimes\nspoke of the \u201cbreaking forth of the gospel day\u201d through the revelation\nmade to them as of an event almost equal in importance to its original\npromulgation sixteen hundred years before. In these days we could not\nwith any kind of honesty or justice claim a position so enormously in\nadvance of our neighbours. On all hands we see evidences of fidelity and\nfruitfulness, and the shining of examples which we rejoice to admire,\nand desire to emulate.\n\nThere is thus, I think, a certain perplexity as to our relative position\nin the Christian Church which is a cause of some weakness amongst\nFriends. It is in some respects easier to maintain an aggressive\nattitude than one of mere quiet separateness; and it would be no wonder\nif some, especially of our younger members, in these days of free\ninterchange of sympathy, should begin to falter a little as to the\nimportance of our separate position. It is, indeed, one which will not\nbe maintained except as the result of deep and searching spiritual\ndiscipline. The testimony against dependence on what is outward cannot\nbe borne to any purpose at second hand. We must ourselves be weaned from\nall hankering after what is outward and tangible before we can\nappreciate the value of a testimony to the sufficiency of the purely\nspiritual; and that weaning is not an easy process, nor one that can be\ntransmitted from generation to generation. Unless our younger Friends be\ntaught in the same stern school as their forefathers, they will\nassuredly not maintain the vantage-ground won by the faithfulness of a\nformer generation.\n\nSome other causes have, I believe, tended to confuse our relation to the\nouter world, and make it important that Friends should look well to\ntheir path, and consider whither it is tending; whether we are really\nguarding the position which it is specially our business to defend, or\nallowing ourselves to be drawn off into the pursuit of less important\nmatters. There are in the main stream of the Society many currents and\ncounter-currents, and its recent history has been one of change and\nreaction, so that it would be dangerous and presumptuous for a new-comer\nto attempt to foretell its course; but I may venture to point out some\nof the tendencies which are and have been at work amongst us, preparing\nthe conditions under which our future work must be done.\n\nIt is well known that the Society, which sprang very rapidly into\nexistence in the middle of the seventeenth century, began during the\neighteenth to diminish in numbers, and was for many years a steadily\ndwindling body. Closed meeting-houses and empty benches are now to be\nfound in all parts of the country where, in former days, the difficulty\nwas to find room for all who came. Within the last thirty or forty years\nour numbers have, however, begun slowly to increase, although the\nincrease is so far from being equal to the rate of increase of the\npopulation at large, that in proportion to other denominations we may\nstill be considered as in a certain sense losing ground. The actual\nincrease, small as it is, is nevertheless a significant fact.[25]\n\nThe great falling-off in numbers during the eighteenth and part of the\nnineteenth centuries was probably caused, in part at least, by the fact\nthat after the early days of growth and persecution there followed a\ntime of outward quietness, in which the value attached to what one may\ncall Quaker tradition became excessive, and resulted in too rigid a\ndiscipline. The actual discipline of the Society was applied with a\nstrictness which surely was not altogether wise or wholesome; and the\nless tangible restraint of public opinion within the borders of a small\nand very exclusive sect was probably even more oppressive in its\nrigidity and minuteness of supervision. Until within the last thirty\nyears or thereabouts, it was the almost invariable practice to disown\nall members who married \u201cout of the Society;\u201d and this restriction must\nobviously have done much not only to diminish the numbers, but probably\nalso to alienate the affections of successive rising generations. So\nmany of the young people lost or resigned their membership for this and\nother causes, that, had no change taken place, the days of the Society\nmust to all appearance have been numbered.\n\nBut in the early part of this century, owing, in a great measure, to the\ninfluence of Joseph John Gurney and his sister, Elizabeth Fry, a new\nwave of religious and benevolent activity arose; and about the same\ntime, though with what degree of connection with this impulse I do not\nknow, a considerable relaxation of discipline took place. Not only was\nthe practice with regard to marriages out of the Society relaxed, but\nmany minor matters, in which an irksome and, no doubt, often hurtful\nrigidity had prevailed, began to be deliberately left to the judgment of\nindividuals. In 1861 a revision of the \u201cBook of Discipline\u201d took place,\nwhich reflected and sanctioned the relaxation of supervision in regard\nto these matters. In that year the latter part of the fourth query\nrelating to \u201cplainness of speech, behaviour, and apparel,\u201d was dropped,\nand other changes were made in the queries then in use. The Yearly\nMeeting, as has been already mentioned, no longer requires that any of\nthe queries should be answered, except those which regard the regularity\nwith which meetings are held and attended. These changes have meant in\npractice that the maintenance of all our special \u201ctestimonies\u201d is now\n(like that against tithes) \u201cleft to the individual conscience,\u201d and not\ninquired into by the meetings for discipline; and the immediate result\nhas, of course, been a great outward and visible alteration\u2014a rapid\ndisappearance of distinguishing peculiarities, and no doubt an immense\nrelief to the younger members.\n\nA more direct result of the \u201cevangelical\u201d influence of the Gurneys, and\nothers like-minded, was the setting-in of a current of activity in all\nsorts of benevolent, philanthropic, and missionary directions. The old\ndread of \u201ccreaturely activity,\u201d\u2014of moving in any kind of religious work\nwithout an immediate prompting and even constraining influence from\nabove,\u2014seems to have in some degree given place to a fear of burying our\ntalent. The Christian duty of going forth to seek and to save, of\nholding forth the word of life, and letting our light shine before men,\nhad been beautifully exemplified by some eminent men and women in the\nSociety. Many of the younger Friends caught the flame of their zeal, and\nfrom all quarters, in these modern days, influences combine to make that\n\u201csitting still,\u201d in which an earlier generation of Friends had found\ntheir strength, appear almost an impossibility.\n\nWith the new rising tide of fervent zeal and benevolence came a great\nchange in the prevailing tone of religious feeling. The Bible, which, in\ntheir dread lest the letter should usurp the place of the spirit, had\namongst Friends been almost put under a bushel, was brought into new\nprominence, and so-called \u201cevangelical\u201d views respecting the unique or\nexceptional nature of its inspiration began to be entertained. Gradually\nthe idea of the necessity of teaching \u201csound doctrine\u201d assumed an\nimportance which had formerly been reserved for that of looking for\n\u201cright guidance;\u201d and in some quarters a visible tendency has, of late\nyears, been manifest towards more definition of doctrines and\npopularizing of methods than would have been tolerated half a century\nago.[26]\n\nAlthough these modern tendencies have undoubtedly been accompanied by,\nand have probably in some degree led to, an increase in our numbers, a\nstrong protest has from time to time been raised against them by those\nwho feel that Quakerism had its root and its strength in a deep inward\nand spiritual experience which frees from all dependence upon outward\nthings. In America the protest against (or, as those who protest would\nno doubt rather say, the introduction of) this modern phase of\ncomparatively superficial religious activity has caused grievous schisms\nand troubles. About the year 1826, a large party, under the leadership\nof one Elias Hicks, in that country broke off altogether from the main\nbody of Friends, and is suspected by the \u201corthodox\u201d of having, under\nprofessed obedience to the inner light, become practically a Unitarian\nor rationalist body. In England, however, the two main currents have\nflowed side by side, and have not resulted in any considerable division\nof the stream.\n\nBoth parties claim to be taking their stand upon the original principles\nof the early Friends. Those who uphold above all things the doctrine of\nthe inner light, and the primary necessity of immediate inspiration and\nguidance to the bringing forth of any good word or work, and especially\nto the performance of any acceptable worship, have abundant evidence to\nproduce, in the writings of Fox, Barclay, Penn, Penington, and other\nfathers of the Society, that this was the foundation and the constant\nburden of all their teaching. Those, on the other hand, who are throwing\nthemselves heart and soul into missionary and \u201cevangelistic\u201d efforts,\nsay truly enough that the early Friends did not so \u201cwait for guidance\u201d\nas to be content to sit still and make no effort to lighten the darkness\naround them, and that it was the intermediate or \u201cmedi\u00e6val,\u201d not the\n\u201cprimitive\u201d teaching of the Society which exalted the individual\nconsciousness into the supreme authority, thus developing, in fact, a\nclaim to something approaching personal infallibility.\n\nThere are, of course, dangers in either extreme\u2014in the over-valuation of\nvisible and tangible activity, and in the undue intensity of\nintrospective quietism. Too much \u201cinwardness\u201d seems to develop an\nextraordinary bitterness and spirit of judgment, under the shadow of\nwhich no fresh growth would be possible. It is obviously dangerous to\nsanity. Too much \u201coutwardness\u201d dilutes and destroys the very essence of\nour testimony, encourages a worthless growth of human dependence, and\ncan hardly fail to be dangerous to sincerity. But yet the divergence is,\nI believe, a case rather of diversity of gifts and functions than of\ncontradiction in principle. Both functions are surely needed. Where a\nliving fountain is really springing up within, it must needs tend to\noverflow. The leaves and blossoms are as essential to the health and\nfruitfulness of a tree as its root. The secret, as I believe, of the\nstrength of our Society, its peculiar qualification for service in these\ndays, lies in its strong grasp of the oneness of the inward and the\noutward, as well as in the deep and pure spirituality of its aim in\nregard to both.\n\nThere is, I believe and am sure, a special and urgent need in these days\nfor that witness to the light\u2014light both within and without\u2014which was\nthe special office of early Quakerism. I am not equally sure that\nQuakerism, as it is, is the vehicle best adapted to convey that\ntestimony to the present generation. If it be not so, it is largely the\nfault of our degeneracy as a body; of the lapse of our Society into a\nrigid formalism during the eighteenth century, and into a shallow\nseeking for popularity in the nineteenth. But, in spite of all such\nright-hand and left-hand defections it seems to me that there is life\nenough yet in the old tree for a fresh growth of fruit-bearing branches.\nIt seems to me that the framework of the Society has vigour and\nelasticity enough yet to be used as an invaluable instrument by a new\ngeneration of fully convinced Friends, were our younger members but\nfully willing and resolved to submit to the necessary Divine discipline.\nIt is no new wave of \u201ccreaturely activity,\u201d no judicious adapting of\nQuakerism to modern tastes, that will revive its power in the midst of\nthe present generation. It is a fresh breaking forth of the old power,\nthe unchanging and unchangeable power of light and truth itself, met and\ninvited by a fresh submission of heart in each one of us, which can\nalone invigorate what is languishing amongst us, and make us more than\never a blessing to the nation.\n\nHad this power ever wholly disappeared from amongst us, there would be\nlittle use in dwelling fondly upon its deserted tenement. It is because\na measure of the ancient spirit is still to be recognized amongst our\nnow widely scattered remnant that I would fain stir it up, amongst our\nown members especially, and if possible also amongst others, by means of\nthe experience actually acquired by our Society of the power of an\nexclusively spiritual religion.\n\nIt is, I hope, hardly necessary to repeat that it is not Quakerism, but\nTruth, that I desire to serve and to promote; the sect may no longer be\nwhat is needed, and may be destined to extinction, for aught I know. But\nthat view of Truth which has found in Quakerism its most emphatic\nassertion,\u2014that purely spiritual worship and that supremacy of the light\nwithin which were set forth with power by Fox and Barclay and\nPenington,\u2014these things are of perennial value and efficacy, and the\nneed for their fresh recognition seems to be in our own day peculiarly\nurgent.\n\nThere can, indeed, be no rivalry between inward and outward light.\nLight, we know, is one, and there can be no contradiction between its\nvarious manifestations, although there may, of course, be any amount of\ncontradiction between the respective visions of different people. It\nseems, indeed, as idle to look for an absolutely colourless medium\nwithin as without, in our own hearts as in the Bible or the Church; and\nupon each one lies the responsibility of accepting correction from all\nquarters. Yet for each one of us there must be a final authority; and I\ndo not see how that authority can be found elsewhere than in the inmost\nchamber of our own hearts, for it is by that authority alone that we can\nbe justified even in choosing any external guide. It is, indeed,\nimpossible for any one who recognizes the shining of light within to\ndoubt its supreme authority.\n\nTo speak of light shining in one\u2019s own heart as something not conclusive\nfor oneself would be almost a contradiction in terms. But just because\nit _is_ within one\u2019s own heart, its range is strictly limited. My inner\nlight can be no rule (though in a sense it may be as a lamp) for any one\nelse, for the very reason which forbids me to dispute it. Each one\nsurely owes an exclusive allegiance to that ray of Divine light which\nshines straight into his own inmost sanctuary.\n\nIt is, therefore, no disloyalty to the light within to acknowledge the\nneed of an outward standard for purposes of united action or mutual\njudgment, or to accept an outward test of the reality of our possession\nof inward light. Those who have learnt to recognize in the light within\nthe radiance of the Divine Word will acknowledge no lower voice as the\nsupreme authority without; and will accept no other test of its reality\nthan that assigned by Christ Himself\u2014righteousness of life.\n\nFriends have always without hesitation accepted the Bible as the one\ncommon standard by which their practice and their teaching should be\ntried,[27] and have acknowledged from the first that no claim to Divine\ninspiration could be justified except by the actual possession of the\nrighteousness taught by Christ Himself in word and in deed\u2014a\nrighteousness \u201cexceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees.\u201d\n\nAnd here we come upon the fact, not always sufficiently remembered, that\nthe indispensable words \u201cinward\u201d and \u201coutward\u201d need care in the\nhandling. It is of great importance to my whole subject that the\ndifferent senses in which they may be applied should be kept in mind. I\nhave already[28] pointed out that the mystical meaning of \u201cwithin\u201d or\n\u201cinwardness\u201d is not the only one upon which we insist.\n\nThis well-known Quaker watchword must always be understood as asserting\nnot only that light is to be found by retiring into the inmost chamber\nof one\u2019s own heart, but also that it is intrinsic, essential, original;\nthat, coming from within, it must, if real, illuminate the whole being.\nRighteousness, the fruit and result of obedience to light, is in this\nsense both inward and outward; it is external, but not extraneous;\noutward in the sense of being visible, tangible, open to the light of\nday\u2014a thing which, however it may be defined or accounted for, is\nuniversally recognizable, and is acknowledged by all as justifying the\nteaching which produces it; it is not outward in the sense of coming\nfrom without, or of being in any degree arbitrary, or accidental, or\ndependent upon the judgment of our fellow-creatures; it is a natural,\nnot an artificial, test and result of the inward state. Neither is it\noutward in the sense of appertaining only to what is visible. It does,\nindeed, impress its stamp even upon the very frame, and of course it\nconsists largely in a visible and real dominion of the mind over the\nbody; but it is, in its origin and essence, of the spirit, not of the\nflesh.\n\nIt was the constant and vigorous seeking for and application of this\ntest of righteousness which distinguished the early Friends from mere\nmystics. Those \u201cFriends of the Light\u201d were not content to brood over a\nlight shut in to their own hearts. They let it shine freely before men,\nboldly proclaiming its universality, and calling all men to walk in it.\nThey stoutly claimed that it was the light of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,\nthe very Sun of Righteousness, and that the light, spirit, and grace of\nChrist in their own hearts was one with the spirit in which the\nScriptures were given forth. Above all, they insisted that the light was\nthe Spirit of Truth, and must lead into all truth; not into omniscience\nor infallibility, but into truth in the inmost parts\u2014truth in word, in\nthought, and in deed. Thus they recognized the great truth that the\nlight within and the light without are alike aspects of the Eternal Word\nof God\u2014that Word which, abiding in us, is our Eternal Life.\n\nLight within\u2014not the vision of the mystic alone, but cleanness of heart,\nuprightness, sincerity, singleness of mind\u2014of this light they affirmed\nthat every living soul had some germ, which, as it was attended to,\nwould lead out of the evil it condemned. And the glory of their teaching\nwas that it summoned each human spirit to work out its own salvation\u2014in\nfear and in trembling truly, and in the strength of God working with and\nin it, but without dependence on any human being, or on anything\nperishable, or disputable, or accidental; to repent, and to bring forth\nfruits meet for repentance; to walk soberly, as children of the day.\n\nThis is what I mean by the pure spirituality of the _aim_ of Friends\nboth as to the inward and the outward. The inner light they desire to\nwalk in is not an intellectual but a purifying light; it consists not in\nrapture, ecstasy, sensation, but in clear insight into the deepest kind\nof truth; it leads not to knowledge, but to holiness,\u2014which is, indeed,\nknowledge of the truth. It shines in quietness; and in order to cherish\nit we must lay aside our preoccupation with the vivid and clamorous and\ntransitory things that are without, dwelling in stillness upon what is\neternal, that all things may be revealed in their true proportions. It\ncourts and acknowledges an outward test; but that test consists in the\nquality of its own outward results, as commending themselves to every\nman\u2019s conscience, and reveals itself not in a conformity to other\npeople\u2019s teaching, but in a transforming power. The outward stamp we\nvalue is not a stamp or sign applied or administered from without and by\nmaterial means, but the outward and visible radiance of the flame\nkindled within. The supremacy of the inner light as recognized by us is\nthe supremacy of the fountain over the stream, and the cleanness and\ncleansing power of the stream is the proof of the purity of the\nfountain. It is in fixing attention upon moral and spiritual results,\nrather than upon precision of doctrine or correctness of ceremonial\nobservance, that Friends have, I believe, hit the right nail on the\nhead. In our own day, as in George Fox\u2019s day, this direct appeal to\nconscience is surely the one unfailing means by which men and women can\nbe \u201cturned to the light,\u201d brought to recognize Him who is the Light, and\ntaught to find in Him their everlasting rest\u2014the rest which is the\nbeginning of power and of victory.\n\nIf we be right in our belief that the salvation of Jesus Christ is a\npurely spiritual influence, a flame which finds in every human heart\nsome prepared fuel, and which is to be spread from heart to heart as\nfire is kindled from torch to torch; which is to be maintained not by\nrites and ceremonies, and \u201cthe apostolical succession\u201d of outward\nordination, but by that turning from dead works to serve the living God\nwhich is in the power of every living soul, and which no one can perform\nfor another;\u2014if this view be true, then Friends have yet a great work to\ndo in promulgating it, and a great responsibility in having received it\nas an inheritance.\n\nFor this is not yet the commonly accepted view. The Christianity which\nhas spread and flourished is still deeply saturated with reliance upon\noutward rites and outward ordinances, and deeply entangled with rigid\nformularies. It is largely composed of creeds and doctrines, which,\nwhether theoretically true or false, are yet capable of being held in\nunrighteousness, and incapable, therefore, of truly redeeming the souls\nwho trust in them.\n\nMost Christians say or assume that these things are vitally helpful to\nthem. I dare not presume to say that they are wrong, though I own that I\nthink the assumption too conventional to be conclusive. But of one thing\nI am quite sure. There is a great and increasing multitude amongst us\nwho cannot accept outward rites or clerical teaching. We see by the\nexperience of Roman Catholic countries how inevitably the spread of\npriestly influence amongst devout women is accompanied by the utter\nalienation of thinking men from religion itself. I fear that a tendency\nof the same kind is visible in England now. What is the proportion of\nmen to women to be seen in the congregations of London churches? Is it\nnot obvious even to our outward senses that there is something in modern\nChristianity which the masculine mind rejects? We have, indeed, abundant\nproof in the literature of our day that this is the case. Are we driven\nto conclude that it is the essence of the religion of Jesus Christ which\nis rejected by masculine thought; or does the stumbling-block lie in\nhuman additions to the teaching of Christ Himself?\n\nI cannot doubt, and I believe few of the worthiest representatives of\nmasculine thought would deny that His own teaching, as we have it in the\nGospels, is eternal truth; as secure against every storm of doubt and\nrevolt as the sun in heaven is secure against the whirlwind. The\nChristianity of Jesus Christ Himself is the Christianity upon which\nFriends alone, or almost alone, have boldly taken their stand as\nall-sufficient. In preaching this essential Christianity we can appeal\nwith boldness to the witness in every human heart; and I venture to say\nthat it is not a religion for women and children only, but one which\nappeals to and fortifies the best instincts of manly independence.[29]\n\nLet it not be supposed that I attribute the whole of the modern revolt\nfrom religion to the engrafting of ecclesiastical \u201cdevelopments\u201d upon\nthe simplicity which is in Christ. I know, of course, that many other\nforces tend to alienate men (and women too) from God, and that there is\nmuch in the progress of scientific discovery which it is difficult to\nreconcile quickly with even the very essence of religion. It is because\nthe ship of faith is in danger that I long to see it lightened of\nunnecessary burdens. It is because men are ready enough to cast from\nthem all thought of the things which belong to their peace, and to\nabandon in despair the hope which alone can purify their lives, that I\nlong to see that hope disentangled from whatever is worn out and\ncumbersome and unreasonable.\n\nQuakerism in its origin was a bold and successful struggle to do this.\nThe glory of early Quakerism was in its integrity, in its\nuncompromising, unflinching requirement that the life should bear\nwitness to the truth, and its resolute stand against any other\nrequirement. The \u201cinner light\u201d was not only a word of the deepest\npoetical and mystical significance; it was a doctrine of sternest\nrighteousness, and at the same time an assertion of resolute\nindependence. Those who were conscious of the shining of Divine light\ninto their own hearts needed no priestly absolution or interposition.\nThey were willing to stand or fall by their innocence in the sight of\nall men. Their very gaolers often trusted them to convey themselves to\ntheir distant prisons if they had but promised. It was well known in\nthose early days that a Friend\u2019s word was as good as his bond; and to\nthis very day a reputation for special truthfulness and sobriety clings\nto them, and not, I believe, without reason.\n\nI am anxious to insist upon the resolution to maintain a high moral\nstandard amongst us, not only because of the supreme intrinsic\nimportance of righteousness; not only because I believe that as religion\nis cleared of outward and ceremonial and perishable elements this\nindestructible growth of holiness has more room to expand; but also\nbecause it cannot be denied, and should, indeed, never be forgotten,\nthat there is a very real ground for the suspicion, or, at any rate, the\njealous scrutiny, with which any peculiarly exalted spiritual\naspirations are apt to be regarded.\n\nThere is a well-known and very awful connection between religious\nemotion and emotions arising from sources less pure. There is an\never-present danger lest in any endeavour to stimulate the one we should\nrouse the other, and a still worse danger lest the lower should assume\nthe garb and appearance of the higher. The history of religious revivals\naffords abundant warning of the dangers inseparable from all sudden\noutbursts of feeling, even where much of it is deep and true and\nlasting.\n\nNo doubt the founders of the Society of Friends had their share of such\ninstructive and at times mortifying experience.[30] They were brave men,\nand knew the reality of their own deep experience, and were not easily\ndiscouraged by a few extravagances (they appear, indeed, to have been\nremarkably few) amongst their followers. But there is reason to think\nthat they were strongly impressed with the importance of specially\nguarding the sobriety becoming the children of the day, at a time when\ntheir own preaching was working in men\u2019s minds like new wine. Besides\nthe one great and invariable safeguard of their constant preaching of\nrighteousness, and appeal to the light without as the test of the\nreality of the light within, there were two special precautions which\nthey consciously or unconsciously took against the danger of spiritual,\nor _quasi_-spiritual, excitement.\n\nOne of these was the full recognition that the action of the Spirit of\nGod upon the heart consisted not only in impulse but in restraint, and\nthat for its right interpretation the part of the creature was to be\nquiet. \u201cStand still in the light\u201d is one of the familiar burdens of\nGeorge Fox\u2019s advice. Friends were, and are still, as carefully taught to\nsubmit to the restraints as to yield to the impulses of \u201cbest wisdom.\u201d\nTo \u201cdwell deep,\u201d to \u201cpause upon it,\u201d not to proceed unless \u201cway opens,\u201d\nnor on any account to disregard a \u201cstop in one\u2019s mind,\u201d\u2014these and many\nsuch familiar Quaker admonitions show by how much \u201choly fear\u201d their zeal\nhas habitually been tempered.\n\n\u201cQuietism\u201d is, indeed, the natural accompaniment of \u201cmysticism\u201d (of\nmysticism, that is, in the sense of belief in the inner light). That a\nvivid sense of the presence of the Creator should bring stillness to the\ncreature is inevitable. And only under the restraining and controlling\npower of the deep awe thus inspired can it be safe or wholesome for the\nhuman spirit to stand in the immediate presence of its own Divine\nSource. There was surely a deep truth in the old Hebrew feeling, \u201cShall\nman see God and live?\u201d Religious emotion need not be unreal to be\nunwholesome. The deeper the chord stirred, the more awful the danger\narising from any jarring or deviation from the due and steady amount of\ntension.\n\nAnother precaution against the danger of yielding to excitement or to\nimmature or unguarded impulse, is provided in our whole system of\n\u201cChurch government\u201d and oversight, and especially in the importance\nattached to ascertaining \u201cFriends\u2019 unity\u201d with any proposed religious\nservice before proceeding in it. This is a curious and beautifully\nadapted sheath provided for the buddings of a ministry which is free in\nthe sense of being entirely spontaneous, prompted only by an impulse\nbelieved to be from above. It is by no means an unknown thing, perhaps\nnot even an uncommon thing (but of this I speak from but scanty\nopportunities of observation), for Friends in their business meetings to\ndiscourage \u201cconcerns\u201d which do not appear to them to be justified by\nreasons sufficiently weighty, or which in some other way fail to commend\nthemselves to the judgment of the meeting.\n\nNot only directly, but also by the indirect effect of the value thus\ncollectively and traditionally assigned to care and caution in handling\nspiritual things, do these recognized practices tend to inculcate\nsobriety and patience. And above all it is a deeply ingrained feeling in\nthe Quaker mind that every vessel to be used for sacred purposes must\nbefore all things be clean. Every one coming forward as a minister of\nthe gospel especially must approve himself, or herself, in the full\nlight of day as not only preaching, but living, according to the Spirit\nof Truth.\n\nAnd these \u201cministers,\u201d be it remembered, are not people leading a\nsheltered and separate life; but men and women engaged in the ordinary\nbusiness of life, following trades and professions, and sharing in all\nthe daily experiences of those to whom they minister. Is there not\nsomething peculiarly adapted to the needs of our day in the combination\nof matter-of-fact, wholesome, sober independence with the thorough-going\nand unreserved spirituality and purity of our acknowledged aim\u2014that,\nnamely, of living under the immediate guidance of the Spirit of Truth?\n\nIt is here that I see in the ideal of Quakerism the one perennially\nright and fruitful ideal of Christian life\u2014obedience to truth in the\nfullest and highest sense; the living truth\u2014not truth in the sense of\naccurate or orthodox belief about Christ, but of an actual partaking of\nHis Spirit, who Himself _is_ the Way, the Truth, and the Life; a\nlearning through obedience to know His voice, and a continual\nwitness-bearing to others of the reality and the power of His living\npresence and teaching. We can bear this witness in one, and only in one,\nway; our lives must be penetrated by the light\u2014the light which lighteth\nevery man that cometh into the world\u2014penetrated and kindled and\npurified, till they too shine both inwardly and outwardly. The life is\nthe light of men.\n\nIn our days faith is challenged at every point and at every turn, with a\nfreedom and a violence which was unknown fifty years ago. All that can\nbe shaken is being shaken, to its very foundations. My own firm belief\nis that, though full of danger, this is on the whole a natural, a\nnecessary, and, in the main, a beneficial process. Throw a large load of\nfuel on a clear fire, and for a time it may seem doubtful whether it is\nnot extinguished; but if the flame be strong enough, it will rise again\nthrough the smoke and dust, and burn the stronger for what it has\nmastered. And so assuredly will faith in whatever is truly eternal rise\nabove all present confusions and darkenings of counsel, and burn with\nfresh power in those hearts which have steadfastly cleaved to truth, be\nits requirements what they may.\n\nThe Society of Friends has always refused to require adhesion to any\nformularies as an express or even implied condition of membership; and\nsurely it has done wisely.[31] It has frankly and steadily accepted the\nBible as the one common standard and storehouse of written doctrine, but\nit has always had the courage to trust unreservedly to the immediate\nteaching of \u201cthe Spirit which gave forth the Scriptures\u201d for their\ninterpretation, and for the leading of each one \u201cinto all truth;\u201d it has\nhitherto been true to its belief in the living Guide. And this, I am\nconvinced, is the only belief which will meet the needs of the free\nthought of our day.\n\nIf thought is to be truly free, in the sense of fearless and unbiased,\nit must not only be open to the whole range of experience, but it must\nbe subject to the correction of central and unchanging principles;\nfreedom requires stability as well as openness. I believe that those of\nus who have learned to submit to correction both from without and from\nwithin, who dare to face at once every real fact, and every necessary\nprocess of mental discipline, within their reach, have a most weighty\noffice to fill amidst the troubled thoughts and lives of our day. For\nwhile human nature is what it is, it must recognize, however dimly, that\nit needs not only to be fed with knowledge, but to be strengthened with\nmight in the inner man.\n\nPeople want, and must have if they are to be spiritually helped at all,\ntwo things mainly at this moment, as I believe. They want a higher,\npurer, worthier form of faith and worship than they have been accustomed\nto find provided for them; and they want stronger proof of the reality\nof the objects of faith than is commonly offered.\n\nBy a higher, purer, worthier form of faith and worship, I do not mean\nimproved formularies or liturgies; I mean rather that openness to\nimprovement which is precluded by fixed forms, and which the very beauty\nand dignity of the Anglican Liturgy tends to impede. They want, I\nbelieve, a manner of worship which shall be simpler, more living and\nactual\u2014truly higher and purer because less intellectually ambitious, and\nmore freshly inspired by human needs and Divine help; and a manner of\nspeaking about Divine things less conventional, less technical and\nartificial, arising more visibly from actual experience, and based more\nsolidly upon common ground. They want not authorized teachers, but\ncompetent witnesses; not to listen to sermons and religious \u201cservices,\u201d\nhowever admirable, which are delivered in fulfilment of a professional\nengagement, within prescribed bounds of orthodoxy, at stated times and\nin regular amount; but to come into personal contact with those who have\nseen, felt, encountered, the things of which they speak; and who speak\nnot because they are officially appointed to speak, but out of the\nfulness of the heart because they must\u2014people who dare to be silent when\nthey have nothing to say, and who are not afraid to acknowledge their\nignorance, their doubts, or their perplexities. We are becoming critical\nand impatient of conventionalities, not only, as I believe, because\neducation is spreading, but also because we are hungry for reality,\nbecause we are brought face to face (by the astonishing circulation of\neverything) with all manner of problems which are awful enough for us\nall, and doubly awful for those whose foundation is in any way insecure.\nIn the presence\u2014and in these days every corner of the land, not to say\nof the world, is in a sense present to our mental vision\u2014in the presence\nof every variety of human (and animal) misery, of vice and crime and\nviolence, and inherited degradation and disease, of changes and dangers\nand crumblings away of every refuge, who can wonder if men and women\nrefuse to be satisfied with shallow or conventional explanations of the\nfearful problems confronting them and challenging their faith? The\nglibness, the exasperating completeness, the unconscious blasphemy, of\nmany \u201corthodox\u201d vindications of Providence, are enough to disgust people\nwith mere orthodoxy.\n\nWe Christians have been roughly awakened by the storm, and are beginning\nto recognize that we needed such a correcting and sifting of our thought\nand language as modern attacks are abundantly supplying. At such a\nmoment it is surely an unspeakable privilege for any religious body to\nbe entirely unshackled by creeds and formularies; to have nothing in its\ntradition or practices to hinder it from profiting by this process of\ncorrection, or from uttering its perennial and unalterable testimony in\nthe freshest and most flexible and modern language it can command. And\nperhaps it is a still greater privilege, in the midst of this Babel, to\nhave learned the thrice-blessed power of silence; to have secured both\nin private and in public the opportunity and the practice of dwelling\nsilently upon that which is unspeakable and unchangeable; of witnessing\nto the light in that stillness which most clearly reflects the Divine\nglory, in which the accusations of the enemy are most effectually\nquenched.\n\nAnd not only do people in these days want purer expressions of faith;\nthey need also stronger proofs of the reality of its objects. I do not,\nof course, mean new proofs; I do not mean that really new evidence can\never be forthcoming in favour of eternal truth, though fresh aspects and\nillustrations and revelations of it are indeed crowding upon us day by\nday. I mean rather that the battle which was formerly fought by single\nchampions here and there has now broken forth along the whole line; that\nin these days, whether we will or no, we are all in the thick of the\nfight; that no one can help hearing the deepest of all truths called in\nquestion at every turn; and that we need weapons, if not of tougher\nquality, yet of readier use and more thoroughly proved, more honestly\nour own, than those which may have sufficed in former times. We need, I\nbelieve, moral and spiritual rather than merely intellectual proof of\nthe reality of that which alone can satisfy the human spirit in its\ndeepest needs. Let creeds, like all other beliefs, be sifted, and\ntested, and corrected, and proved or disproved, and in every way dealt\nwith as truth may require. Those whose one object is truth can have\nnothing to dread from any serious and legitimate handling of any\nquestion whatever. But, when all is said and thought, it remains for\never true that man cannot by searching find out God; while yet without\nHim what good shall our lives do us? It is not by supplying people with\nthe wisest and truest replies to their difficulties that they can be\neffectually armed against them. Second-hand belief is poor comfort in\ndays when authority of all kinds is so freely discredited. And at all\ntimes and under all circumstances something more than theory is required\nfor victory.\n\nFor what, after all, is this \u201cfaith,\u201d which above all things we who have\neven a grain of it must desire to hold forth to others? \u201cThis is the\nvictory which overcometh the world, even our faith.\u201d It is a power, not\na mere belief; and power can be shown only in action, only in overcoming\nresistance. Power that shall lift us one by one above temptations, above\ncares, above selfishness; power that shall make all things new, and\nsubdue all things unto itself; power by which loss is transmuted into\ngain, tribulation into rejoicing, death itself into the gate of\neverlasting life;\u2014is not this the true meaning of faith?\n\nI see no possible means of spreading such faith as this but to exercise\nit; in our own persons, as the way is prepared for us, to work\nrighteousness, to obtain promises, out of weakness to be made strong, to\nwax valiant in fight\u2014yes, and to receive our dead raised to life again.\nThese are the proofs which will convince the world \u201cof sin, of\nrighteousness, and of judgment;\u201d these, not reasonings, are the proofs\nof a Divine Fountain of life and power to which Friends have been taught\nto attach weight. Formularies, even the most perfect in their day, and\nthe most venerable in their origin, will wear out. The meaning of\nlanguage shifts, and the changing lights of knowledge distort whatever\nforms do not change with them; but the power of an endless life will\nnever lose its hold on human hearts; and the need for help from the\ncloud of witnesses compassing us about was never sorer than in our own\ndays.\n\nAround us from all sides comes the cry, spoken or unspoken, \u201cGive us of\nyour oil.\u201d But we who are not unsupplied are being sternly taught to\nreply, \u201cNot so; but go ye to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo them that sell.\u201d The \u201cwater of life\u201d is for all that are athirst;\nthe \u201cwine and milk\u201d are without money and without price. But the oil,\nthe supply of light for other lives, this must truly be bought with a\nprice. Not at second-hand, not by sitting at our ease and absorbing the\nthoughts of others, can we become as lamps to show forth the path of\nlife. Our own hearts must first be baptized with fire, and our knowledge\nbought at the cost of suffering. It is such dearly-bought knowledge\nalone which can enable any one to raise a standard round which others\nwill rally in fighting the good fight of faith.\n\nThe special struggle of our day is a struggle for truth. We who have\nbeen bold to call ourselves children of light, shall we not boldly join\nhands with all who are struggling towards the light? Shall we not be\nwilling and ready to lay aside every weight,\u2014not only every hindering\npossession or habit, but every vain endeavour to bind in the truth of\nGod by human formularies and definitions,\u2014and unreservedly trust to the\nliving teaching of the Spirit for ourselves and others, \u201clooking for God\n_in holiness_, that we may behold His power and glory?\u201d\n\nHoliness\u2014that is, obedience\u2014is surely the rock upon which alone we can\nbuild any faith that will endure. Standing firmly on that rock, and on\nthat only, we may hope to catch some glimpses of the Divine mysteries.\n\u201cClouds and darkness are round about Thee, but righteousness and truth\nare the habitation of Thy throne.\u201d It ill becomes us to attempt to\nexplain all the dealings of God with man, still more the mysteries of\nthe Divine Being and Nature; and that which must for ever remain a\nmystery to the most faithful of His children it is idle indeed to\nundertake to explain to others. Yet let us never flinch from bearing\nwitness to that of which through these awful clouds we have from time to\ntime been permitted to obtain some broken vision. Let us never cease to\ndo what in us lies to persuade our fellows to lift their eyes also to\nthe heavens, and though the vision may tarry, to wait for it in\nsteadfast patience. They may call us dreamers, and we may think them\nblind. When we speak of the stars, they may say we are idly romancing\nabout a mere painted ceiling. But the end is not yet. No roof of human\nworkmanship will endure for ever. Sooner or later all that is of earth\nmust perish and crumble away. Then is the time for the children of light\nto \u201clift up their heads,\u201d knowing that \u201ctheir redemption draweth nigh.\u201d\n\nFor beyond all words and all proofs lies the true anchorage of the\nspirit, to which every firmly rooted life bears a witness neither\nneeding nor admitting of utterance. Deeper than all need of mere\nconviction is the need of rest and stability. We must be at rest before\nwe can be free. In quietness and in confidence is our strength. While\nour hearts are tossed and agitated by every wave of this troublesome\nworld, while the shadows of passing things have power to distract and\nconfuse our vision, we cannot clearly discern that truth which alone can\nmake us free.\n\nTruly \u201cthere remaineth a rest for the people of God;\u201d a satisfying,\nsoul-restoring fulness of rest of which some of us have begun to taste.\nSome of us know assuredly that nothing perishable is the habitation of\nour spirits. Some of us know what it is to be willingly brought into an\norder flowing perceptibly and perpetually from the one unchangeable will\nof God, in which alone can our own will be harmonized and made\nsteadfast. Some of us are learning ever more and more fully to accept\nthe Father\u2019s will because it _is_ the will of the Father, entering more\nand more truly day by day into the spirit of sonship. To experience in\nour own hearts the harmonizing, purifying, invigorating power of the\nDivine will is to be at rest for ourselves and for others; not to be set\nfree from suffering or to become indifferent to it, but to be\nundisturbed by it\u2014to know that underneath all the agitations of the\ncreatures are the everlasting arms; to receive strength to consent to\nwhatever is ordained by that blessed will, and to resist whatever is\nopposed to it.\n\nIn thus taking up the cross, we begin to see something of its glory, to\nexperience something of its redeeming power. When we have ourselves\npassed from death unto life, having been led through \u201csundry kinds of\ndeath\u201d into ever fuller and more abundant life, then indeed we can bear\nwitness to the redeeming power of Christ; then we speak of what we do\nknow, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; then we are on\nour own ground.\n\nIt has ever been our belief that the light of Christ, the brightness of\nthe Father\u2019s glory, is (through obedience to light, even while in\nignorance of its source) purifying the hearts of many who name not His\nName\u2014who are not yet able to recognize the blessed Face from which the\nlight shines. But the fulness of \u201cthe light which no man can approach\nunto\u201d is surely reserved for those who stand before the throne of God\nand of the Lamb, and with full purpose of heart bow in adoration before\nHim that sitteth thereon.\n\nWe claim to be a people who have found rest in God; a people building\nour house upon the rock, through obedience to those \u201cwords of eternal\nlife\u201d given forth by Christ, the Word. We recognize His Voice as\nspeaking to us, not only in the pages of Scripture, but also in the\nwhole course of life as ordered by Him; and yet more closely in the\ninmost chamber of our own hearts; and we desire to yield to it an\nundivided allegiance.\n\nOur calling is, as branches of the living Vine, to let the working of\nthat Voice, Light, Spirit, and Grace of Christ be shown forth in our own\nlives; and, as power may be given us, to bear witness of it also in\nwords; baptizing and being baptized into the one Name in which alone is\nsalvation.\n\nIf, therefore, we have so unassailable a stronghold, so deep and\nimmovable a foundation, let us never cease to look up steadfastly into\nheaven, if so be we may \u201csee the heavens opened;\u201d that we may receive\ninto our hearts, and reflect with ever-increasing fulness in our lives,\nthe rays of the Sun of Righteousness. The vision may indeed be\nintercepted again and again by the driving clouds; our sight may fail or\nfalter; but the glory itself is unchangeable, and it is in reflecting\nthat glory alone that any human face can be, to those that stand by, \u201cas\nthe face of an angel\u201d\u2014of a Divinely appointed messenger of glad tidings.\n\n\n\n\n                               APPENDIX.\n\n\n\n\n                                NOTE A.\n\n\nThe following are the twelve queries now read, \u201cat least once in the\nyear,\u201d in all our meetings. The parts of the second and tenth, to which\nalone answers are required, are printed in italics. It should, however,\nbe observed that, \u201cwith regard to those queries to which no answer is\nrequired, Monthly Meetings are encouraged to report to their Quarterly\nMeetings, from time to time, on such of the subjects comprised in them,\nas they may think desirable. Quarterly Meetings are recommended to\ntransmit such reports, or a summary of them, to the Yearly Meeting.\u201d[32]\n\n\n                                Queries.\n\n1. What is the religious state of your meeting? Are you individually\ngiving evidence of true conversion of heart, and of loving devotedness\nto Christ?\n\n2. _Are your meetings for worship regularly held; and how are they\nattended?_ Are they occasions of religious solemnity and edification, in\nwhich, through Christ, our ever-living High Priest and Intercessor, the\nFather is worshipped in spirit and in truth?\n\n3. Do you \u201cwalk in love, as Christ also hath loved us\u201d? Do you cherish a\nforgiving spirit? Are you careful of the reputation of others; and do\nyou avoid and discourage tale-bearing and detraction?\n\n4. Are you individually frequent in reading, and diligent in meditating\nupon, the Holy Scriptures? And are parents and heads of households in\nthe practice of reading them in their families in a devotional spirit,\nencouraging any right utterance of prayer or praise?\n\n5. Are you in the practice of private retirement and waiting upon the\nLord; in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving,\nmaking your requests known unto Him? And do you live in habitual\ndependence upon the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit?\n\n6. Do you maintain a religious life and conversation as becometh the\ngospel? Are you watchful against conformity to the world; against the\nlove of ease and self-indulgence; or being unduly absorbed by your\noutward concerns to the hindrance of your religious progress and your\nservice for Christ? And do those who have children or others under their\ncare endeavour, by example and precept, to train them up as self-denying\nfollowers of the Lord Jesus?\n\n7. Do you maintain a faithful allegiance to the authority of our Lord\nJesus Christ as the one Head of the Church, and the Shepherd and Bishop\nof souls, from whom alone must come the true call and qualification for\nthe ministry of the Word? And are you faithful in your testimony to the\nfreeness and spirituality of the gospel dispensation?\n\n8. Are you faithful in maintaining our Christian testimony against all\nwar, as inconsistent with the precepts and spirit of the gospel?\n\n9. Do you maintain strict integrity in all your transactions in trade,\nand in your other outward concerns; and are you careful not to defraud\nthe public revenue?\n\n10. _Are your meetings for Church affairs regularly held; and how are\nthey attended?_ Are these meetings vigilant in the discharge of their\nduties towards their subordinate meetings, and in watching over the\nflock in the love of Christ? When delinquencies occur, are they treated\ntimely, impartially, and in a Christian spirit? And do you individually\ntake your right share in the attendance and service of these meetings?\n\n11. Do you, as a Church, exercise a loving and watchful care over your\nyounger members; promoting their instruction in fundamental Christian\ntruth, and in the scriptural grounds of our religious principles; and\nmanifesting an earnest desire that, through the power of Divine grace,\nthey may all become established in the faith and hope of the gospel?\n\n12. Do you fulfil your part as a Church, and as individuals, in\npromoting the cause of truth and righteousness, and the spread of the\nRedeemer\u2019s kingdom, at home and abroad? (1875.)\n\n\n\n\n                                NOTE B.\n             Home Mission Committee of the Yearly Meeting.\n\n\nThe desire felt by many Friends that the Society should, in a more\nsystematic manner than was formerly thought necessary, recognize and\nprovide for what is called \u201cevangelistic\u201d and \u201cpastoral\u201d work, led, in\n1882, to the appointment of a Committee of the Yearly Meeting on \u201cHome\nMissions.\u201d This Committee began its work by inviting the co-operation of\nthe Monthly and Quarterly Meetings, and in its first Annual Report it\nmentions that ten of the Quarterly Meetings had appointed Committees to\ncorrespond with it; in the next year thirteen of the Quarterly Meetings\nwere thus in correspondence with the Home Mission Committee; and in 1887\nthe Report states that the Home Mission Committee itself includes\nmembers of every Quarterly Meeting except one.\n\nIn 1888, the number of Friends working in connection with the Home\nMission Committee was nineteen. The Report of 1889 speaks of a\nconsiderable extension of the work of the Committee, but does not give\nthe number of workers.\n\nThe donations and subscriptions received by the Committee in the year\nending May, 1889, amounted to \u00a32333.\n\nThe work undertaken by \u201cHome Mission Friends\u201d is of various kinds; such\nas conducting first day schools, Bible classes, temperance meetings,\nlecturing on Friends\u2019 principles, in some neighbourhoods visiting the\nsick and the poor, and in various ways endeavouring to build up and\nstrengthen meetings which seem to be in need of help.\n\nNotwithstanding the large measure of support which the Committee has met\nwith, there are many Friends who feel very serious hesitation about this\npractice of providing \u201cpastoral care,\u201d and who fear lest it should tend\nto weaken, if not to destroy, the force of our testimony against a paid\nor humanly appointed ministry. The danger is obvious; and I shall not\nattempt to estimate the degree in which it can be averted, or the force\nof the reasons for encountering it. I will content myself with making\nfrom the Reports of the Committee a few extracts bearing upon this\nquestion.\n\n\u201cWe have been forcibly impressed with the extent and variety of openings\nfor service which have presented themselves to us. Much of this work is\nof a character which can, we believe, be more effectually performed by\nthe Society of Friends than by any other religious body.... In two\ninstances we have deemed it right to give pecuniary assistance to\nFriends who felt it laid upon them, as a religious duty, to give the\nwhole or a greater part of their time to the work.... These arrangements\ninvolve no bargain or understanding whatsoever for the preaching of the\ngospel, and their work has been largely of an organizing character.\u201d\n(1883.)\n\n\u201cIt is found that Friends in all parts of the country are watchful lest\na separate class of supported ministers should be set up, and this is a\nmatter which has from the first received our very serious attention. It\nis our practice, when a Friend has offered his services to this\nCommittee, not to enter upon the question of the amount or manner of\nsupport to be granted him until after he has been accepted by us. We\nhave carefully avoided the establishment of any scale of maintenance,\neach case being separately considered on the basis of the actual needs\nand circumstances of the Friend in question; and we have encouraged\nFriends, where practicable, to contribute by their labour to their own\nsupport.\u201d (1886.)\n\n\u201cWe are glad to report an increase in the number of those who require no\npecuniary assistance beyond necessary expenses when actually on\nreligious service. About half the workers are living on their private\nmeans, or partially maintaining themselves by their labour. About half\nof the number may also be considered as stationed more or less in one\nplace, and the remainder as engaged in evangelistic visits to various\ntowns as way may open. Of the resident workers, several have travelled\nwith minutes from their Monthly Meetings, or have rendered temporary\nassistance to particular meetings by request of other Monthly Meetings\nthan their own.... In the meetings where our workers are resident, the\nvoices of many new members are frequently heard in exhortation and\nprayer. In one of them a visiting Friend desired a meeting with all\nthose who took vocal part in meetings. No fewer than thirteen responded\nto his invitation, while three or four more were prevented by other\nengagements.... We believe our workers are, without exception, loyal to\nthe testimony of the Society against the establishment directly or\nindirectly, of a \u2018one-man ministry.\u2019... Since the formation of this\nCommittee there is hardly a Quarterly Meeting in which they\u201d (the\nFriends engaged in \u201cevangelistic\u201d work) \u201chave not travelled, in several\nof them many times and for many weeks together.... Some of these visits\nhave originated in concerns of the Friends themselves. In other cases\nthe way has been made for them by an invitation of a Quarterly, Monthly,\nor particular Meeting, or the Committee of some Friends\u2019 mission or\nadult school. In no case has this Committee deemed it consistent to SEND\nany worker anywhere, or to do more than lay such invitation before him,\nleaving it to his own conviction of duty as to whether he can see his\nway to accept it or not.\u201d (1888.)\n\n\u201cWith one exception, every Friend in connection with us has been engaged\nduring the year to a greater or less extent in work outside the meeting\nin which he resides.\u201d (1889.)\n\n\n\n\n                                NOTE C.\n                                Slavery.\n\n\nIn the introduction by J. G. Whittier to a recent edition of John\nWoolman\u2019s \u201cJournal,\u201d[33] there is a remarkable account of the manner in\nwhich our Society in America was gradually freed from all complicity\nwith slavery, long before the struggle for its abolition was begun\nelsewhere; from which I venture to make some extracts, for the sake of\nthe illustration it affords of the working both of our principles and of\nour machinery.\n\nFrom the time of George Fox himself, who in 1671 visited Barbadoes, and\nadmonished those who held slaves there to bear in mind that they were\nbrethren, and that \u201cafter certain years of servitude they should make\nthem free,\u201d voices had been raised again and again in several of the\nAmerican meetings to witness against the buying and keeping of slaves.\n\nIn 1742, John Woolman, then in the employment of a small storekeeper in\nNew Jersey, was desired by his master to make out a bill of sale of a\nnegro slave-woman. \u201cOn taking up his pen,\u201d says Whittier, \u201cthe young\nclerk felt a sudden and strong scruple in his mind. The thought of\nwriting an instrument of slavery for one of his fellow-creatures\noppressed him. God\u2019s voice against the desecration of His image spoke in\nhis soul. He yielded to the will of his employer, but while writing the\ninstrument he was constrained to declare, both to the buyer and the\nseller, that he believed slave-keeping inconsistent with the Christian\nreligion.\u201d This circumstance \u201cwas the starting-point of a lifelong\ntestimony against slavery.\n\n\u201cIn the year 1746, he visited Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. He\nwas afflicted by the prevalence of slavery. It appeared to him, in his\nown words, \u2018as a dark gloominess overhanging the land.\u2019 On his return,\nhe wrote an essay on the subject, which was published in 1754. Three\nyears after, he made a second visit to the Southern meetings of Friends.\nTravelling as a minister of the gospel, he was compelled to sit down at\nthe tables of slave-holding planters, who were accustomed to entertain\ntheir friends free of cost, and who could not comprehend the scruples of\ntheir guest against receiving as a gift food and lodging which he\nregarded as the gains of oppression. He was a poor man, but he loved\ntruth more than money. He therefore placed the pay for his entertainment\nin the hands of some member of the family, for the benefit of the\nslaves, or gave it directly to them, as he had opportunity....\n\n\u201cThe annual assemblage of the Yearly Meeting in 1758 at Philadelphia[34]\nmust ever be regarded as one of the most important religious\nconvocations in the history of the Christian Church. The labours of\nWoolman and his few but earnest associates had not been in vain. A deep\nand tender interest had been awakened, and this meeting was looked\nforward to with varied feelings of solicitude by all parties. All felt\nthat the time had come for some definite action.... At length,\u201d after a\n\u201csolemn and weighty appeal\u201d from John Woolman, \u201cthe truth in a great\nmeasure triumphed over opposition; and, without any public dissent, the\nmeeting agreed that the injunction of our Lord and Saviour, to do to\nothers as we would that others should do to us, should induce Friends\nwho held slaves \u2018to set them at liberty, making a Christian provision\nfor them;\u2019 and four Friends\u201d (of whom John Woolman was one) \u201cwere\napproved of as suitable persons to visit and treat with such as kept\nslaves, within the limits of the meeting.\n\n\u201cThis painful and difficult duty was faithfully performed.... These\nlabours were attended with the blessing of the God of the poor and\noppressed. Dealing in slaves was almost entirely abandoned, and many who\nheld slaves set them at liberty. But many members still continuing the\npractice, a more emphatic testimony against it was issued by the Yearly\nMeeting in 1774; and two years after, the subordinate meetings were\ndirected to deny the right of membership to such as persisted in holding\ntheir fellow-men as property.... In the year 1760, John Woolman, in the\ncourse of a religious visit to New England,\u201d attended their Yearly\nMeeting, where \u201cthe London Epistle for 1758, condemning the unrighteous\ntraffic in men, was read, and the substance of it embodied in the\ndiscipline of the meeting; and the following query was adopted, to be\nanswered by the subordinate meetings: \u2018Are Friends clear of importing\nnegroes, or buying them when imported; and do they use those well where\nthey are possessed by inheritance or otherwise, endeavouring to train\nthem up in principles of religion?\u2019 ... In 1769, at the suggestion of\nthe Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting, the Yearly Meeting expressed its\nsense of the wrongfulness of holding slaves, and appointed a large\ncommittee to visit those members who were implicated in the practice....\nIt was stated, in the Epistle to London Yearly Meeting of the year 1772,\nthat a few Friends had freed their slaves from bondage, but that others\n\u2018have been so reluctant thereto, that they _have been disowned_[35] for\nnot complying with the advice of this meeting.\u2019\n\n\u201cIn 1773, the following minute was made: \u2018It is our sense that truth not\nonly requires the young of capacity and ability, but likewise the aged\nand impotent, and also all in a state of infancy and nonage, among\nFriends, to be discharged and set free from a state of slavery; that we\ndo no more claim property in the human race, as we do in the beasts that\nperish.\u2019\n\n\u201cIn 1782, no slaves were known to be held in the New England Yearly\nMeeting. The next year, it was recommended to the subordinate meetings\nto appoint committees to effect a proper and just _settlement between\nthe manumitted slaves and their former masters for their past services_.\nIn 1784, it was concluded by the Yearly Meeting that any slaveholder who\nrefused to comply with the award of these committees should, after due\ncare and labour with him, be disowned from the Society. This was\neffectual; settlements without disownment were made to the satisfaction\nof all parties, and every case was disposed of previous to the year\n1787.\n\n\u201cIn the New York Yearly Meeting, slave-trading was prohibited about the\nmiddle of the last century. In 1771, in consequence of an epistle from\nthe Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, a committee was appointed to visit\nthose who held slaves, and to advise with them in relation to\nemancipation. In 1776, it was made a disciplinary offence to buy, sell,\nor hold slaves upon any condition. In 1784, but one slave was to be\nfound in the limits of the meeting. In the same year, by answers from\nthe several subordinate meetings, it was ascertained that an equitable\nsettlement for past services had been effected between the emancipated\nnegroes and their masters in all but three cases.\n\n\u201cIn the Virginia Yearly Meeting slavery had its strongest hold.\u201d In\n1757, it \u201ccondemned the foreign slave trade. In 1764, it enjoined upon\nits members the duty of kindness towards their servants, of educating\nthem, and carefully providing for their food and clothing. Four years\nafter, its members were strictly prohibited from purchasing any more\nslaves. In 1773, it earnestly recommended the immediate manumission of\nall slaves held in bondage, after the females had reached eighteen and\nthe males twenty-one years of age. At the same time it was advised that\ncommittees should be appointed for the purpose of instructing the\nemancipated persons in the principles of morality and of religion, and\nfor advising and aiding them in their temporal concerns....\n\n\u201cIn 1784, the different Quarterly Meetings having reported that many\nstill held slaves, notwithstanding the advice and entreaties of their\nfriends, the Yearly Meeting directed that, where _endeavours_ to\nconvince those offenders of their error proved ineffectual, the Monthly\nMeeting should proceed to disown them. We have no means of ascertaining\nthe precise number of those actually disowned for slave-holding in the\nVirginia Yearly Meeting, but it is well known to have been very small.\nIn almost all cases the care and assiduous labours of those who had the\nwelfare of the Society and of humanity at heart were successful in\ninducing offenders to manumit their slaves, and confess their error in\nresisting the wishes of their friends, and bringing reproach upon the\ncause of truth.\n\nSo ended slavery in the Society of Friends. For three-quarters of a\ncentury the advice put forth in the meetings of the Society at stated\nintervals, that Friends should be \u2018careful to maintain their testimony\nagainst slavery,\u2019 has been adhered to, so far as owning, or even hiring,\na slave is concerned. Apart from its first fruits of emancipation, there\nis a perennial value in the example exhibited of the power of truth,\nurged patiently and in earnest love, to overcome the difficulties in the\nway of the eradication of an evil system, strengthened by long habit,\nentangled with all the complex relations of society, and closely allied\nwith the love of power, the pride of family, and the lust of gain.\u2019\n\nI need hardly remind my readers of the singular interest of John\nWoolman\u2019s own account of his experiences in this and other matters,\nwhich would scarcely admit of abridgment. I have, therefore, been\nobliged, though unwillingly, to content myself with the above bare\nenumeration of the actual steps taken by the various meetings, without\nmaking any attempt to show to what an extent John Woolman\u2019s own deep\nexercises of mind contributed to bring them about. For a study of Quaker\nexperience, in its purest and most impressive form, the \u201cJournal\u201d itself\nis perhaps unrivalled.\n\n\n\n\n                               FOOTNOTES\n\n\n[1]\u201cBook of Christian Discipline of the Religious Society of Friends in\n    Great Britain; consisting of Extracts on Doctrine, Practice, and\n    Church Government, from the Epistles and other Documents issued\n    under the sanction of the Yearly Meeting held in London from its\n    first institution in 1672 to 1883.\u201d London: Samuel Harris and Co.,\n    5, Bishopsgate Street Without. 1883.\n\n[2]The queries now in use are given at length in the Appendix, Note A.\n\n[3]It is estimated that in 1680 (or thirty-two years from the beginning\n    of George Fox\u2019s ministry) the number of Friends was about 40,000.\n    \u201cIn 1656 Fox computed that there were seldom less than 1000 in\n    prison; and it has been asserted that, between 1661 and 1697, 13,562\n    Quakers were imprisoned, 152 were transported, and 338 died in\n    prison or of their wounds\u201d (\u201cEncycl. Brit.,\u201d 9th edit., art.\n    \u201cQuakers\u201d).\n\n[4]I may, perhaps, here be allowed to point out the ambiguity of the\n    expression \u201cimmediate inspiration.\u201d The word \u201cimmediate\u201d may be\n    understood to mean direct, and in this sense it is, I think,\n    superfluous; for it is surely impossible to conceive of inspiration\n    as indirect, although revelation may easily be so. But it may also,\n    in reference to any particular thought communicated, be understood\n    as meaning \u201cinstantaneous;\u201d and in this sense a special importance\n    has been attached to it by some Friends, which is, I believe,\n    deprecated by others, as restricting \u201cministry\u201d to the utterance of\n    words believed to be at the moment given for utterance, under what\n    is called a \u201cfresh anointing\u201d from above. I would, therefore, rather\n    avoid at present the use of the expression \u201cimmediate inspiration,\u201d\n    when speaking of our belief that there is in every heart a witness\n    for the truth, which is, so to speak, radiated from the central\n    truth. The \u201clight\u201d seems, on the whole, to be the figure least open\n    to any possible misinterpretation.\n\n[5]Let me not be understood to mean that the process of \u201ckeeping the\n    mind\u201d (in Quaker phrase) \u201cretired to the Lord\u201d is an easy one. On\n    the contrary, it may need strenuous effort. But the _effort_ can be\n    made at will and even the mere effort thus to retire from the\n    surface to the depths of life is sure to bring help and\n    strengthening\u2014is in itself a strengthening, steadying process.\n\n[6]\u201cIf ye have not been faithful in that which is another man\u2019s, who\n    shall give you that which is your own?\u201d (Luke XVI. 12).\n\n[7]I do not, of course, forget that, going to the imperfection of human\n    laws and human faculties, cases may and do occur in which Divine\n    guidance must lead us in ways which run counter to them. The figure\n    used above is intended only to illustrate the general correspondence\n    between the map, as it were, which can be laid down by the reason of\n    man, and that individual and immediate guidance which alone can show\n    us a higher and a narrower, but yet freer, pathway\u2014the pathway of\n    that highest service which is perfect freedom. When, in exceptional\n    cases, any contrariety really emerges between the human and the\n    Divine guiding lines, we may surely still, without too much\n    straining of our figure, say that it is a living power only which\n    can free any human spirit from the too narrow fencing in of a morbid\n    or unenlightened conscience, and guide it by paths running counter\n    to the beaten track of conventional morality, or even in some rare\n    instances authorize and enable and require it to overleap even the\n    cliffs of actual law, trusting that in such cases, as experience has\n    already taught us, the blood of the martyrs will still be the seed\n    of the Church.\n\n[8]Sermon XIV., \u201cOn the Love of God,\u201d Butler\u2019s \u201cSermons,\u201d p. 278\n    (London, 1726). And in his charge to the clergy of Durham, published\n    with the \u201cAnalogy\u201d (London, 1802), he repeats the words which I have\n    printed above in italics, and speaks of public worship as \u201ca time of\n    devotion, when we are assembled to yield ourselves up to the full\n    influence of the Divine presence.\u201d\n\n[9]See Introduction.\n\n[10]It is, I think, in this connection important to distinguish between\n    the question, How do you in practice distinguish between a true and\n    a false message? and the quite separate inquiry, How do you in\n    theory distinguish between the human faculty of imagination and the\n    Divine action signified by the word \u201cinspiration\u201d? It is with the\n    first question only that I have been concerned in the text, as it\n    is, I believe, the only question with which honesty requires us to\n    grapple. Any attempt to give a full answer to the second question\n    would require a degree of psychological skill to which I have no\n    claim; and I doubt whether the very terms of the question do not\n    lead us beyond the province even of psychology. But, speaking in a\n    popular and trustful way, I should reply that we are not concerned\n    to discern the precise limits of the Divine and the human; only to\n    throw open the deepest human powers to the purest Divine influences;\n    that the result we look for is the fruit of a devout intelligence,\n    first purified, and then swayed, by the immediate action of Divine\n    power. It surely involves something like a contradiction in terms to\n    inquire at what precise line a distinction is obliterated?\n\n[11]People have said to me again and again, If you want to be silent,\n    why cannot you be silent at home? Such an objection seems hardly\n    intended to be seriously answered, yet I have heard it so often that\n    I cannot but notice it. Surely it need hardly be pointed out that it\n    applies at least equally strongly to the practice of meeting\n    together to join in prayers, which, being already in print and\n    chosen according to the calendar, each of us might read at home. But\n    the worthier answer is that, whether our utterance be prearranged or\n    spontaneous, we meet in order to kindle in each other the flame of\n    true worship, and also to show forth our allegiance to the Master,\n    to whom we are so united as to feel our need of each other\u2019s\n    sympathy in drawing near to Him.\n\n[12]In what follows there is, indeed, no \u201cdoctrine\u201d of any kind; no\n    attempt, I mean, to offer formulated or authorized teaching. I have\n    endeavoured to show how in my own experience the intellectual\n    difficulties with which the subject is surrounded did, when honestly\n    and patiently faced, prove in due time the means of purifying, not\n    of quenching, that true spirit of prayer which is indeed the very\n    breath of our inner life. I trust that none will misunderstand my\n    outspokenness in stating those difficulties. They are, and in these\n    days must be, freely recognized. Unless we who have a witness to\n    bear for the Author of spiritual worship are willing to face them,\n    our witness will fail to reach those who most sorely need it. I am\n    driven once more to appeal to \u201csomething more than candour\u201d in my\n    readers for a right interpretation of my struggle to unfold thoughts\n    which tax my powers of utterance to the uttermost, and which I yet\n    dare not withhold.\n\n[13]\u201cApology,\u201d Prop. xiii.\n\n[14]See Appendix, Note B, for a short account of the \u201cHome Mission\n    Committee.\u201d\n\n[15]I believe, as I have already said, that few people outside the\n    Society are aware of the extent to which the practice is still\n    continued of Friends who feel themselves called to the ministry\n    travelling, as we say, \u201cin the service of truth,\u201d or \u201cunder a sense\n    of religious concern,\u201d not only from place to place in England, but\n    also all over the world. A remarkable variety of \u201cservices\u201d are in\n    this way spontaneously undertaken, and carried out, sometimes quite\n    alone, sometimes with the help of one or more Friends \u201cliberated\u201d to\n    accompany the minister. And those small meetings where there is but\n    little vocal ministry are objects of special care and concern to the\n    larger meetings, of which they form a part; and many Friends make a\n    practice of visiting them from time to time.\n\n    There was also a special service to which ministering Friends\n    formerly often felt themselves called, and which, though much\n    disused of late years, is not altogether extinct\u2014that of paying\n    \u201creligious visits to families\u201d in particular districts or, in other\n    words, of holding meetings for worship and mutual edification from\n    house to house\u2014generally, but not invariably, amongst our own\n    members only. These visits were occasions specially adapted and felt\n    suitable for the exercise of that peculiar gift of \u201cspeaking to the\n    condition of\u201d individuals which some Friends (especially in former\n    times) seem to have possessed in a remarkable degree. I believe them\n    to have been of deep value when rightly conducted by the few\n    possessing a real qualification for such delicate and at times\n    searching services, but perhaps peculiarly liable to degenerate into\n    what was neither edifying nor acceptable.\n\n[16]For a short account of the manner in which, before the end of the\n    eighteenth century, the Society in America freed itself from all\n    complicity with slavery, as illustrating the working both of our\n    principles and of our organization, see Appendix, Note C.\n\n[17]The expression \u201cput under dealing\u201d describes the prescribed\n    preliminary to disownment. When an overseer, having found private\n    remonstrance unavailing, is obliged to bring a case of wrong-doing\n    before the Monthly Meeting, that Meeting appoints one or two Friends\n    to visit and \u201cdeal with\u201d the offender, in the way of exhortation and\n    counsel, with a view to induce him to acknowledge and condemn or\n    \u201cdisown\u201d his own fault, and thus to avert the penalty of the\n    Society\u2019s disownment of himself.\n\n[18]I hope it will be remembered that my object throughout is to unfold\n    the meaning of our ideal, not at all to estimate the degree in which\n    we actually live according to it. I am not in a position to form any\n    opinion worth having as to the actual state of the Society, nor if I\n    had any such opinion should I wish to publish it. My desire is to\n    explain the secret of our strength, not of our weakness.\n\n[19]I believe that scarcely any Friend would be found to consider the\n    office of the policeman as an unlawful one, or to entertain scruples\n    about the use of physical force in maintaining order. I am told that\n    Friends have often, and without censure, acted as special\n    constables.\n\n    With regard to the subject of capital punishment, the Yearly Meeting\n    has, indeed, during the last fifty years, expressed very serious\n    doubts of its being justifiable; but the matter is treated as one\n    \u201cneeding prayerful consideration\u201d by those whom it may concern, not\n    as beyond all question clear.\n\n[20]It is, I believe, notorious that many of the panics which often\n    actually lead to war, and which tend to keep up the enormous and\n    demoralizing burdens of an \u201carmed peace,\u201d are largely brought about\n    by those who have a pecuniary interest in them, either for\n    stock-jobbing or for newspaper-selling interests.\n\n[21]I mean by \u201casceticism\u201d the practice of any humanly devised religious\n    or spiritual discipline, whether self-chosen or prescribed by\n    authority.\n\n[22]\u201cBut I say unto you, Swear not at all.... But let your communication\n    be Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of\n    evil\u201d (Matt. v. 34-37).\n\n[23]The victory thus won by Friends has paved the way for greater\n    liberty for all; and at the present time any one (whether\n    \u201cprofessing with us\u201d or not) who objects on the ground of religion\n    to the taking of an oath is equally at liberty to affirm.\n\n[24]\u201cBook of Discipline,\u201d p. 141.\n\n[25]The number of members was reported in 1862 as 13,844; in 1889 as\n    15,574. Before 1862 no returns were made.\n\n[26]Many other causes have, no doubt, been at work in bringing about the\n    changes referred to in the text. I am, indeed, not qualified to\n    attempt anything like an adequate account, on however slight a\n    scale, of the recent history of the Society, and have desired in\n    this passage only to indicate the general direction of the principal\n    division of parties amongst us.\n\n[27]Robert Barclay, who was for generation after generation regarded as\n    the main pillar of theoretic Quakerism, plainly declares the\n    Scriptures to be \u201ca secondary rule\u201d\u2014subordinate, that is, to the\n    teaching of the Spirit by which they were given forth. He\n    anticipates many now familiar reflections about the inherent\n    uncertainties of interpretation and application which preclude the\n    possibility of our finding in any written words a sufficient guide\n    in the infinite variety of individual circumstances; and also\n    recognizes fully the many sources of error appertaining to writings\n    so ancient, and derived through so many differing versions and\n    translations. He declares, however, that \u201cbecause they are commonly\n    acknowledged by all to have been written by the dictates of the Holy\n    Spirit, and that the errors which may be supposed by the injury of\n    Times to have slipt in are not such but that there is a sufficient\n    clear Testimony left to all the essentials of the Christian faith,\n    we do look upon them as the only fit outward judge of controversies\n    amongst Christians,\u201d and adds that \u201cwe are very willing that all our\n    doctrines and practices shall be tried by them;\u201d and that \u201cwe shall\n    also be very willing to admit, as a positive certain maxim, _That\n    whatsoever any do, pretending to the Spirit, which is contrary to\n    the Scriptures, be accounted and reckoned a Delusion of the Devil._\n    For as we never lay claim to the Spirit\u2019s leadings that we may cover\n    ourselves in anything that is evil; so we know, that as every evil\n    contradicts the Scriptures, so it doth also the Spirit in the first\n    place, from which the Scriptures came\u201d (Barclay\u2019s \u201cApology,\u201d p. 86:\n    London, 1736).\n\n[28]\u201cThe Inner Light,\u201d pp. 23-26.\n\n[29]It may be worth while to mention in this connection that there is\n    not, so far as I have observed, any habitual preponderance of women\n    in Friends\u2019 meetings. This impression is confirmed by the fact that\n    the number of habitual \u201cattenders\u201d (non-members) at our meetings is\n    given (in the tabular statement prepared for the Yearly Meeting of\n    1889) as follows:\u2014\n\n          Males            2,962\n          Females          3,086\n                           6,048\n\n    The rapid growth of Friends\u2019 First Day Adult Schools is another\n    significant fact, as showing the openness to the teaching and\n    influence of Friends amongst working men, and at the same time the\n    energetic way in which that influence is being used. This movement\n    began, at the suggestion of the late Joseph Sturge, in Birmingham in\n    1845; and it appears, from the annual report of the Friends\u2019 First\n    Day School Association, that the number of adult scholars was in\n    March, 1889, as follows:\u2014\n\n          Men             17,591\n          Women            5,535\n                          23,126\n\n    The Society of Friends, it should be remembered, numbers (including\n    children) only 15,574 members, yet the teaching in these schools is\n    entirely undertaken by Friends personally, and is, I believe, done\n    altogether without paid help, though valuable assistance is in many\n    cases given by former scholars.\n\n[30]The history of James Naylor is the best-known case in point.\n\n[31]When any person applies for membership, the Monthly Meeting appoints\n    one or more Friends to visit the applicant, and to report to the\n    meeting the result of the interview, before a reply is given. The\n    precise conditions to be fulfilled in such cases are nowhere laid\n    down, but the object is understood, in a general way, to be to\n    ascertain that the applicant is fully \u201cconvinced of Friends\u2019\n    principles.\u201d The test is thus a purely personal and individual one,\n    and partakes of the elasticity which characterizes all our\n    arrangements, and which is felt to favour the fullest dependence\n    upon Divine guidance.\n\n[32]\u201cBook of Discipline,\u201d p. 229.\n\n[33]Published by Robert Smeal, Glasgow, 1883.\n\n[34]It must be remembered that the Society of Friends in America\n    consists of many Yearly Meetings, each of which is supreme and\n    independent within its own compass. Their number has considerably\n    increased since John Woolman\u2019s time; and in the Western States there\n    is also a rapid increase in the number of members.\n\n[35]The italics are throughout Whittier\u2019s.\n\n\n\n\n                          Transcriber\u2019s Notes\n\n\n\u2014Silently corrected a few typos.\n\n\u2014Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook\n  is public-domain in the country of publication.\n\n\u2014In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by\n  _underscores_.","title":"Quaker Strongholds","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":47857}