Quaker?Quick!Read: PHP 21-40

Foreword—I spent more than 1/2 of 2013 at Pendle Hill in Wallingford,

PA, and fell in love with many things about it. My latest passion is with their

pamphlets. Here I have, after reading them, set down the most impressive

excerpts of each, with rare paraphrasing and additions of my own [in brackets].

Most of all I am impressed with the timelessness of these pamphlets, the

oldest of which go back more than 80 years.

21. Reality and the Spiritual World (by Thomas R. Kelly; 1942)

[About the Author]—Thomas Raymond Kelly was born into an

evangelical Quaker family in 1893. He graduated from Wilmington College in

1913 as a chemistry major. He went to Haverford College near Philadelphia,

PA where Rufus Jones became his mentor. He came into contact with the

mystical vein of Quakerism. He worked with American Friends Service Com-

mittee feeding German children, wrote and taught on mysticism at Haverford

for 5 years, after receiving his masters of philosophy there. He died in 1941.

FOREWORD—Throughout his years at Haverford College Thomas R.

Kelly entered generously into Pendle Hill’s life. January 1941 he led a confe-

rence of Meeting workers on cultivation of the spiritual life; he died 5 days

later. This pamphlet is made up of 4 addresses given during the winter of .

1940-41 [Thomas Kelly had a] valid mystical experience which made so many

of those loved Thomas Kelly as a Friend hearken to him as a prophet.

[Arguments for the Existence of God]—How can we be sure that

God is real, and not just a creation of our wishful thinking? If I could find

a Mark worthy to be the aim of the bow of my life, I should be integrated

freed, from internal conflicts, those confusions & tangles within which makes

me ineffective, indecisive, wavering, half-hearted, unhappy. Maybe the whole

conviction of a Spiritual Reality shadowing over us all is a useful, [stabilizing]

hoax as long as we believe it intensely. If the Truth is that there is no real God,

but only human craving for a God, then we want to know that, and adjust our

lonely lives to that awful fact.

[First/Second/Third Arguments]—I asked a friend: “Why are are you so sure there is a Reality corresponding to your religious cra- vings?” [He said that since all other cravings are provided for in this world, the satisfaction of] profound craving for God is to be expected. At best his argument from analogy only indicates the possibility, [perhaps even proba- bility] that there is an objectively real God, corresponding to his hunger for God.

[When a devout Protestant was asked the same question] he answers, “The Bible tells me God is real, that in God we live and move and have our being.” [I disagree that only one time and special men may provide divine in- spiration. He said that Bible is inspired because it says it is. The Bible saying that it is authoritative, and citing the belief of multitudes of people in God is not enough to prove that God exists. The Catholic approach that the Holy Church guaranteed the reliability of the gospel suffers from a similar circular argument, where the 1870 Vatican Council pronounced the Pope infallible. But only the Pope is infallible so the Council is not infallible in pronouncing the Pope infallible or the Bible reliable.

[Then there's the amazing complexity & interdependence of the world]. And here am I, a complex being, of amazing detail of body and astounding reaches of mind. My parents didn’t make me. There must be a God who creates, maintains and preserves the whole world order. But the argument rests upon only half the evidence. The world is imperfect & you can't argue from an imperfect effect, the world, to a perfect cause, God.

Other Arguments Indicated—There are also ontological, moral & uni- versality of religion arguments [that I am not satisfied with]. The fact is that men experience God’s presence. In times of direct experience of Presence, we know God is utterly real; we need no argument. It isn’t enough to believe in God’s love, you must experience God’s love. It isn’t enough to believe Christ was born, you must experience Christ’s birth in your heart.

Let us notice that his experience of God energizes us enormously, in a way far different from arguments. We love God with a new and joyous love, wholly & completely. We are energized at the base of our being by a Divine Energizing. It isn’t creeds that keep churches going; it's the dynamic of God’s life, given in sublime and intimate moments to men and women and boys and girls. And the experience seems to come from beyond us. It carries a sense of objectivity in its very heart, as if it arose from beyond us and came in as a revelation of a reality out there; we receive it. For the person who experi- ences God, there is a certainty about God which is utterly satisfying and con-vincing to oneself. The experience of God brings a new kind of meaning to the reality of God, vivid and doubt-free; it is not transferable to another.

The testimony of mystical experience is not absolutely logically free from flaws. Mere internal pressure of certainty does not prove certainty. Intense inner assurance that something is so does not make it so. We are assured that lives that have experienced God as vividly real are new lives, transformed lives, stabilized lives, integrated lives, souls newly sensitive to moral needs [and committed to action to meet those needs]. There is a logical defect in this pragmatic test. Logicians call it the Fallacy of Affirming the Consequent. This fallacy is shared with every scientific theory that is sup- ported by experimental evidence; science rests upon faith, not upon certainty.

I am convinced that God is greater than logic, although not contrary to logic, & our inability to catch him in the little net of our human reason is no proof of God’s non-existence, but only of our need that reason shall be sup-plemented by God’s tender visitations, [& by God’s leadings which are] superior to any our intellects can plan.

THE SPIRITUAL WORLD—[I am doing as Immanuel Kant did]—I am destroying reason to make room for faith. James Pratt’s 3 stages of religion are: [childlike] Credulity; [adolescent] Doubt and Criticism; Faith. The 3^rd stage, Faith, is strikingly akin to the 1^st. It is the childlike simplicity of the truly great souls. At this stage one can differ radically with other people intellec- tually, yet love them because they too are basically devoted to feeding upon the Bread of Life, rather than analyzing that Bread.

By whom is the spiritual world peopled? Humankind has peopled it with more than God; some have added angels, devils, the Devil, souls of the departed, Heaven and Hell. How does the spiritual world behave towards us? [How do we decide in between conflicting views of the spiritual world], rejecting some and accepting others? [The possible methods are]: reason; judgment of spiritually discerning souls; Bible writers; our own inner experience with God. Each of these needs to be supple- mented by the others. [Quakers rely] upon the last test, the vividness and vitality of our inner experience and the inward Teacher of Truth.

This test, because of its privacy & uniqueness, would allow each indi-

vidual’s insights to be final. A religious anarchy of private opinion would result. Quakers, among others, must face this difficulty. All men are taught within themselves, by the same light & source & teacher. Our knowledge is conditioned by the object’s nature. But it is also conditioned by the expecta- tions & convictions of the experiencer. The already accepted & dominant system of ideas in the background of the mind of the experiencer is an active modifier of the report. The vast cultural background in which each of us is immersed sets a broad pattern of expectation, & furnishes the material for interpretation, into the texture of which whatever we might call raw experience is instantly & unconscious woven. What one hears during inward listening, will be clothed in the system of ideas already current in the mind.

It seems to me that some of the surprise elements in inner experience can be interpreted in terms of repressions which are released & genuinely seem surprising to the individual who had supposed that one’s daily round of conscious life & beliefs was the whole person. [We come to another kind of surprise, namely the difference between belief in God & the actual experi- ence of God]; God experienced is a vast surprise. Expectations are broken down, discarded, made utterly inadequate, as God invades the knower, and opens to one new and un-dreamed of truths. We become new creatures as God breaks down the old, in-adequate, half-hearted life-molds of religion & conduct.

[After experiencing God], we find that we have a new alignment of recognition of important souls, and a powerful drawing toward those who have tasted and handled the Word of Life. This is the Fellowship and Com- munion of the Saints. [Those revealed to us in Scripture are also] a social check upon our individual experience, as a disclosure of kindred souls who have known a like visitation of God.

The Devil’s history in the Bible is fairly clear. It came from

Persia

, from the Zoroastrian faith, & seeped into Asia Minor, & crept into Christian tradition as an alien element from the outside, not an indigenous development. [So far as angels are concerned], I have always felt sure that God could deal directly with my soul, without sending intermediaries. The creative epochs of angelo- logy came in days of belief in excessive transcendence [of God].

It seems to me plausible to believe there is a life after death. William Blake said that when I reach the time for dying, I am just beginning to learn how to live. I believe that there are amazing psychological phenomena, not yet under the order of any known laws, which may at some time be more systematically ordered and controlled, as science. I should expect only additions to psychology to come from it, not to theology, & certainly not to religion. I believe God continues life after death, in a fellowship of which we have a foretaste of here. I believe that the Eternal Christ is in the world, seeking, knocking, persuading, counseling all to return to their rightful home.

The Inner Teacher, the Holy Spirit: speaks within; teaches us things we can’t learn in books; makes vivid & dynamic formerly dead phrases; inte- grates us and leads us into new truths; lays on us new burdens; sensitizes us in new areas, toward God and toward all. Thomas R. Kelly

PRAYER—Within us is a meeting place with God, who strengthens & invigorates our whole personality; fretful cares are replaced by a deep & certain assurance. Something of God’s cosmic patience becomes ours, & we walk in quiet assurance and boldness; God is with us. Dynamic living comes from years of inner mental habits. There is a way of living in prayer at the same time one is busy with outward affairs of daily living. 2 levels are there, the surface & the deeper, in fruitful interplay; creative values come from the deeper into the daily affairs.

One’s 1^st experience of Heavenly Splendor plows through one’s whole being. The Presence of God experience is the fulfillment of ourselves. How do you begin this double mental life, [outer and inner]? [Read] these words outwardly. But within continue in steady prayer, offering yourself & all that you are to God in simple, joyful, serve, unstrained dedication. The 1^st weeks & months of such practice are pretty patchy, badly botched. Say to yourself: “This is the kind of bungling person I am when I am not wholly Thine. Take this imperfect devotion & transmute by Thy love.” You become God’s pliant instrument of loving concern. You become turned toward God, away from yourself; you become turned outward toward all.

[A life of prayer includes 5 types of prayer; prayers of: oblation; inward song; inward listening; carrying; infusion. The prayer of oblation is the prayer of pouring yourself out before God. Offer God your triumphs and the rags and tatters of your mistakes; offer God your friends, pray for their increased awareness of God; [offer trees, creatures, and humanity to God]. At 1^st you make these prayers in words, repeating them in little sentences. [Eventually] you find yourself living in attitudes of oblation. A gesture of the soul toward God is a prayer.

The prayer of inward song is inner exultation & glorification of God’s wonders filling the deeper level of mind. Inward fires should burn in the God- kindled soul, fires shining outward in radiant & released personality. We sing & through us the Eternal Lover sings into the world where songs have died. Examples of songs of the soul include: the Psalms, A Chain of Prayers across the Ages, & Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ.

The prayer of inward listening [reminds us that] prayer is a 2-way pro- cess. Creative, Spirit-filled lives do not arise until God is attended to, till His internal teaching becomes real. A listening life & a living silence is often more creative, more recreative, than verbalized prayers, worded in gracious phrases. When distracting noises come, accept them & weave them by prayer into the silence. The soul’s fundamental religious education the soul is conducted by the Holy Spirit, the last & greatest teacher of the soul, & not in church history [& Bible study]. I will speak of the prayer of carrying in [my closing words having to do with] the experience of group fellowship.

In the infused prayer there come amazing times when our theme of prayer is laid upon us, as if initiated by God. [Perhaps] there is a giant circle of prayer, such that prayer may originate in God and swing down into us & back up into God. In the experience of infused prayer there seems to be blurring of the distinctions between the one who prays, the prayer that is prayed, and the One to whom the prayer is prayed. I have tried in these words to keep close to the spirit and the practice of Brother Lawrence, St. Francis of Assisi, & John Woolman. It is said of St. Francis that he became a prayer; such lives must be reborn today, if love and power is to be restored to God’s church. [This moment of restoration waits for us to be really willing].

FELLOWSHIP—When our souls were overturned by God’s invading love, we suddenly find ourselves in the midst of wholly new relationships, en- meshed with some people in amazing bonds of love & nearness & togethe- ness. Can a new [inward] bondedness be the meaning of being in the Kingdom of God? [New alignments with people take place], with those we had only slightly known, [but who have] been down in the center a long time, and with those we have known for years, but are not down in the center in Christ [and cannot] share life at its depth until they are down in the center of shared love. Now we suddenly see that some quiet obscure persons, whose voices count for little in the councils of the church, are princes and saints in Israel.

Into this fellowship of souls at the center we simply emerge. When we discover God we discover the fellowship. [Fellowship is more than sociability]. You can’t build a church that is Christ’s church on mere sociability, important & normal as that is. Where the bondedness of souls in a common enslave- ment [to Christ] is present though you meet in a barn, you have a church. God does not respect the class lines which we so carefully erect.

Normal religious development can't take place in a vacuum occupied solely by you & God. We need friends of the soul. The last depths of conver- sation in the fellowship go beyond spoken words. People who know one another in God do not need to talk much. [You can meet someone for the first time, & though the social & educational difference seem immense, if you both are concerned with the inner secrets of life at a deep level, knowing and connecting to one another is immediate and at some point words are unnecessary to convey thoughts].

[I referred earlier to the prayer of carrying. It] is an experience of rela- tedness with one another, a relation of upholding one another by internal bond of prayer. With some this awareness of being bonded through a com- mon life continues almost as vividly when separated as when together. It is the sense that some people you know are lifting you, & offering you, & upholding you in your inner life. Do you carry some small group of people who rest upon your hearts not as obligations but as fellow-travelers? These are are not a chance group of people. They are your special burden & your special privilege. Each person is the center of radiating bonds of spiri- tual togetherness. For the sacrament of Communion, no outward bread and wine need be present, but inwardly we feed with our fellows, & meet one another in spirit. This mystic unity lies at the heart of the church.

The Inner Teacher, the Holy Spirit: speaks within; teaches us things we can’t learn in books; makes vivid and dynamic formerly dead phrases; integrates us and leads us into new truths; lays on us new burdens; sensitizes us in new areas, toward God and toward all.
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22. Relief and Reconstruction: Notes on Principles Involved in Quaker
Relief Service (by Roger C. Wilson; 1943)

Preface—Roger C. Wilson, Executive Secretary of British Friends' War Relief Service (FWRS) was the appointed lecturer at Pendle Hill, Summer, 1943; travel permit problems delayed him until after close of session. These 4 essays include material [prepared for his planned lectures], & form the basis for his 1st public address here in August. This pamphlet will clarify the theore- tical & religious basis of Quaker relief service—H. Brinton

INTRODUCTION—This pamphlet is from notes & is designed to serve as the raw material for talks & discussions. Those sessions happened 1st in London at the end of June, 1943, to trainees for FWRS and Friends' Ambu- lance Unit (FAU); only ¼ of trainees were members of the Society of Friends. Almost all of them had field service in Quaker relief work. The religious basis of Quakerism as part of Christian tradition has been assumed throughout this pamphlet without discussion. This introduction provides a few useful back- ground notes.

The Friends' Service Council is a permanent body with religious duties that sometimes added temporary foreign relief work to its activities. Friends weren't corporately engaged in relief work at home, because there did not appear to be any need which the Friends were peculiarly suited to meet, & no "concern" in a Quaker sense had yet emerged for a permanent social welfare agency. When the blitz began in September, 1940, Friends had to create a committee in November, which developed into the FWRS. Work was done September-October by FAU and an unnamed group out of Woodbrooke, the English prototype for Pendle Hill.

From beginnings in air-raid shelters, rest centers, homeless centers, there has developed a fairly large relief organization with a wide variety of activities [e.g. Citizens' Advice Bureau, for the bewildered in target areas]. There was also a transport system linking together the FWRS' more than 50 centers of activity throughout the country, and a building and maintenance section to keep the centers in working order. At its height 550 men & women were engaged in this service; summer 1943 there were 450, mostly pacifists, mostly military age.

Every "conscientious objector" [CO] is entitled to appear before a Tri- bunal [British Draft Board]. Rejected claimants go to army or to jail. A few are registered unconditionally & are freed [to act as their conscience dictates]. The great majority are registered conditionally, some for non-combatant service, some for the American Civilian Public Service's British equivalent. Men & women often have to choose between several alternative services. If prison is the only "acceptable" alternative, prison sentences are not longer than a year and are often less. There is virtually no opposition to COs in Great Britain, & very little antagonism to the useful, hard-working COs.

FWRS isn't, in principle, a form of alternative service. It sees a piece of work that needs doing & tries to find suitable people to do it. Most FWRS members are recent COs. A few are older pacifists come out of retirement to help. A few just prefer to work in our informal environment. None of our members is paid a commercial or professional salary. They receive much less in monetary benefits than the private soldier in the army receive; depen- dents are supported on a meager scale.

The Service is widely dispersed geographically, with a great deal of decentralized authority, & a heavy emphasis on personal responsibility. The tendency to argue has never reached serious proportions. The organi- zation of personnel is the hardest part of FWRS. These notes express my personal views and convictions. My audience accepts them as a recogniz- able interpretation of our service experience. It was prepared away from sources of reference and corrective criticism.

Roger C. Wilson, Pendle Hill, September, 1943.

1.) THE RELIGIOUS BASIS OF QUAKER RELIEF WORK: [Kind- ness & Evil]—What is it that gives relief projects a sense of direction & coherence? Organized kindness doesn't get anywhere unless there is pur- pose behind it. Kindness can easily become appeasement. Because kind- ness alone is inadequate, many relief efforts don't get anywhere. We have seen people with great kindness who can't be effective leaders because they had no clear sense of purpose. And there are some whose primary, unconscious concern is to face "hotspots" with physical danger, in order to convince themselves they aren't cowards. They have much to give when courage is the supreme virtue; such people must play a subordinate part almost immediately after a crisis has passed.

The best Quaker relief work has sprung from a sense of common sin leading to a sense of common suffering & the need for/ possibility of, a com- mon repentance. The grace of God, & God's will for us is a real fact which we can know through prayer & worship. Because of their certainty of God's will for them, inspired Quaker relief workers cease to be external agents. They become part of the [suffering] chaos, yet they neither accept nor are degraded by the situation.

Because of their knowledge of God's will and love, they have the patience and the understanding to speak to the condition of their [neighbors in the broadest sense]. Some pacifists assume that a reliance on the human capacity for goodness naturally produces good results; there is no evidence for this assumption. We cannot deny the gigantic power of evil and we have no right to assume that devotion to good will produce results in our genera- tion. How do we grapple with the evil that permits people to regard war as a possible even though hateful method of action?

[Facing and Overcoming Evil]—We Christian pacifists have nothing to say on the immediate, day-to-day political problems, because we are una- ble to accept the presuppositions about power which the rest of the world accepts. We are essentially "non-cooperators" in not sharing responsibility for current political life. We can't engage in belligerent activity to relieve the suffering of the Jews. We have to try to participate in their suffering in the conviction that it is ultimately the power of suffering in love that redeems all from the power of evil. And what about our countrymen who are fighting and dying for our right as pacifists to practice this long-term view.

The essential nature of Christianity is its teaching of how to face and overcome evil, not how to avoid it. Christianity enables someone to carry more than one otherwise could of a share of the world's daily evil & suffering without being crushed & frightened by it. As long as humans sin & abuse free will we will suffer. Those who respond to the good within themselves will want to mitigate the suffering by trying to break the circle of sin and its results. The people who suffer aren't necessarily the same as those who sin; sinners don't necessarily suffer. Christians must recognize that the sin is their sin as well. We need the experience of being part of suffering humanity. "Thou, O Christ, convince us by thy spirit; thrill us with thy divine passion; drown our selfishness in thy invading love; lay on us the burden of the world's suffering," is a deep cry for imagination of suffering.

[Germans; Relief Work & its Significance; Politics & Business]—It will be easy for Germans looking for a method of letting themselves down lightly to think that there are some kind generous people who saw some moral justification in the German position & didn't fight for that reason. We didn't fight because we know that fighting is not the best way of dealing with this evil, which was not Germany's alone, but ours too, in the wide sphere of power politics. The sense of mutual sin, for most Brits & Americans, exists in intellectual form only.

The more one engages in social work, the more one realizes that the responsibility for evil lies on all of us, both those who exploit and those who accept the rotten standards of their social environments; I doubt if there are any adult innocents. How does our relief work help people get to their feet and take a renewed or increasing measure of responsibility for the common life? Intellectual or technical leadership must be subject to the Quaker background of prayer and worship. In so far as we are a united ser- vice drawing our inspiration from worship, the situation ought to approximate this ideal. There should be a background to & quality in our lives which goes beyond words, beyond particular relief actions to the very essence of living.

Political life tends to be simply one thing after another. The sort of prin- ciples which should guide our work, enable us to have a policy, take responsi- bility, and judge leadership [on a religious basis], should be based on deep pacifist principles. Administrators perhaps find it most difficult to remember the difference between political & pacifist principles. They are in charge of a large, complicated & rapidly changing "business-like" enterprise. Some calls for help must be answered; others must be declined. How each decision is to be considered, whether publicly or privately, quick ruling or slow consul- tation, must be established. Multiple issues encourages "business-like" pro- , cess rather than working under God's guidance. The wisdom of God may involve what looks like the foolishness of humans and certainly involves an inner discipline and responsiveness not usually associated with "business."

2. The Relief Worker: [Core of Divinely Ordinary People]—COs aren't, by virtue of their objection, naturally cooperative workers. They have had to make a strong assertion of their convictions; this isn't an isolated inci- dent in their lives. They have been in the minority in almost all the issues dis- cussed in our various associations. Our relief work depends upon individuals cooperating; there must be a large central body of people at peace with God & themselves, at peace in an unworldly way. They must be ordinary people so touched by the grace of God that they may be said to be a core of divinely ordinary people.

The larger the section [of relief workers] the more potentially difficult is the internal tension [between its members]. The individualist who is the maker of tensions is always a potential source of weakness & strength. The individualist is the one who always knows what is right and who therefore is not sensitive to corporate responsibility. Putting 2 people with active imagina- tions together results in either paralysis or being so over-driven as to con- sume all of FWRS' and FAU'S resources in one narrow field. [Extraordinary imagination, drive, inspiration, empathy, often reside in people with difficult personal qualities].

It is most important that the extraordinary qualities should not be toned down, or personalities [subdued]. A good Meeting for Worship depends on a large core of divinely ordinary people capable of giving body to the restless imagination of others. Since age can and does contribute stability, it is likely that we shall need to absorb people in rather high age groups.

Discipline—When someone says they have a concern, we hesitate to say that one doesn't, even when we are dubious. Concern can & should mean that members at any level of responsibility recognize that they have a real contribution to make. It sometimes but never should mean a disinclina- tion to accept principles of good order. Where everything is everybody's business, confusion arises because nothing is anybody's particular business.

For the first 10 years of the Society of Friends, there was virtually no organization; the Society was held together by the unity of the individual reli- gious experience. As numbers grew, it was increasingly difficult to separate right ordering from the "notional." The organization of Monthly Meeting & Quarterly Meeting was evolved for the preservation of order, in the deeper sense of common conviction and responsibility as to the right thing to do. While there is nothing wrong with preference, inclinations, and reasoning, I wish people would [identify them as such] & not dress them up in terms of concern.

Good works can't be done by people who neither enjoy the job nor want to do it. It is quite impossible to make effective use of unwilling service. Somebody has to take responsibility for judging what work should be done, by whom, & how, perhaps encouraging someone to try something they end up enjoying. One needs to be aware of the "sense of the meeting," & when they aren't they must be willing to be guided [by whoever that sense has put in charge].

There must be review of and confidence in leadership. [When the sense of the meeting calls for change], a leader must leave one's self behind, must see the sense of the meeting, subordinate self without retreating from responsibility, then lead accordingly and creatively. Members ought to be on the edge of conscientious concern to do something differently from the organization, but act on it in only the rarest occasions. Members must live in a state of tension, but not restless tension.

So far as the organization is concerned, those with authority receive little inherent respect, which is proper, as the emphasis should be on work being done, rather than preservation of order. As the nature of the work chan- ges, so may the leader's relationship to it. [Because of the changing needs of changing situations], it is never quite clear who is leader in fact and what that one's relationship is to the nominal leader. Leaders have to be prepared to maintain and operate a continuous policy even when it is unpopular.

Responsibility—The phase where Quaker committee secretaries only provided useful information for the committee to act on has gone; the secre- tary is now virtually the director of the committee's work. It is a more recent development for the field members & administrators to be regarded as part- ners with the committee. It is recognized that concern for service involves those claiming it in responsibility for carrying it out.

It is a mistake to devise one pattern & believe it can be used for all other types of Quaker service; a mistake to discuss organizational machi- nery as much or more than the work; a mistake to try to establish this machi- nery too early. Relief work can only be successfully operated when field workers recognize the moral responsibility as resting with the whole Society of Friends. Any particular Quaker service has its origin in the religious concern of Friends to undertake it.

The essence of service lies less in technical organization than in the religious experience & conviction underlying the service. Those who choose to work with Friends must be willing loyally to accept the obligations involved in serving with a branch of the Christian Church, whose focus is worship, not social services. Friends should be grateful for the disinterested vitality brought to the Society's work by non-Friends. The Society's life is not based on outward service but on the guidance of God.
3. [Voluntary Organizations & Long-term Social Organizations: Introduction]—[Editor's Note: What immediately follows in brackets is the likely introduction to this essay on pages 31-34 of the pamphlet, which are missing from the Editor's copy]. [Voluntary organizations have the advan- tage of mobility & flexibility, while long-term voluntary organizations with a spelled out organizational plan, & well-established parameters & purpose lose some of that mobility & flexibility. The permanent voluntary organization ought to be differentiated from the emergency, temporary organizations.

Shorter term voluntary organizations can more easily change their focus on each relief project that they become involved in. They tend to have a high proportion of young or young-spirited, ambitious volunteers, that aren't necessarily seeing their role in their relief project as a career path. Long-term, professional Social Workers generally, but not absolutely, feel more limited, & sometimes resent the young "do-gooders" swooping in, causing a whirlwind of relatively rapid change, often without much consideration of social organi- zations already in place, & then moving on. What follows are examples of relief situations in which voluntary organizations like the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU) work in varying degrees in concert with the local social organi- zations].

[Stepney, London Borough of Tower Hamlets]—Stepney is a district in the London Borough of Towers Hamlet in central London, not far from the Thames and the Tower. It grew out of a medieval village around St. Dunstan's church & the 15th century ribbon development of Mile End Road called Stepney Green. The area built up rapidly in the 19th century, to accom- modate immigrant workers & displaced London poor, & developed a reputa- tion for poverty, overcrowding, violence & political dissent. It was severely damaged during the Blitz, with over ⅓ of housing totally destroyed].

In Stepney, poverty, sectarian differences and local occupations had all combined to encourage a [substandard] local government. All the local voluntary organizations maintained that they knew their area inside out. The local government administration found it more than a little difficult to rise to [the Blitz's challenge]. The organizations were not equipped for rapid adapta- tion. The FAU, among others, went into Stepney air raid shelters and did a vigorous welfare job, partly in the shelters, and partly with the local govern- ment authorities, laying out the technical improvements that needed to be made in underground conditions. FAU was not necessarily the wisest or ablest; they were the ones with the most drive, the most highly organized and ambitious.

The enthusiasm, idealism, vigor & whole-heartedness of the FAU enabled it to do what needed to be done; it wouldn't otherwise have been done so quickly. Had the FAU, as a new organization, [known the difficulties of relating to] Stepney's old, established voluntary organizations, it might never have moved at all. The more farsighted of the permanent agencies realized the value of keen, if somewhat naive, personnel & incorporated them in their own long-term work. The lesson to be learned is that there is scope for a good deal of imagination in both old and new, temporary volun- tary organizations in their mutual relationships. Emergency workers can help so long as the war accentuates needs; the ultimate responsibility must be with the area's permanent organizations.

Petersfield, Hampshire—Petersfield is a small town about 17 miles from the heavily bombed dockyard town of Plymouth on the south coast of England. Outside of Petersfield there was short-term, temporary housing. It had: no water; no sanitation; no glass in the windows; no food storage; no proper road. 40 families from Plymouth managed to live there through a cold winter and spring [1940-41]. The local "evacuation department" was inclined to evict and disperse the families. We pushed for extensive and expansive improvements to the site. FWRS began welfare activities on the site, and the authorities agreed to our proposals.

Several weeks later, the whole place was burned down. We advocated for family solidarity, for departing from precedent, and for building new dwellings on an emergency scale. We sheltered them in tents, and later housed them at a county almshouse while an argument raged and while the makeshift brick huts were made. It was the strength of FWRS, as an emergency organization with mobile personnel resources [geared towards] non-routine activities, which enabled a voluntary body to persuade authorities to adopt a policy they would not have adopted otherwise; it was an emergency voluntary society which took moral responsibility for finding an answer.

Rest Centers for the Bombed-out/ Bournemouth--The authorities badly underestimated the number of homeless people created by destroyed houses or unsafe conditions. Provision of "rest centers" was backward when the blitz hit in September 1940. The FAU was able to offer the London County Council a high standard of help in staffing & rest center improvement long before there was paid staff. No one else had FAU's flexibility of resources in wartime. Our ability to help depended on willingness of local government to accept CO help, as they did in Coventry & Plymouth.

The need for creating a rest-center that had been officially denied, led a senior official to request FAU's assistance, because the situation called for "great flexibility, a complete disregard of normal administrative procedure ... discipline, initiative, unorthodoxy, & appreciation of human need." [This is an example what can happen] with flexible emergency organization & govern- ment approval & cooperation.

Authorities in Bournemouth, a wealthy South Coast seaside town, were presented with 250 people from the poorest part of East London. This group was entirely out of hand, simply for lack of knowledge of how to behave [among the wealthy]. FWRS provided clubs and other recreation, & encouraged them to be more cooperative and tidy in their habits by living in one of the houses with the evacuees. There was no other permanent or temporary voluntary organization available. The local authority put up all the money necessary, which was rare.

The Bedford Institute Centers—This center is an organization, Quaker in origin & predominantly Quaker in present management, engaged in a kind of mission-settlement work in several parts of East London. After a time the problems of relationship between the permanent staff and the very ambitious young men & women made available for the duration of the war gave food for thought. The permanent staff was not appointed in the expec- tation that they would be responsible for directing the work of such young, inexperienced people. Even among Quakers & near-Quakers, the diffe- rence of emphasis & background arising out of the turn of events was such that much patience & generosity was called for from all.

Voluntary organizations are disinterested and temporary. More of a personal quality & informality, & greater personal responsibility are possible with a voluntary organization. The status of voluntary workers often enables them to talk to the one at the head instead of the underlings. If they were to take a position as part of city administration, they would lose that access. A Friend on the staff of a British Cabinet Minister wouldn't have the same access as a volunteer Friend acting as a technical adviser. Voluntary socie- ties can respond with a speed of action that can't be equaled by an official machine.

Voluntary organizations can very easily become deeply vested inte- rests talking a very unaccommadating view of collaborating with others or of withdrawal from a field when more effective methods have been devised. Too often a voluntary organization is regarded as a salve to the conscience of people who would hate to have to find a new brand of ointment. Since voluntary organizations provide temporary relief before they refer them on to the appropriate public welfare sources, the amount spent on administration grows, while the amount given away shrinks. This looks bad to the less intelli- gent subscribers who do not understand the more intimate personal service that voluntary societies provide.

Voluntary organizations can be models of competent, effective orga- nized, disciplined and simple organizations, or they can be models of how service is not rendered. Money is often short because the quality of work is not good enough to win support. The voluntary organization at its best enables human concern for common welfare to flow freely and easily into effective channels. It fails when it continues after the real concern is gone. It fails from the start if it is used by dabblers seeking to escape from a more difficult service that is expected of them.

It is important to appreciate that the religious life comes first and that the service flows from this. The organization with a real religious sense will seek continually for the guidance of God in relation to the need. Job security and forms of work are regarded as secondary to the real needs of their fellows. [Corporate seeking of the will of God can bind people together into a coherent yet progressive service which has an end beyond technical achieve- ments. Emergency workers will sometimes find fresh work that seems more urgent than the difficult 2nd stage of work already begun. Divine guidance is essential in finding the right proportion of [evolving with the work's next stage and moving on to a new concern].

4. THE POLITICS & SOCIOLOGY OF RELIEF WORK: [Relief Wor- kers and Politics]—While all relief work may have sociological implications, most of it has no obvious political significance. All relief workers ought to understand what their work is doing to the neighborhood's social structure. We never got near to rioting and sufficient public panic to cause a change in government, but it must have appeared possible to [many caught up in the midst of the blitz's chaos]. The Communists presumably would have wel- comed such a situation & might have used the chaos to work toward a government change and peace negotiations.

Should pacifist relief workers have allowed suffering to go unten- ded in order to [bring about peace negotiations]? How far could or should a relief work group identify themselves with a political group having a vigorous relief policy? To become entangled with wider political issues may lead to a stifling of their ability to do an unbiased piece of work. Individual members taking political actions must make it clear they are acting as individuals; [their political action should not interfere with relief work]. Those primarily politicians should resign from relief service. The short-term relief worker can't avoid political responsibility in the long run if they want to play a part in the deep-seated life of a community.

[Relief Workers' Perception of Role]—Is the relief work designed to help people to make the best of and develop their own resources? The tendency in many Poor Law Institutions to put the old people to bed & keep them there the rest of their lives. We ourselves have followed a policy of appeasement rather than [insisting that those we serve take responsibility for a small share of the cost and all of their development toward self suffi- ciency]. How did the presence of and faith in FAU increase or decrease the sense of mutual relationship between local residents and their permanent official & voluntary organizations? How did FAU affect the long-term sense of apathy in those relationships?

In the voluntary social organizations using trained personnel, there's a steady move away from giving material help toward the giving of skilled non- material service, with the state taking more responsibility for material help. Imaginative voluntary service can play its part in situations where material needs have their roots in a non-material background, [since non-material needs have become a voluntary service specialty]. One of the needs volun- tary services met during the war was providing sympathetic insight of a dis- interested friend in tangled personal and family situations.

[Relief Work and Politics Abroad]—We are faced with the certainty of acute of acute political disturbances and rivalry. Many of the countries in eastern and southeastern Europe will be involved in revolutions of one kind or another. How should relief be administered in a country engaged in civil war? How should relief workers handle their political sympathies? As long as a really honest effort is made to make supplies available to all, & as long as supplies aren't being used for propagandist purposes, I think the conscience of a relief organization can be clear. A number of southeastern Europeans are convinced that Allied occupation armies are necessary. Are relief workers prepared to advocate, or at least accept, a policy of order which will prevent the social situation finding its own real level of stability.

The division between what may be regarded as Communism & what may be regarded as the authoritarianism of regimes based on property is likely to lie at the root of much post-war internal strife. Friends have never hesitated to speak their minds where their own government is concerned. Why should they be expected to maintain neutrality in relation to the politics of foreign countries? Christians should expect to come to views of their own. It is much better to be known to have certain political views than to leave doubt. However strong our political views, we don't pursue them at the expense of penalizing, bullying or starving our opponents, though we may feel obliged to allow suffering to go unrelieved.

In Vienna, we were administering money provided by a political inter- national body, & collaborating with [an officially disbanded] national political group [in opposition with the government] ... We found ourselves in the awk- ward position of being suspected by the authorities [of illegal association] with a banned political party, and not being trusted by the latter ... who were probably using us for a certain amount of political activity."

Relief Work Abroad & Sociology—The continental Committee pat- tern is different from what we are familiar with. The English-speaking com- mittee assumes there will be a pooling of contributions out of which a com- mon decision will be reached & action taken. The Continental committee tends to have people making speeches of unalterable principle. A common policy isn't expected to emerge. Committees aren't very often concerned with getting things done. Have we got a moral obligation to try & spread the Anglo-American conception of committee work in order that the bitter- ness & separatism of Continental socio-political life be lessened?

Discrimination on a political basis happens in Great Britain in areas with rigid class structure. In principle we are ashamed & rarely admit that it happens. Abroad, discrimination is in many places a positive social policy. It is a truth from which we ought not to retreat that there can be no discrimi- nation on any other grounds than those of need, judged on sociological grounds. It will be hard for locals to understand or accept why we insist on a policy of no discrimination.

Public services in occupied countries are staffed either by collabora- tors or nationalists [bent on sabotage]. All in public service are engaged in treachery of one sort or another. Re-establishment of standards after libera- tion will take time. The exhibition of high standards may depend to a consi- derable extent on the character of foreign administrators & relief workers. It is therefore important that any foreigners going in should maintain high standards of public morality if the pattern of life is to be re-established on a sound basis.

The technical & spiritual assistance rendered by foreigners must be: assistance not domination; acceptable & not imposed; [compatible with] native genius & not a rootless foreign pattern. Relief workers must have a real appreciation of & interest in the social patterns of the areas in which they serve, & must see how to adapt their skills to new conditions.

There is every chance that field workers & administrators, or those nearer to the suffering and those a little further away [and taking a longer view], may misunderstand one another on political & sociological matters. We have to remember that good, honest, innocent neighborliness will go a long way regardless of the organization which surrounds it. It is this robust and confident humanity which gives character to relief work. The answer to relief works' difficulties will be found in the Meeting for Worship and the preparation that goes to it. This depends on the belief that God's will is a fact & not just a fancy or a compromise.
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23. Clash by Night (by Wallace F. Hamilton; 1944)

PREFATORY NOTE—Clash by Night was written in response to an award offered by Pendle Hill Publications to members of the Civilian Public Service (CPS). Wallace Hamilton was a member of the CPS unit at MA General Hospital.

["What Else Can We Do" [Besides War]?]—[I am visiting the Navy Yard with a friend, now a Navy Lieutenant]. Rows of long warehouses and sheds stretched out into the distance. [Army vehicles lined the road, with tanks on flat cars]. Cranes lifted girders; the bright blue lights of welding torches lit up repair depots. He showed me the drydock, a vast open space that looked like a crater on the moon, with tiny figures, beetle-sized, working at the bottom. There was so much bigness, so much of everything; it made a [man feel tiny]. There were several more like this, 4 or 5 more on the Atlantic Coast, a couple on the West Coast, built to handle even British ships.

We drove to a long dock with 2 destroyers tied to either side. His was old, built in 1939, but still sleek, narrow, powerful, and compact. A welter of superstructure, catwalks, & cables seemed to fit miraculously into the simple- lined framework & form a solid working unity. There was more tangle & systematic confusion, more bigness within the ship. The Lieutenant's voice was dry and factual as he explained how to work the AA gun.

From the bridge we could see the shipyard's whole panorama, the sheds, warehouses, cranes, other ships, locomotives—the valves, levers & gears of the whole monster machinery that I said was wrong, should be torn down & beaten into plowshares. After dinner, he took me aft to his "battle- station," an inhospitable-looking platform of grillwork, where the AA gunfire was controlled. [I offered him a cigarette, and with that the "tour" ended. We tried to start a "talk-of-home" conversation, but] as quickly as the conversation started, it died, leaving us standing at the platform railing looking out to the lights of other ships in silhouette.

We asked how each other was doing. His response was a shrug & "No complaints. Stupid. But what else can we do?" What answer did I have that wasn't a blind assertion of faith? Didn't he have a faith too, that some worthy peace would come of the sins of war? Beneath tolerance, beneath freedom, beneath friendship, [the little bits of common ground], there was civil war. "We are here ... Where ignorant armies clash by night." I belonged to the miniscule "we" of pacifism, & he to the mammoth "they" of war. Across the breastworks of faith our ignorance clashed. He said, "I hope you don't think that all this dressing up in uniforms & running around taking pot shots at people & [being shot at] is our idea of amusement ... we'd just as soon be doing something else" ... Maybe you guys have time ... to figure things out ... so it won't happen ... somebody's got to ..."

[The Struggle to End War]—No evidence need be put down here to prove that we are losing what little control they ever had over the war system. By conservative estimates at this war's end this war's dead will be 1/20 of the human race. The abolition of war has always been a case of "ought to." It is now becoming a case of "got to"; the moral imperative is becoming a social necessity. Worldwide, pacifists have held the conviction that no war can ever be just [or anything but a sin against God. This conviction gives them a func- tional part in the struggle to overcome war; pacifists must be taken into account. Pacifists must prepare for the next world armistice. Pacifists must have a clear idea of what they are opposing.

Where are pacifists going? How are we getting there? How are we in danger of being sidetracked? Those pacifists, some of them young, who have experienced war as civilians carried on their lives in their home places. Perhaps this has made them less conscious than they should be of the monstrous human distortions of the world in which they live. A life respon- sible to its own aspirations and ideals is far more constructive and meaningful than a life uprooted and twisted by some external will. A vigorous and effec- tive segment of the peace movement's leadership will come from those now serving in the armed forces. They will bring to the pacifist movement a strength and knowledge that will be needed.

[Conscientious Objectors (COs) as Segregated Beings]—A large part of postwar pacifist activity will be carried on by men who are now in jail on parole, or in the Civilian Public Service (CPS). External circumstances have forced them to explore byways of their beliefs that would normally have gone unexplored. COs have proven that they are stubborn. The peace move ment can rely on those labeled "COs" to carry their activated beliefs into the postwar movement. Where are COs going? How are they getting there? How are they in danger of being sidetracked? From the time they are clas- sified by their draft board until they are released from government control, COs are segregated beings.

Whether in prison or CPS camps, COs were physically segregated; camp segregation was not acute until the camps were opened in isolated areas. Physical segregation [was presented as] "Church and State alike seek to defend individual sovereignty, the right of conscience, and freedom of religion even in wartime ... [The camps] open new educational, social, & spiritual resources within the campers; it reveals them to their community & spreads the message of reconciling love." As time went on, however, rest- less discontent became stronger, and stronger. CPS men wanted to work with people; they wanted to help people. Prisoners wanted paroles back to the jobs for which they were best trained & fitted. Some elder pacifists knew that prolonged periods of forced segregation are not spiritually enlightening, and worked to change that.

CPS administrators attempted the nerve-racking feat of going the 2nd mile in 2 different directions, between an infringing government & a dynamic camp personnel; special service units were set up. Nearly half of the total personnel of CPS is working in special-service units or detached service, and some of these services are integrated into a non-pacifist communal life. CO's who have been back in society often realize that physical segregation is only part of the problem. [The problem is also perception, with being a CO as the primary identifier.]

[CO: In a Strange Community]—The drafted or paroled CO is in a strange community to which he has come to do a job; [he has no past, no identity with that community]. The CO is likely to find only limited rapport. The subject of war will be studiously & graciously avoided, or the subject quickly changed if it is brought up. The CO wants to talk about one's ideas about war, to test them against the ideas of others, find out why people support the war & how they feel about it. In the name of tolerance that gate of communication is closed.

He has been absent from the home community. Both CO & the commu-nity have gone through experiences the other hasn't shared; adjustments are necessary regardless beliefs. One's beliefs make these adjustments compli-cated to varying degrees. The home community seldom entirely rejects the CO; strange ideas about war have now become a social fact. There is a wealth of difference between any antiwar sentiment & refusal to take up arms. Perhaps the bitterest fact is that the CO has cut one's self off from one's own generation.

Those who hold out as COs & who come in contact with familiar men in uniform are apt to find the deepest understanding anywhere outside of strictly pacifist circles. For all the latent soldiers and latent COs, the choice has been made & the paths have split. [The surrounding social environment, the orders given, the attitudes held will have an effect] & ideologies will draw apart. Thus, the CO finds [one's] self apart from one's work community, home community, and the experience of one's generation. Part of the COs current real-life drama is the willing suspension of belief. [Despite this, there is an inner monologue going on with society's support of the war].

[Helping the Segregated CO]—For the vast majority of young COs, being drafted is the 1st time they come into contact with government, nation, & society as a whole. The ideas gained from this 1st close contact with society are likely to be carried on through life. The taught ideas of early years will give way to experienced ideas of 1st contact. Those who help segregated COs should examine carefully the patterned reactions being set up. Understanding & help are needed, for segregation has given COs strange ideas. COs find that companionship amongst themselves, [even with their broad spectrum of ideas], has a great deal of meaning; there is "we-ness." Companionship with other pacifists is a source of strength. When the CO is finally segregated with other COs, one finds it a refreshing experience to have companionship with whose basic ideological tenets one can agree.

[Unification by Dynamic Division]—[CO congregations are not] likely to be quiet, loving, spiritual fellowships. They can disagree with fervor, [& tear one another's ideas to shreds. Real CPS camps have shaken the hopes of visiting COs with their cherished images of ideal CO communities]. They fail to realize that the gusty chaos they have seen is in itself a creative process, which might be called "Unification by Dynamic Division." Some groups of COs are unified by common doctrine.

In those CPS camps administered by Friends, there is a great deal of unification necessary. Only some unification is possible, which among rugged and strongly opinionated individualists leads inevitably to a good deal of thrashing about. COs can make a camp meeting to discuss bedmaking sound like a crisis session of the prewar French Deputies. [What may seem like] irrelevancies may simply be Fundamentalist, Socialist, Anarchist, or Quaker variations on a single theme. Myriads of startling discoveries [about one's own beliefs] are made when COs congregate.

Cohesive human relations can be wrecked by assuming agreement where no agreement exists. The roads to peace are many and they are all directed to one temporal goal, but it is fruitless for one to travel 2 or 3 diffe- rent roads at once. COs have to work with each other not only as personi- fication of various ideologies, but as people. The problems of communal life have to be met and some reasonably well-working arrangements has to be made somehow. In spite of differences, COs develop a sense of WE, a "consciousness of kind." [The current group of CPS men will not make the mistake of setting up another Civilian Public Service system.

[COs: WE and THEY]—The necessary counterpart of a sense of WE is a sense of THEY. If a sense of WE is the means of social change, THEY are the ends of social change. No CO is normal, rational & honest at all times, but as members of a movement, they do take some pains to be so in public. The sense of WE makes the group feel responsible for public relations, & those hurting the public image are likely to develop a sense of public relations if they had none before.

COs begin to to think that there is some sort of invisible picket fence that separates one from the rest of the citizenry. A what-is-expected-of-one set of artificial reactions starts to develop. One guards oneself against close associations, because of the potential for a big rift that affects the whole group. Because of a lack of ease it is hard for one to have any real rapport with people, even old acquaintances. What makes war supporters fight?

Reconnoitering THEM is a good idea, but COs are often pre-occupied with some interesting controversy on the national scene. Another factor in the CO's mentality is repugnance for [the overwhelming abundance of support in public opinion for violent retribution]. By rejecting varying accounts of what is being written about the war, one is bound to miss some of the honest reporting that gets through censorship. Some of the suggestions in this writing are very relevant to pacifists. One will have difficulty in understanding THEIR thinking during the postwar era if one has little knowledge of THEIR bases of informa- tion. Reconnoitering requires effort, incurs friction & argument, & considerable strain on social relations. The hazy and distorted picture which the CO has of THEM is perhaps the greatest difficulty which one has to overcome to be an effective pacifist in the future.

[THEY Categories: Sympathizers, Citizenry, Janissaries]—Who are THEY as the segregated CO sees them? The 3 principal categories of THEY are: Sympathizers, Citizenry, and Janissaries. In a hitchhiking situation with a CO, a Sympathizer will ask questions and offer a cigarette; a Citizen will accept the right to their own ideas; a Janissary (avid war supporter) will throw the CO out of the car. Toward Sympathizers, the CO feels pleased that one has found agreement; the agreement has well-defined limits. The CO is acutely embarrassed to be called the "real hero of the war"; they have too much doubt, fear, and uncertainty to feel like one.

The CO thought that a great many of those people were part of WE, not part of THEM. Their presence & their respect for COs gives one the fee- ling that perhaps one hasn't acted in vain. The CO faces a dilemma with the Citizenry. The roots of one's pacifist convictions are embedded in democratic soil. [The CO believes in democratic process and] the Citizenry as an active force, and generally a force for good. [There is not much enthusiasm for the war], but there is plenty of support. The CO concludes that the Citizenry has been sadly duped by the Janissaries.

[Janissaries: The Imperial Guard of War]—This group is the CO's special concern. They are the body of enlisted regulars serving under officers who see war as an expression of human nature. A nation armed to the teeth at all times will avoid unnecessary wars & win the necessary ones. Some Janis-sary officers are in the armed forces; war preparation is their chosen occupa- tion. Other Janissary officers are in the press, government, & industry. In peacetime the Janissaries bide their time, advocates preparedness, and nurtures [the war side of "patriotism]." They feel a need to suppress those elements in society that would hinder the job [of brute force] victory.

The contact point of CO and Janissary is strained and sometimes ferocious & explosive. The CO is well aware of the Janissary's hostility. CPS men are denied foreign service and even respectable national service. The Citizenry may see reason in the CO's needs and desires, but in wartime the Janissary rules and must be served. The CO and the Janissary obstruct what the other considers to be their jobs: promote and advocate peace; promote military strength and overpowering victory, respectively. Since most COs contact society-as-a-whole only during a wartime experience, the CO bases his plans on his wartime conception of THEY. The CO is going to deal with THEM not as they ought to be, but as he thinks they are.

[Pacifist vs. Janissary: False Dichotomy]—COs tend to assume that Pacifists and Janissaries are 2 opposing dynamisms, with the Citizenry as a reactive being, its actions determined by the relative strengths of the 2 oppo- sing dynamisms. America went into WWI on the crest of a Janissary wave; pacifists were mobbed, tarred and feathered. After the war, [Janissaries were seen] as "merchants of death." Because of world events and the Depression, the Janissaries gained strength again, and eventually the Citizenry belonged to the Janissary again.
But the Janissaries fear that a wave of disillusionment will engulf the Citizenry when it begins to realize the full import of the war just fought. They act now to preserve the will to war in time of peace; [the Pacifists brace them- selves to] oppose this intrusion. [Young COs in pacifist leadership roles] may evolve a program to eradicate the Janissaries as guardians of the nation's will to war. This concept of Pacifist & Janissary as a [cycle of] dynamisms playing on a passive Citizenry is a delusion, a sidetrack a fraud. Pacifist & Janissary is each the other, part of a single dynamism—the Citizenry.

[Understanding Who WE Are]—COs are going to have to consider the question of who we are, in order to better to understand who THEY are, and what relationship WE and THEY have to one another. Caxton Doggett writes: "If some Christians define wars with reference to something beyond the state & call them retribution, other Christians define revolutions with reference to something beyond the facts of war and state and call them reformations ...

[The Pacifist's] special calling is to be agent and if need be a victim of divine reformation." Few COs will say they are agents of a divinely created Citizenry, which struggles toward God's will and Truth. The CO has experience with Sympathizers and Janissaries, but the longer one remains segregated the less one understands the vast majority of the Citizenry. Yet the CO was once both pacifist and Janissary, not because one was either, but because one was a Citizen.

In WWII, the CO became a specialized cell of the human race, the articulate personification of the human need for those affected by war for reformation. The CO finds it hard to understand how both CO and Janissary are agents of the Citizenry. Why do people think it is necessary to keep nurtured within themselves the will to war? Most pacifists believe that there is that of God in everyone, but ignore that there is also that of Satan. [This is illustrated in] the dealings of groups and groups, nations and nations, which are almost bereft of what someone in ordinary life would consider to be the most elemental human decencies.

[Citizenry: Need of & Doubts About War]—For transgression of the laws of commonweal there is retribution. For the transgression of Nazism, Americans made the only retribution they [believed was strong enough to] stem the tide of evil—war. As long as the Citizenry thinks it has need of the Janissary, the Janissary will continue to exist. Trying to stamp out the Janis- sary will be a hopeless task. While the Citizenry acknowledged the evil of Nazism, it was very dubious about the retribution, the war which the Janis- sary proposed.

[Since Hitler was one result of the 1st World War], the Citizenry ques-tioned what would next escape from Pandora's Box of War. As the Citizenry questioned one war, it questioned war as a method. By wondering what war proved be-sides brutality, death, destruction, the Citizenry has come to see that there is something basically & structurally wrong with war as a system, because wars become transgressions themselves. The maelstrom of war is a vortex of nothingness, [annihilation]. "Reformation" is an urgent necessity common to everyone touched by war.

[Sharing Knowledge of War's Evil]—In the COs segregation, one can't know how widely & how deeply one's knowledge of war's evil is shared. [From external behavior, one might conclude that few see war as a CO or Hemingway does]. Ernie Pyle writes: "The most vivid change [in troops after considerable fighting] was the casual & workshop manner in which they talk about killing. [I had been gone, so] it hadn't been necessary for me to make the change along with them ...

It was only spasmodically that I seemed capable of realizing how real & how awful war was ... I could look on rows of fresh graves [or] ... mutilated bodies without flinching or feeling deeply ... [Only at night, after] thinking & thinking & thinking ... [did] the enormity of all those newly dead strike me like a living nightmare." In moments of retrospect, one truly & bitterly hates war, for its sacrifice & futility. So long as pacifists remain agents of reformation, they will keep on existing until that evil is reformed. The pacifist's job is to search for a possible & understandable answer to the simple question—What else can we do?

[COs Response to War's Evil]—By merely reiterating, reminding the Citizenry of war's evil and futility, the CO will make no contribution to reforma-tion. The pacifist movement can expose the Janissaries' dirty work, done prior to & during the war. None of that is essentially reformative. It seems like THEY are giving hearty approval to the fighting. But the hearty approval doesn't exist. Few people can disagree with General Sherman's "War is Hell" analysis. The American CO is likely to consider oneself in civil opposition to the American Janissary. But the opposition WE face in THEY, the Janissary, is democrati- cally controlled and has specific limitations, both self-imposed and externally imposed. The enemy THEY face has few moral controls and limitations.

The pacifist can lead a more comfortable existence if one can discount such details as "Mixed Transports," railroad cattle-cars carrying human beings, divided up into the useful & useless (disposable), further divided by roles of: hard labor; political prisoners; & forced prostitution; it is just another atrocity story. By ignoring the evil THEY confront, the CO can't appreciate the terrible dilemma THEY face. Let the CO try to figure out what to do about the creators & practitioners of Mixed Transports—besides using overwhelming, brute force & slaughtering them. Somebody's got to figure such things out. Another of the pacifist's jobs is to strive to create conditions that make dealing with evil & bringing reformation possible; the people will carry out the reformation.

[The COs' Lifelong Job]—The 1st step is to stop waging war one's self and be a conscientious objector. Becoming a CO is simply the imperfect social expression of primary allegiance to reformation. The Pacifist's special calling is to be an agent and if need be a victim of divine reformation. The important part of a pacifist is not the "won't power" [one is accused of exerci- sing], but ones will power, ones vivid, decisive allegiance to reformation. The minimum objective of reformation is the eradication of the organized mass slaughter of groups of human beings by other groups of human beings. War includes neither [reasonable results nor betterment of humankind], and the more total war is, the less it resolves.

The only way to abolish war is to replace national sovereignty with an honest, workable world government, a federal government run by the consent and active participation of all the governments, with a bill of individual rights, power to tax, & its own police force. One government is the best expression of one humankind, one commonweal, one brotherhood, transcending cleavage, distinctions, and classifications. The hope of "One World" has been a hope shared by people the world over for a very long time.

Only within the last century or so has the hope been considered even a remote possibility. Internationalists everywhere are saying, "Let's sit down together like reasonable people & organize." The only difficulty with doing that right now is that there don't seem to be enough reasonable people to sit down, organize and support the organization. How will the internationalist build an international organization after 2 world wars in a generation? How can a house of international goodwill be built on war-whipped sands of hatred, suspicion and greed?

Centrifugal Force (War) vs. Centripetal Force (Peacemaking)—[War is a supremely centrifugal, disintegrating force]. To counteract it there must be a centripetal, [a drawing inward, integrating] force. This joining-of-people-together, this essential condition of reformation must be worked for by many agents, especially in time of peace. Janissary agents do this good work, and then devote their energies to tearing down their own work—in time of war. [The propaganda changes from universal, international humanity in peacetime to valiant allies and evil foe in war. They respect centripetal force only in time of peace.

The American CO has developed, in varying degrees, a sense of WE & THEY, a sense of 2 forces that "clash by night." It is futile to attempt to sup- press the Janissary, because the Citizenry will always turn to the Janissary when confronted with internationally intolerable evil. In time of peace the paci- fist is usually indistinguishable from the ordinary internationalist & peace-lover. It is the pacifist's job to build in each country a determined body of people who will [resist the centrifugal (alienating, scattering) force of total war, & promote the centripetal (centering, gathering) force of international fellowship], by creating and keeping in contact with a core of reasonable folk who can [and will hold to that fellowship in peace and in war.] In war and in peace there will be progress, constant pressure toward the center point of union.
As the CO builds an organization and works in conjunction with other centripetal forces, there will come a day when the conditions of reformation will have been fulfilled. At that point all will be able to sit down, with knowledge and justice, and build a parliament of humankind, a federation of the world. Beyond that point all will know [peace as they have never known it before].
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24. We are Accountable: A View of Mental Institutions (by Leonard

Edelstein; 1945)

Prefatory Note [About the Author & Pamphlet]—Leornard Edelstein is a graduate of Syracuse University & Harvard Law School. As a part of Civilian Public Service & coordinator of their Mental Hygiene Program, he is part of Unit 49 at the Philadelphia State Hospital. This pamphlet was written in response to an award offered by Pendle Hill Publications Committee & [awarded to Edel- stein & Wallace Hamilton for their pamphlets].

[Introduction]—This is the story of the mental institution. It is an ugly story of [humankind's] failure, & the undeserved suffering that springs from it. It is a plea for love, understanding, & human dignity. [One man wrote it as] the lament of thousands—sitting on wooden benches, alone, neglected, forgotten. [An account of such a place was written 100 years ago by Charles Dickens, & can be written about a modern state hospital today]. In spite of awe-inspiring advances [in the last 100 years], one of our modern mental institutions might be the very place Dickens described. These descriptions are still true for too many of our modern institutions, [involving] 10s or 100s of thousands of "forgotten men."

[A Modern Mental Institution's Evils and Their Roots]—There is evidence of patients being beaten to death while being treated for mental ill- ness. There is also the "neck-choke" or the "towel-gag," where an angry atten- dant wraps a wet towel around a "difficult patient's" neck & then twists it into a tightening noose. The next Sunday, this same attendant was at the door with the patient's trusting wife, gentle and smiling, receiving a tip & praise. Other attendants will draw a chalk line, and then brutally punish anyone standing on the wrong side of it. When an attendant reports a beating, he is berated for "squealing" to authorities.

Some brutality occurs under the description of teasing and taunting, aggravating fears, [actualizing] the threats patients hear from the voices in their heads, and empty threats of depriving them of food, or "drawing and quartering at dawn." This is a type of brutality that can be as destructive to a sickened mind as physical abuse. This maltreatment is most often inflicted by attendants commonly termed "floaters." As one floater said: "This old place is the last on my line. I start the circuit all over again when I get kicked out of here."

Some are alcoholics, working just long enough to make possible an alcoholic spree. Some need help & understanding themselves, like Dan,[who suffered from] extreme emotional detachment after his wife died. His friends took care of him, and although he has recovered, the traces of his illness remains. Such people like floaters should be pitied and helped, but ought not to be appointed to deal with the delicate aspects of human nature.

[Doctors, Nurses, and Administrators]—It is equally disturbing to realize the [faults] of some doctors & nurses. Not a few nurses & doctors treat patients with austerity & indifference. [Doctors check on rather than treat their "herd" of patients, & nurses either write daily reports & pass out meds, or callously rebuke a patient for not complaining sooner as she grudgingly cares for the patient. They sometimes regard dying patients as the opportunity to fill his bed with a new patient]. The cold indifference extends to the institutions administrators. There is no recognition that mere "coverage" of the wards by attendants may overlook the more important question of proper coverage by sympathetic persons.

At mealtime 200 patients would file into a large, uninviting room, to eat unappetizing [conglomerates of food, served by unsanitary workers, & eaten in an unsupervised & sometimes violent atmosphere]. There is a pall of loneli- ness [& stress spread over all]. There is another large room in the basement, called the dungeon by the patients & used as a sick ward [during the day & for sleeping by sick & well alike at night]. It's cleaned by sluicing the floor with water, after human waste has sat on it for hours; it is left wet to the bare feet of ill patients. In the day room a floor above, monotony reigns, with a lone attendant trying to prevent arguments & conflicts. Occasionally, the attendant throws handfuls of bread or tobacco on the filthy floor & the patients scramble after it. Small wonder that patients show few signs of recovery when jumbled with others even more deteriorated.

At the head of institutional care's administration is the superintendent, frequently a political appointee who may have proved his ability as physician without having administrative experience. Heavy-handed administrators are the product of party machinery. [Even caring, good physician/administrators & cooperative employees] must still work out functions in a maze of bureau- cracy, on severely limited funds. Some may point with pride to spending less than 74¢ per patient per day on [all care costs], including, medical & psychia- tric care & supervision. The consciences of those who know conditions rea- lize that the loss is too high & expenditures too low.

[Legal Proceedings and "Railoading"]—[Ancient laws that haven't been updated for a long time are a problem.] Some states require jury trial before committing a person. This legal process was proposed & championed in the 1860's by E. P. W. Packard, who had been committed to an Illinois hos- pital; her proposals were adopted by several states. Her "humanitarian" efforts have resulted in impediments to the mentally ill's treatment. To require each mental case to be dragged into a court is neither expedient or judicious. The terrified patient may associate court with punishment or being perceived a criminal; they may be confined alongside [convicted] criminals.

The illness may be aggravated into acute states by unsympathetic jail-keepers. The dividing line between sanity & mental illness is frequently imperceptible, & shades of human conduct drift impalpably from sane to extreme abnormality; some conditions are temporary derangements. How can laymen, [including judges], be expected to judge [mental competence] in cases where [mental health] experts disagree? How can we sustain the judge's authority to commit a person, when one has no real understan- ding of their condition?

Some states provide for the commitment of persons to institutions with the certification of one or 2 physicians in any field. [Talented as these physi- cians may be], they are not necessarily qualified to commit a mental patient to a state hospital. The ordinary physician's training and experience differs from that of the psychiatrist. As a result of injudicious procedures for commit- ment, a few people have been "railroaded." "E. W." offered a lead in a government bombing; because of this E.W. was called to a mental hospital for observation; he was adjudged sane, [i.e. a reliable source]. Upset by his neighbor's noise, he beat on their door, and then barged in dressed only in bright red underwear; the police were called and he went to jail.

Someone in court remembered he had visited a mental hospital a year ago. He was sent back for observation & certified mentally ill. His desperate efforts to gain release, & strong protests to the Department of Justice, were seen as sickly machinations of a sickly mind. One of E. W.'s relatives reques- ted a writ of habeas corpus be prepared for E. W. 16 years later. After talking to E. W. & searching records, the lawyer was convinced of E. W.'s sanity, & was able to have him adjudged sane. 6 months later, he was court-ordered to submit to re-examination; he died of a heart attack. There are today [other] sane men & women within our institutions, because of inadequate legal pro- visions. When institutions are officially inspected, primary consideration goes to the account books. Other evils include burdensome discharge proce- dures & incompetent social welfare machinery.

[The Fate of Healthy Patients]—Patients who have been restored to health are neglected instead of being discharged & rehabilitated. It seems only fair that patients be periodically examined, & it is a constitutional right that persons restored to health be released. Those who have no relative or friend willing or alive to take responsibility, have to devise some way to ap- peal to an outsider. An agency might be established for taking responsibility for those who have no other sponsors.

Where there is a social welfare department, it is often the way in which patients are released & gradually rehabilitated. The long arm of the institution is slowly withdrawn as adjustment is completed. 14 states don't employ social workers in connection with their institutions. Social Welfare departments may be required to find employment for the patient. If jobs are scarce, there is little chance for those who have clearly just been discharged from an institution. Should dischargeable patients be released during periods of economic depression? Is their former mental institution the best place to shelter them?

[Society's Influence on and Assumptions about Mental Institu- tions]—There are other more basic influences which are insidious, subtly malignant, & found within ourselves. Here in our failure to assume responsi- bility is localized the crime of society, [with its outdated concepts], holdovers from the days when the sick or lagging mind was considered a devil incar- nate, when towns sent their mental sufferers traveling [out of town], begging door to door. "Once insane, always insane," may have appeared true de- cades ago, but it is not now valid, as out-of-date as the witches cure. New treatments are now snapping sick minds back to normality.

Closely related are the strange [assumptions] people make concerning the nature of mental illness or deficiency. We are wholly wrong if we imagine that the mentally ill no longer feel little insults as deeply as do normal people. The nerves of the sick or deficient are often more sharply jarred by a petty indiscretion, [sometimes viewing them as] great breaches of faith. [Even] catatonic patients may yet be aware of all that goes on around them. Another common misconception is that most of the mentally ill are like the weird pic- tures of chained, shrieking monsters.

[Those who imagine the] mentally ill as the blustering Napoleon, see mental incompetents as fitting butts for light-veined humor. Others fear ridi- cule & humiliation because a friend or relative has become afflicted. The real sufferer becomes the skeleton in the closet, locked behind the door. [Fear can also cause a newly released & newly employed former mental patient to be dismissed from psychologically healing employment because a co-worker was disturbed by his inevitably pale & sullen appearance. These crumbs of untruths & mold-touched morsels of part-truths are the stale delusions that we harbor in the pantries of our minds.

[A New Era in Psychiatry]—The institution of tomorrow will be a center of mental health, a living organ in each community that reaches out to private homes & individuals. Home aid will be administered to prevent total collapse [and the "institutionalizing" of the afflicted]. Preventive mental hygiene will be the chief emphasis. A visit to the psychiatrist will be as commonplace as a trip to the dentist. Schools will have psychiatrists & social workers to investigate children behind in their studies; factories will have the same for hiring & job adjustment.

Within the institution, adequate staffs of doctors, nurses, psychiatrists & trained attendants will work cooperatively to provide quick, effective treat- ment. Trained attendants will come to realize the importance of their work and the necessity of satisfying patients' needs. Large recreational and occupatio- nal therapy departments will absorb a great amount of the patients' time. [There will be no agonizing, monotonous inactivity]. Quick, thorough treat- ment and rehabilitation will be the common practice. Physicians and psychi- atrists will be encouraged to develop advanced techniques of treatment. Em- ployees will learn 1st-hand the necessary part which their efforts play in the process as a whole. This will be the healthful home for sick and lagging minds.

The future institutions will require money, bountiful supplies of taxpay- ers' money, for buildings, adequate numbers of well-paid & well-trained staff, & a well-educated public. As long as there is a dormant public the progress of public institutions will lag. If the majority is ready to recognize insanity as another form of illness, & to regard our mental sufferers with the respect we give to the physically hurt, the future institution will become today's health center. Today [a growing number of the] public is being shocked into recogni- tion of mental illness by the large number of mental wrecks this war has pro- duced, and of the need for more progressive treatment.

[National Committee for Mental Hygiene/ Civilian Public Service]—There is an organization already established which embraces all aspects of mental hygiene from a professional & lay viewpoint. 40 years ago the National Committee for Mental Hygiene was a dream, a "hallucination," for it came from a sickened mind. Fearful that he would become an epileptic like his brother, ignorant of epilepsy's nature, unable to communicate his fears, he drove himself to throw himself from the window of his home. During the next few years Clifford Beers was mentally ill. He experienced the terrifying abuses [mentioned earlier]. During his recovery, he conceived a plan, gained the attention of interested laymen, wrote a story of his experiences, & inspired a small group in Connecticut to organize a state society for mental hygiene. This flourished & grew into the National Committee.

In WWII, conscientious objectors (COs) were given the opportunity to render alternative service; the program is called Civilian Public Service (CPS). More than 2,000 of these men and many of their wives, are helping to bolster the war-weakened mental institutions. Their "menial" services have been considered essential by these institutions' superintendents. They have brought to the patients warm and tender care in larger numbers than was done previously. Some superintendents have been heard to state that future personnel policies will exclude "floater" attendants and seek those who accept their duties as a [humane] service.

CPS efforts have resulted directly in reforms that may work lasting improvements. [In Eastern States Hospital, Williamsburg, VA; Cleveland, OH; Lyons, NJ; & Veterans Administration hospitals, the CPS has helped bring superintendent changes, mental health law revisions, & heightened public awareness to the mental institutions issue. In addition, a special program, the Mental Hygiene Program, has developed from the desire of CPS attendants to exchange views on institutional matters, raise the standards of care, and inter- pret institutional problems to society.

They issue a monthly publication, "The Attendant," & distribute it to federal, state, & county mental institutions. Another phase of this Program is investigation, compilation, & improvement of state mental hygiene laws. 3 members of the Program are drafting a model mental hygiene law. The CPS Mental Hygiene Program concerns itself with public education. Participants in it are preparing a statement of conditions now prevailing in institutions, & making recommendations. When CPS men are released from the draft, they will drift back to their communities & their former interests. They will also be enligh- tened interpreters of state institutions, able to enlighten the public. They are young, ambitious, socially conscious, & anxious to help [humankind].

A gray-haired, slender, tense-looking individual in a Merchant-Marine captain's uniform appeared at a CPS unit in a mental institution & left behind a few hours worth of a prophet's wisdom. This captain was advised by a group of French monks to seek employment & education at a mental institu- tion. He worked at an American institution until he was discharged for protes- ting the attendants abuse of patients. He said [to the CPS men]: "[My experi- ence] has left me haunted by the thought that here are men and women who need help & there are so few who will come to their assistance. You men will be haunted too ... As long as your suffering brothers need help behind these walls, you will hear their cries of despair and you will quicken to their needs."

[Religious Groups, Individuals and Mental Institutions]—One of the greatest contributions [of other "haunted men" and women] might come from religious groups [like] the Society of Friends, the Mennonites, the Church of the Brethren and other denominations. Due to their energies and support, programs like the CPS's Mental Hygiene Program are promoted. Clergy can do a great deal from their pulpits to rectify [age-old misconceptions], & to counsel [the support system] of mental patients. Religious groups can visit their local institutions & provide patients with comforts which will make them feel that they are still members of society. Groups might also educate them- selves and affiliate with state and national mental hygiene organizations. Each person can join the growing ranks of men and women who are waking up to the needs for mental hygiene.

The results of any one person's efforts along these lines may not seem to be important; they may even be disappointing. But the recovered patients' gratitude is incentive enough to anyone who receives such moving testimony. Before we truly conceive an enduring peace [after the current war], we must probe to the core of our malady. For the blemishes of racial discrimi- nation, economic injustice, & conflict [of all sizes] are mere sore spots of a deeper cause. They are the superficial outbreak of the sickened mind or spirit.

There must be established in human mentality the power to face fear conflict, the ability to curb the emotions & to fuse both thought & spirit in a concordat of strength & maturity. How can we, by observing the extremes of [mentally ill] behavior, [use those observations] to reflect on our own shortcomings? How can we give love & understanding that will bring warmth and comfort in the solitude of the mental patients' bewildered minds?

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25. Militarism for America (by Grover L. Hartman; 1945)

Prefatory Notes [About the Author]—Grover L. Hartman was a tea- cher of history at Sidwell Friends School for 3 years. He served as Director of the War Services Committee of the Washington Federation of Churches. Mili- tarism for America was written in response to an award offered by the Pendle Hill Publications Committee to members of the Civilian Public Service.

The Issue Defined/ Historical Perspective—The American people face the momentous issue presented by the proposal for compulsory military training after the war. [There needs to be careful consideration of the implica- tions it has for American democracy]. Confusion has existed on proposed peacetime national service legislation. The May bill [explicitly excludes any alternatives to military service], as do Secretaries Stimson & Forrestal, Assis- tant Secretary John J. McCoy, George Marshall, and the American Legion. It is conscription of youth for military training in time of peace.

Cardinal Gasparri declared nearly 30 years ago, "For more than a cen- tury conscription has been the real cause of a multitude of evils afflicting society." Universal compulsory military service was established by French revolutionists to protect their new [democratic] order from a reactionary world, but it was speedily seized upon by Napoleon to forward his imperial dreams. [It supplied him with 30,000 men a month]. [Treating those men as expend- able] is characteristic of modern warfare, made possible by the compulsory service principle.

Prussia utilized conscription to free herself from Napoleon; [they retained it to become the core of military despotism for Bismarck, the Kaiser and Hitler. The Japanese copied the Prussian system; Russian czars used it, as did Mussolini. Conscription was used by the US in the Civil War and Great Britain used it in WWI. 50 to 60 million men were conscripted in WWI; at least 10 million were killed & double that wounded. Already the conscripted masses of WWII have dwarfed those of WWI. The US adopted conscription in 1940. Now we are asked to adopt it as a permanent feature of national policy. The US can't afford to consign its people and those of the world to the insatiable maw of the conscription machine.

Conscription Incompatible with Democracy—Advocates of conscrip- tion in peacetime stress that the equality of its application and certain demo- cratizing influences would stimulate our democracy. Russia, Japan, and Ger- many, having adopted the allegedly democratic system of conscription, embarked on policies of authoritarianism. Switzerland uses their conscripted army as a strike-breaking device. The program the US is being asked to undertake [can't be effectively compared with those in Sweden and Switzer- land, because of] differences in size, industrial development and world leadership.

The US is now asked to adopt a plan which falls upon the very young who cannot vote & whose lack of maturity [affords them] only slight resistance to the philosophy and practice of military regimentation. Youth has spoken its opposition, but there is danger that its voice may not be heard. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People condemns the "jim-crow" features of the present training system and opposes perpetuation of discri- mination [through continuing] current practices. [The inflexible military hier- archy of rank can hardly be seen as a democratizing influence]. And by the very nature of conscription the minority must conform or be punished, [which is antithetical to democracy giving minorities a voice].

Stunts Qualities Essential in Democracy/ Democratic Processes Should Decide—An Italian said, "Democracy is a moral heritage of 'freedom under God,' the dignity of the common man to do what he ought and not be compelled by any tyrannical, autocratic legalism." The blind obedience of military discipline has nothing in common with [democracy's] inner discipline, individual initiative, & independent thought. People under conscription develop servile attitudes, rationalize their acceptance of the situation, and grow insen-sitive to their lack of freedom. Ordered to do things which are to him insigni-ficant, he is likely to develop cynical attitudes toward work and habits of mental laziness which can be overcome only with great difficulty.

Immediate enactment of postwar conscription can't be reconciled with proper functioning of democratic process. If we believe in democracy, we must acknowledge people's capacity to consider an important issue [like this one]. Winston Churchill said: "Great decisions can't be taken, for the transition period, without far closer, calmer, more searching discussions than can be held amid the clash of arms ... Hasty work ... may lead to penalties out of proportion to the issues immediately involved." [Both sides of this issue point to polls or studies showing a strong majority supporting their opposing positions in the public at large, & among troops in the field].

The National Health Argument—How sound is the argument that conscripted post-war service is good for young men's health? It is hard to see how [those not physically & mentally fit] would benefit from compulsory military service, since they are rejected from such programs; there is no evidence that the Army wishes to help them. [Besides that, such help would] come too late for improving youth. The only benefactors of its alleged health advantages are [those who have little need of it]. Colonel Herman J. Koehler says, "I deny absolutely that military drill contains 1 worthy feature that can't be duplicated in every well-regulated gymnasium in the country today." A comprehensive public health program beginning with children [would make more sense].

Character Effects—A thoughtful Christian layman and soldier wrote: "The average soldier is pretty much the same as he was in civilian life except that his morals are lower, his conversation coarser and his religious outlook more casual except in a few rare instances. Senator Ed C. Johnson (CO) wrote : "Military discipline is an imposed discipline, and therefore not charac- ter building ... The present military service has ruined many." Does the US wish to foster hatred in its soldiers?

An Army private observes that 18-year olds from good homes, quickly outdo the worst of the older men in coarse language and habits [in an effort to fit into] the new group. Another concern is that at perhaps the most critical time of their lives they would be denied the moral and spiritual environment of school and church and family. The conscription octopus, if set loose in the land, will seize upon the nation's young women and men. A college student declared that it is illogical to suppose that we can take up the infected wea- pons of totalitarianism and from them gain invigoration of our national life.

National Security—Maintaining national security looms largest in the minds of Americans as a reason for conscription. US Establishment of the ROTC in the 1920s led to the Japanese establishing something similar in 1926, which became a major argument for the increase in our armaments in response. In the long run it would be a tragic mistake for the US to make military strength the basis of its relations with China and Russia; [reconci- liation is the wiser course]. There is no conclusive evidence that a perma- nent conscription produces the best national defense. One British [military expert] declared that smaller armies, "quality will replace the quantity theory of the present cannon fodder masses. [Conscription is a reaction to] aggressors who have been allowed to accumulate vast military resources; responsible UN officials are committed to preventing that.

Hanson W. Baldwin, a military expert, and Paul Mallon, a Washington columnist, predict a type of war in which conscription would be a hindrance or of little value. Mallon writes: "Armies today are built on technicians ... commu-nications, engineering, bridge construction ... for war, 17-year old graduates would have to be trained all over again." Obsolescence of weapons is swifter than it has ever been. [Collective security & police action for the prevention of war is the only adequate national defense].

Conscription & World Order—The Federal Council of Churches, the Cleveland Study Conference on "The Churches and a Just and Durable Peace," Catholic bishops and archbishops, and the Rabbinical Assembly of America call for the postponement of action on post-war conscription. The Rabbis recorded: "[Conscription] action at the present time would prejudice & weaken efforts to remove the basic causes of war and to provide security & justice for all people through international organization ... brotherhood, and righteousness."
Proponents of compulsory military service [offer the argument that it shows our resolve] to fulfill our obligations. [Those opposing it offer the] alter- native American leadership in abolishing conscription throughout the world. Senator Joseph Ball (MN) wrote: "We should see what kind of peace we can make before adopting [post-war conscription] ... The alternative to the best kind of collective security we can achieve is increasing militarization of this nation, universal conscription, ever mounting taxes ... and governmental control of industry ... and almost certain war ... It is suicide." Senator Claude A. Pepper writes: "Militarism breeds militarism, and I am sure we can obtain through volunteers, a force adequate to our needs."

President Woodrow Wilson had consistently pursued abolishing conscription in every nation. Several of our present allies have in the past or present supported abolishing conscription. Conscription is by its very nature hostile to world order, because it indoctrinates the nation's youth with a milita-ristic patriotism, & it deepens the reliance on armed force solutions to interna-tional problems. Embarking on a post-war conscription plan is to declare our lack of faith in our allies [& in the possibility of just & lawful world order]. There would be a competitive arms race such as the world has never seen. Far from being a step toward vigorous American support of a world government, conscription will foster isolation, distrust, & [fierce] nationalistic spirit [in other countries].

Labor and Agriculture Measure Conscription—Leaders of labor and agriculture find conscription a source of danger to their welfare. Victor Reuther described peacetime conscription as "undemocratic and un-American, a direct contradiction of our tradition of freedom ... One of its unstated purposes is to regiment our youth on a mass basis for use as a military strike-breaking, union-busting force." The Railroad Brotherhoods state: "Conscription of men for military purposes has been the surest weapon of tyrants who wished to wage war ... Now that we have autocracy flat on its back, we should shun the things that made autocracy possible." While a few feel that compulsory military training and a large army would ease the post-war labor market glut, the vast majority of labor see no real solution in a program which sacrifices basic freedoms.

Independent farmers contend that the call for expanded agricultural production is in effect countermanded by reduction in farm manpower. Since proposed legislation provides no occupational deferments, it seems logical to assume that the present problems would continue under a peacetime program. The National Farmers Union 1944 convention said: "We oppose any attempt to establish permanent peacetime conscription while plans are being formulated for a decent peace that will make nationalistic militarism unnecessary."

Educators Object—Advocates of conscription have effectively spiked the hopes of some educators that the proposed year of national service might have educational value, and be connected to college campuses. Other educa- tors would consider such a step to be a move toward federalizing education & extending government control over the instruction of youth and they would fight this. [Various educational organizations expressed opposition] to a year of universal military service and conscription. Spokesmen for American colleges, the director of the House Committee on Education, and Catholic leaders [have also shown opposition].

Liberal arts colleges have stood as bulwarks of educational liberty and unhampered academic expression. Those colleges that secured military units during the war to keep their schools open admit they cannot speak out as clearly as they otherwise would for fear these units will be withdrawn. Post- war conscription [could] get so tied into American colleges that free expres- sion could be curtailed. Charles Seymour, President of Yale University has spoken in favor of the conscription program. He characterized undergraduate Yale in 1943-44 as an "al-most complete transformation into a military and naval training school." American education cannot afford to develop such a tremendous stake in the military program of the state.
A Religious Concern—Dean Lynn Hough of Drew Theological Semi- nary, in comparing Christianity with democracy writes: "Christianity does not reduce men to a commonplace uniformity to make them equal ... Christianity comes to every man as enfrancisement and complete personal fulfillment." Personality, the true self, is sacred and inviolable. Conscription brings the state into direct opposition to this Christian conception.

Conscription theory is that society and the state are the source of rights [& their revoker as well]. The Christian concept holds that government exists to serve persons. In countries using conscription religious independency has virtually ceased. The church couldn't accept state domination of human perso-nalities & remain the church of Christ; the church protested. [The dominating conscription state] has no patience with religious dissent. Conscription led to disintegration of the early continental groups of Quakers. Democratic France under conscription repeatedly imprisoned independent religious leaders.

Conscription will eliminate any religious tenet which conflicts with its control. The Baptist paper The Watchman Examiner cites: "The churches lose far too many [serviceable] young men because of the world's seducements. They will lose incalculably more if we have universal military training." The missionary W. Carl Nugent expressed the conviction that it's literally impossi- ble to teach the principles of Jesus in competition with the influence of a mili- tary training system geared to killing. Father Hugo writes: "On the plane of ethics, conscription must be condemned as opposed to democratic princi- ples ... [Conscription] is destructive of that international union of peoples which is demanded by Christian charity and implied in the doctrine of the mystical body of Christ."

Economic Significance—The May [conscription] Bill of 1945 seeks to inaugurate the training system "in order to utilize the material resources and training experience which will otherwise be dissipated." The simple desire to use camps & equipment into which much money has been poured, isn't a sound argument for a conscription system.

Harold Fey of Christian Century points out: "At the end of the war ... most people will consider conscription's continuation reasonable & neces- sary, even if regrettable ... Our economy now makes the man in the army a bigger & more stable consumer ... than he would be if he were left in civilian life; powerful interests stand to profit [from the soldier/consumer]."

Military conscription brings no real solution to unemployment; it is at best temporary. If a military establishment become a major support of our economic order, then the stake in war will dwarf any idealistic interest in peace. Surely the best thinking and planning in America can [offer a better solution than conscription].

Constitutionality—Daniel Webster declared: "If the Secretary of War has proved the right of Congress to enact ... a draft of men out of the militia into regular army ... [then] Congress has the power to create a dictator. The arguments which helped him in one case will equally aid him in the other ... [such as a] possible state necessity ... The people have too fresh & strong a feeling of the blessings of civil liberty to be willing thus to surrender it." In the Constitutional Convention debates of 1787, & other state debates there was definite intention to limit strictly military forces controlled by the Federal Government; [there would be no "Presidential militia"].

State militias may be called into national service only on definitely spe-cified, occasions. The Convention was very specific in defining Congressional power "to provide for organizing, arming, & disciplining the militia. The actual training under the discipline prescribed by Congress is reserved to the States. Some try to justify conscription based on the Preamble's "provide for the common defense," but the Preamble didn't create power. The framers were unwilling to give Federal Government control of the general man-power (the militia) in time of peace.

The civil liberties provisions established by constitutional law cast doubts upon the legality of peacetime conscription. Dean Roscoe Pound of Harvard Law lists "subordination of the military to the civil power" as one of the "5 characteristics of Anglo-American law." The States emphasized the subordination of the military. Courts exercised the right to review military decisions. The Supreme Court has been careful to caution against extending its decisions regarding wartime military powers to peacetime. The Supreme Court attitude and the basic Constitutional limitations on the military bring constitutionality of peace time conscription into serious question.

The Un-American Way—Senator Johnson (CO) branded compulsory peacetime military training "un-American & unpatriotic." Daniel Webster saw in adopting conscription evidence "that government exercises over us a power more tyrannical, more arbitrary, more dangerous, more allied to blood & murder ... than has been exercised by any civilized government with a single exception (Napoleon's) in modern times.

The military envisages a force of 3.3 million men. $10 billion annually would probably not support such a military organization and its civilian support. This figure represents nearly 4 times the annual expenditure for US education. Is this truly the emphasis we wish to use in the pattern of post- war America. If conscription is to be tied to [a grand expansionist program envisioned by some Senators, involving acquisitions] from enemy & ally alike, then Americans ought to know it and decide the issue in the light of facts, not imagined reasons.

It is often argued that conscription here would differ from that imposed by dictators. Conscription is by its nature a compulsory appropriation by the state of the services & persons of its citizens. The Selective Service sugges- ted that the program be administered by the Army & Navy [as a military bureaucracy] to keep it out of politics. What could be more dangerous to American freedom than military bureaucracy administering a program "necessary for national security?" [The longer democratic process might be skipped over for expediency's sake]. It is scarcely to be supposed that military men would be more tractable than civilian bureaucrats.

We are told that this compulsory military training is only for a year & purely [to prepare for an emergency]. How long before a one year training program becomes 2 or 3 years? [Considering the military's dim view of the masses ability to govern themselves without mobocracy, demagogism, agitation, & anarchy, & their dim view of internationalism], it is difficult to envi- sage how compulsory training under such auspices can foster a democratic generation favorably inclined toward world cooperation. There is no conclu- sive evidence that the traditional system of volunteer recruitment [or the num- ber of those who want to stay in after the war] wouldn't be adequate for the country's needs.

How could compulsory military training of young men be a 1st step in a much greater program of state control? There are those who envision drafting young women, labor, [& across the age spectrum]. How do we know that in voting a military draft we aren't taking a 1st step toward a far broader program of state control of our lives and property? Thoughtful Americans will hesitate to launch a system of conscription foreign to American tradition & a potential threat to democratic society's structure.

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26. The Quaker Meeting: A Personal Experience & Method Described

& Analysed (by Howard E. Collier; 1945)

About the Author—Howard E. Collier was a physician and surgeon in Worcester, England, who delivered Woodbrooke’s Swarthmore Lecture in 1936. He was an authority on health in industry and taught Industrial Hygiene & Medicine at the University of Birmingham. Howard sojourned at Pendle Hill in 1938, on a journey undertaken mainly to observe industrial conditions in the United States. Howard approached the subject of Quaker meeting as an experimental scientist guided by scientific procedure.

Preface—I was a medical student when, early in 1914, I attended my 1st Quaker meeting. I was led back into "silent assemblies of God's people" when I began to lose interest in my work and my emotional springs were run- ning dry. No one will suppose that the higher experiences of worship can be learned from a book. Some degree of peace, some element of true worship will be experienced in every rightly held Quaker meeting. I'll describe the discipline & method that has helped me to learn to meditate & worship. [The point is] to know God in worship experimentally. [Take what speaks to your condition & leave the rest]. "Speaking from the pure to the pure in others is what commends one to God" [Isaac Penington]

I. THE NATURE OF RELIGIOUS OR MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE— One of my greatest difficulties has been to select words that are personally accurate and generally accepted and understood. The distinction between [mental activities & spiritual activities] is precise enough to give us a starting point. Bertrand Russell sees "an element of wisdom to be learnt from the mystical way of living which doesn't seem to be attainable any other way. [Even the scientist's truth] must be fostered and nourished by mystical spirit & wisdom. Here we will be considering the practice & development of intu- itive feeling in religious worship. I expect that the development of spiritual healing through worship will make a great contribution to Medicine.

[I assume 2 things: intuitive experience is normal & universal; worship experiences are developments of intuitive experience. [I hope to make clear] that worship is the flower of a plant whose roots lie deep in ordinary daily life. Artist, scientists, technicians, and writers experience moments of [sudden], clear insight. Unity with Nature [can provide insight]. I was tranquilized and steadied by the beauty, the stability of Nature. I had the illusion that I was enveloped in light; such experiences are initiations into worship. There are also intuitive experiences that arise from intercourse with our fellows. At this level a purely human religion must forever be content to live. Most people don't need to learn a special technique in order to produce a condition of social participation.

For intuition to become active, awareness of self must be lost, and our bodies must be relatively idle. Our minds must be emptied of passionate and immediate concern for the self. There must be an object other than the self, towards which desire can be directed. [A relationship must be felt between worshipper and object]. The intuitive experience is an interaction between subject and object (worshipper and God).

II. MEDITATION ("WAITING"): Inward Stillness—Quaker meditation is only a preliminary to the contemplation and adoration of God in Christ. The member of a Quaker meeting meditates with others and is pursuing a social purpose. An important objective of the Quaker meeting is to create a Christian "fellowship." The Meeting for Worship is the heart of the Religious Society of Friends and the source and support of all its practical activities. The childlike often enter the inner Temple whilst the learned and the "tough minded" are still knocking at the outer gates. None is too skilled to profit from others or too ignorant to help another.

We must prepare the mind and heart for meeting. [At meeting], our first task is to collect our wandering thoughts and to silence the most insistent clamors of the everyday world. In an appendix I have discussed how to relax and position the body as a preliminary to meditation. There needs to be an equal degree of mental relaxation or cessation of discursive thought. Jacob Boehme writes: "Be silent before the Lord, sitting alone with God in thine in- most and hidden cell, thy mind being centrally united in itself and attending God's will in the patience of hope." I have a 2nd appendix with a few practical hints that have been useful to me.

[If we can] reach bodily & mental quietude, the entire meeting will sink into a profound stillness. [It can now] climb the hill towards contemplation or seeking, or descend into a valley of deadness. I believe the commonest cause of [this deadness or] lethargy is the worshippers' failure to transition from "passive waiting" to active contemplation. [Some member needs to call the meeting's attention to this state & call the meeting to a fresh start or a deeper silence]. In my experience, the time a meeting spends in meditation before total stillness is reached varies from a few minutes to ½ an hour. John Bellers (18^th century) writes: "But except all excesses of the body & passions of the mind be avoided by watchfulness, the soul does not attain true silence."

III. CONTEMPLATION OR "SEEKING—The image of God within us is only a pale reflection of Transcendent Reality, but it constitutes the point of contact between ourselves & God in Christ. The subject for our contempla- tion in worship should not be chosen by us but waited for from Christ. Recei- ving light from Christ awakens the worshipper's spirit to an active, searching state which opens the world of values, longings and desires, the world of the artist, poet, and prophet; it is a world unexplored by most modern people and feared by many. If I assume that Christ's spirit is in fact active in human expe- rience, then the Christ experience is every experience that might be due to that spirit's activities. [The Eternal Christ is the object of my contemplation].

[If a different "object" is necessary], choose whatever or whoever you have known as the Best & place that within the empty circle as you move into contemplation. Universal experience shows that the idea of the Best is converted into a living Image of the Christ by a disciplined study of the New Testament, by living according to its standards, & by being in a Christian fellowship. When an impulse from the Divine enters the meeting, it is invested with a moving power & authority. If it comes as a fully formed concept, picture, symbol, or saying, [I am to share it]. If it comes as an indefinite emotion and empty of form, someone else is about to do vocal ministry.

One hot summer day, there formed in my mind the words: "I know my judgment is true, because I seek not my own will, but the will of God who sent me." The enlightened conscience, disciplined by subjection to God's will, is the final authority & guide, [subject to] the correcting influence of a deeper insight into God's will. I knew [this concept] in a moment, & [felt its authority with a strong conviction]; they are flashes of truth. Since creative contemplation is the product of intuition rather than of reason, we find that pictures, images & symbols arise from worship, rather than chains of ideas or thoughts. There may be a long succession of fleeting images. As we center down more deeply, a particular word or image may recur & become fixed, with perhaps a sub- dued emotion attached. That word or image is probably important to the receiver or to the meeting as a whole. One must rest in the image [& Power] received.

I once received a vivid picture of a stranded, abandoned rowboat; the image came with Power. It seemed to possess neither significance nor mea- ning until another member spoke of Jesus asleep in the storm-tossed boat, awakened & arising to calm the storm. The boat in my vision was a symbol of my condition & the state of most people during the war's early days. We were in danger of being swamped—of losing our Faith and our Guide.

Another time, a sentence from the Gospels came to me and was for- gotten more than once. [I realized that I "forgot & lost" the sentence because I didn't want to admit its meaning to me. The words were "Put up thy sword in its place." In a personal conduct problem, I had been inclined to strive for cer- tain supposed personal rights. Christ's message to me, & the deeper hidden wisdom of my better self was "Cease striving for selfish ends." It is more usual for personal guidance to come to us through the spoken words of some other member of the group.

It almost always happens that some phrase or picture will "light up" for me & will sink into my unconscious, where it may lie like a seed in the soil & in due time produce altered character & conduct. We must never fear brevity or go on speaking after we have lost the impulse that brought us to our feet. The exercise of the whole meeting should make a unity of which our contribution is only a small part. In a silent meeting we may experience a sense of creative achievement without any words being spoken aloud.

IV. CORPORATE WORSHIP: "Unity" (Fellowship in Christ)—At some point during the meeting, a sense of "unity in fellowship" develops in the Meeting for Worship. Until that sense has been achieved, the meeting remains incomplete and dull. A movement of Power visits the meeting, which proceeds to "gather itself" into a still deeper silence. Individual consciousness is merged into a non-individual or corporate awareness. The unity in worship takes place beneath a "Cloud of Glory" under which the meeting is "gathered." Little by little the "weight" of our own personal cares and anxieties are lifted from [individual] shoulders.

Howard Brinton writes: "The Quaker Meeting ... approximates the characteristics of a living organism ... the whole does not dominate the parts nor do the parts go their own way ... Each determines and is determined by the other ... The "life of the meeting" permeates the group and harmonizes the deepest will of every member ... The term 'gathered meeting' indicates that this common life has been realized ... [Words uttered 'in the life of the meeting'] express in a measure the life of the whole ... a meeting in the life may be held in complete silence ... God binds together through God's Love the scattered and disordered elements on one level of existence so that a new unity emerges on a higher level ...

The "new unit" of life for whose birth our world [awaits] is the integra- ted group of Friends in Christ, [i.e.] corporate Christian worship." Robert Bar- clay writes: "As every one is (gathered) they come to feel the good arise over the evil & the pure over the impure, in which God ... draws near to every individual ... [And each] is a sharer in the whole body ... having a joint fellow- ship with all ... When many are gathered together in the same life there is more of the Glory of God & God's Power appears to the refreshment of each individual for that [one] partakes not only of the light raised in oneself but in all the rest."

V. ADORATION OR COMMUNION IN CORPORATE WORSHIP— There is no means of predicting when the final transition [to communion with God] will occur. If Quaker communion is judged by its fruits in character and conduct, it must be adjudged valuable. A critical phase occurs between con- templation and communion, which I believe to be "achievement of unity." The 1st crisis in meeting is [moving] toward "lethargy." The 2nd crisis is [moving] toward talking or thinking about Christ, rather than towards receiving Christ in the midst of unified fellowship.

Few frequent attenders have not realized & been shocked by how far they are from conforming to the Mind of Christ. Having pretense and sham stripped away is salutary as it is humbling & humiliating. [It is then that the Eternal Christ says], "I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail." These prayers are holy and creative energies and power. Power to change, grow, and be renewed in character and conduct. As sunlight to the flower, so is the Prayer of the Eternal Christ to the human personality. Here on earth the Creator meets the creature and a personal relation of love & being loved is established between them.

In worship, God ministers not only to the whole but also to each indi- vidual. Friends have come confidently to expect Christ's ministry to their par- ticular need in their meeting. Friends consider the 1st meeting in the Friends' manner of corporate worship to be the disciples' meeting on Pentecost. [On that day, I imagine] a sudden, sharp storm of wind and rain. As the cloud passed away from the face of the sun, shafts of sunlight lit up the meeting room & the bent heads of the worshippers. They were met in unity with one accord and saw the rushing wind and flame as divine inspiration and divine illumination respectively. Those who spoke were heard in the native lan- guage of each ones secret heart. After meetings such as I have described we emerge into a world renewed. Neither the world nor we are ever quite the same again.

I once watched great Atlantic breakers as they swept past my feet on their way to the far distant shore. The wave is a true symbol of the harmo- nized life; worship is the crest whilst action is the trough; both together [in succession] make a rhythmic life. To enter upon this life & to persevere in it, we must die daily to self-will and self-desire. In corporate worship says Barclay, "There is an inward travail & wrestling ... [& then, with grace], an overcoming of the power ... of darkness & we enjoy ... the holy fellowship & communion of the body & blood of Christ by which our inward [person] is nourished."

Penington writes: "Our worship ... doth not consist of exercising the natural mind to speak, hear or pray according to [our understanding] of our needs. We wait ... to hear with new ear what God shall please to speak ... & we pray ... as God pleases to quicken and open our hearts towards God's self ... Then is sweet communion enjoyed and sweet peace reaped ... the seeds of life are planted."

Appendix A: ON BODILY RELAXATION AND POISE—We should sit erect. The lower part of the spine and shoulder-blades should be supported. [Legs should be relaxed, knees together; feet can be crossed at ankles (don't cross knees)]. The most restful attitude for hands is for the upturned palm of one hand to support the back of the other hand, while wrists rest on thighs. The head should neither droop forward or strain backwards. The eyes, whether open or closed, should be directed forward, not down. The body is relaxed and still.

Relaxation. Real muscular relaxation is an essential preliminary to meditation. [The relaxed limb will fall heavily to the table or floor when unsup- ported by another limb]. A relaxed muscle "feels soft." If we are reaching inward stillness too slowly, we need to note any bodily strain, tension or fatigue. Muscles may have to be consciously relaxed. Special attention should be paid to the muscles of the head, face, and neck. The jaw is often clenched. The eyes may be firmly rather than lightly closed. With a little practice, muscular relaxation can be achieved in minutes or seconds. Relax- ation has applications in everyday life also.

Appendix B: "ON CEASING FROM THOUGHT"—Thinking in words and irregular and improperly controlled breathing may still need to be quieted. A stage is soon reached in which the attention must be dis-joined from the words [of scripture] and redirected to some image that "symbo- lizes" the chosen scripture for you. The regularity, depth & nature of our breathing greatly affects our ability to relax. We should breathe deeply with our abdominal muscles, not our chest muscles. As you sit in silence let the breaths come and go easily, gently and regularly without strain. This "exer- cise" has a stilling effect on both mind and body.

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27. Sources of the Quaker Peace Testimony (by Howard H. Brinton;

1945)

About the Author—Howard & Anna Brinton arrived at Pendle Hill in the summer of 1936 with a solid background of academic achievement at the colleges of Mills & Earlham, & became co-directors of a new sort of edu- cation enterprise, a Quaker fusion of school and community. They retired in the 1950s and lived on campus as Directors Emeriti. Anna died in 1969; Howard continues to serve by lecturing, writing, and simply being.

[Divine Source of Quaker Doctrine/ Influence of Like-minded Sects]—The founder's of the Society of Friends acknowledged divine revela- tion as the sole source for their doctrine. The Bible was held to be a secon- dary source, to be correctly interpreted only through the Divine Light of Truth, "the light of the Lord Jesus Christ and by his immediate Spirit and Power." [G. Fox]. The Society of Friends isn't Protestant nor Catholic, but a 3rd form of Christianity based essentially on inward experience. Quakers found their source for guidance and power of salvation in the Light Within, the Eternal Christ's Spirit. Quaker individuals could check one's own insights by means of others' insights. Early Friends were powerfully influenced by the Bible.

Anabaptism on the left wing of the Protestant Reformation, influenced the opinions of many of the smaller Commonwealth groups. They rejected war, oaths, and capital punishment. [Like-minded sects included: Family of Love; Arminian Baptists; Seekers; Ranters; religious anarchists; Behmenists [i.e. Jacob Boehme]. George Fox appeared in their midst as the organizing genius who coordinated a body of teachings, set up a form of worship, and a church government congenial to it.

[Primitive Christianity Revived/ New Testament and Divine Spirit Influences]—Early Quaker scholars sometimes used the primitive Church Fathers' writings to defend pacifism. In its 1st 2 or 3 centuries, the Church officially opposed Christian participation in war. Early Quakers thought of the whole period between early Christianity & themselves as a dark night of apostasy. They found their spiritual ancestors in an almost unbroken line of heretical sects including: Cathari; Waldenses; Franciscan Tertiaries; & Lollards. [Early Quaker contemporaries in radical pacifism included: Men- nonites; Dutch Collegiants; Labadists; Schwenkfelders; Huterian Brethren; & others]. Penn invited all such sects to PA; many accepted, & their votes helped keep the Quaker minority in power. Penn's colony was the main bree- ding ground for Quaker, Mennonite, Brethren pacifists.

The Society of Friends believed that the present Spirit of Christ in their hearts would not be at variance with the same Spirit as revealed in the Scrip- tures. Jesus' "violent sayings" were taken as figurative, [a spiritual challenge to the present spiritual order]. The belligerent commands of the Warrior God of the Old Testament were rejected in favor of Jesus' new religion & dispensa- tion. Jonathan Dymond writes: "He who insists upon a pure morality applies to the New Testament; he who desires a little more indulgence defends him- self by arguments from the Old." The Divine Spirit of Truth is the same divine Light which shines into every human soul, creating a bond of unity, of mutual reverence, and of understanding.

[Early Quakers were not Peace Propagandists]—Not all Friends were pacifists at first. It took time to come to the view that fighting & violence were incompatible with Christ's Spirit. Edward Burroughs writes to Irish soldiers: "This Light reproves you in secret of violence ... It will teach you not to make war but to preserve peace ... Your sword will be a terror and dread to those that fear the Lord God not."

Fox & his fellow preachers were not peace propagandists. They were wary of teaching a religion based on ideas rather than on experience. Robert Barclay writes: "Friends were not gathered together by unity of opinion or by tedious ... notions and opinions ... but by a secret want, which many really tender and serious souls in [various] sects found in themselves which put [them] in search of something beyond all opinion which might satisfy their weary souls ... even God's righteous judgment in their hearts."

Early Quakers directed seekers to life's & truth's source in the depths of the soul, not to the thinking mind's doctrines and theories. Fox took his hearers to Christ their teacher & left them there. It's remarkable how little of the vast sum of 17^th, 18^th, & 19^th century Quaker literature is devoted to peace principles. Barclay devotes less space in his Apology to peace testi- mony than to oaths; Quakers suffered more for refusing to swear than for refusing to fight. Before the 20^th century, Jonathan Dymond's Enquiry into the Accordancy of War with the Principles of Christianity (1823) was the only Quaker book devoted to the peace testimony. The 1st declaration against war was put forth by the Quakers in 1660 to clear themselves of an accusation of plotting against the King.

[Taking a Stand]—The Quaker objection to war was based primarily on feeling & a dynamic intuition, an enhancement of life rather than a part of doctrine. Fox said that: "it leads out of wars ... of strife ... of the occasion of wars ... out of the earth up to God, & out of earthly mindedness into heavenly mindedness. The Light Within isn't conscience but rather what shines into conscience; training & environment influence conscience as well. The indi- vidual must educate & sensitize one's conscience to the Light of Truth. Con- science gives the highest knowledge of Light that we have at any one time, knowledge that becomes clearer as obedience grows.

How do we choose between taking an absolute, uncompromising stand, far beyond what the average person would take, and taking a stand that is not so far ahead of average people so as to be out of touch with them? Thomas Story writes: "The Kingdom of this world will become the Kingdom of our God & of God's Christ ... As to us, we ... are of those in whom this prophecy is begun to be fulfilled." Isaac Penington writes: "Whoever desires to see this lovely state [of peace] brought forth in the general, must cherish it in the particular." George Fox writes: "The Peacemaker hath the kingdom and is in it and hath dominion over the peacebreaker to calm him down in the power of God."

[Responding to "that of God" in Others &"War Taxes"]—The same Light shines in every heart however obscured by selfishness & greed. That of God in one person arouses similar capacity in the other; one tends to rise to what is expected of them. Non-resistance & goodwill sometimes fails, but so also does violent methods. [On the self-defense issue, Quakers might re- spond that they] would meekly suffer in the hope of persuading their assailant to desist or they might use violence if it didn't involve taking life or even not involve serious injury. Thomas Chalkey argues: "If I were killed in my body, my soul might be happy; but if I killed him, he dying in his wickedess would consequently be unhappy; ... and if I killed him, he would have no time to repent."

The absoluteness of the Quaker position did not for the most part pre- vent Friends from paying taxes to support the state. Thomas Story said to Peter the Great: "[We are] an industrious quiet people who readily pay taxes after the New Testament example to Caesar, who [directs & applies] govern- ment to peace or war, as it pleaseth him." This way of meeting the problem has not always been either approved or adopted.

In 1755 a considerable number of Friends refused to pay a tax levied in PA largely for the purpose of waging Indian wars. [A committee of John Woolman's meeting could not reach unity and issued a non-committal report on the issue of paying or resisting taxes to wage the Indian wars. Joshua Evans writes: "I found it best for me to refuse paying demands on my estate which went to pay the expenses of war. Although my part might appear at best a drop in the ocean, yet the ocean, I considered, was made up of many drops."

Most Friends withdrew from the Provincial Assembly, where they held 28 of 36 seats over this issue which they opposed. Friends gave more than the amount of the war tax to secure peace through their "Friendly Association for Gaining and Preserving Peace with the Indians by Pacific Measures." It actually succeeded in accomplishing its purpose in 1758 at a cost of £5,000. Job Scott writes of the Revolutionary War: "The testimony of Truth and of our Society was clearly against our paying such taxes as were wholly for war; many solid Friends manifested a lively testimony against the payment of those in the mixture; it appeared evidently to me to be on substantial ground, arising and spreading in the authority of truth."

There is a still more difficult problem of keeping clear of preparations for war in a society so complex that it becomes impossible to avoid indirect participation in it. Many Friends have come to feel that their Divine Guide did not require of them more than seemed humanly possible. Friends mitigate their compliance by taxing themselves to support enterprises which aid in overcoming the evil effects of war or avoiding future wars. Civilian Public Service camps provide a place for draftees to perform tasks which don't further the war effort. The camps are supported by pacifist churches & from individual pacifists.

[Quakers’ Active Pacifism]—Society members have been present on the following battle fronts: Irish War (1690); Revolutionary War (Boston, 1776); Greco-Turkish War (1828) Crimean War (1853); American Civil War (1861); Franco-Prussian War (1870); Boer Wars (1880, 1899); Balkan War (1912); WWI. John Greenleaf Whittier writes of the Civil War: "We owe it to the cause of truth to show that exalted heroism, generous self-sacrifice, [& relief of suf- fering] aren't incompatible with our pacific principles."

War, unlike [natural disasters], comes from of wrong human attitudes such as hatred, greed, & fear & these qualities can only be changed by their opposites." Quakers frequently & publicly declare their desire to live as law- abiding citizens so long as the law did not conflict with the higher law in their consciences. George Washington found that a "Mr. Mifflin" opposed the Revolutionary War "upon the principle that ... all that was ever secured by revolution is not an adequate compensation for poor mangled soldiers and loss of life and limb"; Washington honored those sentiments.

The impartial exercise of police power was to early Friends' minds different from war, in which there was neither law nor justice. Taking human life or vengeance wasn't a magistrate's right. Friends pioneered in doing away with violent methods of dealing with the insane, & Friends' schools early did away with corporal punishment. Several provisions of Penn's 1696 plan for the union of the American colonies were written into the US Constitution. John Bright was partly instrumental in preventing English entrance into the Ameri- can Civil War.

John Woolman writes: "When that spirit works which loves riches ... it desires to defend the treasures thus gotten ... [oppression] clothes itself with the name of justice & becomes like a seed of discord & the seeds of war swell & sprout ... May we look upon our Treasures, & furniture of our houses & the Garments in which we array ourselves & try whether the seeds of war have any nourishment in our possessions or not." Horace G. Alexander writes: "Pacifists are concerned that the community should check and prevent many of the evils that characterize the present acquisitive society. It isn't state con- trol, but world control they envisage."

Quaker meetings undertook, through the religious, social & economic relations of its members, to outline a better social order made possible by its principles. Joseph Sturge writes: "It doesn't become a Christian to examine too closely one's probability of success, but rather to act in the assurance that, if one faithfully does one's part, as much success will attend one's ef- forts as is consistent with the will of [one's] Divine Leader ..." If a spiritual end is desired, a material means won't achieve it. The Christian way of life is such that to be genuine it must be adopted voluntarily, not under coercion. To assume there is no other way than violence to create a better human society is to assume that reformation is impossible.

[Quakerism's Spiritual Weapons]—Quaker writings used the phrase "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal" a lot. Quakers considered them- selves to be real fighters for Christ's kingdom. George Fox writes: "All such as pretend Christ Jesus and confess him, and yet run into the use of carnal weapons ... throw away the spiritual weapons." William Dewsbury was per- suaded to leave the Parliamentary Army by the revelation that: "The Kingdom of Christ was within and the enemy was within & was spiritual; my weapons against them must be spiritual, the power of God." The main source of Quaker pacifism is an intuitive vision of the way which isn't of this world, a way recog- nized as good in itself, regardless of its consequences.

Edward Burroughs writes: "[The Lord] hath broken down that part in us that is related [to strife and enmity], and being dead in that nature of ... wars how can we live in strife and contention with the world ... Our kingdom is inward & our weapons are spiritual & our victory & peace isn't of the world." Barclay said of those choosing "the way of the world": "We shall not say that war, undertaken upon a just occasion, is altogether unlawful to them." The militarist like the pacifist should live up to the highest that one knows. In doing so he may eventually discover a higher way of life than that which he at first adopted.

In the terrible years of persecution under the Conventicle Acts (1664- 1673), Friends, almost alone among Non-Conformists, held their meetings openly, in spite of [being subject to] wholesale arrests & the destruction of their meeting houses. Eventually, through this passive resistance & other circumstances, the right to worship God publicly according to conscience was won in the 4 or 5 colonies controlled by Quakers.

The refusal of Quakers as persecuted minorities in the other colonies to pay tithes showed the advantage of freedom of worship, & were important factors in establishing religious liberty and separation of church and state in the US Constitution. There are many instances in Quaker history of non- violent power when used in love, and the protection afforded by a peaceable life and good will (e.g. living unmolested among Indians even during Indian raids, and being unmolested and feeding the hungry of both sides in Irish conflicts).

[Quaker Non-participation in War]—From the beginning of Quaker history, Friends suffered fines & imprisonment for non-participation in military service, even mob violence for not celebrating military victories. In WWI, pacifists were eventually granted alternative service at home or they were furloughed to relief work in France with Friends Service Council (UK) or American Friends Service Committee. These circumstances and others like them are among the elements which have built up a powerful tradition in the Society of Friends. No official pronouncement of any regularly constituted body of Friends has ever sanctioned participation in any war. Over time, Quaker supporters of the current war have withdrawn [for the war's duration] or broken away completely. Every war has acted as a purge of nominal members, has awakened old members to new life and has brought in new members.

[Meetings for Worship]—Meetings for worship and worship with atten- tion to business are training grounds in pacific methods. They are to the Society of Friends what the drill ground is to an army. There's no ritual, creed, hymn or liturgy to control religious expression. In silent worship or spontane- ous speaking, a deep ground of unity and harmony is unitedly sought. True worship which pierces through the surface of the mind where multiplicity lies, finds in the depths, beyond words and even thoughts, "the hidden unity in the Eternal Being" (G. Fox).

Community signifies [at its best this unity] from within, enabling them to work together, rather than external authoritarian means or threats of vio- lence. [For example], at Westtown School, 1818-30, there was no corporal punishment without the Superintendent's permission. When the men teachers were united in a judgment for corporal punishment, 15-20 minutes of sitting in silence with the Superintendent was often enough "to operate upon the minds of the teachers that ... they would unitedly propose a milder treatment."

In meetings for conducting the Society's business, decision can be made only when those present reach a state of unity. This peculiar method, while slower than voting, is more creative for it gives time for new points of view to arise out of the synthesis of old ones. [The group as a whole is more convinced this way as to the rightness of an action]. Pacifist programs seek for the solution of conflict that arises out of that unity, deep in the soul, which underlies all human differences and which is discovered through humble obedience to one Divine Voice. If time is allowed for the slow process of growth, if people can but refrain from hurried, arbitrary, or mechanical means, the truth can be found behind all the various and partial views of it. This extreme type of democracy in procedure presupposes equality of sex, race, and class. God's Spirit works best in an atmosphere of freedom, and humble openness to new revelations of truth.

[Peace Testimony and Social Testimonies/ Conclusion]—Peace testimony and other social testimonies form a unit derived from a common source, but they also generate one another; equality and simplicity [when practiced remove] many seeds of war. Today's specialization and [many separate committees] runs the danger of so emphasizing the part that its meaning in the light of the whole is lost.

Quakers have used authoritarian arguments around tradition & Jesus' teachings; they have used rational and pragmatic arguments about war as futile, stupid, wasteful, & incapable of achieving its stated ends. More often, they have employed arguments based on the direct soul's insight into the nature of Truth and Goodness from Divine Light and Life. The Divine Light is not only the source of insight, but also the source of power. The Light shines deep within at the springs of the will. The will is not primarily influenced by arguments based on practical, logical or historical considerations, or by cree- dal statements. Only by drawing upon the inner sources of Truth and Life can a small minority hold fast to a position condemned by the great majority of humankind.

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28. Barclay in Brief (edited by Eleanore Price Mather; 1945)
PREFACE—This abbreviation of [Robert Barclay’s] greatest work, the Apology, is timely. 1^st, it offers modern Quakers an opportunity to become acquainted with a book of great historical importance. 2^nd, Barclay’s concep- tion of the Christian religion’s nature & function is again coming to the fore. Barclay’s achievement lies in his extraordinary synthesis of the mystical (inward experience) & evangelical (outward history). Calvinism created an unbridgeable chasm between human & divine; modern liberalism as blurred it so that religion has lost its power. If man enters the holy of holies only to find himself there he will not come again. Religion now must lay hold onto the belief that man’s can win through that of God in the soul. [That is Barclay’s religion].— Howard Brinton.

INTRODUCTION: R.B. unto the Friendly Reader Wisheth Salvation— It was left to Robert Barclay to round Quaker beliefs into a religious system & present them as such to the world [in the Apology]. He inherited a talent for theological disputation peculiar to the Scottish people. He came in contact with the Roman Catholic faith, and at 18 joined the society of Friends like his father David before him. Besides putting into scholarly terms the new faith, he used his legal knowledge to aid fellow members who were hailed before magistrates.

[He was imprisoned himself], though he could have easily obtained release through his relation’s with the royal court and certain rulers on the Continent. Barclay never came in person to the New World. He [received] “a charge from God” [and so] married Christian Molleson, a Quakeress of Aberdeen; they had 7 children. He died in 1690 at the age of 41. He was a lover of peace, but never hesitant to take up the weapons of spiritual warfare. The Apology is the supreme declaration of Quaker belief, organized and set forth by a man who remained Quakerism’s only theologian up to the 19^th century.

Today, scarcely a Quaker under 30 has read it. We prepared this condensation [in the hope it] will appeal to minds trained to the brevity of modern journalism; [who will hopefully] obtain the essence of a timeless spiri- tual truth. We find his use of the term “natural man” hard to understand; for him it meant sinful man. We are inheritors of Rousseau’s belief in the natural goodness of man. The plain truth is that it is useless to say, “Lets’s be primi- tive”; humankind has long since passed from the Garden Innocence.

Barclay knew that man was a very complex animal. He has become self-conscious. And the only way by which he can be free of [the lonely, fear- ful, longing] self, is to lose it in the Spirit which is so vastly greater than he, to yield it up to the divine will. Afterwards will come the soul's resurrection, a rising of the new man or creature which Barclay calls the “Christ within.” If man remains “natural” his course is necessarily evil and he will perish in sin. With Barclay the term “natural” means sinful only when applied to the man who, after his eyes are opened, is content to remain a mere rational animal indifferent to the light of the Spirit; more is expected of him. Where goodness is there is God, for good works are the inevitable fruition of a growing spirit.

[The theology of Barclay’s age] seems to the modern mind to have placed more emphasis on man’s fall than on Christ’s raising him up again. The Quaker faith in man’s potential goodness was revolutionary heresy to the 17^th century Puritan clergy. Barclay regarded [pessimistic] predestina- tion as a hideous blasphemy against God's mercy. Barclay balanced the Seed of Sin with a Seed of Light. [He protests against Charles II’s licentious court, the extravagant dress, the flattering of the King by addressing him with the plural “you,” rather than the singular “thou,” which filtered down through

England

’s upper class.

If 17^th century testimonies are outmoded, the spirit behind them aren't. Pacificism is as vital an issue today as it was then. Barclay’s goal was a way of living where we may remain in [“the world”] yet maintain a life of the spirit ordinarily possible only in the cloister. Barclay challenges both Calvinism and the fashionable World. The Society of Friends sat in communal silence, led only by the Spirit. [Barclay objected to the human will present in the pre- arranged order of service & the division of worshipers between laity & clergy. [He had nothing but contempt for the clergy’s theological hair-splitting]. [He said:] “I judge the Christian religion to be so far from being bettered [by them], that it is rather destroyed.”

On the whole the space allotted to each major point is proportionate with its treatment in the Apology; more space has been given to the peace testimony because of its extreme pertinence today. Barclay said: “What I have heard with the ears of my soul, and seen with my inward eyes, and my hands of handled of the Word of Life, and what hath been inwardly manifes- ted to me of the things of God, that do I declare.” Eleanor Price Mather

BARCLAY IN BRIEF

I. BELIEF: Immediate Revelation—The understanding of true know- ledge of God is that which is most necessary to be known and believed in the first place. The certain, spiritual, saving heart-knowledge of God may be obtained only by inward immediate manifestation & revelation of God’s spirit. This truth hath been acknowledged by professors of Christianity in all ages. The true seed in them hath been answered by God’s love. They find a dis- taste & disgust in all outward means. The apostle [Paul] uses the compari- son that as the things of a man are only known to the spirit of man, so the things of God are only known by the Spirit of God.

Knowledge of Christ which is not by the revelation of his own Spirit in the heart, [i.e. gathered from the words or writings of spiritual men] is not properly the knowledge of Christ. The natural man of the largest capacity [using only] the best words, even scripture words, cannot understand the mysteries of God’s kingdom as well as the least & weakest child who tasteth them by having them revealed inwardly by the Spirit. The Scriptures do declare that God’s converse with man was by the immediate manifestation of his Spirit. Christians now are to be led inwardly and immediately by the Spirit of God as the saints were of old, as it is positively asserted in scripture.

He [who says he is] ignorant of the inwardness of the Spirit of Christ, acknowledges himself to be in the carnal mind, which is enmity to God. Whatever he may know or believe of Christ, he has not [become] a Christian. Whatsoever is noble, worthy, desirable in the Christian faith, is ascribed to this Spirit. [Christianity] could no more subsist than the outward world with- out the sun. If any depart from this certain guide, it won't follow that the true guidance of the Spirit is uncertain [because it is rejected by] the weakness or wickedness of men. Divine inward revelations are not to be subjected to the test, either of the outward testimony of the scriptures or the natural reason of man; it is self-evident and clear, forcing the well-disposed understanding to assent.

The Scriptures—From these revelations of the Spirit of God to the saints have proceeded the Scriptures of Truth. [They declare the inward testi- mony of the Spirit primary & themselves secondary]. I myself have known friends [who are full of] divine knowledge of his truth, who were ignorant of the Greek & Hebrew & could not read their own language. They disagreed with an English translation that didn't fit the manifestation of the truth in their own hearts, boldly affirming that God's Spirit never said so. [It turned out they were right].

[Translators will strain passages] to express their own opinion & notion of truth. God sometimes conveys comfort and consolation to us through his children, whom he raises up & inspires to speak or write a word in season. Mutual emanation of the heavenly life tends to quicken the mind, when at any time it is overtaken with heaviness. Seeing the snares the saints were liable to, & beholding their deliverance. We may thereby be made wise unto salvation.

The Condition of Man in the Fall—We confess that a seed of sin is transmitted to all from Adam. [Man is not automatically sinful, but by sinning they join with the seed]. It is called death in the scripture, and the body of death; it is a death to the life of righteousness and holiness. Scripture makes no mention of original sin, [which is an] invented and unscriptural barbarism. Many heathen philosophers [e.g. Plato, Pythagoras, Plotinus and others,] were sensible of the loss received by Adam, though they knew not the outward history. [They used images of dark caves, wandering, dead coals, clipped wings]. We ascribe to paradise a mystical signification and truly account it as that spiritual communion and fellow ship which the saints obtain with God by Jesus Christ.

Universal and Saving Light—The knowledge [of salvation] has been manifested to us by the revelation of Jesus Christ in us, the testimony of the Spirit in our hearts. The Light isn't less universal than the seed of sin. Hence Justin Martyr stuck not to call Socrates a Christian, saying that all such as lived according to the divine word in them, were Christians, such as Socrates, Heraclitus and others. Some in those remote parts of the world where the knowledge of the history is wanting, may be made partakers of the divine mystery, if they suffer his seed and light. Light communion with the Father and the Son [may turn wicked men] from the evil to the good.

This is that Christ within, which we are heard so much to speak of. We have said how that a divine, spiritual, & supernatural light is in all. As it is received Christ comes to be formed & brought forth. We are far from having said that Christ is formed in all men. Neither is Christ in all men by way of union. Christ is in all men as in a seed. Christ lies crucified in them by their sins. As they look upon him & repent, he may come to be raised, and have dominion in their hearts over all. This seed in the hearts of all men is the kingdom of God. As the whole body of a great tree is wrapped up in the seed of the tree, even so the kingdom of Christ is in every man’s & woman’s heart.

The grace and light strives and wrestles with all in order to save all; he that resists its striving, is the cause of his own condemnation; he that resists it not, it becomes his salvation. He that made us without us, will not save us without us. Man’s heart, as it resist or retires from God's grace returns to its former condition again.

Reason—This light of which we speak is distinct & of a different nature from man’s soul. Man may apprehend in his brain a knowledge of God & the spiritual; yet it cannot profit him towards salvation, but rather hindereth. Every such man has set up Anti-Christ in himself, & sitteth in the temple of God as God. We look upon reason as fit to order & rule man in things natural. As the moon borrows her light from the sun, so ought men, if they would be rightly ordered in natural things, to have their reason enlightened by this divine and pure light.

Conscience—It is that knowledge in a man’s heart, arising from what agreeth or contradicteth anything believed by him. The Light as it is received, removes the blindness of judgment, opens the understanding, & rectifies both the judgment & the conscience. We continually commend men to the Light of Christ in the conscience.

Justification by Faith and Works—As many receive the light, it be- comes in them a holy, pure, and spiritual birth. Since good works as natu- rally follow from this birth as heat from fire therefore are they of absolute necessity to justification. Works of the law are preformed in man’s own will, in conformity to the outward law and letter; works of grace or gospel are wrought in conformity to the inward and spiritual law by the power & Spirit of Christ in us, pure and perfect in their kind. Faith that worketh by love can't be without works.

Perfection—How far may Christ prevail in us while we are in this life? How far may we prevail over our soul’s enemies, in and by Christ's strength? We understand perfection as permitting growth, a perfection pro-portionable and answerable to man’s measure. Those who attain a measure of perfection may still fall into iniquity, and lose it sometimes. Though every sin weakens a man in his spiritual condition, yet it doth not so as to destroy him altogether, or render him uncapable of rising again. Turn thy mind to the light and spiritual law of Christ in the heart, so that the life [of this world] may die and a new life be raised, lived henceforth to and for God. Then thou wilt be a Christian indeed.

II. WORSHIP: The Church—The Church as it is used in the holy scrip- ture, signifies an assembly or gathering of many into 1 place; this is the real & proper signification of church. God hath called them out of the world & worldly spirit, to walk in his Light & Life. [This church includes] whatsoever nation, kindred, tongue, or people as become obedient to the holy light & testi- mony of God in their hearts. [This catholic church includes] Turks, Jews, even Christians blinded in some things in their understanding, or burdened with superstitions & formality.

Group Worship—All true, acceptable worship to God is offered in the inward & immediate moving & drawing of his own [limitless] Spirit. All other worship is superstition, will-worship, & abominable idolatry in God’s sight. To meet together we think necessary for God’s people; there is a necessity for joint & visible fellowship. In their spirits the secret power & virtue of life refreshes the soul. Some meetings pass without one word; & yet our souls have been greatly edified & refreshed, our hearts overcome with the secret sense of God’s power & Spirit.

When I came into the silent assemblies of God’s people, I felt a secret power among them. I felt the evil weakening in me & the good raised up; I became knit & united unto them. Our worship consisteth of a holy depen- dence of the mind upon God. There is scarce any in whom God [does not raise up one] to minister to his brethren. We judge it needful there be in the first place a time of silence, during which every one may be gathered inward to the word & gift of grace.

Waiting upon God must be exercised in man’s denying self, both in- wardly & outwardly, abstracting from all the workings, imaginations, & specu- lations of his own mind. The little seed of righteousness which God hath planted in his soul receives a place to arise, & becometh a holy birth in man. By waiting there he comes to be accepted in God’s sight, to stand in his presence, hear his voice, & observe his holy Spirit’s motions.

When many are gathered together into the same life there is more of God's glory. The good seed, as it ariseth, will be found to work as physick in the soul. When the light breaks through the darkness, there will be such a painful travail found in the soul, that will even work upon the outward man, and the body will be greatly shaken. And from this the name of Quakers was 1^st reproachfully cast upon us; we are not ashamed of it. The great advantage of this true worship of God is that it consisteth not in man’s wisdom. The natural mind & will hath no delight to abide in it, because they find no room there for imagination and inventions [or his outward and carnal senses]. This form of worship being observed, is not likely to be long kept pure without the power; there is nothing in it to invite and tempt men to dote upon it, [besides the power].

Ministry—Those that the Spirit set apart for the ministry by its divine power and influence opening their mouths, and giving them to exhort, reprove, and instruct with virtue & power; these are thus ordained by God & admitted into the ministry by God's free gift [as he seeth meet]. Every true minister of the gospel is ordained, prepared and supplied in the work of the ministry by the light or gift of God. Those who have this authority may & ought to preach the gospel; those who want [lack] the authority of this divine gift, however learned, or authorized by men & churches, are to be esteemed as deceivers and not true ministers of the gospel.

All may speak or prophesy by the Spirit; some are more particularly called to the work of ministry & therefore are fitted of the Lord to watch over their brethren. There are also elders, who though they be not moved to a frequent testimony [with a] declaration in words, they watch over & privately admonish the young, take care for widows, poor, & fatherless, [& see that] peace, love, unity, & soundness be preserved in the church of Christ.

We oppose the distinction of laity, and clergy, which in the scripture is not to be found. [These] are educated at schools on purpose to learn the art and trade of preaching, & must see to get a place; then they hath a set hire for a livelihood. The ministers we plead for, having freely received, freely give, & work honestly for bread to themselves and their families. If they be called by God and the work of the Lord hinder them from the use of their trades, take what is freely given them by [those they minister to]; & having food and raiment be content.

[They are sometimes illiterate, but] my heart hath been often greatly broken and tendered by that virtuous life that proceeded from the powerful ministry of those illiterate men, the evil in me often chained down, and the good reached to and raised. Was I not also a lover & admirer of knowledge, & sought after it? It pleased God early to withstand my endeavors, & made me seriously to consider that without holiness and regeneration, no man can see God. Among these excellent, though illiterate witnesses of God, I, with many others, have found the heavenly food that gives contentment. Let my soul seek after this learning, and wait for it forever.

Prayer/Song—Our adversaries agree that the motions & influence of God’s Spirit are not necessary to be previous thereunto, therefore they have set times in publick worship & in private devotion, at which they set about performing their prayers. Prayer is both very profitable, & a necessary duty commanded, but as we can do nothing without Christ, so neither can we pray without concurrence & assistance of his Spirit.

Inward prayer is secret turning of the mind towards God, where it looks up to God, joins with [God’s seed], breathes towards him, & is constantly brea- thing forth secret desires & aspirations towards him [i.e. “praying continually”] Outward prayer is when the spirit receives strength & liberty to bring forth sighs, groans, or words. Such as are watchful in their minds, & much retired in exercising inward prayer are more capable to use the outward frequently. When many are gathered in watchful mind, God doth frequently pour forth the Spirit of prayer. Outward prayer depends on the inward, so we cannot prefix set times to pray outwardly. The case for singing in worship is the same as for preaching & prayer; it must arise from the Spirit’s direct influence, from what is pure in the heart. [There is] no example of artificial music by organ, instru- ments, or voice in the NT.

Baptism/Communion—The one baptism is the answer of good con- science before God, by Jesus Christ's resurrection. Infant baptism is human tradition. That the one baptism isn't a washing of water is from I Peter 3: 21. Many baptized by water are not saved. [But as to] the Spirit's baptism, none can have a good conscience & not be saved by it. The communion of Christ’s body & blood is inward, spiritual. Even they who received the [spiritual] sub- stance used the breaking of the bread in the church for a time, for the weak’s sake. Seeing that they are the shadow of better things, they cease in such as have obtained the substance. We certainly know that the day is dawned, in which God hath arisen, & hath dismissed all ceremonies & rites, & is only to be worshiped in Spirit.

III. TESTIMONIES—Even by the confession of their adversaries, they are found to be free of abominations which abound among other profes- sors. Our adversaries [insist on doing some things] which we have found to be in no ways lawful unto us, & have been commanded of the Lord to lay them aside. The nature of these things distinguish us, so that we can't hide ourselves from any without proving unfaithful to our testimony.

We don't intend to destroy the relations betwixt prince & people, master & servants, parents & children. We shall evidence that these natural relations are rather better established, than hurt by it. Our principle leaves every man to enjoy peaceably whatever his industry or his parents, have purchased to him. Wouldn't not greatly contribute to Christianity’s commendation, & to the increase of the life & virtue of Christ, if all superfluous titles of honour, profuseness & playing were laid aside & forborne? [In those God has led out of such things], God hath produced mortification & abstrac- tion from the love and cares of this world which was judged could only be obtained by those shut up in cloisters and monasteries.

Titles/ Hat and Knee—It is not lawful for Christians either to give or receive titles [for these reasons]: they are no part of that obedience which is due to magistrates or superiors; the apostles deserved [the titles of Holiness, Excellency, Emininence] better than any now who claim them; Christians are to seek the honor that comes from above, & not the honor that comes from below. [The use of the plural “you” began in Roman times]. It & the other titles of honor seem to have derived from monarchial government; which afterwards by degrees, came to be derived to private persons. This way of speaking proceeds from a high and proud mind. [With the use of the word “you,”] the pride of men placed God & the beggar in the same category. We use the singular equally to all.

Kneeling, bowing, & uncovering of the head is the outward signification of adoration towards God alone; it is not lawful to give it to man, [for] what [then] is reserved for the Creator. Men being alike in creation, do not owe wor- ship to one another, but all equally are to return it to God. Many of us have been sorely beaten & buffeted, yea, & imprisoned for months because we could not so satisfy the proud unreasonable humors of proud men.

Apparel/Gaming—We shall not say that all persons are to be clothed alike, because it will perhaps neither suit their bodies nor their estates. [For a person of fine clothing], the abstaining from fine clothing may be in him a greater act of mortification than the abstaining from finer clothes in the ser- vant, who was never accustomed to them. What a country produces may be no vanity to the inhabitants to use. The iniquity lies in a lust of vanity which [causes them to] stretch to have things that from their rarity seem precious and so feed their lust the more.

[Gaming interferes with] having fear of the Lord, standing in awe of him, because this fear and awe is forgotten in their gaming. [While the mind may need some] divertisement to recreate the mind, we are not allowed any time to recede from the remembrance [and fear] of God. The relaxation of the mind from the more serious duties, [is such that] even in doing these things the soul carrieth with it that divine influence &d spiritual habit, [so that if even the wicked do the same] yet they are done in a different Spirit. Innocent diver- tisements [include] visiting friends, hearing or reading history, gardening, geometrical and mathematical experiments, and such other things of this nature. In all which things we are not to forget God.

Swearing—It is no ways lawful for Christian to swear, whom Christ called to his essential truth, which was before all oaths. Neither is it lawful for them to be unfaithful in this, that they may please others, or that they may avoid their hurt. Since Christ would have his disciples attain the highest pitch of perfection, he abrogated oaths, as a rudiment of infirmity & established the use of truth instead.

Fighting—The last thing to be considered, is revenge & war, an evil as opposite & contrary to the Spirit, & doctrine of Christ as light to darkness. Through contempt of Christ’s law the whole world is filled with violence, op- pression, murders, ravishing of women, & all manner of cruelty. It is strange that men, made after the image of God, should have so much degenerated, that they rather bear the image & nature of [beasts], than of rational reason, [even] those who profess themselves disciples of our peaceable Lord and master Jesus Christ.

This great prophet [speaks clearly in Matthew 5:38-48]. Truly the words are so clear in themselves, that they need no illustration to explain their sense. [Yet there are those who seek to reconcile violence & war with these words]. Whoever can find a means to reconcile these things, may be supposed to have found a way to reconcile God with the devil, Christ with Antichrist, light with darkness, & good with evil. Jesus’ words with respect to revenge command unto [would-be] disciples of Christ, a more perfect, eminent, & full [display] of charity, suffering & patience than was required of them [under] the law of Moses. [Early Christian were faithful to these words].

Almost all the modern sects live in the neglect and contempt of this law of Christ, & likewise oppress others who don't agree with them for conscience sake. We have suffered much because we neither could ourselves bear arms, nor send others in our place, nor give our money for military [equipment]. We could not hold our doors, windows and shops closed, [in support of] the arms of the kingdom under which we live. [Those] at war together have implored our God for contradictory, impossible things; both cannot obtain victory.

If the magistrate be truly a Christian, he ought himself to obey the com-mand of his master, & then he could not command us to kill them. To obey God is to exalt & perfect nature, to elevate it from the natural to the super- natural life. We deny not the present magistrates altogether the name "Chris- tians," yet we may affirm that they are far from the perfection of the Christian religion. The present confessors of the Christian name are not yet fitted for [our] form of Christianity, & therefore cannot be undefending themselves until they attain that perfection.

Liberty of Conscience—That no man hath power over the conscien- ces of men is apparent; it is the seat and throne of God in him. We under- stand by matters of conscience such as immediately relate betwixt God and man, or men and men that are under the same persuasion, as to meet toge- ther & worship God. The liberty we lay claim to is to enjoy the liberty & exercise of their conscience towards God and among themselves. As Chrysostom said: “We must condemn and reprove the evil doctrines that proceed from Hereticks, but spare the men, and pray for their salvation.”

Of excellent patience & sufferings, the witness of God called Quakers have given manifest proof. They went up & down, as they were moved of the Lord, preaching & propagating the truth in market-places, highways, streets & publick temples, though daily beaten, whipped, bruised, haled, & impri- soned. They kept their meetings for worship openly, & did not shut the door, nor do it by stealth, that all might know it, & those who would might enter. When others came to break up a meeting, they were obliged to take every individual out by force, the worshipers not being free to give up their liberty at the others’ command. And unless kept out by violence, the worshipers return peaceably to their place. [They even held worship in the rubbish of torn-down meeting houses].

Thus for a Christian man to vindicate his just liberty with so much bold- ness will in due time purchase peace. They greatly sin against this rule that in time of persecution do not profess their own way so much as they would if it were otherwise. Yet, when they get the magistrate on their side, they seek to establish their liberty by denying it to others. Our malicious enemies say that if we had the power, we would [likewise coerce and persecute others]; they only judge others by themselves. If ever we prove guilty of persecution, let us be judged the greatest of hypocrites, & let not any spare to persecute us. Amen, saith my soul.

CONCLUSION—If thou consider this system of religion here delivered, with its consistence & harmony, as well in itself as with the scriptures of truth, I doubt not but thou wilt say with me that this is the spiritual day of Christ’s appearance. As God hath prospered us, notwithstanding much opposition, so will he yet do, that neither the art, wisdom, nor violence of men or devils shall be able to quench that little spark that hath appeared.
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29. The Inward Journey of Isaac Penington (edited by Robert J.

Leach; 1944)

He that readeth these things, let him not strive to comprehend them; but be content with what he feeleth thereof suitable to his own present es- tate, & as the life grows in him and he in the life . . . the words . . . will of themselves open to him. ISAAC PENINGTON

Introduction—The spiritual writings of Isaac Penington (1617-1679), [published in a large folio with an 80-word title], evoke a real response in our present war-torn world. Their advice concerning the slow growth of inward comprehension speaks to our condition. The lyric beauty of Penington’s free verse carries the reader along to the subject of public worship, in which Christ himself speaks. The Inward Journey [explains how to] find the living virtue [and salvation] which Isaac Penington had himself discovered. In 1658 the Peningtons . . . fully associated themselves with the then new Society of Friends . . . becoming consistent and fervent members of the new spiritual movement . . . and ministers of God’s holy word.

Spring of Life—I never durst trust the spring of my life. I set [know- ledge of Scripture] over the springings of life in me, and indeed judged that I ought so to do. I didn't look to have been so broken, shattered, & distressed as I afterwards was. I was in a congregational way. We parted very lovingly . . . [I] promising to return to them again, if ever I met with that which my soul wanted, and had clearness in the Lord so to do.

I spent many years, & fell into great weakness of body. And the Lord my God owned me, and sealed his love unto me, & light sprang within me . . . so that everything was sweet and pleasant and lightsome round about me. But I soon felt that this estate was too high & glorious for me . . . This was presently removed from me, yet a savor remained with me, wherein I had sweetness, comfort, and refreshment for a long season.

The Lord open my spirit, the Lord gave me the certain and sensible feeling of the pure seed . . . [so] that I cried out in my spirit This is he. . . there never was another. He was always near me, though I knew him not Oh, that I might now be joined with him, & he alone might live in me. Having gone through a sore travail and fight of afflictions and temptations . . . [and] having met with the true way . . . I cannot be silent, but am necessitated to testify of it to others . . . [namely] to retire inwardly, & wait to feel somewhat of the Lord, his holy spirit and power, & draw [away] from that which is con- trary to him, and into his holy nature and heavenly image.

There is one that stands in the way to this work of the Lord . . . by raising up a fear of being deceived and betrayed . . .so that I durst not close with what I felt to be of God. The very yoke is ease and the burden light, when the mind and will is changed by the power, and helped and assisted by the Lord in its subjection to the power.

The Lord is now gentle and tender, pursuing thee with his love, and following thee up and down with his light; . . . he will slay the serpentine wis- dom in thee, with all its inventions. That wisdom must be destroyed, and that understanding brought to naught, and thou become a child & learn as a child if ever thou know the things of God. These [who are grievously sick in soul & deeply wounded in spirit] are near the kingdom and are quickly reached to, melted, and brought into the sense in which with joy they receive the faith, & with the faith the power which bring righteousness & salvation to their souls.

Faith—There is a faith which is of a man’s self, & a faith which is the gift of God. A man may believe the history of the Scripture, yea and all the doctrines of them. Man by a natural faith grows up & spread into a great tree and is very confident and much pleased, not perceiving the defect in his root, what all his growth here will come to. A literal knowledge of Christ's blood can only talk of it [but not feel it or live it]. In plain terms, you must part with all your religion which you have gathered in your own wisdom. Know the silen- cing of the fleshly part, that the spiritual part may grow in wisdom, that so ye may learn in the spirit, and know the word of God and be able to speak it.

Truth is of God and was with God, & in God before anything else had a being. Truth remains the same that it was, keeping its pure, eternal, unchan- geable nature, and is not, nor ever was, nor ever can be defiled. The field is near thee, O man, which thou art to purchase and dig in, & must feel torn up by God's plough in some measure before this pearl [of great price] appear to thee.

To the soul that hath felt breathings towards the Lord formerly I say: Where art Thou? Art thou in thy soul’s rest? Dost thou feel the virtue and power of the gospel? Dost thou feel the life and power flowing in upon thee from the free fountain? Is the load really taken off from thy back? Hast thou found this, or hast thou missed this? Let thine heart answer. Art thou in the living power, in the divine life, joined to the spring of life, drawing water of life out of the well of life with joy? Or art thou dry, dead, barren, sapless, at best unsatisfiedly mourning after what thou wantest?

The Seed—The seed of God is the word of God; the seed of the king- dom is the word of the kingdom. The pure, living, heavenly knowledge of the Father, & of his Son Christ Jesus, is wrapped up in this seed. As the seed is formed in him, Christ is formed in him; & as he is formed and new-created in the seed, he is the workmanship of God, formed and new-created in Christ.

According to Scripture, the seed of God or the seed of the kingdom:

1. Is of an immortal, incorruptible, mysterious nature, though it may be as though it were dead in man.

2. Is of a gathering nature, gathering that which is contrary to God

unto God, wherein the soul should dwell, and walk, and be subject.

3. Is of a purging, cleansing nature, [both of fire & of water]. There

is strength in this seed, & virtue in this seed, against all the strength

of deceit and wickedness in the other seed.

4. Is of a seasoning, leavening, sanctifying nature. It will go on lea-

vening more and more . . . into the likeness of the God of truth.

5. Is of an enriching nature. It enriches his heart [toward God] with

that which is holy and heavenly.

6. Is of an improving, growing nature, like a grain of mustard seed

[growing into] a tree of righteousness.

God will never leave nor forsake that soul which is joined to and abides with him in this seed; it shall be kept by the power of God, through the faith that springs from this seed, unto perfect redemption and salvation. Amen.

Doctrines—It is an excellent thing indeed to receive Christ, to feel union with him in his spirit, to enter into the new & holy agreement with God, into the everlasting covenant of life & peace, keeping his statutes and judg- ments, and doing them, so as to have union & fellowship with the Lord. God advanced the state of a believer above the state of the Jews under the law. Theirs was a law without, at a distance from them; but here is a law within, nigh at hand. They need no man to teach them, but have the spirit of pro- phecy in themselves & quick, living teachings from him continually. Moses’ dispensation of the law & Christ’s are one in spirit; & when he cometh in spirit, he doth not destroy either Moses or the prophets; the law is but one, although the dispensations of it have been various. The thing of great value with the Father was Christ’s obedience.

The Scriptures expressly distinguish between Christ and the garment [body] which he wore. There was the outward vessel, and the inward life. In Christ there is freedom; in his word there is power and life, and that reaching to the heart. Christ is a perfect physician, & is able to work a perfect cure on the heart that believeth in him, & waiteth upon him. Christ likewise bids his disciples be perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect. There is a growing in the life, even where the heart is purified . . . for a state of perfection does not exclude degrees.

The Yoke—Christ’s immediate revelation of the nature of his Father is to his babes; not to the wise, not to the zealous, not to the studious, not to the devout, not to the rich in the knowledge of the Scriptures without, but to the weak, the foolish, the poor, the lowly in heart. It is easy to take up a wrong yoke, in the self-will, self-wisdom, self-interpretation of Scriptures. And if a man thus miss the way, how can he attain the end? If a man begin not in the true faith, in the living faith, how can he attain the rest which the true faith alone leads to? He that walketh in Christ’s path cannot miss of it; the rest is at the end of it; nay, the rest is in it.

What is love? What shall I say of it, or how shall I in words express its nature? It's the sweetness of life; it's the sweet, tender, melting nature of God, flowing up through his seed of life into the creature. The great healing, the great conquest, the great salvation is reserved for the full mani- festation of the love of God. . . [which brings] the full springing up of eternal love in my heart, & in the swallowing of me wholly into it. Oh how sweet is love. How pleasant is its nature. How doth it believe, how doth it hope, how doth it excuse, how doth it cover even that which seemeth not to be excus- able, and not fit to be covered. . . it carrieth a meltingness and power of conviction with it. This is the nature of God.

There is a voluntary humility, and a voluntary poverty, even of spirit, which man casts himself into . . . by his own workings and reasonings. This is not the true, but the false image. [The right kind of] poverty ariseth from God’s emptying the creature, from God’s stripping the creature; and a humi- lity which ariseth from a new heart and nature. And so the Lord of Life is only exalted, & the creature kept abased before him, and low forever; and is nothing but as the Lord pleaseth to fill, and make it to be what it is.

Worship—They are to wait upon the Lord, to meet in the silence of flesh, and to watch for the stirrings of his life, and the breakings forth of his power amongst them. They may [break forth in all manner of speech and music]. But if the spirit do not require to speak, then everyone is to sit still in his heavenly place, feeling his own measure, feeding thereupon, receiving therefrom what the Lord giveth. And that which we aim at is that the flesh in everyone be kept silent, that there be no building up, but in the spirit and power of the Lord.

Our worship is a deep exercise of our spirits before the Lord, which does not consist in exercising the natural part or natural mind. That fleshly part, that fleshly understanding. . . wisdom . . . will, which won't bow down, is chained down by the power of life which God stretcheth forth over it, & subdueth it. Give over thine own willing, give over thine own desiring to know or be anything, and sink down to the seed which God sows in thy heart & let that be in thee. [God], thy children wait on thee, they cry to thee day & night, that they may be preserved by thee in the well-doing, and in the pure holy, innocent sufferings for thy truth’s sake; until thou say “It is enough . . . suffer no more . . . reign with me and my Son forever.”

He that would know Christ, and be built upon Christ, must find a holy thing revealed in his heart, and his soul built thereon by him who alone can raise this building. The great work of the minister of Christ is to keep the conscience open to Christ, and to preserve men from receiving any truths of Christ [beyond what] the spirit opens [to those men]. Therefore, the main thing in religion is to keep the conscience pure to the Lord, to know the guide, to follow the guide, to not take things for truths because others see them as truths, but to wait till the spirit make them manifest to me.

He that makes haste to be rich, even in religion, shall not be innocent . . . [of] spiritual adultery & idolatry. He that draws another to any practice before the life in his own particular [guide] lead him doth destroy the soul of that person. Keep back to the life, still waiting for the appearance & openings of the life. A few steps fetched in the life and power of God are much safer and sweeter than a hasty progress in the hasty forward spirit. To feel Christ do all in the soul is the comfort of everyone that truly believes in him.

Canst thou pray? How camest thou to learn to pray? Wast thou taught from above [or from] thine own natural part? Wast thou ever able to distinguish the sighs and groans of the spirit’s begetting from the sighs and groans of thy own natural and affectionate part? Prayer is the living child's breath to the Father of Life, in that spirit which quic- kened it, which giveth it the right sense of its wants. The Father is the foun- tain of life, and giveth forth breathings of life to his child at his pleasure.

Testimonies—The works that flow from God’s good spirit, the works that are wrought in God, they are good works; the works . . . of the new crea- ture are good works. Make the tree good, or its fruit can never be good. Bowing to the majesty of the Lord in every thought, word, and action . . . is the true worship, & this is the rest or Sabbath wherein the true worshippers worship. It is not the church’s nature either to receive or impose yokes of bondage, but to . . . exhort all her members to stand fast, in the liberty where- with Christ hath made them free. The Lord will discover what is hurtful to the body, and contrary to the life of the body and lay yokes upon it.

The Lord is to be waited upon for the bringing forth of [unity] in the spiri- tual body; that, as there is a foundation of it laid in all, so all may be brought by him into the true and full oneness. The enemy will watch to divide; and if he be not watched against, in that which is able to discover & keep him out, by some device or other he will take his advantage to make a tear from the pure truth and unity of life in the body.

He which is born of God, he who is of the love, and in the love, cannot but be tender. God’s free and powerful spirit is to be waited upon . . . & not any forced to act beyond, or contrary to, the principle of his life and light in them. Yet the government of Christ and his kingdom is not opposite to any just government of a nation or people. Christ’s government is righteous government of the heart of inner man.

[That of God] can't be disloyal to [Christ] its king, to gratify the spirit of this world. As government came from God, so the righteous execution of it depends upon God. How will the Lord assist the magistrate, who in his fear waits on him? [Were it so more often] governments wouldn't prove so difficult, nor the success therein so dangerous. The answering and obeying the light of Christ in our consciences is what keepeth them void of offence. Christ is the sole lord and judge of the conscience. Christ giveth . . . [and] increaseth knowledge; Christ requireth obedience according to the know- ledge given or increased.

Fighting in the gospel is turned inward against the lusts, & not outward against the creatures. [Those overcome in the heart by the spirit] are not prejudicial to the world . . . but emblems of that blessed state which the God of glory hath promised to set up in the world in the days of the gospels.

Israel

of old stood not by her strength and wisdom and preparations against her enemies, but in quietness & confidence and waiting on the Lord for direction.

The present state of things may & doth require [the use of the sword], & a great blessing will attend the sword where it is borne uprightly to that end. Yea, it is far better to know the Lord to be the defender, & to wait on him daily . . . than to be ever so strong & skillful in weapons of war. Too many hold the immortal seed of life in captivity under death, over which we can't but mourn, & wait for its breaking off the chains, and its rising out of all its graves into its own pure life, power, and fullness of liberty in the Lord.

Conclusion—And so at length we came to witness . . . a new heaven & a new earth inwardly. . . [God] giving us to partake of the well or fountain of living waters in our own hearts, which spring up freshly in us daily unto life eternal. Did we ever think, in our dry, dead, barren estate, to have seen such a day as this? There is no way of receiving Christ into the heart & of having him formed there, but by receiving the light of his spirit, in which light he is and dwells.

Faith causeth a fear & trembling to seize upon the sinner. In this fear & trembling the work of true repentance and conversion is begun & carried on; there is a turning of the soul from the darkness to the light. Faith through hope works righteousness, & teaches the true wisdom; & now the benefit of all the former trouble, anguish, and misery begins to be felt & the work goes on sweetly . . . [with] patience, meekness, gentleness, tenderness, and long- suffering. It brings [true] peace, [unspeakable] joy . . . full of glory. Here in the light, I meet with . . . God’s spirit [& wisdom], which is infallible. He opens an infallible eye [and heart], and gives to them an infallible sight of God, and the heavenly mysteries of his kingdom.

I have met with: the seed; my God; my Savior; the healings dropping upon my soul from under his wings; true knowledge; living knowledge; the seed’s father; the seed’s faith; the true birth; the true spirit of prayer and supplication; the true peace; the true holiness; the true rest of the soul. I know very well and distinctly in spirit where the doubts and disputes are, & where the certainty and full assurance is, & in the tender mercy of the Lord am preserved out of the one and into the other.

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30. William Penn’s No Cross, No Crown (Abridged by Anna Brinton;
1945)

About the Editor—Anna Cox Brinton was born in San Jose, CA Octo- ber 19, 1887; she was a Quaker pacifist. She and her husband Howard had solid background of academic achievement at the colleges of Mills & Earl-, ham & in 1936 became co-directors of a Quaker fusion of school & commu- nity. She was AFSC Commissioner for Asia in 1946; she served as AFSC International Program director. They retired in the 1950s and lived on the Pendle Hill campus as Directors Emeriti. Anna died in 1969.

Foreword—This pamphlet was published in October 1944, the 300^th anniversary of William Penn's birth. Pamphlets #28-30 summarize Barclay's Apology, Isaac Penington's works, and Penn's No Cross, No Crown, respec- tively. Barclay deals with belief, Penington with experience, and Penn with practice. Curing the defection of those who "profess Christianity," comes through "that divine grace and power by which the wills of men are made conformable to the will of God." Every excess is adverse to religion & public welfare. "True Godliness does not take men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it & excites their endeavors to mend it ... Christians should ... not meanly steal out of the stern of the world, and leave those in it without a pilot."

Introduction [About William Penn and No Cross, No Crown]—The traveling Friend Thomas Loe provided the title for Penn's best known religious book. Penn heard Loe preach when Penn was 12 & 23. From his death bed, Loe instructed Penn to "bear the cross ... and God will give thee an eternal crown of glory. Soon after Loe's death, Penn spent 8 months in London's Tower for blasphemy. His earliest version of No Cross, No Crown, some 111 pages, was printed in 1669. [He first addressed 8 of his personal friends: "Be you entreated to eye that Divine principle engrafted on your minds ... [with holy] self-denying instructions, that ... you may be weaned from the glitte- ring follies of the world and sensibly experiment the delights of the soul."

[The title's promise of reward may seem too worldly for modern tastes, but early Friends were determined to see & share their direct experiences of God in the Light of Scriptural experiences], & both Testaments abound in promises of rewards. The crown which results from the cross is the invisible sign of "temperance & sanctity of the mind." "Mind not the difficulties of your march. Great & good things [are rendered more enjoyable,] pleasant & glorious in the end." [Penn saw honoring all men, fair distribution of resour- ces, intelligent husbandry, and relief of the suffering poor, as having priority over pleasure. His argument was that if the rich young man of Scripture had enjoyed his possessions with "Christian indifference" they might have been continued.

Half or more of this pamphlet is quotations. Penn believed in "the power which examples & authorities have put upon the minds of the people, above the most reasonable & pressing arguments." In the years that fol- lowed, [in the midst of persecution,] Penn was engaged in a steady struggle for liberty of conscience. In 1670, Admiral Penn died; in 1672, Penn married Gulielma Springett. In 1681, Penn received from Charles II a huge tract of land in payment of debts to his father, i.e. Pennsylvania.

In 1682, the 2nd edition of 600 pages appeared. It was reprinted more than 50 times; 1 Dutch, 2 French, & 2 German translations were published, [possibly more, over the next 165 years]. This abbreviated pamphlet takes account of long & short versions; in 3 places in this pamphlet, the amplifica- tion of 1694 is included. In reducing text to ½ of the early version, & 1/10 of the 1682 edition the argument has been preserved [Editor's Note: Further summarizing in this summary makes it 1/6 & 1/30 of the originals, respec- tively]. Quotations are mainly omitted.]

The whole emphasis is on conduct as expression of obedience to God. [There is an account of Stephen Grellet, a French refugee who read No Cross, No Crown, language dictionary in hand, twice]. He said: "I'd never met with anything of the kind; neither had I felt the Divine witness in me operating so powerfully before." Penn's exhortations still retain their reaching power. Be- cause of his exuberant fluency, [this abridgement was prepared], preserving the essence which has not grown obsolete. As young William Penn wrote in London's Tower: "So shall we be delivered from every snare, no sin shall gain us, no frowns scare us and the Truth shall be more abundantly exalted." ANNA BRINTON

Preface—Reader, I seek thy salvation. A Refiner has come near thee, his grace appeared to thee. His medicine will cure thee; he is as infallible as free; without money & with certainty. What must we do, to be witnesses of his power & love? Christ's Cross is Christ's way to Christ's Crown. That is the following discourse's subject, that thou, mayst be won to [or brought nearer to] Christ. I have tasted Christ's judgments, & mercies, & the world's frowns & reproaches. May God turn my country & the Christian world from envy, hatred, bitterness, ambition & covetousness, for which they fill the earth with trouble & oppression. & in receiving Christ's spirit, may they make triple league against the world, flesh, & devil, mankind's only [true] common enemies. Through self-denial & the cross of Jesus, may they attain God's eternal rest & kingdom. WILLIAM PENN

The Defection of Christendom—Though knowledge and obedience to the Christ's cross doctrine is of infinite moment to men's souls, it is so little understood, so much neglected, & so bitterly contradicted by the [behavior] of professed Christian, that the majority of Christendom miserably deceive and disappoint themselves [as to what] Christianity is. There seems to be very little left of Christianity but the name. They truly worship the god of the world. The false Christians have [for centuries] professed, betrayed, persecuted, and crucified him, by perpetual apostasy from the self-denial of his doctrine; their lives give lie to their faith. The common apprehension—that they may be God's children while disobeying God's commandments—is the most perni- cious to their eternal condition. Their mistake about their duty to God is as mischievous as their rebellion against him.

The Remedy—How can Christ be thy Lord when thou dost not obey him? How canst thou be Christ's servant & never serve him? Christ is the world's great spiritual light; it lights everyone coming into the world. He manifests to them their deeds of wickedness & reproves them. Thou, like the inns of old, have been full of other guests. Salvation isn't yet come into thy house. If his light yet shines & reproves thee still, there is hope thy day isn't over, nor is repentance hid from thine eyes. God so blessed the faithful labors of these poor mechanics [the apostles], that thousands of strangers to his spirit's work, were inwardly quickened to the word of life. The ways of their enemies took to destroy increased them. They chose to sustain the afflictions of Christ's true pilgrims rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin.

[Early] Christendom was meek, merciful, self-denying, suffering, & holy. Christendom now is superstitious, persecuting, malicious, lascivious, lying, oppressing. The undoubted reason of degeneracy is thy mind's disregard of Christ's light shining in thee. [Disregard of that light & graces that examines] the most secret thoughts & purposes of thine heart & reproves that which is unfruitful, [leads to] the restless enemy of man's good taking advantage of this slackness. Thy inclinations made his conquest over thee easy. Formality replaced the power of godliness; superstition replaced Christ's institutions; tradition replaced experience; letter replaced life. Worldly pleasures be- came thy life's study, care and pleasure. Thy condition is worse by thy reli- gion, because thou art tempted to think thyself better for it & art not. Thou omitted taking up Christ's holy yoke & bearing thy daily cross.

The Cross/ Self Denial—The Cross mystical is that divine grace and power which crosseth the carnal wills of men, [becoming] the instrument of man's holy dying to the world & being made conformable to the will of God. Where does this cross appear, & where must it be taken up? Because the cross must be where sin is, it must be in the heart & soul. The enemies' temptations are ever directed to the mind; if they take not, the soul sins not; if they are embraced, inordinate desires are presently conceived. The cross is to be daily borne by an inward submission of the soul to the will of God, manifested by Christ's light in the consciences of men.

What is the great work and business of [one who respects the cross]? It is self-denial. What is our cup & cross that we should drink & suffer? They are to do or suffer the will of God for God's service and glory, the true life and obedience of the cross of Jesus. The great Alexanders and mighty Caesars vanguished others, not themselves; Christ conquered self, that ever vanguished the great. Misery & slavery followed all their victories; Christ's brought greater freedom and happiness to those he overcame; they pleased themselves; Christ aimed to please his Father. There is a lawful and an unlawful self; both must be denied.

The lawful self which we are to deny is conveniency, ease, and plenty, the [worldly] blessing and bounty of God [e.g. family, wealth, liberty, and life]. When they are brought in competition with God, they must be denied. Christ had the eternal joy in his eye as recompense. Christ's disciples have the eternal crown of righteousness as reward for their holy neglect, yea, even contempt of the world. There is no room for instruction where lawful self is lord and not servant.

For though I have a most powerful persuasion, & clear conviction on my soul of this or that, considering how unmodish it is, what enemies it has, and how strange and singular I shall seem to them, I hope God will pity my weakness. Thus selfish, fearful man. Deliberating is ever the worst, for the soul loses in parlay. Never did God convince people; upon submission, God empowered them. In their increases they are not lifted up, nor in their adversities are they cast down,. They are moderated in the one, and comforted in the other, by God's divine presence.

The Unlawful Self—The unlawful self relates to religious worship & to moral and civil conversation in the world. Christ drew off from worship in the outward temple, & instituted a more inward & spiritual cult. In order to serve or have acceptance with God, you must bow to the Spirit's instructions & commands in your souls; [worship God in your souls], encloistered from sin. Christ's cross overcomes the world, & leads a life of purity in the face of its allurements. Christian life's perfection extends to every honest labor used among men.

"True Godliness doesn't take men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it & excites their endeavors to mend it ... Christians shouldn't ... meanly steal out of the stern of the world, & leave those in it without a pilot." Jesus' inward righteousness is [different from] all the contrived devotion of poor superstitious man. The soul awakened & preserved by God's holy power & spirit worships God in God's own spirit. Christ was an example of true retirement. They are requisite to piety's growth. It is an error not to use monastic lives & to not provide it for the afflicted, tempted, solitary, & devout. Strengthened [by true retirement], they might with more power over their own spirits enter into the world's business again. Divine pleasures are found in a free solitude.

Worship—Not taking up the cross in worship has been a great cause of the troublesome superstition that is yet in the world. True worship can only come from a heart prepared by the Lord, spoken by the Spirit in the soul 's language. Christ taught his disciples to pray [his prayers]. As the disciples then, so we now are not to pray our prayers but those [the inner Christ] enables us to make.

Preparation. How shall a "heart prepared by the Lord" be ob- tained? Wait patiently, watchfully, & intently upon God. Here, one groan, one sigh from a wounded soul, a heart touched with true remorse, excel and prevails with God over the most composed matter, cast into the aptest phrase. Stand still in thy mind, wait to feel something that is divine to prepare and dispose thee to worship truly, shutting out even what is lawful at another season. Petitions from [the unprepared] are formal and fictitious.

Inward Want/ Purification. Those that [don't recognize] inward wants, that have no fears nor terrors upon them, & feel no need of God's power, [don't know, want, or desire] what they pray for. [Their prayers for God's will grace, & spirit are hypocritical]. How can worship instituted by Christ include those unprepared for worship, those who daily have unclean thoughts, words, & deeds? The unclean can't acceptably worship the holy. The soul must be touched, raised in heavenly desires by heavenly spirit; true worship is in God's presence.

Baptism/ Faith. Christ expressly charged his disciples they should wait until they had received the Holy Ghost's baptism as preparation for the Gos- pel's preaching. If so much waiting and spiritual preparation was needed for preaching, some at least may be needful to fit us to speak to God. We should learn whether [our trials] are not sent as a blessing. How to pray is still of greater moment than [actual praying]. 'Tis faith that animates prayer and presses it home. With one grain of it, more is done and received, than by all the running, willings, and toilings of man. No one can pray to purpose without faith. It is a holy resignation to God and confidence in God, which gives sure evidence to the soul of things not seen, and a sense of those things hoped for.

Pride: Knowledge—Pride is an excess of self-love, undervaluing of others, and seeking dominion over them. [Pride is displayed] in: inordinate pursuit of knowledge; seeking and craving after power, and others showing one respect & deference; worldly furniture & ornaments. In pursuit of know- ledge, Adam would needs be wiser than God made him, indeed as wise as God. They exchanged innocency for guilt. He who tempted them furnished them with vain knowledge, harmful wisdom, the skill of lies, evasions, and excuses; they lost their plainness and sincerity. When thou doest the thing thou ought not do, thou shalt no more enjoy the comfort of God's peaceful spirit, God's love, or the evidence of a good conscience.

Fallen Adam's knowledge of God stood no more in a daily experience [& refreshment] of the love & work of God in one's soul, but in a notion of what one once did know & experience. The religion of apostate Christians [today is based on] what they once knew [personally] of God's work, which they revolted from, or in a historical belief & an imaginary conception of the experience & prophecies of God's holy men & women. The knowledge of degenerated & unmortified men is impure, unpeaceable, cross, perverse & persecuting, jealous, & abusing of those who are better than them. The false prophets were ever sure to persecute the true ones as false.

[So too with those whose] hypocrisy Christ cried out against. They sought honor from men, [& wouldn't have Christ] "take away our credit with the people." Christ came to level their honor, to bring people to that inward knowledge of God. Worldly wisdom was a hindrance to the true knowledge of God. [Apostates] seemed addicted to an adoration of his name, yet they are so far from Christianity's inward power & life that their respect was mainly formal & ceremonious.

Love, meekness & self-denial was lost [as they] perplexed the church with dubious questions, drawing people into parties [& spilling blood], as if they had been the worse for being once Christians. [And in all their bloody striving to convert] the people aren't converted but further debased by their efforts. O, those who seek the narrow way. Thou mustn't look to thy tempter, but at thy preserver; retire to thy solitudes; be chaste pilgrims in this evil world; thus thou wilt arrive to knowledge of God & Christ.

Power/ Respect. Pride does extremely crave power; [obviously], nothing has proved more troublesome and destructive to mankind. No matter who, nor how many, are slain, made widows & orphans, or lose their estates & livelihoods, what towns, cities, countries are ruined, if by all these things the ambitious can but arrive at their ends. Ambition 'tis too natural to every pri- vate breast to strain for power. We daily see how much men labor their ut- most wit & interest to be great. People profess Christianity but they follow the world. Great is their peace who aren't careful to be great but, being great, are humble, and do good. Such keep their wits with their consciences, & with an even mind can at all times measure the uneven world.

The world's practice, even now, will tell us that not striking a flag & not saluting certain ports—yea less things— give rise to mighty wars between states, to the expense of much treasure & blood. [In personal terms, is taking offense & taking to arms & combat because a civil hat salute wasn't returned worth one man's life, considering the importance of the man's life to God, himself, & society? If our religious society is mista- ken in declining some popular worldly customs of respect, rather pity & inform, than despise & abuse, our simplicity.

In the fear and presence of the all-seeing just God, the world's present honors & respect became burdensome to us. We saw that they came from an ill root & only delighted a vain and ill mind, & that much pride & folly were in them. Nothing is small that God makes a matter of conscience. [And so] we only passively let fall the practice of what is vain & unchristian. [God pre- sents God's gifts] with very different appearances to the world's settled cus- toms, thereby contradicting human invention. If the test of the rough & homely outside of truth doesn't keep their minds from the reception of it [& its inner beauty], it makes a great discovery upon them. The truth teaches us to despise the false reputations of the world, ... and to overcome their injuries & reproaches. It weans thee off thy familiars, ... & lists thee of the blessed com- pany of the mocked persecuted Jesus.

Honor, esteem, & regard thou owest to all, & if to all, then thy inferior. How & why do we show honor to all? They are God's creations, so be natural, & assist them with what thou canst [& pay them real respect]. Chris- tians show respect, but the difference lies in the nature of their respect. The Christian's motive is the sense of ones duty in God's sight to parents, magi- strates, inferior relations, & then to all people, according to their virtue, wis- dom, & piety. Let Christians examine what of them & about them agrees with Christ's doctrine & life.

Thou for You/ Rank and Beauty—"Thou" looked too lean and thin a respect to proud emperors, who would have a style suitable to their own ambition; we can't build our practice on that. In things reasonable or indiffe- rent custom is obliging or harmless, yet in things unreasonable or unlawful she has no authority. To use the same word for one or many, only to please a proud, haughty humor, isn't reasonable in our sense. It isn't only "Thou" or title we boggle at, but the esteem and value the vain minds of men do put upon them, that constrains us to steadily testify against them. The certain sense I had from the Lord of their contrariety to the meek and self-denying life of holy Jesus required my disuse of them and testimony against them.

Pride stops not there. She excites people to an excessive value & care of: great & punctual attendance; stately furniture; rich & exact apparel; pretenses to blood or beauty. Nothing of man's folly has less show of reason to disguise its folly than [the quest for noble blood]. Wealth and titles fills no man's head with brains, nor heart with truth. If great men's hearts be equal to their abilities to do good, they are blessings to the people of any country. If there be any advantage in [noble descent], 'tis not from blood, but education, which has a mighty influence and strong bias upon the affections and actions of men.

Pride leads [common] folk to a fond value of their person, especially if they have any pretense to shape or beauty. It would abate their folly [if they spent half the time to think of God which they spend most prodigally in wash- ing, perfuming, painting, and dressing. The pride of one might comfortably supply the need of ten. This sort of pride has been fatal to the sobriety, virtue, peace, and health of families in this kingdom.

Human Relations/ Wealth—Pride destroys relationships; love be- comes fear, makes the wife a servant, & the children & servants slaves. The proud man is an ill neighbor; he is an enemy to hospitality, because he would show none, nor be thought to need it. He values others for service only Pride is more dangerous in greatness; private ambition becomes tyranny in great men. Proud great men leave their real interest to follow an [obsessive idea], & are almost ever destroyed by it. Pride is intolerable in "men of reli- gion," since religion rebukes it.

Avarice isn't observeable or obnoxious to the law as other vices, so there's more danger for want of that check. Most people strive for wealth not substance. Liberal spending of money, though sinful, 'tis more commend- able than love of money for money's sake, one of the basest passions man's mind can be captivated by. People should [start a continuous] examination of how far this temptation hath entered them, because its [progress] into the mind is almost insensible.

Wealth tends to corruption, & the reason why some have too little, & [have to work too hard], is because the rich hold hard, to be richer & covet more. Covetousness has caused family feuds, betrayal of friendships, & losing the ability to love better things. The covetous man is an enemy to the state, for he spirits their money away; a disease to the body politic, for he obstructs the circulation of the blood; [the law ought to purge him]. [The rich will receive no consolation in heaven], unless they are willing to become poor men, can resign all, live loose to the world, have it at arm's end, yea, under- foot, a servant, and not a master.

Luxury—Luxury is a disease as epidemical as killing, it creeps into all stations & ranks of men, the poor-est often exceeding their ability to indulge their appetite, & the rich frequently wallowing in [what] pleases the eyes & flesh. Luxuries belong not to Jesus' & his true disciples' holy path. Those living lavishly forget the giver, abuse the gift, lose tenderness, forget duty, and be overcome with voluptuousness. For Adam and Eve, the best recreations were to serve God, be just, follow vocations, mind flocks, do good, exercise [so as to promote] gravity, temperance, and virtue. What expense of precious time is [wasted] on things that perish?

Numerous fashions & recreations are the invention of vain, idle minds, or the way indigent, impoverished wits, have chosen to earn their living They ought to be detested as diverting from more lawful, serviceable, & neces- sary employments. [No such recreation & frivolity is to be found in the lives of the inspirational figures in the Bible]. To anyone concerned with those whose livelihoods depend on such fashions & recreations: If you & they have made wickedness your pleasure & your profit, be ye content that it should be your grief & punishment.

If the landlords had less lusts to satisfy, the tenants might have less rent to pay, & turn from poor to rich. The burden is heavier on the laborious country that so many hands & shoulders of lust-caterers of the cities should be wanting to the plough and the useful husbandry. Let vanity-hucksters retreat and spend it more honestly than they have got it; & such as really are poor be rather helped to better callings. We must testify against such extrava- gant vanity. What God hath made is good, but in the whole catalogue the scriptures give, I never found the attires, recreations & way of living, so much in request with the called Christians of these times. God created man a holy, wise, sober, grave, & reasonable creature, fit to himself & the world.

The Public Good—Every one should be so wise as to deny oneself the use of any indifferent enjoyments that might be an encouragement to ones neighbor's folly. It is incumbent on all to only make what is necessary to life and godliness, and to employ their freedom with most advantage to the neighbors. Then a plain-hearted, downright, harmless life would be restored of not much caring what we eat, drink, or put on. It is the interest of good government to curb and rebuke excesses; it prevents many mischiefs. It keeps out foreign vanities and improves our own commodities. That the cart, plow, and thrash should be laid upon 19 parts of the land to feed the inordinate lusts & appetites of the 20^th, is so far from the appointment of the God of the spirits of all flesh, that it is a wretched and blasphemous injustice. God made [us] stewards to each other's exigencies and relief.

If the money which is expended in every parish in vain fashions could be collected in a public stock, [there would be help for broken tenants, those able to work, beggars, the aged & impotent. The exchequer's emergency needs might be supplied by such a bank. Jesus' self-denying religion, his life and doctrine are a perpetual reproach to most Christians. He was humble, they proud; he forgiving, they revengeful; he meek, they fierce; he plain, they gaudy; he a pilgrim on earth, they citizens of the world.

Oh Lord God I pray thee, make an end of sin, & finish transgression, & bring in the everlasting righteousness to the souls of all, that thy poor creation may be delivered from bondage, & the earth enjoy her sabbath again, that thy great name may be lifted up in all nations, and thy salvation renowned to the ends of the world.
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31. Quakerism and India (by Horace G. Alexander; 1945)
     PREFATORY NOTE ON THE AUTHOR—Horace G. Alexander: Wood-   brooke Lecturer at Pendle Hill; Spring Term 1945. History scholar of King’s   College, Cambridge. Director of studies at Woodbrooke. [He visited] India    from 1927-28 & has since followed Indian affairs constantly. He was Head of    the Friend’s Ambulance Unit in India. His recreation is as an ornithologist    delighting in the birds of Europe, Asia, & North America.
   I. Introductory—George Fox and his associates were filled with a zeal    to proclaim “Truth” to the ends of the earth. Within a few years they had pene-   trated as far as Constantinople in the East and New England [across the sea]    in the West. The bitter persecution of Quakers crippled these valiant efforts to    take “Truth” into every land. [Besides English-speaking settlements], Quaker-   ism took no root elsewhere till the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 2nd half of    the 19th century the Society of Friends or some Yearly Meetings (YM) esta-   blished “Christian missions” in Japan, China, central India, 2 African islands,    and the Middle East.
The purposes of this pamphlet are to attempt an appraisement of the    work undertaken by India mission during some 80 years, to note certain other   recent Quaker contact with India, & to see if anything is demanded of the    Society of Friends in this age by the growth of nationalism, [race feelings, &    progress] in those lands. How do Asia’s poverty problems & of Asia’s [desire] to be free from Western control touch the Society of Friends?

II. India and Quakerism, 1850-1940—[The Society 1st reacted to the   situation in India after the Indian Mutiny of 1857]. Charles Gilpin, editor of the    The Friend, [wrote of the Quaker’s] “profound sorrow and alarm [about] that    spirit of sanguinary vengeance [from] our public journalists.” He also said:    “We hold as by a thread our supremacy in our vast, ill-gotten & ill-governed    Eastern Empire.” [In The Friend] he discusses the real causes of the out-   break: tortures of Indians by [English-sponsored] tax-collectors; “pride and    hauteur” of English officers; [unethical] “disposition of our countrymen.” In the    January 1858 issue someone wrote about [the cycle of military occupation,    commerce and “re-investment” in further conquest]. The Quakers John Bright    and Joseph among others kept a close watch on Indian policy; John Bright    spoke out in Parliament on India’s welfare.
A small group of Indians were impressed by Quakers and started a    small meeting for worship in Calcutta. 3 English Friends visited Calcutta from    November 1862 to the summer of 1864. For some years the Calcutta group   continued. Rachel Metcalfe went to India in 1866 with the support of the new-   ly formed Friends Foreign Mission Association (FFMA); there is no record of    her visiting this Hindu-Quaker Group. The Calcutta group died out. The Editor    of The Friend wrote in 1869: “As long as missionaries are sent out to establish   their own sects & Churches … we have little faith in the forms of religion so    planted.” Rachelle Metcalfe went to Benares to help an Anglican Church    missionary. In 1869, she was joined by 2 American Friends, Elkanah & Irena    Beard.
In 1870, the 3 of them moved to Jubbalpore in the Central Provinces,       and later to Hoshangabad. This pre-dominantly agricultural district has    remained the “Friends district” ever since. [The villagers] drawn into the new    Christian community became dependent on the leadership offered by the    missionaries. Building an autonomous group was a laborious process [depen-   dent on land ownership and a secure position in some hereditary caste].
Rachel Metcalfe was elevated to a pedestal Indians erect for the       white man or woman whom they respect or love—or fear. Some refuse to stand on it, but such humility is an uncommon virtue. Most Christian missions blossom into schools, student hostels, hospital & dispensaries. They were needed, but are they the main task of Christian missions? [For Rachel    Metcalfe] not even the medical needs or the cry of famine orphans must    stand in the way [of evangelism]. [Evangelists & institutional workers] tended to grow further & further apart.

In 1902 there were no fewer than 31 Quaker missionaries working in the Central Provinces; in 1945 there were only 8 or 10. The total membership of the Yearly Meeting is under 400. A hospital, 2 schools, a boys’ hostel, a girls’ boarding school, an experimental farm, & a few scattered relics of other Monthly Meetings are the total visible result of 80 years of the devoted labours of 50 men and women.
Today, as always, the Indian Quaker community in the Central Provin- ces is severely handicapped by the economic struggle. [Young men go away to the big cities nearby], & in the process they influence their [big city] neighbors to see religion in terms of daily life that is pure & true, rather than religious observance & ritual. [Rather than growing] an Indian section of the Society of Friends, it influences the direction of the whole mid-India Christian church towards practical mysticism. Christian cooperation with concerned Hin- du and Muslim neighbors is being developed. Since 1890, the Ohio YM (Friends Church) has been responsible for a mission in the district round Nowgong, Bundelkhund, Central India. Care of orphans, medical activity, & evangelism have been the chief phases of the work. New England YM & other American Friends have given support to this work of Ohio Friends.

III. Emergency Relief in India, 1942-1945—Both M. K. Gandhi and      Rabindranath Tagore have shared some views in common with Quakers. The    state of conflict between Indian Nationalism and the British Government has   been a matter of increasing concern to London YM. [Quaker groups] sympa-   thetic to Indian freedom have been formed. Individual English Friends were      in close personal, confidential relations with Gandhi and Nehru and other      political leaders. The Friends Service Council (FSC) [replacing the FFMA in       1926] recognized that India’s mystical tradition suggests a kinship between      some Hindus and Quakers. It promoted contact between Quakers & Hindus       in India and with Indian students in England.
Men of the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU), having assisted with civilian   victims of London bombings, offered to go to India to help with civil defense.   Horace Alexander and Richard Symonds contacted Gandhi, who said: “If you   come to serve India, perhaps to serve under our leadership or direction, your   arrival just now is especially welcome.” The FAU in London had also recog-   nized that it would be well to have women in the section in India. Pamela    Bankart went to work establishing contact with the tiny fringe of emancipated    women of Calcutta, and helped organize with them a new Women’s Emer-   gency Service.
After bombings in December 1942, the FAU was in action for a time   among civilians in Calcutta, on the roads leading to Bihar, and in eastern Ben-   gal and Assam. In October 1942 a cyclone of exceptional intensity and size    hit the southwest corner of Bengal. The storm-whipped tide broke the seawall    in many places; some 850 miles² was inundated by the sea. It was the medi-   cal need of the survivors that brought the FAU into field. For over a month    Jean Cottle and her colleagues worked hard at inoculating against cholera.       Milk distribution centers for children were started that continued even after   food distribution ended in March 1943. [At one point after food distribution   ended] it was a heart-breaking business for the FAU workers and their col- leagues to find themselves feeding small children with milk while the adult    population began to starve.

Indian volunteers were eager to work with the FAU in Midnapore. The FAU’s need for volunteers provided the outlet for a growing enthusiasm for social work that the educated middle-class girls of Bengal were feeling. Throughout the period of cyclone relief, it was FAU’s experience that volun-

tary workers were more often than not reliable, tireless, & efficient. By mid- summer landless laborers & their their families were dying of starvation.
The 1st act of the FAU in direct relation to the famine was to help in establishing a canteen for undernourished children in Calcutta; before long it expanded to include [most if not all of Bengal]. The English & wealthy Indians gave generously to the FAU work. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) began sending workers, vitamins, and badly needed food stuffs. In Calcutta in the summer of 1943 the mothers cooked the food and paid a farthing, something each day towards the cost of the meal to avoid the demo- ralizing effects of being on the dole. The FAU kept the need for rehabilitation constantly in view. 3 industrial centers have been established near Calcutta for the widows and children without fathers. The FAU centers are partially run by a working committee [in a relaxed and cheerful manner].

The FAU found that small, interest free loans could be made to [desti- tute craftsfolk] who could then buy supplies and implements, and get back into production. A model-village reconstruction project was started in Hati- berya, Midnapore. In all these activities Friends’ workers have been success- ful in getting all groups to work together harmoniously. They were able to reconcile differences and to act as catalytic agents, with an effect that appeared to be more far-reaching than the results of the actual work done. The FAU and AFSC had by example rendered various practical services to the province of Bengal.

IV. Estimate & Forecast—The differences between the FFMA & the FAU are as] instructive as the parallels. [They both had the danger of beco- ming guardians for life of orphans]. Whereas the FFMA was ready & eager to turn Indian orphans into infant Quakers, the FAU had no such desire. The FFMA believed in tending, fertilizing, watering a tiny patch of soil by intensive means. The FAU has cast its bread upon the waters of a great ocean.
In China, especially in the remote province of Szchuan, the pioneer missionaries were mere “foreign devils.” They had to prove themselves by demonstrating to a practically minded people that the Christians had brought something worth having. Today the Society of Friends, as it is seen in West China, is still an alien growth, with no roots in the soil. Chinese intellectuals say that the Quaker style of religion is just the thing to appeal to Chinese, but there is no sign of them joining the Society or of starting a kindred religio- social society of their own.

[There are several “Quaker outposts” in China]. [There is also a] FAU & a group of the AFSC giving their services for the period of the war. They are not trying to turn non-Christian Chinese into Christians or Quakers. Can the FAU & the AFSC have a wider influence than any of the older missionary bodies? At best you may find many Christian islands of hope & comparative prosperity amidst the fear and poverty of these great eastern lands. But they remain insulated. The non-Christians in general fight shy of organizations that are felt to be serving a propagandist cause. [The Christians’] spiritual impe- rialism is suspect. [There is a certain futility about] improvements that don't win the intelligent support of landlords, administrators, or party leaders.

The FAU & AFSC seem to be influencing the whole life of peoples & provinces in a way that few missions have done. To those who have experi- enced “walking cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every man,” & the richness that comes from this way of living, there is something almost mean in the desire to see one’s Hindu or other non-Christian friends “converted” to Christianity. Not so does God’s truth enter people’s hearts. The non-evangelistic work which the FAU have demonstrated in China and India seems to provide a pattern for a healthier relationship of eastern and western workers [sharing] the modern world with the disinherited.
[In the 1930s], Hilda Cashmore decided to launch an experiment in social welfare work among Indian villagers with the support of Friends’ Ser- vice Council; she didn't want this to be mixed up with missionary work. [She utilized] some disused Quaker buildings & acquired land to settle some aboriginals & horticultural experiments on. After 2 or 3 years she persuaded Ranjit Chetsingh, an Indian Friend and his wife to join her; she eventually left them in charge.

[Handicraft/community schools were developed, as well as a reading room and institute. The concept of a social settlement did not fit well with the background of old mission work. Ranjit and Doris Chetsingh moved to Delhi. [Ranjit has widespread community support]. For the 1st time a Quaker project in India is being shaped from the outset by an Indian mind. If Friends can cooperate in India with seekers after truth of other faiths, they may do more indirectly to undermine ancient superstitions, bad social habits & communal bigotry than by any direct attack or partisan activity.

The demand for freedom from western dominance comes from India, China, Burma, Malaya, Java, Siam, Indo-China, Philippines, Korea, & Japan. The world needs the action of dedicated groups of men and women who will spend a few years of their lives in some eastern city. India & the East needs a sprinkling of Quaker saints, preferably the kind that is quite sure they are not saints.

The similarities of Quakerism and Hindu mysticism include: the life of the spirit is the source of all right living; seeking the life of the spirit is not an excuse for escape from the world; communion with God becomes the spring and source of pure and selfless social action. The West has much to learn from India: the naturalness of religion; the world of the spirit is our natural home; God is a fit subject for daily conversation. [Quakerism may provide a] channel through which the best traditions of western social impulse and Gandhian religion may flow together for the mutual enrichment of East and West.

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32. Our Hearts are Restless (by Gilbert Kilpack; 1946)
About the Author—Gilbert Kilpack (1914-99) was born & raised in Portland, Oregon. He did undergraduate work at the University of Oregon & received an M.A. degree from Oberlin College in Christian Philosophy. He spent 5 years as Stony Run Friends Meeting's (Baltimore) executive secre- tary. He joined Pendle Hill's staff in '48, becoming Director of Studies in '54. He gave Philadelphia Young Friends Movement’s Wm. Penn Lecture in '46, The City of God & City of Man, which addressed issues raised by the Hiro- shima & Nagasaki bombings.

[Introduction]—The outcome of human living & thinking depends on interpretation of Genesis' 1st 3 chapters. They tell a story of the agonizing discovery of human freedom to daily choose good or to always fall into evil. Freedom is the source of dismal failure [& separation from God] & the means of our vision of growth into goodness. We are separated from God, but secret- ly united to God. Human corruption & nobility say that we are a half-being.

Nothing is so important as completion of our ½-lives, the God-filling of our void, the divine 2nd birth which is the real solution to, rather than the [tem- porary submersion of] human problems. [The Quakers'] "that of God in every man" is [a testimony], & points to something infinitely more than the good in every one. Sensitivity to our hearts' restless questioning, the endless ques- ting [for com-pleteness], for something greater is needed. [Augustine, Rous- seau, Jesus, Plato, Ben Jonson, and George Herbert, through vision, pro- nouncement, parables, interpretation of myths, & metaphors, say that God is our goal, destiny, & source of meaning.

[Burning Questions]—Incompleteness of life forms itself into a burning question. [Throughout the centuries this question's prominence waxes & wanes, from wildfire to tiny glow]; we regularly turn away from it. [Commuter, housewife, student, soldier, CO/ mental health worker, preacher, rich man, philanthropist, voluptuary, & Quaker, before they are pulled back into the mundane, worldly tasks set before them], are brought low in an instant, see themselves in eter-nity's light & ask: Why am I here? What is the point to my life, human life, any life? Every one has their favorite "out," their favorite blinkers to keep the eternal issue at a safe distance.

These questions are more of a spirit, an attitude of soul which looks upon the world and creation with great expectancy. It is the everlasting thirst expressed by Thoreau. Honest people ask themselves whether life is worth living, whether there's anything worth getting ready for. The settled "religious" person feels certain that all is well with ones soul and does not care to be disturbed; doubters and seekers and sinners despising their sin are nearer the Kingdom than those contented "religious" folk. Our salvation lies in giving way daily to the seekings, promptings, and questionings which assail us from within.
The average soul of our day is a blank check & simply has no spiritual heritage. If one is human at all, one inwardly, secretly hungers for a life of faith. [The italicized questions above] are a hint that life must hold something great, that it should open upon exalted vistas & potentialities. These questions are a divine hint, a seed of divine truth. Jesus wrestled with every possible evasion of the essential questions & with every false & easy answer ever used. Why am I here? What is the point to my life, human life, any life? is simply "that of God in every one" seeking fulfillment. We should always [be struck & awed by] the strange, terrible, & wonderful implications of "that of God ..."

How are we [becoming] ready to give way daily to God's unitive healing, both the cauterizing & the anointing? We Friends belong among those people who search [unreservedly] for the Kingdom of Christ, & who believe that by turning our hearts, minds, & wills to God persistently we will begin to live now in the Kingdom. How can the nightmare epoch in which we live [help] arouse us to [this] our condition? How are we ready to be discovered by the love and truth which has been seeking us everlas- tingly?

[We are Not Ready/ Simple Gospel]—As individuals we are willing to be ready & reformed as long as we are spared the labor of getting ready & the unsettling reforming process. We want to: be spiritually alive & always comfor- table; be prayerful without earlier mornings to allow for it; possess power to lead without undergoing the discipline that comes with controlling power. Ours is a complex age, but to the single hearted, our times' complexity is of little consequence. The pure in heart know that when the Spirit's Kingdom is seen in its beauty & desired with a single will, order is brought out of confusion.

Within the complex framework of religion there is a simple Gospel, a simple way of life. To be reborn as a movement, we have to live, think, pray, & teach the simple gospel of Christianity. Our [current] religion is a muddle in our minds. There is a true complexity that comes from [creation's] infinite vari- ety & a false complexity from our squirming and maneuvering to avoid the dying-to-the-world element of our faith. Jesus said, "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak," but he didn't excuse himself thereby. We shall have life in the Light when we have prayed [wholeheartedly] that our selfish wills might no longer cover the Light.

[Setting Aside Ancient Testimonies: We Stand for Peace]—Let's see how fondness for contraries has caused us to set aside ancient testimo- nies; our failure's origin lies deep & inward. Examining [contrary desires] may lead to regeneration's inward source. We stand for peace but as Thomas à Kempis said: "All desire peace, few ... desire those things that make for peace." We want peace; we also want dominion, & [a lifestyle currently] dependent on war industries. We have been seduced by a false, very human peace without suffering. We only know how to beat our enemy; until we learn how to [love &] win them we are doomed to fight endless wars.

[Setting Aside Ancient Testimonies: We Stand for Community/ ... Equality/ ... Simplicity]—Realization of community means lavishing on others the concern that God lavished on us. It's a heresy of life that large- scale philanthropy & state-directed economic & social responsibility can take the place of the small community unit. It isn't just being clothed & fed; it's doing it with the attitude of aiding [fellow] divine-human beings. Christ is divisible into millions of small communities if they are truly brotherhoods of forthright personal relationships. Without these small communities, this nation may become mighty, but be sterile & dead at heart.

Our failure to live in the spirit of equality is part and parcel of with our failure to live in community and at peace. [As we boast of the powerful culture we helped build] we forget that another people of another color and continent stood where we stand and laid the foundation, and will perhaps stand on top again. Our failure to expel racial pride is another symbol of unreadiness to be in God-intended community with all earth's people.
We don't want simplicity's [building blocks]: frugality; austerity; giving up most possessions; plain, honest thinking; & joy in religion. To attain sim- plicity is 1st to have a single purpose; then to pursue that purpose single- mindedly. When we pause, and God overtakes and overcomes us, we shall then prize a life of simplicity. We can no more possess our souls without sim- plicity than the world can move forward without Jesus' blessed poor. There is a simplicity which is laxity, but those who would live in the Kingdom now need a simplicity which cleaves good from evil like a sharp knife, and goes straight to the source of the trouble; we are now all content with the wide gray stretch between white good and black evil.

[A Modern George Fox Journal/ Empty Faith/ Inward Light and Darkness]—How would a journal of the times, written in 1945-46 by George Fox read: "I talked with ... persons of diverse [vocations &] religious sects. I was [belittled] ... & taken before the FBI ... I bore it in good faith. Among Friends ... Many would hear none of the perfection teachings ... [much like] priests of old ... They were all for following the world's way ... & said Jesus taught for this world ... [Some were silenced when I asked about] fighting pagan wars ... getting monies ... & refusing to worship with men of another color ... Some were all for one more war ... & slow reform ... "

"Christ came to call people to begin living in the Kingdom at once, & if they didn't heed his inner promptings ... it were better they never heard [of] Christian or Quaker ... When they had made straight & plain their own lives they would find [Christ, his guidance and] means to reform the world ... Make thy people plain of thought and habit ... [even-handed in their treatment of others] ... & restore them to that community of holy charity where ... this world's meanness is removed."

Too often our flutterings of activity have no more reality than bathing in an empty birdbath. I dread the accusation that we have come to our faith easily and without much seeking. Each generation must seek out its own salvation in fear and trembling ... [& yet] be fearless of the consequences ... [Then] we shall again become a movement with the power of sharing the love of God with all.

How does the light grow in ascendancy over the dark & lead us to become the Light's Children? We often take it for granted that great men always have been great & saints have always been saints. Becoming marks the saint's greatness & not the achievement, nor the world's approbation. Any human life's greatness is the [depth] to which it takes on the Divine light's likeness which shines through it. How does "the secret shining of God's seed" become a living flame, that we may be filled with light? Each must seek ones own salvation.
[The Possibilities of a Mystic's Prayer]—To become Children of the Light we must 1st of all learn to pray. [One must] not impose a human limita- tion on the possibilities of prayer, which is an openness, an attentiveness to God's revelation of goodness and truth. We are all of us born with some capa- city for prayer, and with all of us that capacity is greater than we think. The mystic is any ordinary person who puts down ones human pride, that the Divine may invade one. There are 2 kinds of people in this world: those who pray; those who do not. [That is not to say that those who pray are good, that those who don't are bad].

Charles Peguy writes: "One is Christian because of belonging to a cer- tain ascending race, a certain mystic race, temporal & eternal, belonging to a certain kindred. This cardinal classification ... [must] be made vertically. Today's church is largely made up of good people turned in the wrong direc- tion; they have formal goodness, but without attentiveness to God, they remove themselves from God's presence & seeing God's ongoing Truth. Praying or not praying is [a trait] that goes to the source of all human failure. Jesus didn't in his awful hour pray for special graces, miraculous powers, or future sight; he sought only to make God's will his; we can pray no better.

Too often we try to know God through reconciliation of self with self. We cannot do without an object of worship, & nothing separates us from the awareness of the Source of all light but our own self-sufficiency. The test of prayer is the agility with which we will God's will, & the confidence we place in God. François Fénelon writes: "All our happiness consists in thirsting for eternal goodness [here with us] on earth ... Ever [thirst], desire to approach your Creator, & you will never cease to pray ... [simply] 'Let thy will be done.'

The best of all prayers is to act with pure intention & with a continual reference to the will of God ... Love God with a headlong love ... and live a robust, outdoors kind of religious existence." One can't think of many saints who attained a high degree of attentiveness without devising a method of daily recalling themselves to God's presence in those days and moments of interior apathy which hit us all. We are the inheritors of a Kingdom, but we receive our inheritance only as we have the will to practice receiving it daily.

[Preparation for Prayer]—1st, there is recollection, a calling to mind those experiences & facts of God which are most apt to lead us into God's presence. With those who practice the recollection art, a breath of fresh air is more wonderful than man's inventions, for the [wonders of nature] are referred to the Source of all, & life is then seen in its true proportions. God is what life is. But true spiritual life isn't made up of continuous, pleasureable feelings, [or a constant, strong sense of] God's presence. We are inflated when the infinite source of goodness bends down & touches our poor lives [with refreshing newness]. We must be deflated, brought low and made to look into the abyss of human aloneness and weakness, before we can rise again to bear God's love a little longer. Practicing recollection in the [abyss] is not inferior or less profitable than times of great certainty.

This is the way of growth & the only certain thing is that it will be slow. Our bodies may be broken and scarred, but our souls clean and erect. Every muscle is learning to respond to God's truth and every tissue is being disci- plined to proclaim God's glory. The battle to make our will God's will must take its toll. [God's] peace is of a life so conditioned by God that inevitable disturbances of life no longer come as a disruptive force. Seek God we must, with a headlong love, with enthusiasm & romantic ardor, lowliness, patience, [and with little or no complaint]; that is a hard combination. How tempting it is to use God as a miserable little secret halo for self will, [rather than an oppor- tunity to allow] God to look down into our souls.

True prayer lifts us above our problems, but it doesn't cover over our sins. We may succeed in pushing evil out of sight & forgetting it, but it is bound to "smell up" our prayer lives. The only point of prayer systems and meditation times is to lead us to that prayer which is an everlasting sponta- neous inward confidence in God. What matters most is the life in which prayer has become as central as the marrow in our bones; such a life is the hand of God in the world. Not all the kingdoms of our world can stand against our small Society of Friends if we are grounded in the confidence, wisdom, and love of prayer.

[Principle of the Cross]—The Cross principle is simply the faith that evil forces in ourselves & in others must be met with love, patience, & humi- lity, in spite of contrary instincts, social customs, & governmental orders What can God do with strong bodies, proud churches, and great cities from which the heart of love has departed? St. Marthe of Port Royal says, "Recollect, it is the soul's sickness, not the heaviness of the cross, which makes it hard to bear." Mère Angelique of Port Royal says, "Souls which seem to belong to God, have almost a back door, through which to escape when trials press upon them."

[Suffering is not outmoded spiritually], for there can be no easing into the Kingdom of Christ. The Cross principle is not a dramatic stand, but the secret, daily dying to self. Elias Hicks writes that "True Christianity is ... a real and complete mortification of all self-exaltation ... Christians ... experi- ence the self-denial, meekness, humility, and gentleness of Christ reigning in them, so as to become their real life." The Cross stands squarely in the midst of each day's activities & we make no progress in ourselves or the world except through that cross. [Joy] & blessedness is God 's gift to those who take up the cross of daily dying to self-will. God's will for the world is only advanced as we bear our own cross first.

People of all ages have borne the cross of self-denial in their hearts to bring this art into being; they have forged out their eternality through the stuff of this world. Through human suffering of Christ we are brought to eternality. As a Society of Friends we will have to die to our pride of lineage, forfeit our respectability, embrace the shame of the cross if we would participate in the Incarnation. The Imitation of Christ says, "They who love Jesus for himself, & not for their own comfort, will bless him in the depths of distress." We shall never find God's will in our social, political, and economic plans until we come to God for no reason but God's self. Our human restlessness can never be assuaged until we begin to seek God [just for being God]. All other goals, no matter how idealistic, are halfway goals and can never fulfill our divine human destiny.

[Conclusion]—The most awful calamity which can befall our Religious Society is the subtle, unseen, slow, everyday weakening of our testimony and practice of absolute devotion. When Jesus admonished [us] to be perfect, he was not thinking of a perfection of endless minutiae of outward conduct; he revolted against such things. [He was for striving] for an inward perfection of the will. Perfection is that Kingdom of God which never is in its fullness on earth, yet is always becoming.

[Tolerance is good], but a tolerance born of laxity is as bad as cold rigidity. Friends of a century ago sought to preserve a strict discipline by withdrawing their scouting parties and built up fortifications in an attempt to hold their gains. The Christian Church's history reveals that movements and organizations have been reborn when they coupled a strict discipline with a fresh, open-hearted devotion. It is a matter of whether our Religious Society is just another church, or whether we are to be a peculiar people, putting prayer & devotion before the profits of business, living the absolute life of love, [sometimes in spite of consequences].

Christian civilization cannot long continue without there dwelling at its heart communities of inward people who persist in making God the measure of all things. That new & living way is the Divine Imperative. Somewhere the absolute voice of God will be heard and our everlasting spiritual lineage will be reborn. God never expects of us more than God is able to do through us. God must, to make progress in this world [& in us], wring both joy & sorrow from our hearts; this is one of the great mysteries of faith.
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33. Quaker Anecdotes (by Irvin C. Poley & Ruth V. Poley; 1947)
    I. FAIR WARNING/ II. THE WORLD ALMOST FALLS OFF —[Reading    a lot of small offerings can be wearisome]. In order to avoid some of this dan-   ger, anecdotes that more or less go together have been arranged in groups.
Messages in Quaker meeting are like water going through pipes; some-   times the water tastes of the pipes. [Henry Wilbur]. This section bears on    meeting for worship. Some stories taste strongly of the pipes; [others are by   those who seek] to eliminate from their lives whatever makes the taste of the   pipes more prominent.
"Friends, I entered this [silent] meeting with a bundle of hides on my    back ... I am thankful to say it is gone." [Thomas Scattergood, tanner]
Charles F. Jenkins writes: "A woman Friend ... rose in Women's Yearly    Meeting (YM) [5th & Cherry St.] She expressed a concern to visit Men's YM    at 4th & Green St. [several blocks away] ... A committee of 2 was sent to see   if the Men's Meeting would receive the woman Friend ... the men agreed after deliberation; [the committee returned with the message] ... A committee of 2    women accompanied the concerned woman back to the Men's Meeting ...    She rose, delivered the sermon of "Jesus wept," sat down a short time, went    back to the Women's YM ... [where] it was reported to have been an effective    and impressive sermon."

Israel Drake felt called to journey several days from Albany. His coach brought him to London Grove, PA. A meeting was arranged for him; they met for 1½ hours but he never spoke, "as he had had no opening."
Richard Jordan had a neighbor in NC, who conceived a great inclination to hear Richard preach. He attended several 1st-Day meetings; Richard remained silent. The neighbor tried weekday meetings, where Richard also remained seated. Several weeks passed, & the neighbor developed a feeling that he couldn't neglect attendance of any meetings; he became convinced of Quaker principles and Richard started speaking again. John Warren of Maine overheard a boy comment "Didn't that beat the devil" on Warren's not spea- king at an appointed community meeting. Warren said, "That's what it was designed to do."

Rufus Jones told the following 2 stories about meeting for worship. In the late 18th century, David Sands of Maine was holding a meeting in Vassal- boro. A passing Friend had a strong [leading] to go to meeting; he let his horse decide, and ended up at meeting. Sands stopped preaching and said to him: "It would have been well if thou hadst left it to thy horse years ago." The man became a leading Friend of the community.

Joseph Hoag of Vermont and his son, Lindley Murray Hoag (recorded minister before the age of 20), sat on the facing bench at an important Quar- terly Meeting. Lindley had a message for the meeting, but deferred to the meeting's desire to hear his father. Joseph realized his son had a weighty concern, and pushed him slightly with his foot; the son preached an amazing sermon. When criticized by elders for deciding when another should preach, Joseph replied, "If you can kick a sermon like that out of any of your boys, you better do it." Rufus Jones and Augustus Murray spoke at New England YM. [They always gave scholarly, thought-provoking talks]. An elderly Friend, thinking they had talked over the heads of their audience, said: "Jesus said 'Feed my lambs,' not 'Feed my giraffes"; the meeting ended on that note. (Rufus enjoys telling this story about himself).
Howard Brinton attended Ohio YM in 1940; he was the only one there not wearing plain dress. He said: "I was invited to sit on the facing bench. The person who invited me was criticized in Bible verse. The critical Friend was in turn criticized from the 1st chapter of the same epistle: "If any man ... seems to be religious & bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain."

Haverford Meeting: "Some were standing up, some were sitting down,    some were doing both."
Country meeting: A non-member compared the meeting house & nearby school building with the nearness of Mind and Soul. A member added "& the graveyard—these 3."
A woman Friend began her sermon with "A horse, a horse, my kingdom   for a horse. No doubt the scriptural writer referred to a spiritual home."
An impressive looking man misquoted scripture in President Hoover's    presence by saying, "Their young men shall see women and their old men    shall dream dreams."
Someone's sister-in-law kept her from standing up to speak by putting    a knee firmly against the coat of the would-be speaker, who later said: "I was    about to speak in meeting today, but the good Lord held me down."
Agnes Tierney was complimented on a sermon & responded with:   "That's what the devil said to me when I sat down."
III. LET THY YEA BE YEA—Friends have always believed in cautious    statements; most of them have practiced it, some to an exaggerated extent.    Friends' funny, cautious statements: "I think, or at least I think I think." [Provi-   dence RI]; "One never knows, does one? & when one does, one isn't sure,      is one?"; "I think I may safely say she is much as she sometime is."; [In re-   sponse to a proposed and questionable candidate]—"That's a name that    wouldn't have occurred to me."; [An elderly Friend's response to "dangerous   new views"]—A young man who lost his faith [because of these views] went    sailing with a friend ... A storm came up & the young man ... was drowned ...    [long pause] ... For the honor of truth I think I should say that the [friend] was     drown also."
Frank Aydelotte of Swarthmore College secured a contribution of    $100,000, & expected an enthusiastic response from the Board of Managers.    What he got after a prolonged silence was: "I see no reason why we shouldn't    accept the gift." Herbert Hoover was looking out the window of a train when a    companion remarked, "Those sheep have been sheared." President Hoover    replied: "Well, on this side, certainly."
   IV. FOLLOWING THE LIGHT—Esther Nichols Wilbur was a "con-   ductor" on the Underground Railway & an abolitionist. An anti-slavery mee-   ting was planned; North Easton Meeting House's caretaker wasn't an abo-   litionist & planned to lock people out after morning meeting for worship.    Esther decided  to stay until the afternoon meeting, in spite of threats of for-   cible removal. She then unlocked the house for the afternoon meeting.        Isaac T. Hopper was disowned by his meeting and considered unworthy of       being called a Friend [because of his outspoken, too-advanced stand       against slavery]; he continued to attend meeting. A Friend said: "Thee knows   the meeting has disowned thee." He replied, "But I have not disowned          the meeting."

Eli Jones, Quaker minister, was elected to Maine's State Legislature, & appointed Major General in the State Militia. He said: "I should give such orders as 'Ground Arms' ... [and] 'Right about face. Go, beat your swords into plowshares and spears into pruning-hooks, and learn war no more." Howard Jenkins said: "As long as civilized nations believe in war, I expect to give about 50 editorials a year to the subject [of peace]." The Quaker wife of a merchant said: "But John, I hope thee didn't charge more than thee paid for it."
2 Quaker farmers who traded even on horses wanted to give the other $5 "to make the trade "fair & even." Levi T. Penington writes of a Quaker who gave a note to Pacific College's endowment fund in 1914: "For years he lived with his children, with an income very near the vanishing point. Nearly 30 years later, he came to me with $300, saved a nickel at a time ... I said to him ... "I've found a Quaker whose word is better than his bond." "Owd Jacob [Bright]" [came upon a throng around a neighbor] whose valuable beast had met with an accident & had to be killed. He said: "I am sorry £5. How much are thee sorry?" & raised a subscription [then and there].

V. AN EARLY QUAKER WIT—A fellow lawyer said to Nicholas Waln (18th century): "Mr. Waln, there is a great deal of dignity & intelligence under that hat of yours." Nicholas took off his hat, handed it to the lawyer and said, "Take it. Thou hast need of both." Nicholas met a young dandy wearing multi- ple capes, each of which he had named after geographic capes, like Cape Henlopen and Cape Hatteras. Nicholas tapped the young lad's head and said, Then this must be Mount Airy." It was a very warm day in Birmingham, PA, during a meeting for worship that was often 2 hours long. Nicholas shook hands to close meeting in about a ½-hour. When criticized, he said, "I desire mercy and not burnt offerings."
VI. RETORTS COURTEOUS, OR FAIRLY SO—Often Quaker direct- ness of speech made its point without offense; sometimes it verged on rude- ness. In a trial, opposing counsel said to the witness, Samuel Bettle, "You use the words 'also' & 'likewise' very frequently; can you distinguish between them?" Samuel replied, "Our counsel here is a lawyer; thou art also, but not likewise." A mentally ill Friend was carried out of meeting by 4 members and shouted, "Behold, I am greater than my Master. He was carried by 1 ass, & I am carried by 4."

A prominent American Friend said in a meeting that he hadn't commit- ted a sin for 15 years. Thomas Chase said, "If I had heard him say it I would have said, 'But thou hast now." Asa Branson was hard of hearing and carried an ear trumpet. Young men congregated at the village pump, and some of them employed improper language and abusive terms when speaking into his ear trumpet. Asa did not rebuke them verbally this time, but calmly walked over to the pump, washed out his ear trumpet, and went home.

VII. AS OTHERS SEE US/ VIII. OFF THE RECORDS—Many Friends    are fearful of smugness, the unwillingness to venture, that comes to a group    when all speak well of them. An Irish gardener for President Isaac Sharpless'    (Haverford College) father said: "My mind's made up, it is. I've been watchin'    the Quakers, and they're a God-fearin', money-makin' set of people, & I want    to be one of them." One attender asked another non-member about Queries:    "Queries are those old men who sit on the facing benches." Another non-   member asked: "How does the clerk get the sense of the meeting if there   isn't any sense?"
Some of us [are nostalgic] for a simpler age [and meeting] uncontami-    nated by "worldly" practice. Here are minute excerpts from much earlier   meetings. 1716 Darby Women's Meeting wrote: "This Meeting gives their    testimony against taking or giving of garters at marriages or any vain or    needless custom whatsoever. 1715 Chester (PA) Women's Meeting wrote a   similar minute. 1739 Another monthly meeting tried in vain to get satisfaction   from Joseph Bethell "for his being in the vain practice of firing guns at marri-   ages." Between 1684-1786 Chesterfield Monthly Meeting (NJ) wrote: Much    fewer cases of immoral conduct are recorded than on the PA side of the river.    1777 Radnor Monthly Meeting minuted: "None of the Friends appointed atten-   ded the Quarterly Meeting owing to the Prevailing Commotions [Revolu-   tionary War]."
1855 From David Ferris' journal we have this advice: "From inattention    to my Heavenly Guide, I took the hint from man; following my own inclination    [and the advice of friends], I moved without asking my divine Master's advice    [to court a young lady] ... [A ½-hour into the evening], I heard something, like    a still small voice, saying, 'Seekest thou great things for thyself?—seek    them not' ... It so filled me with confusion, that I ... soon took my leave, with-   out opening ... the subject which led me to visit them ... I didn't recover my     usual state for several months. I couldn’t suddenly see that my error was    acting without permission ... At length I was brought to submit & say 'Amen."

1797 Catherine Phillips' advice to spinsters [& bachelors]: 1st, guard    their own minds, lest they ... slide into familiarity & freedom of ... behavior,    which might tend to engage the affections of young men. 2nd, strictly ob-   serve the other's behavior toward them ... to better judge their motives for    accompanying them ... [& forestall] any forward thought that looks beyond      friendship ... with some prudent oblique remarks. 3rd, The Lord ... may        permit love for a season to lean to [another] instrument [of God's will]. A        prudent reserve & a tender regard for the growth of the other is necessary.
IX. MINOR TESTIMONIES—Gradually you & your (plural) became    general for all the elect, while thou, thy, thee were the 2nd person singular,    used for social inferiors. For early Quakers, using the "plain language" was a    mark of democracy, a denial of caste in human relationship. And in the begin-   ning, "plain dress" was the apparel of the period with the ornamentation taken    off. The old 2nd person singular is now used within the Quaker community,    and in the family circle. Sometimes people unaccustomed to plain language    will say things like, "I never can tell thee (S/B "you" plural) apart unless I see    thee (you) together." William Bacon Evans said "thee" several times to a        Kent County jail warden, and then explained: "We are Quakers & have a tes- timony for the plain language." The warden replied: "You got to speak plainer    than that if you want me to understand."
Plain clothes were 1st worn in protest against the waste and caprices of following fashion. Later, the Quaker garb was "simple" only in appearance; it    cost a good deal more in time and money than non-Quaker clothing. Friends    numbered months and days 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc., not by names derived from   "heathen gods." Other words used that had mythological origins were not      protested [e.g. jovial, mercurial, cereal, iris].

Although personally against music in meeting, a member of a Maine meeting gave a generous contribution saying, "If you must worship the Lord with machinery, I want you to have a first-class instrument." And even though each member of Haverford College's Board had no personal objection to the gift of a piano, it was turned down unanimously, because each one "knew" it wouldn't be accepted by the others. In response to the Quaker silence before meals, one non-Friend said: "Everything was fine. There was a little awk- ward silence at the beginning of the meal, but I just told a funny story and broke the ice."

X. THEIR QUAKERISM TRIED—Quakers at their best have never interpreted "non-resistance" as flabby acquiescence in evil. There is often a super-resistant vein on a higher, more permanent level than violence. Lucre- tia Mott sent her original escort away, & relied on one of the mob's roughest to conduct her safely & respectfully through the tumult. The mob's leader had a conversation with her, & found her to be "a good & sensible woman." Catherine Shipley offered to pray with a would-be pickpocket: "We'll ... ask Heavenly Father if he means thee to have it."
Elias Hicks' wheat fields once yielded abundantly in a light harvest; speculators sought to buy his wheat, at ever higher prices. When poorer neighbors began to need, he invited them get what they required at $1 a bushel. In Nantucket harbor, Captain Gifford had a sloop-load of coal during a shortage; he decided to "act conscience today." He decided that "thee can have 1 ton for $8; thee can't have any more," for all who asked. David Cope sold a neighbor seed wheat. The neighbor wasn't satisfied with the amount; he measured it himself, & found more than he asked for. David said: "Thee wasn't satisfied with my measure—thee will have to take thy own."

A Quaker was asked by a highway robber at gunpoint to trade horses.    The Quaker led the robber's broken down horse to the city & then turn him    loose, saying, "Go ahead, Lazarus; thou knowest the way to the stall better    than I." He followed the horse to the robber's door, surprised the robber, and    got his horse back plus 2 crowns.
XI. YOUNG FRIENDS—Benjamin Hallowell once tried to avoid school      by hiding his hat. His mother responded by tying her bonnet on his head. Ben    all of a sudden knew where his hat was, "found" it, and asked his mother to    take the bonnet off. Edward was told to wash his feet for a woman minister's    visit. When she intoned, "Take the shoes from off thy feet," Edward gave a    terrified wail, sure that the visitor knew he had not washed. [One change over    the last 50 or even 25 years] is a freedom to laugh over the feelings between    Hicksites and Orthodox that were once so important [and divisive]. A minister    preached the words, "Be still, & know that I am God." A little boy whispered to    his father, "Is he, Daddy?" An older child with only one Quaker parent wrote    home from Westtown: "I'm tired of being a paggon; I want to be a Quacker."
XII. CONCERNED WITH EDUCATION—In notifying Isaac Sharpless of    his appointment to a teaching position, the committee said that he was ap-   pointed because they could not find a really qualified person. Friends some-   times confuse honesty with unnecessary bluntness. Neave Brayshaw was a   beloved educator that English schoolboys enjoyed mimicking. During a    holiday party, Neave did an imitation of himself in a contest and won only 3rd   prize.

Benjamin Hallowell once shared the educational philosophy that "everything can be moved if we touch the right spring." Elizabeth Dunn said: "I'm so afraid of staying on [the Westtown School Committee] too long. I don't want anyone to whisper that I'm no longer useful." Her daughter Sarah retorted, "But, Mother, I'd tell thee honestly. Thee stay on and I'll say frankly the minute that it's really time to get off." The wise lady replied, "But I mightn't believe thee then."

XIII. WHERE BUT IN QUAKERDOM?/ XIV. A CLOSING WORD— When Andrew Jackson became President, he recognized the loyalty of a Quaker supporter, Roberts Vaux, by appointing his son, Richard, Secretary to the Court of St. James Legation. Richard wrote: "Last night I went to a ball at the palace and even danced with the Princess Victoria. His mother said: I do hope Richard won't marry outside the meeting." George Cadbury walked through his Chocolate works with the King and Queen, carrying his hat as a sign of respect. The Queen politely asked him to put on his hat, and playfully suggested having the King command him. Elizabeth Cadbury looked up in her most regal manner and said, "George, put on your hat." He did.

Edward Grubb (English Friend) & Rufus Jones were together at Rufus' Haverford home. Edward put his shoes out to be cleaned by a servant. There was no servant for that, so Rufus cleaned them. Edward gave a dollar for the "servant." Rufus said: "I will see that he gets it." A young married couple came to a Friends Hostel, asking for accommodations. The Quaker host asked, "Are you Friends?" The young man said, "No, we're married."

After 9 years in China away from London YM, Henry Hodgkin spoke there for 20 minutes. Wanting to make a point with the [more long-winded] members, the Clerk said: "There can be no impropriety in his speaking for 20 minutes. If we divide 20 by 9 or 10, does it not suggest a proper limit ... for regular attenders?" Once after George Walton had spoken, Dr. William Speakman came up at the close of meeting, and said, "Thanks for what thee said; it always does my wife good to hear thee."

We have dwelt on the human side of Friendly life. This little collection of stories is offered in the belief that there is value in tasting the feast of good, amusing, little things in our Friendly heritage. We shall be none the worse for [getting a taste of the Water from] the human pipes to which it has been entrusted.
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34. Contributions of the Quakers (by Elizabeth Janet Gray; 1947

(Great Britain Copyright 1939))
Foreword—What are the contributions of the people called Quakers to the USA? We are dealing with what can't be measured. Some things we will only be able to say “The Quakers saw this first,” or “The Quakers started this and others have carried it on.” The strength of a country’s fabric lies in the mingling of the threads, [Quaker among them], & the support they bring to each other.”

   What the Quakers gave to the US comes not from their numbers or    from their material possessions, but from their ideals and the power which    these ideals gave to their lives.    E. J. Gray
   PART ONE: THE QUAKERS
1. The Coming of the Quakers (Massachusetts)—The 1st Quakers    arrived in America July 11, 1656. Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans were    ruling in England. There were English colonies in New England, Maryland, &   Virginia; Dutch colonies in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The    Swallow brought 2 Quaker women, Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, into Boston    Harbor. [2 days after they were deported], 8 more Quakers arrived; they    spent 11 weeks in prison.

The Massachusetts General Court passed harsh laws against Quakers & any who helped them get to Boston, [finally sentencing 2nd offenders to hang]. [Still they kept coming], each time convincing some of the truth of their message. None recanted or gave up the practices that marked them as Qua- kers; their numbers grew. Though the good people of Massachusetts had the great idea of religious liberty for themselves, they had not yet conceived the greater idea of religious liberty for all.

1... (Rhode Island)—Quaker missionaries had gone to Rhode Island. [Their message spoke to the condition of many there]. The 1st Yearly Meeting in America was established at Newport in 1661. [There were enough Monthly Meetings to gather into Quarterly Meetings, & enough Quarterly Meetings to gather into a Yearly Meeting. Quakers took a large part in the government of the colony. Until the 1750s, ½ of RI was Quaker. From MA & RI Quakerism spread north, and to Nantucket Island.
1… (New York)—NY received its 1st Quakers with distrust & harsh- ness, beatings & deporting. Little Quaker groups grew up on Long Island & flourished there. The English took over the colony & the Duke of York de- clared religious liberty, thus making New York safe for all, including Quakers.

1… (The Southern Colonies)—In 1656 the Quaker testimonies went also to Maryland and Virginia; there were no persecutions in Maryland and in 1672 the 2nd Yearly Meeting in America was established in Baltimore. In Virginia there were penalties for: not going to church; unlawful assemblies (religious services); failure to baptize. Quakers were imprisoned and flogged; some died & Quakerism spread. In North Carolina there was no persecution to face. Quakers were the 1st religious group of any kind. In Charleston, South Carolina a little meeting house was built; one of the early governors was the Quaker John Archdale.

1… (New Jersey)—When Quakers came to New Jersey & Pennsyl- vania, they came in large numbers to live there. James, Duke of York was given what is now New York, New Jersey, & Pennsylvania. Quakers were beginning to think longingly of the land beyond the sea [as a place to live] in peace and freedom. 2 Quakers bought West New Jersey (Pennsylvania) for £1,000. Edward Bylinge sold his share to pay off a debt.
Quakers bought the land and wrote the “Concessions and Agreements” by which it was to be governed. John Fenwick sailed in the Griffin with Qua- ker colonists and land at a place they called Salem. The ship Kent brought 200 Quakers to a place they called Burlington. By 1681 there were 1,400 Quakers in West Jersey and a 3rd Yearly Meeting was established. In 1702 the East Jersey government was surrendered to Queen Anne. The Quakers of East and West Jersey continued to have a large share in the manage- ment of the province. They were farmers and shopkeepers; they built ships on the Delaware and sent them out to the West Indies and to China. Eliza- beth Haddon took over her father’s land & came to settle in the wilderness.

1… (Pennsylvania and Delaware)—PA was a planned, large scale colony. William Penn heard the Quaker Thomas Loe speak in Ireland, & had been convinced of Quaker doctrine. He, with help and advice from experts, devised & wrote a Frame of Government intended to give liberty & responsi- bility to the people. He asked for & received a grant of land from King Charles II, who owed his father £16,000.

On March 14, 1681 King Charles II signed the land charter. It was named Penn-Sylvania at the insistence of the King, over William’s objections; he feared people would think he named it for himself. He set to work making his Frame of Government & writing an account of the province of Pennsyl- vania that would give prospective settlers an idea of what the country was like. Other ships & settlers went before him. Late in October, 1682, William Penn himself sailed up the Delaware.

Penn was able to stay only 2 years at this time, but when he left, there was a growing colony behind him, some 7,200 people. The Welsh came, & the Germans. When Penn came again in 1699, there were 14,000 people, only about half of them Quakers. For 70 years the Quakers kept control in Pennsylvania, and during that time it was the most prosperous and peaceful of all the 13 colonies.

1… (The 1st Migration, 1725-1775)—By 1700 there were 6 YMs in America. New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania were mostly Quaker colonies. Quakers were politically strong in Rhode Island, Maryland, & North Carolina. Between 1725 & 1775, there was a steady tide of migration flowing southward & westward. Eastern Virginians moved to Western Virginia; Nantucket, New Jersey & Pennsylvania Quakers poured into North Carolina. Daniel Boone was the son of Pennsylvania Quakers. From North Carolina he led settlers across the mountains into Kentucky & Missouri. At the end of the Revolution, there were about 50,000 Quakers in America.

1… (The Great Migration)—After the Revolution, Eastern & Southern Quakers swept into what became Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, & Michigan. By 1809 there were no Quakers in South Carolina & Georgia. The 4 main roads were the Kanwha Road, Kentucky (Cumberland) Road, the Poplar Gap & Flower Gap Road, & the Magadee Road. In 1835 the first Quaker in Iowa crossed the Mississippi. The 1st monthly meeting was established in 1838; the Yearly Meeting of 5 Quarterly Meetings was established in 1863.

The Street Family migrated from Salem, NJ, to Salem, OH, to Salem, IN to Salem, IA. The number of Quakers in proportion to the whole population has greatly diminished. Splits over matters of doctrine, disowning anyone marrying a non-Quaker, & an attitude of protecting rather than sharing their doctrine led to the decline. What the Quakers gave to the US comes not from numbers or material possessions, but from Quaker ideals & the power which ideals gave to their lives.

Religion itself is nothing else than Love to God and Man.
Liberty without obedience is confusion and obedience without liberty is    slavery.”
Any government is free to the people under it whatever be the frame,    where the laws rule and the people are a party to those laws.”
I propose … to leave myself & successors no power of doing mischief,    that the will of one man may not hinder the good of a whole country.        William Penn
2. Who the Quakers Were—George Fox’s eyes were amazingly blue    & full of fire & tenderness. Wherever he went people felt his power, goodness,    [and inspiring leadership]. There were in England many Seekers, seeking a        religion that would satisfy them. They came from all levels of society. The    ones 1st convinced were known as the “Valiant 70” or the 1st Publishers of      Truth. They went out in pairs or groups to spread the good news. Most were    [around Fox’s age] about 25 years old. The persecution which the 1st    Quakers had to meet bound them together with an intense feeling of unity, love, shared suffering, and white-hot sincerity.

After the persecution passed, the Quakers changed. They no longer    went into the world to spread their faith, but withdrew to cherish it. With war,    hate, & terror now in the world on a bigger scale, the Quakers have entered        a new phase. They are coming out into the world, living out their message by      relieving wherever they can the suffering they find. What is the Quaker    belief’s central core that finds expression in the Quaker way of life?
War is wrong. Any kind of violence and hate is wrong. There is no    need of a priest to mediate between God & man, or for a consecrated building    in which to worship God. God speaks most clearly in the silence. All are equal    in the sight of God. The Quakers believe taking hats off to persons of high sta-   tion was an insincere & flattering custom. You could not be a Quaker in secret. Quakers did all things openly, in the light of truth. Quakers used thee & thou,      the singular form, rather than you, the plural form to a person of distinction.
Out of the Quaker regard for truth arose another “testimony”; they    would not take an oath. They believed it was misleading for people who had a    tender regard for truth to swear on special occasions they were speaking the    truth. In times of persecution this refusal to swear was used by the authorities    as a way to catch and imprison Quakers. Quakers objected to the elaborate    dress of the time, because they thought it wrong to spend so much on clothes,   when some had far too little to wear, and because it was wrong to make so    great a distinction between rich and poor. Accordingly the Quakers insisted   upon simplicity in dress. Now they wear whatever is worn by others, avoiding   spending a disproportionate amount of time or money on it.

Truth involved a number of things for Quakers, from death for the sake of truth to a small revolution in commercial methods. [Haggling & erratic pricing were a part of 17th century business]. Quaker shopkeepers said this was not honest. They set one price for everybody and stuck to it. Friends often “quaked” with the intensity of their feelings when they rose to speak. They called themselves: Children of the Light; Friends of God; Friends of the Truth. In time they adopted the name “Society of Friends. Love, truth, sin- cerity, simplicity, faithfulness unto death: these are the virtues the Quakers hold most precious & most strive to attain. And out of them their gifts to the US are given.

PART TWO: The Gifts of the Quakers
3. Toward a Democratic Constitution—It has been said that Qua- kerism is a “bold application of democracy to religion.” The Quakers applied democracy to religion when they decided that they didn't need a minister or priest to mediate between themselves and God, & allowing anyone to speak in meeting. They were soon applying democracy to their outward affairs too. William Penn was the proprietor (owner) of Pennsylvania. Penn and his suc- cessors could appoint the Governor, but the real power lay in the Assembly and Council elected by the people, not in the governor.

After the Declaration of Independence, all the newly independent colo- nies were very busy making themselves new constitutions, & all were influ- enced by PA’s Frame, & so was the Constitution of the United States. In PA, religious freedom involved not having a state church & in expressly stating that all who believed in God were free to worship as they pleased and to hold office. Another important feature of the PA Frame was that, if necessary, it could be changed.

A 3rd feature was that in PA the Assembly broke up by law. That is, according to the law, it met at a certain time each year and adjourned when it voted to adjourn. Penn planned a league of nations in Europe 225 years before the world got around to trying it out, & he suggested a union of the American colonies in 1696, almost 100 years before the Constitution of the United States. In 1787 the independent states turned back to Penn’s plan of union and took from it some of the principles and some of the actual wording.

Except for William Penn, Governor Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island was the most important in politics & government. He was one of the 1st men to see the injustice of taxation without representation. Rhode Island 1st pro- posed a Continental Congress; Stephen Hopkins was a delegate to it. Ano- ther Friend who helped lead the colonies towards democracy was John Dickinson. He stood for the rights of the colonists, but he wished to win them by peaceful means. He was a member of the 1st and 2nd Continental Con- gresses, and a Delaware delegate to the Federal Constitutional Convention in 1787. Both Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin were not Quakers, but lived among them and were influenced by Quaker thought.

Among the Quaker ideals and principles written into the Constitution were: religious freedom and separation of church and state; Congress (Penn 1st used “congress” in 1696) convened & adjourned by law; 2 representatives from each state & ⅓ of the Senators to be elected every 2 years for a 6-year term; the affirmation as an alternative to the oath; provisions for amendment. The Quakers stood for and tried most of them for many years and found them to be successful.

4. Towards Liberty and Equality: The Indian Problem—Before he even came to the new country himself, William Penn wrote a letter of love to the Indians. He acknowledged the unkindness & injustice they suffered from white men; he promised he & the people he sent would be different. He re- fused to allow a monopoly on trade with the Indians, because if he had accepted it, he could not have controlled the trade. He wrote: “I wouldn't so defile that which came to me clean.” He bought the land from the Indians, even though he had already bought it from the King. What was new about Penn’s approach to the Indians was his friendliness & his tender regard for them as people, equals & friends. He dealt justly with them according to their ideas of justice as well as with white man’s justice.

In the fall of 1682, Penn met with the Indians in the great conference he promised them at Shackamaxon, near the Delaware River under a great elm tree. Good faith and good will was promised by both sides. So long as the Quaker influence was strong in Pennsylvania, the treaty was kept. For 70 years, Indian and Quaker relied on one another for hospitality; Quaker children were cared for by Indians. [Even when there was a reported threat of 500 warriors attacking the settlement, Quakers responded by sending a party of 6 unarmed men to the warriors' gathering place. They found no war- riors and only a minor dispute over unpaid money for land]. In New Jersey, Rhode Island, and South Carolina, Friends’ friendly policy ensured peace with the Indians.

The Indians were exploited by William Penn’s son Thomas (a non- Quaker) in the Walking Purchase. Thomas purchased as much land between the Nashaminy Creek & the Schuykill River as a man could walk in 1½ days. The man ran 88 miles instead of walking the 30 miles that the Indians expec- ted. The Indians kept the bargain, but felt they had been treated unfairly. War broke out. When the Governor and Council of Pennsylvania declared war on the Indians in 1756, Quakers withdrew from government and ended their influence in government.

They opposed war & refused to pay war taxes. They said: “We'll give a much larger part of our estate [to make peace] than the heaviest taxes of a war can be expected to require.” They formed the Friendly Association for Gaining & Preserving Peace with the Indians by Pacific Measures, [which in- spired trust from influential Indians]. In 1763 John Woolman had a “concern” to visit a settlement of Indians. [Even though Indians were on the warpath he traveled unarmed in the wilderness with 4 guides & 1 white companion, stayed 3 days after delivering a message of love & friendliness. [A Quaker couple at 1st pulled in their latchstring (i.e. “locked the door”) but later put their trust in God & put the latchstring out; the Indians warriors passed over that cabin].

In 1795 the yearly meetings began to appoint standing committees on Indian affairs. Friends established missions and schools, & their committees tried to see that there was justice in the decisions which were made at Washington. A Philadelphian named Thomas Wistar was a great advocate of this peaceful method; he had gone among them and made friends. Friends formed the Associated Executive Committee of Friends on Indian Affairs, & the Indian Rights Association Philadelphia. President Grant asked these concerned Friends: “Give me the names of some Friends for Indian agents, & I will appoint them. If you can make Quakers out of the Indians it will take the fight out of them. Let us have peace.”

Friends were given charge of the Northern and Central Superinten- dencies. For the 8 years of Grant’s administration the Peace Policy and the Friends’ work among the Indians went steadily forward. The agents made peace between the tribes warring with one another. They taught them how to plow, plant, and harvest, generally advised them, and established schools for them. President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed a new commissioner of Indi- an affairs who was unfriendly [to both Indians and] Quakers.

They met opposition at every turn & were forced to give up govern- ment work; they kept their interest in the schools they started. [Quaker inte- rest in the Indian & seeking justice for him continues]. The Friends’ manage- ment of Indian relations has provided 1 more example of the practicability of a policy of love and friendship in dealing with races whom we do not under- stand and whose ways are not our ways.

4… The Freeing of the Slaves—One of the most important gifts which Quakers gave to this country was the initial impulse against slavery. George Fox 1st saw slavery when he visited Barbados in 1671. He saw sla- very's fundamental evil, even when the slaves were being kindly treated, & urged Friends to let their slaves go free after they had worked for a certain amount of time. He also thought they should “not go away empty-handed.” Germantown Friends wrote: “There is a liberty of conscience here which is right and reasonable, and there ought to be likewise liberty of the body.”
John Woolman, a Quaker tailor from Mt. Holly New Jersey was, more than any other, to put into words the wrong of slavery and to rouse people to work against it. From the time he had to prepare a bill of sale for a Negro woman to the end of his life, he devoted himself to freeing the slaves. He traveled all over the country and to England. He talked of slavery and the wrong of it, and caused other people to see it the same way he did. He also wrote the pamphlet “Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes” in 1746. Another Quaker against slavery at the same time was Anthony Benezet. He wrote on slavery to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Patrick Henry, John Wes- ley, & George Whitefield, & they wrote him back. He was one of the pillars of the 1st abolition society in America, founded in 1775; Ben Franklin was president.

Gradually all Friends saw that it wasn’t right for man to hold his fellow beings in slavery. By 1780 the practice of holding slaves had disappeared among the Quakers. That same year the Assembly of Pennsylvania passed the 1st law abolishing slavery in the State. By 1826 there 101 anti-slavery societies in the country, most of them in the South. The most important eman- cipation publication was Benjamin Lundy’s Genius of Universal Emancipa- tion; it aroused William Lloyd Garrison to the cause. By 1827, slavery was abolished in the northern states.

Lucretia Mott organized a female anti-slavery society. She preached against slavery as a young woman & gave up things produced by slave labor [i.e. cotton & sugar]. In 1840 Lucretia & James Mott were sent by the Ameri- can Antislavery Society as delegates to the London world convention. James could attend the convention; Lucretia could not. Meanwhile, the Friends in the South were having difficult times, for their ideas were very unpopular. Laws were passed forbidding people to set their slaves free. Some yearly mee- tings bought slaves & sent them to Canada or New England, where they set them free. Many Southern Friends pulled up stakes & went west.

The Underground Railroad started its work as far back as George Washington’s day; the system was going long before it had a name. When it became illegal to help slaves, many Friends obeyed the higher law of con- science when they broke the law against helping slaves to escape. Thomas Garret from Wilmington, DE was one of the foremost men in the Underground Railroad in the East. He helped 2,700 slaves to escape, and continued to do so even after court fines ruined him. James and Lucretia Mott’s home served as a station, too.
Vestal and Levi Coffin, North Carolina Friends who moved to IN were the great heroes of the movement in the West. He was known as “President” of the Underground Railroad. Levi & his wife were the Rachel & Simeon Halli- day of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The poet John Whittier Greenleaf also did great work against slavery, editing the Pennsylvania Free- man, writing pamphlets, writing inspiring poems. After the War of Secession and the Emancipation Proclamation, a new problem was created, for 3,000,000 uneducated, untrained people were turned out into the world with- out property or resources of any kind. The Philadelphia Association main- tained 47 schools, attended by 6,000 colored people. There is a vast amount yet to be done.

4… For Prison Reform—In William Penn’s day, prisoners were her- ded together in one room: sick; well; old; young; thieves; murderers; & inno- cent men. What food they got they had to pay for, & there was nothing to do. This was the punishment for small offense. For nearly 200 larger offenses, people were hanged.

Quakers saw 2 things: even convicted criminal has certain rights (e.g. healthful surroundings, [separation from “hardened criminals”); the chief pur- pose of imprisonment is reform not revenge. They did not believe in capital punishment at all. Penn eliminated all but 2 capital offenses (treason & mur- der) in PA. Nobody was imprisoned for debt. The prison was run & paid for by the state, & prisoners were to be kept busy, in good health, and trained. A New York Friend, Thomas Eddy did much to establish the 1st state prison in 1797 as a state senator; the 1st board of governors were almost all Friends; politics soon put them out of governing prisons.
4… Women’s Rights—In Friends’ meeting for worship women as well as men could speak. This reveals a recognition of the equality of men & women before God that spreads into all departments of life. Women with a leading could go anywhere to carry the message of Quakerism. They went as wives & mothers who had other duties to perform besides those at home. They took an active part in the business of monthly and yearly meetings as a matter of course. Lucretia Mott preached in Philadelphia meeting when she was still a young woman, and pled for the right of women to speak in 1835.

When she could not speak at the London antislavery conference as a woman, she and Elizabeth Cady Stanton put together the 1st convention on women’s rights, which took place in 1848. The demanded the right to vote, the right to political office, equal rights to property, wages, custody of children, and making contracts. [Women now have these rights, with the right to vote coming in 1920. The roots of women’s rights can be found in] the generations of Quaker women before Lucretia Mott who took their place & responsibilities in their communities.
4 … Care of the Insane—The 18th century mentally ill's treatment was cruel & inhuman, worse than the prisoners' treatment. It occurred to Quakers to approach the mentally ill with kindness & love, using loving care, a peaceful atmosphere & easy, interesting work to do with their hands. The PA Hospital in Philadelphia (1756) made an effort to cure the insane. While they were kept in the cellar, they were given occupational therapy. Thomas Eddy, who worked with prisons, was treasurer and president of the NY Hospital. He established Bloomingdale Asylum. Frankford Asylum (PA) was started in 1817. [Their efforts are proof of the power of love & kindness in dealing with troubled people].

4 … Education—Penn’s Frame of Government included the provision that all children, girls & boys, should be taught a useful trade. It included the poor as well as the rich. When the William Penn Charter School was esta- blished children whose parents could not pay were to be admitted free. Com- pulsory free education was not yet conceived of by anyone; Quakers pre- pared the way for it. In NY the Female Association opened a school for poor children in 1801. In 1805, the Public School Society was formed & soon had several free schools going. Quaker elementary schools in NY, NC, OH, IN, KS did much to shape the public school systems as they developed.

Friends have continued to maintain schools for their own children, and children of like-minded people. The ones still carrying on include: Westtown, George School, Oakwood, Germantown Friends School, Friends Central, and Friends Select in or near Philadelphia, as well as Friends schools in Wash- ington, Baltimore, Wilmington, Haddonfield, Atlantic City, NYC, and Provi- dence, RI. Several colleges were also established.
Quakers more than once have been the 1st to see something that others have come to see later, have made a small beginning which others carried on to a great completion. At Pendle Hill, near Philadelphia, a gradu- ate school where students & faculty work together in true democratic way on social problems which the modern world is facing [was established in 1931]. Who can say what other schools may follow?

4… The Arts—So intent were Quakers on worshipping God & helping man that they overlooked the healing and inspiring power of great music and great art. They didn't realize that God speaks through a great symphony or a beautiful picture. The story in the future may be different. For 2½ centuries, Quakers have produced no great musicians or great artists. Benjamin West and Joseph Pennell are 2 Quaker contributors to American art.

Distinctive Quaker architecture, with its pent roofs & hooded doorways, has been much copied. There was a certain art in their home furnishings, and the quiet, ordered, comfortable life that went on within it. It didn't produce musicians, painters, sculptors, poets. John Greenleaf Whittier was very much a social activist, as well as a poet. His best-loved poem Snowbound tells of his boyhood experience shut up within a New England farmhouse in a snow- storm; “The Barefoot Boy” is another of his beloved poems. Prose contribu- tions include: George Fox’s Journal; William Penn’s Some Fruits of Solitude; & modern writings by Rufus Jones. Quakerism produced the scientists John Bartram (botanist); Edward Drinker Cope (paleontologist); Thomas Godfrey (quadrant inventor). [Perhaps the other contributions are enough]; perhaps we should not ask for artists, too.

5. Toward Peace: They have Refused to Fight—Quakers have done [3] things for peace: they have refused to fight; they have tried to re- place hate with love; they have tried to repair the harm done by war on both sides. While refusing to fight or pay war taxes, they gave more money than the taxes would have cost to the Friendly Association to make peace with the Indians. In the Revolutionary War Quakers didn't fight; those who did, some 400 from Philadelphia, were disowned. Quakers were hated as Tories and pacifists; 17 were “exiled” to Virginia.

During the War Between the States, a few Quakers in the South suffered imprisonment for their refusal. In the World War, a very few Quakers felt it their duty to join the army. Their meetings recognized disownment as a form of violence & did not disown them, but left the decision to individual conscience. [One of the] great modern Quaker gifts to the cause of peace & love is the American Friends Service Committee [AFSC, founded in 1917].

5 … They have Sought to Replace Hate with Love—Friends must not love one side and hate the other; they may not take sides and feel trium- phant when one side wins. [The founding statement of the AFSC was]: “We are united in expressing our love for our country and our desire to serve her loyally. We offer our services to the Government of the US in any construc- tive way in which we can conscientiously serve humanity.”

Rufus M. Jone’s book, A Service of Love in War Time, tells the story of those war days. Quakers worked on farms in the US or on reconstruction in France. After the war 3 AFSC representatives went to Germany. English and American Friends provided money and supplies and directed the work, the Germans distributed the food. By June 1921, more than a million children & mothers were being fed every day. They left and came back in 1923, [when inflation drove the price of food beyond most families' reach]. [The AFSC also went into Austria, Poland and Russia, to help with food, and to prevent tuberculosis from spreading]. Any enduring gift to peace [anywhere], however small, is a gift to the US.

Quakers have tried to remove causes of violence between the white race & the other races in the country by treating the Indians fairly & lovingly, by freeing the Negroes & opening up opportunities to them, & by helping those in prison. They have not yet fully succeeded, but they have pointed the way and they are still working.

Another cause of violence is lack of understanding between [wage- earners & employers]. [There is enough personal contact between employer & worker in small businesses that they can] make allowances & help each other. [The same possibility doesn’t exist in corporations]. The AFSC Home Service Section works for groups in the US, like out-of-work coal miners in PA, KY., WV., & TN. [Communities such as Arthurdale, WV, Tygart Valley, WV, Fayette County, PA were set up to teach miners gardening & how to make & sell crafts.
Since 1934 Friends have been running Work Camps in the summers, to bring about understanding between people who otherwise wouldn't know one another. Work Camps of high-school & college age boys & girls settle in a community for 2 months & do a full day’s work 6 days a week on some improvement which the community needs and could not otherwise afford to have; [everybody benefits].

The AFSC Interracial Section has been working for good feeling and understanding among the different races in this country. In December 1938, 3 Friends went quietly to Germany to ask the German government's cooperation in helping Jewish refugees. [They could not have gone without the German memory of Quaker help given 20 years before]. Democracy is made up of the free gifts of free people working together for the good of all.

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35. The Self to the Self (by Dora Willson; 1947)
About the Author—Dora Willson (1900-1953) enriched Pendle Hill's spiritual life of during her brief time among Friends. She met her future hus- band, at Fellowship of Reconciliation gatherings in England & France. After marrying Robert Z. Willson, they moved to the US & studied in the 1st class at Pendle Hill, in 1930. In '38 she taught the gospels at Pendle Hill. She helped start the Friend Conference on Religion and Psychology.

INTRODUCTION—Talk preparation was done by 6 to 10 women in informal discussion. [It was decided that] conscious, largely intellectual preparation is inadequate [for this topic]. Quieting the surface mind & cultiva- ting deeper relationships [were thought to be better methods to produce better communication]. The speaker's responsibility was to express truly felt experience as simply & sincerely as possible. [Confucius said that instilling virtue into the empire begins with the individual. In order to correct their heart, they began with investigation of matter to achieve utmost knowledge, which led to sincere thoughts, & thereby rectified their heart].

[Relating to One's Self]—The self's relation to the self is a vast sub- ject; one can but dip into it in mid-stream; [there is no] beginning, middle, or end. Nor is it possible to say anything new about it. Words are like an embroi- dery upon the underlying fabric of communication between men. That em- broidery could be destructive of the fabric itself if it were not seen as an inte- gral part of it. This subject must be felt before it could be spoken of, and the speaking needed to be based on the pooled inner experience of many.
Most of us realize some of the time that there are many selves inside each of us; most of the time we feel ourselves to be "single." Awareness of other aspects of ourselves, or "others" that make up a legion inside us, brings with it recognition of the need for a good system of inner relation- ships. The self is analogous to an island, with king, subject and animals, or a house with many room. All inhabitants of the island should work together democratically to make the island a desirable home. All the rooms of a house need some attention, rather than all our attention lavished on front parlor everybody sees. Can we rule our inner-self island democratically, with no suppressed, dissatisfied minorities? Can we be wise inner-self householders, be aware of all the rooms in our "house" and make use of all our house?

It is possible & necessary to encompass this unending variety in some sort of relationship, [of each part of the legion with every other part]. Human history shows how we found in religion, as its very name indicates, that which ties together what is separate into a functioning whole. All reli- gions and most philosophies insist on self-awareness as a basic requirement. The Commission on Christian Doctrine (1938) writes: "The things most wrong with a man are often often those of which he is least conscious ... A primary duty of the individual is to try and find out what his duty really is."

Isaac Penington writes: "Mind this precious Truth ... grace ... light ... power inwardly ... [It is also called] the inward word of life, heart-voice, seed, salt, leaven, pearl ... Distinguish between words without [about] the thing, & the thing itself within. Labor to be guided by motives, leadings, teachings, [ways] coming from the thing itself within." What should our relationship with our Self look like? How do we establish, maintain and develop it?

The Nature of the Relation of Self to Self—[Why has the "as thy- self" clause of Jesus' "great commandments," the relationship] of self to self, been so consistently ignored or even contradicted? [Jesus links love of God with love of neighbor, & love of neighbor with knowing and loving thyself]. The 2nd great commandment is no mean perception; it is the dis- covery that in human relationships you don't need to read the books, just read yourself. [Avoiding the difficulties of] the way to self-knowledge and self-love means missing the way to love of others, for these 2 "ways" are in reality one, as the 2nd commandment states clearly.

[Calvinism despises self-love, & even labels it] one of the greatest of sins. Love of others becomes duty, [a prescribed virtue], instead of the ever- renewed outflowing of a creative inner relationship. From this attitude, it is but a step to neglecting or contradicting the 2nd commandment as a whole. Since each of us, & therefore humankind is essentially evil, how could it be ex- pected that one be lovable? Saints who came to the same evaluation of the sinfulness of man, knew nevertheless that it is possible to "love him even under a blight," as a sinner.

[At the other extreme, where] selfishness, self-love, self-regard was advocated indiscriminately, and love of others was condemned as weakness, [there is a similar contradiction of the commandment]. Nietzsche condemns neighbor-love rooted in a wrong attitude toward oneself, saying, "You flee into your neighbors from yourselves and would fain make a virtue thereof ... You can't stand yourselves and you do not love yourselves sufficiently." Modern humans are baffled by the contradictions of ones guides, and the false oppo- sition between love of self and love of others is still part of ones daily pattern. Naïve respect is paid to self-advancement & unashamed concern for self alone is recommended [for] the "good of the whole."

[True & False Forms of Love]—Interpreting love of self as selfish- ness, & love of others as unselfishness, is a widely accepted idea. [Confusion about true love dominates our thoughts]; false forms of love are numerous. True love & its imitations spring from different sources; at their source they can be distinguished from each other. True love grows out of a positive, affirmative attitude towards life & its potential. False love grows out of dislike, distrust, fear, & insecurity. They defend against attacks imagined as coming from without, when the enemy is within, & is strengthened by the mistaken defense.

True unselfishness affirms life; false unselfishness deeply distrusts & dislikes the self, so deeply the feeling usually goes unrecognized. Self may be thrown away into a greater whole where security may be expected. Erich Fromm writes: "The criticism of democratic society shouldn't be that people are too selfish; [they are, but only as] a consequence of something else. What democracy hasn't succeeded in doing is to make the individual love oneself; that is, to have deep affirmation for ones individual self, with all its potential ... Individuals who cease to love oneself are ready to die & kill. Our culture's problem is ... there is no self-love." True love's all-inclusiveness of others & self is its hallmark, a distinguishing characteristic by which we may [always] recognize it.

[There is true hate], a healthy specific reaction to attack on something [truly] valued, grounded in a positive attitude of affirmation of values. False, poisonous hate is a condition of character, a fundamental, dormant, indis- criminate hatred, growing out of frustration & negativism; it is a chronic state of latent hostility. As members of groups or nations, we let inner hostility appear even more unmistakably in the worldwide destructiveness of our age. Difficulties in understanding true self-love is inherent in the word love, a most mercilessly abused word. Clarity of understanding comes through persevering in investigation [of love] through personal inner experience.
The Way to Right Relatedness—How do we come to true creative love of self? We must chose to become acquainted with our self, often a neglected requirement. It requires catching our self off-guard, [in order for Real Self to be revealed]. Listening to our self is very revealing. If we patient- ly pay attention, as to a child learning to speak, self-talk will emerge more & more clearly. We begin to hear deeper hopes & fears, loves & hates.

One woman said: "I have ... learned to watch, wait & feel in order to come closer to what Self wants self to do ... When I followed the spontaneous urge, I actually during a time of days or weeks did achieve also what [family] wanted of me—but "their wanting" had to be removed as a motive or [I would be pleasing them out of] a sense of duty, [with an undercurrent of resentment] ... I'm increasing energy all the time to do more and more, when I keep to the "spontaneous" way ... We should "fear" and treat with awe the life force in us, the God in us... [If I try to conceal] this inner Self, it may react on my blood & heart-beat (different physical symptoms for different people) ... When this Self calls my bluff, I have to give in [to the Self's influence] for me to survive."
Getting acquainted with our self implies having some objectivity, [a readiness to express our spontaneous reactions to the self], & a readiness to acknowledge the reality of usually hidden & sometimes disagreeable elements. We are dual in nature; our task & nature is to balance our opposites, & to hold them in creative tension. [2nd century Gnostics reworded Matthew 5:23-25 to address this]: "If thou ... rememberest that thou hast aught against thyself, leave thy gift before the altar & go ... 1st be reconciled to thyself & then come & offer thy gift. Agree with thyself quickly, whilst thou art in the way of thyself lest haply thou deliverest thyself to the judge."

Francis de Sales writes: "How are we to be patient in bearing a neighbor's faults, if we are impatient with ours? He who is fretted by failings won't correct them; profitable correction comes from a calm, peace- ful mind." George Fox writes: "The Lord God Almighty keep you in Power & Wisdom & by it bind the unruly; when ye have bound them, then ye may speak to & fetter them ... When this is done, being kept in the Power ye will know him that Rides meekly upon the Foal of the Ass ... to Jerusalem, the highest place of Worship ..."

[Silence, Symbols, & Final Words]—[Besides these rational "devi- ces"], other less logical or "grown up" procedures must be adopted, ones using silence & symbols. We should listen to words heard inwardly, however unintelligible they may seem, & hold them in our mind & examine them & sift them later. One person envisioned a great river—the river of life—with many people struggling or drifting in it as they were swept along. A few on the banks called to those in the water; a few climbed out painfully onto shore, into conscious, responsible living. Let us file away the mysterious, secret messages from silent worship; life may offer us the code later.

Symbol have served humankind throughout the ages in tapping depths far below the level of words. The cross becomes the individual, ever crucified on the opposites of human nature. It is better still for each to find & use his or her own symbols. There is a choice to make between conscious, appropriate use of them, & letting them sway & determine us without our control. Symbols are a very direct way of relating our self to our deepest Self, a childlike way to see, through the transparent envelope of fact, the shining symbol of the inexpressible.
A certain loneliness is a result of attempting to live a conscious, re- sponsible life. The risks of taking a false path are constant. We aren't crea- tors of a relationship with our self; we only clear the ground, plant the seed, open the gates. Whenever we do our part in preparing, & that alone, then comes the reward, the "full grown grain." Greeting ourselves in true love, we find we hold the hand of fellow humans & that God's hand holds both of ours. The psalmist's words in #24 gain new importance: "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, & be lifted up, ye everlasting doors! That the King of Glory, [Lord God of hosts], may come in!" [And our True Self will greet God].

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36. Martha and Mary: A Woman’s Relationship to her Home (by

Josephine Moffett Benton; 1947)

About the Author—Josephine Moffet Benton (1900(?)-1980(?) was born in Texas, lived in Philadelphia, and died in NJ. She was the author of Saints & Mystics (1944), The Pace of a Hen (1961), A Door Ajar: Facing Death without Fear (1965), and this pamphlet. She married Frederic Elmon Benton and had John Frederic, Harold Newton, Ponsy, and 6 other children. She touches on "the pace of the hen" in this pamphlet.

"As for me, my bed is made; I am against bigness and greatness in all their forms, and with the invisible molecular moral forces that work from indi- vidual to individual, [working their nearly invisible changes], rending the har- dest monuments of man's pride, if you give them time ... [They] work in the individual, [who are] immediately unsuccessful, underdogs always, till history comes, after they are long dead, and puts them on top."
The Letters of William James, Vol. II
[Introduction]—[Mary & Martha received Jesus into their home. Mary played the part of inspired, devoted disciple, listening at the Lord's feet. Mar- tha played the part of resentful, harried hostess, & complained to the Lord to have Mary help her. He replied], "Martha, you are anxious & troubled about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion & it shall not be taken from her." [The story could have been about Martha as serene, happy hostess, content to serve with her God-given talents, & Mary, a whiny spoiled sister, discontented & uncentered. Here, Jesus might have said], "Mary, you are anxious & troubled ... You waste my time & that of everyone you meet. One thing is needful and Martha has chosen that good portion. She ... is receptive of grace and truth and has learned to love & serve God and her neighbor as herself."

MARRIAGE—To most married women, the connotation suggests that Martha, "being cumbered" is one of us. The idea that Martha & Mary balance each other & form a complete whole can open a new world of thought & hope to a wife & mother. St. Teresa of Avila said, "Married people must act in conformity with their vocation—but their progress will of necessity be the pace of a hen." The pace of great nuns of the Catholic church, was that of the eagle and the dove rather than the hen.

The home [created by marriage] is the place where it is easiest to learn that love is the creative pattern of the universe. Such love must begin in the home. How are we best to appreciate this good thing called marriage? There are bound to be drab dreary, monotonous tasks to be performed within the larger desire to be married. In the midst of being married, we may say, "Make me a help-meet, but not yet." There may be some divorces that are right, but given the concern of unhappy children coming from divorces, on the whole marriage is & should be nearly as irrevocable as birth or death. Some married lives are naturally beautiful. Others must be cultivated, lifted & reset like tulips when they are too crowded. What Martha really needs is the way of health & happiness & balance, the seeking of the fount from God's King- dom that brings contentment to a wife's chores.
Martha, even at the hen's pace, needs the water of life in Mary's mys- tical fount. James Mott wrote of marriage in 1853: "I have lived in that state for more than 40 years, & it has been one of harmony & love, though we have had our trials & difficulties in life; as age advances, our love increases ... It is the natural state of man, & when rightly entered into, an increase of happiness and comfort is the certain result." His wife Lucretia Mott had a caution for her daughter: "Beware ... of supposing that even the most ardent affection can give happiness ... should your hearts only rest in each other; raise them to Him, who has already blessed in joining you together ... There [needs to be] a disposition to estimate His favors rightly."

In a scene created from diary entries of ordinary people during the American Revolution, Joel Adams says to his wife Mima, "I wasn't much till you got hold of me. But you're so sure I'm going to—work hard and do right— that I have to do it to keep you from being disappointed. Mima says, "A wo- man's the root and a man's the tree. She's the ground he grows out of; [she needs to be] good growing ground, so her man will be fine" ... A man won't go far without some woman loving him and always telling him he's wonderful. He says: "If I was a tree, I needed pruning pretty bad when you took hold of me ... I ain't all you keep telling me I am, but I mean to be. If you'll keep on telling me, I'll get to be. You're good growing ground, Mima."

"Divine ordinariness, wisdom of the heart, homely truth, [is personified for Bronson Alcott] in his mother. His mother knew things, though one never found them set down in books, & even she seldom tries to say them in words. She said them in how she acted, the touch of her hands, in the smile of her eyes. In a rightly founded marriage, where man & wife are "heirs of life & grace together" their unity can be symbolic of the unity they seek to find with God. [A wife's] prayer might be, "As I give myself in love & joy to my husband & learn to be aware of his presence & needs, help me, Oh God, to be aware of Thy presence & of Thy will and purposes."

WORK: Sacramental Quality of Daily Living—When all work is done for God's Glory, Martha learns from Mary the present moment's blessed sacrament. [The author offers a bit of light verse, that contrasts those rare sublime moments of an otherwise ordinary day, with one harried housewife's overlooking the blessings of the moment in favor of the next thing to be done, and] "To catch up at once with tomorrow/ and make it become today." [One newly widowed] young wife found restoring joy in the daily tasks of caring for small children and the house. She knew that neither heights nor depths can separate us from God's love. "They who mourn shall be comforted." A Smith graduate writes: "A respect for the everyday household tasks seems to me essential if a woman is to find any kind of creative satisfaction in her home ... Just when we feel something is achieved, life moves forward and demands more of us."

[A poem is offered where Christ speaks of the "ordinary things" of life, in order to "bring Heaven and earth together," & to "divinely handle the whole familiar world." Stephen Grellet said after he gave up his Catholic practice of partaking of communion and became a Friend, that he never ate a mouthful of bread, or partook of a glass of cold water, without offering a prayer of thanks- giving. This symbolism carried over for him into all the day's work. He watched washerwomen on the Rhone, washing linen ... beating ... and whitening it ... "I was told I couldn't enter God's Kingdom until I underwent such an operation... For weeks I was absorbed in the consideration of the subject— the washing of regeneration."

Every piece of daily [routine] can be done as a sacramental act, from a prayer at awakening, to thanksgiving for cleansing, refreshing wash water, to dressing, to praying on ones knees while scrubbing the floor. Simple, symbo- lic prayers can be intertwined with some regular and formal petitions. A motto in many old country houses reads: "Christ is the head of this house, the unseen host at every meal, the silent listener to every conversation." Simple prayers throughout the day can be "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," and "Lord, show me myself./ Lord, show me Thyself." The latter can be done in reverse, depending on whether the need of knowing & respec- ting myself & others, or the need to learn love of God before we can become loving of others and self is greater.

Balance/ Love Made Manifest—Physically, if we don't use muscles they atrophy. Psychically, if we don't keep a balance between body, mind, & soul, we disintegrate. Pioneer women were forced to keep this balance. With rich & poor, lawyer's lady & laborer's wife, the spinning wheel hummed & the daily task was patiently & lovingly performed, combining happy monotony with a visible accomplishment. The monasteries having the most lasting influence were usually patterned after the Order of St. Benedict, where equal emphasis was laid on work, study, & prayer. The greatest contemplatives weren't idle. Evelyn Underhill writes: "They do not withdraw from the stream of natural life & effort, but plunge into it more deeply, seek its heart." Howard Brinton, director of Pendle Hill, has said many times, "If I do no work with my hands for a whole day I feel out of balance."

[The proper attitude toward work is expressed in The Prophet: "Work is love made visible./ And if you can't work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work & sit at the gate of the temple & take alms of those who work with joy." In a domestic frame it's so much easier for us to choose the pace of a hen in household chores for those we love—our beginning step in service to humanity. How a woman thinks in her heart about her seemingly insignificant works makes the difference between enjoying one of the most creative roles in the world, or existing as a toiling slave forever chained to household drudgery. There is often less fatigue where there is no sharp cleavage between "hard work" and what is thought of as life.

Working without haste or sense of pressure is a part of the secret. Work does not wear us out; but an emotional jag of feeling abused and over- burdened very quickly produces a cumbered Martha. If home tasks & daily chores are performed with joy and love, new beauty is seen. A woman can have at one and the same time a willingness to let anything go if need arises, and an awareness that nothing can take [the beauty of] this moment from her. It may be love of the beautiful, or love of God, or love of service to loved ones, or a joyful love of creation that produces long hours and a beautiful garden.

Mother Currier makes Christmas baby quilts. Mother Currier plumbs a deeper level; her discipline is a loving thought back of every stitch. If any irritation, or resentment, or ill will over any matter or relationship slips in, she lays aside her handiwork, until she is calm & serene & loving. All living things are amazingly related. Perhaps it isn't a myth, that bird song vibrations help bring about the unfolding of green leaf and spring blossom.
[I Corinthians 13 speaks of love's absence]. The grandmother in Edita Morris' My Darling from the Lions [says the same with different words]: "[The Berg's house] is a house where every one is invited in. Do you know whose fault it is that Froken de Bar drinks? Why it's my fault. Yes, mine and yours. It's the fault of all of us who haven't loved her enough. You know the reason for every single vice and sorrow is too little love."

Lord of all pots and pans and tins, I haven't time to be a saint by doing lovely things ... Make me a saint by getting meals & washing up the plates./ Warm all the kitchen with Thy love & fill it with thy peace. Forgive me all my worrying & make all grumbling cease ... Accept this service that I do; I do it, Lord, for Thee.
CHILDREN: The High Emprize [chivalrous or adventurous under- taking] of Motherhood/ [Or What Children Learn by Watching]—We need not worry about methods & techniques. We need to love our children, to accept them as individuals, and enjoy them. Of course we will make mis- takes. But we are not the final word in shaping them, any more than our parents were in molding us. The chief way we influence our children is by being the best we know how to be ourselves, [& letting them learn from that]. We mothers of 20 or 25 years ago were too earnest, and did harm by providing too much of a prescribed childhood.

Wise young mothers [of the 40's] need to be flexible: physically; in habits; emotionally; & spiritually, growing with children, accepting change, & staying close to the changeless. My grandmother said: "Acting is better than preaching." Early Friends memorized the Bible as they spun & wove in a lei- surely fashion. A mistake of our civilization is taking the father's influence, the wholesome male influence from home. Mothers are around less to say, "Where have you been? Father Tyrell writes: "God turns blunders to greater eventual gain than skill would ever effect." Children may learn most from what we dislike, or turn against what we are enthusiastic about. We can't predict, so having children is much more of an adventure, than if we had certainty they would model after us. We hope they will go beyond our poor powers & perhaps in some quite undreamed of field of work & vision.

Storm Jameson writes: "I suspect that a woman has nothing more important than a slow labor of creation, carried out in children & houses ... [She stands guardian to the next generation & to life itself]. There are very few women who should put 1st knowledge, or a creation in art or construc- tion. These should deny themselves marriage, or at least child-bearing ... To do [guardianship] well she should ... live a long time in one place."

I can't accept the necessity of forever living in one spot. The real home is first of all dependent on something far more intangible than ancient samplers & grandma's teapot. [The security of babies uprooted from "home"] was in proximity to the protecting person rather than a geographical spot. According to Evelyn Underhill, Godhead rests "Where feathery Patience is content to brood/ and leaves her pleasure for the high emprize/ Of mother- hood." In spite of our best efforts to disguise impatience with our children or our life, children can tell when we're "walking mad" or [vainly trying to hide a furious inner face]. [Our Town] has important queries to consider, including: "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it, every, every minute?"

At the end of a full & happy weekend, Peter still had many fun activi- ties left to do. Then there was homework. Mother sat down, apparently to read, but really to see that Peter didn't waste any more time, [which is what he did]. [Mother fumed at first, & perhaps nagged & "offered help]." Then came an insight of love. She got pencil & paper, & [became absorbed in wri- ting how precious he was to her, & in listing] his sweet lovable, helpful, & en- dearing qualities in a relaxed, aware state. She looked up to see him upright in a chair at a table, intently pouring over his book. [Shortly he shared a new discovery of the beauty of a flower's construction with her].

The High Emprize of Motherhood/ [Or What Children Bring to Us] —I believe children come "trailing clouds of glory"; that we hardened adults can learn from them, if we will listen [& remember that the "eldering" taking place in families can flow both ways, perhaps as "youthing" in our children's case]. [It is "youthing]" as they catch you tense & remind you to smile & not to panic, or worry about making the train. If they should speak gleefully of being spanked with a bedroom slipper over an entirely unfair incident, be thankful] it was told & didn't fester down in the deeps. We hope & pray that "love suffereth long & is kind; love isn't easily provoked," [is mostly a reality & isn't too seldom achieved]. Children love us & cherish us through all our myriad mistakes.

Instead of seeing a hard-working span of years as a time of disciplined growth, it is too often thought of as being intellectual stagnation for the young mother. Perhaps it is nature's rhythm for her to be somewhat dormant during nesting years, & right for her to take a break from solving world problems; [to be in one sense "growing ground," & in another sense] lie fallow that it may produce more abundant harvest. Martha may some day have a vision toward the solution of racism, strikes, starvations & atomic bombs.

           Actually, every day [of her "dormancy"] brings something new to learn    about & appreciate. Her homemaking instincts have the chance to become    tools. One of the happinesses that can befall the family in the early years is    reading together. [Classic family tales can become] remembered hours of    tranquil bliss. Mother can be an authority on one type of modern literature. [In    never-ending work], Martha & Mary are compelled to try to bring dual natures   into one balanced whole.
ALTERNATION—But balancing a dual nature isn't a complete & final answer. The soul can live only by a double process of alternating between occupation with the concrete & then abstraction from it. [The absence of either leads to dysfunction]. There must be a rhythm to the life of the individual, as there is in night & day, summer & winter. The alternate periods of absorption & quiet meditation away from activity & good works needn't be evenly spaced.    Into the balanced, integrated Martha-Mary life comes great release of tireless    energy. Because older women have plenty of time & less responsibility, they    have to be careful to save their souls from destruction by being too much on    the jump. Older women who have learned to sit still, think, & pray are a    benediction.
While some women wait for later years to alternate into quiet reflec- tion, I believe the aim should be, even for those [who do reflection & prayer   with  their chores], a sacred pause within each day's framework, [even if it    means getting up early in the morning], a long time before their families stir.    Or perhaps a quiet time at night. Barring that, there are ways of blocking off    space while sitting in a playpen separate from the children, or signifying a    time of withdrawal by a red bow on one's blouse, which children can learn        to respect and honor.

In her solid Martha days, Mary can find time while she combs her hair for at least a page of an inspirational book, or a verse from the Bible as an indirect way to influence the unconscious. Lin Yutang says we need to ponder one great thought from someone like Confucius for days. Over the years you will find books that work for you. How much need is there to experiment with new inspirational, meditation books over the tried & true? \

Martha must give Mary as much chance as possible. That includes small fellowship circles where she can gain strength & poise from the lives, examples & conversations of others. The [results of a] rest of worth is that the participant leaves with a lift of spirit, a radiance gained that adds glow to all the rest of the week. If we aren't in too great a hurry, & are willing to take even a hen's pace to enjoy this thing we have got—a chance to mature & grow through the ordinary family frame, we can be wife, mother, poet, musician, whatever our gift may be.

Techniques can be kept alive even through the busy years—letters & diaries for writing skills, some piano playing for the children, appreciation of line and color in every sunset and tree, answering factual or evaluating ques- tions for the young & adolescents, respectively. If the love of a husband can change a headstrong do-less girl into a steady & somewhat gentle helpmeet, the love of God can transform us cumbered Marthas into centered Marys, at the pace of the hen we have already chosen.

Instead of staying on the highway in writing this paper, I have run back & forth across the road many times, & could go back & forth many more times. This scattered paper is woven out of the woof of women's experience, & the warp of many well-known truths. Gertrude Stein wrote: "The commonplace isn't commonplace when it has feeling." The home is the right & natural place to begin entering the Kingdom of Heaven.

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37. Are Your Meetings Held in the Life (by Margaret M. Cary; 1947)
When we think of the word relationship in connection with church or community we are drawn . . . to the word fellowship. [Acts and Epistle verses cited: Acts1:14; 2:1, 42, 44, 46; 4:32; I Corinthian 14:26]. In Marius the Epicu- rean Walter Pater says: “The Church was true for a moment, truer perhaps- than she would ever be again, to that element of profound serenity in the soul of her Founder, which reflected the eternal goodwill of God to men.” [Or] as Thomas Kelly says, they were drowned in the overwhelming seas of the love of God, bringing them into a wholly new relation to their fellow Christians. “The center of authority is not in man, not in the group, but in the creative God Himself.

It is an observable fact that this horizontal-vertical relationship tends to weaken as the groups increases in size. One lives in a kind of circle interlock- ing with many circles, until the whole membership is permeated, [& a] network of love, [a reality of heart] for the whole meeting [is created]. Thomas R. Kelly says that continuously renewed immediacy—not receding memory of the Divine touch—lies at the base of this reality of heart. Our relationship to the meeting must have in it reality of heart, newness and freshness.

To attain to a newness of relationship with all things, people, the mee- ting, our job, we must take time to enjoy and cultivate our very own real, vital, [and creative] interests. We must get in fresh touch with the Eternal every day. The important thing is to keep creative urges as a beckoning light in the back of our minds, as a secret treasure to which we will return.

` Young mother . . . student . . . volunteer needs to find in the mee- ting for worship . . . a gathered worship, a deep and spiritual inspiration, and perhaps a spoken message or prayer which will be a point of light through- out the coming week. Some are lonely . . . some have outgoing love [to spare] ... some have great mental gifts . . . Some of excellent judgment, wisdom, and executive ability will be ideal committee workers. It is not the gift or talent that marks the worth of a woman to her meeting, but the willingness to share her treasure.

Out of the real sense of need in several meetings, these are some of the questions that have come: How can a meeting spread initiative & re- sponsibility throughout its membership instead of overworking a small group? How can a meeting absorb children who are growing up in the midst and give them those qualities which will later make for adult leadership? In the light of the existing pressures in our lives how shall a woman apportion her time among home, meeting, and other activities?

            To achieve unity in worship and in fellowship in large meeting, we sug-   gest the necessity of smaller deeply functioning, worshiping, studying, or    meditating groups. [Whatever the focus of these groups, they] must at all    times be conscious of and concerned for the meeting worship. Whatever one   shares deeply and joyfully and with reality of heart with another reflects itself     in the possibilities of greater fellowship in the larger group.
If through this circle-within-circle method, unity of worship is attained,    ways of using every talent will appear. Friends who visit those applying for    membership should find out the special interests & abilities of the applicants     & record these with the nominating committee. Someone should keep closely     in touch with new members until they feel integrated with the group.
The meeting should be a fostering group, a kind of matrix for its mem-   bers, to which individual and other problems can be brought in faith and    assurance. 1st, [there is] the nurture of young people (14-22). This nurture    should include education in Quaker beliefs & testimonies, should spring out of    young people’s classes managed largely by the young . . . but having one or    more understanding men or women [with] a deep, committed, & enlightened    concern that these young people shall be nurtured. The 2nd important group    to need nurturing is that made up of young parents. The growth and wise    development of these parents towards the day when they will assume leader-   ship of the Sunday School is a process that no meeting can afford to neglect.   The 3d section of meeting is that made up of the new members.

[As Paul said to] the young church at Corinth: “When ye come together everyone of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revela- tion, hath an interpretation.” Many of us find ourselves in the upper brackets of privilege . . . while much of the world is slowly starving to death, [without] health, shelter, employment, hope, light, or warmth. As women, mothers, wives, educators, this is enough to give us pause.

I believe that if we first fellowship with one another in and through God, come . . . with reality of heart . . . inner refreshment . . . we shall come to our meetings able to make wise choice as to our particular contribution to the mee- ting. As Henry Cadbury said: “Your performance must be according to your personal equation.” [The overworked work-horses] need to lay down the burdens for which others have a genuine gift or talent now wrapped up in a napkin.
There might well be such joy, even a holy exuberance, if we each had daily contacts with Jesus Christ. Then indeed the problems of a meeting, whether large or small, new or old, [but definitely a Blessed Community] would solve themselves. We should [then] make full-hearted response to the chal- lenge of the eternally youthful Christ: “What do ye more?”
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38. Wide Horizon (by Anna Cox Brinton; 1947)

[About the Author]—Anna Cox Brinton was born in San Jose, CA 1887; she was a Quaker pacifist. She & her husband Howard had solid back- ground of academic achievement at the colleges of Mills & Earlham, & in 1936 became co-directors of a Quaker fusion of school & community. She was AFSC Commissioner for Asia in 1946; she served as AFSC International Program director. They retired in the 1950s & lived on the Pendle Hill campus as Directors Emeriti. Anna died in 1969].

Introduction—This is the last in a series of pamphlets dealing with relationships (PHP #35-38, written by Dora Willson, Josephine Moffet Benton, Margaret M. Cary, & Anna Cox Brinton, respectively, & dealing respectively with: I to me; I to work & family; I to you & we to God; I to the universe.) My observations are an appreciation of more remote relationships which dovetail into one another, causing humanity's structure to be "fitly framed together." Just now society is undergoing its serverest strain, while individuals go on en- joying immediate surroundings & community, belying [the state of deeper] re- lationships with [humanity as a whole], their creator, & their redemption. I will paste together an album of pictures showing people, including me, as one family, & history as a process in which one's own less than microscopic part requires personal responsibility.

The Geographical Horizon—Horizon is the visual meeting of sea or land with sky as seen from a certain point. The Chinese see that point as one of 5 cardinal points or directions (i.e. traditional compass directions, & "Where I am."). [One may see further & further as the vantage point's height increases, but] one can't take in particulars. Flood, drought & famine lay no claim upon one. We live routines very quickly, moving from 1 requirement to the next, with- out time enough for important impressions to sink in, our best capacities to develop, or experiencing the full benefit of what we most enjoy; relationships suffer, ministry dwindles, & life's arts yield little.

I have seen mountain ranges & deep gorges; none of them moved me as did sunrises & sunsets on insignificant hills. [In air travel] at several hun- dred mph, "the aperture of awareness" can't open fast enough. Many of the world's magnificent architecture from the air become mere geometric pat- terns; the Colosseum & China's Great Wall are impressive from the air. I was impressed by waves rimming Crete's eastern promontory, by a fairy-like pale green circle of a coral atoll below me, the work of coral insects, & by a small bright circular rainbow above the clouds, exactly circumscribing our plane's shadow. In spite of such possibilities, flying will only to a limited degree be favorable for the sight-seer. Days or even weeks are needed for the [air] panorama to sink in; by that time much has been forgotten. Imagine a pilgri- mage made in a hurry; such a thing is unthinkable.

Universal Relatedness—As sky meets earth at the horizon, so infinity descends upon the finite, & the incomprehensible is disclosed in known characters. Here is realized humankind's longing for a purer wisdom, a more perfect life, release from impurity, profound kinship. "What manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called Children of God & such we are" (1 John 3:1). Scripture quoted in a meeting for worship, or read to one is sometimes permanently engraved upon the soul. Why do we re- member certain passages & episodes? Religious language isn't the under- stood speech of today; we have a different vernacular. Preoccupation with comfort, armament, publicity, distracts our attention from the greater self, [as does the emphasis of self-beautification over health and hardiness].

Seen from Without—How are Americans regarded outside of the US? We are seen as: scientifically clever; wealthy & wasteful; [niggardly in helping those of our own in need]; having acquired our gains by the magic of science, which can be copied with the same results. If America has so much, why should any have to struggle there for a proper share? Who is this American? Certainly they aren't the neighbors of whom we are fond, nor our friends. There are times when average opinion, the judgment of the man in the street, is cited as authority for this or that. But an average opinion is always unreliable & apt to be the opinion of no one person.

The US has a vast [faceless] crowd, unconvinced of any thorough- going theory or any spiritual doctrine. [Rather than liberating minds to a high- er calling], machines & gadgets [are used to occupy &] cause one's mind to be feebly stirred with vapid thoughts. The masses may go on as is; millions may fall prey to some tyrant moving at an accelerated pace while [God's pace], the seed and the leaven, proceed in nature's slow time. What is our responsibility for this [mind-numbed] generality? Do we discover ways "to comfort & help the weak?"

Learning and Teaching/ Schools—The schools are answerable for this situation, but we are answerable for the schools; there are not enough concerned teachers. Young people are lured into relief & social rehabilitation; they try to take hold where teaching fails. In the case of grown people it is not so necessary to offer instruction as it is to provide circumstances under which they can learn. Quaker waiting on Divine direction fits us for this kind of edu- cational technique. Waiting worship provides opportunity for those gathered to receive impressions of the Eternal & to gain strength to obey Divine require- ments. The traditional Quaker duty of "publishing the Truth," is needed now as never before; the world needs our peaceable doctrine to promote reasonable adjustment with government & a [method of conflict resolution] among governments.

The Society of Friends has its long established institutions with tried and trusted programs which determine the horizon of many of its members. How can our schools and colleges function in and for the religious life? [Even Quaker man-made institutions tend to slip their moorings once they are financially endowed to carry on a life of their own. It is important for each generation to start some new ventures to challenge the old.

Cultural Ebb/ Civil Responsibility/ Relief Abroad—On the horizon inadequacies sometimes appear which escape notice nearer home. We can't excuse ourselves from taking a wide view by saying our [national] dilemma is a world dilemma. The few great personalities now living are outside our pro- sperous limits. Where do we now see hero or prophet? The nature of our religious calling prevents us from [limiting the scope of our actions to a narrow field or a few individuals. Our religion calls for extended effort [without guaran- tee of success.]

This effort includes having a foothold in the national and international    morass. One might wonder why one still admires martyrs when so nearly all    appear personally content with a reasonable course. [Some are even content]    to acquiesce in the absolutist requirements of totalitarian governments. [We    need to pray with our lives and actions as well as our words] "Thy kingdom    come." The need now is for a general, steady willingness to take responsibi-   lity for producing the right corporate decisions.
A few here & there can prove that sincere sympathy exists, though relief adequate for the need isn't coming. The message of good will must be more    effectually & more valiantly expressed, because it isn't by its nature to propa- `gate by mass methods. One [spiritual golden thread] isn't adequate to guide a    multitude; there is enough thread to go around. That hosts of dedicated souls    may exist is for us an educational and spiritual responsibility.
  Peace—Crop of evils fertilized by war are so luxuriant that it seems    impossible to find wheat among the tares. How do we make in our desert a    pathway for Peace? How can we develop relatedness that will really    bind? [Traveling the world, meeting & studying people] isn't enough to assure    harmony. Young men of parts made the grand tour to be rid of provincialism.    Many tourists, [especially Americans, civilian & military], carry home ways with    them. [In travel], the essential point is this: How has one become or not    become a part of what one has met? It is in homely circumstances, partici-   pation in local life, critical emergency, words spoken, music remembered,         slow tasks completed, that we establish connections & our horizon's limits.

Often, simple circumstance opens a window showing an unthought-of vista: in a young family on horseback in the western mountains; a little boy & his baby uncle; a country sending wood to "pave the streets around the Pan- theon so that United Italy's 1st 2 kings may slumber in quiet." An Englishman & 2 Chinese were in a prison camp together; each was rationed a bowl of rice a day. The Englishman & elderly Chinese ate their rice deliberately; the young Chinese ate his in greedy haste, then begged for some of theirs. The Englishman soon balked at giving his. The old Chinese remarked, "No, We should give. Unblessed is he who has & gives not."

Imagination/ Personal Experience—Imagination plays an immea- surable part in determining the scope of one's horizon. At the horizon's rim or near it is that part of the realm of fancy to which we slip away for pure refresh- ment, like a seashore vacation. We come home with a greater relish for the real, because we have stepped outside it. It may be because we are so tho- roughly enmeshed in "that to which the heart is accustomed" that it is hard for us to introduce even the most obvious improvements, even though all may want it.
As far as emergencies are concerned average people in easy circum- stances often remain in unbroken comfort throughout a lifetime. Not a few men and women have found in war or relief work the acute experience they lacked. Camping pioneering, exploration to some degree offer substitutes. New anodynes prevent mothers from hearing the 1st cry of the new born, thus obliterating a major moment of primitive joy. Anesthetics have done away with the dying words which were so often treasured by our ancestors.

With all our improvements, mental disorder, at least in this country, is on the increase. Though we trust ourselves to the scientific expert, there is much that each has to do, God helping, for one's self. When a depressed wo- men said she felt as if she were hanging by the tips of her fingers, my grand- mother replied with true Christian eldership, "Let go dear, and thee will find that underneath are the Everlasting Arms."

Developing Gifts/ The Arts of Home—For a race to know how to use its capacities & able & willing to take responsibility, religion & education must work together. In divine ordering of life, God's love takes the initiative, giving power to the obedient to be God's sons. [Educating individual minds this way may mean small class sizes or 1-on-1 instruction. John Woolman says: "charge of no more Children than he can take due Care...keeps Authority in Truth ... his Labors ... open Understandings [of] ... Christian Life ... Charge of too many ... & Thoughts & Time are ... employed in outward Affairs ... the State of [both] his Mind & the Minds of the Children Suffer.
The arts & sciences of home life have been replaced by labor-saving devices, [in the name of saving time]. What has become of the saved time from labor-saving devices? Where are the extended family members that could be counted on for baby-sitting? When old style multiple-family homes were well-ordered, there was a freedom that is hard to duplicate as things are now. In the one-family household, young children are dependent on the mother, who is no longer free to attend a day meeting, do religious service or prepare for entertaining & edifying numbers of persons. [In the past], much of responsibility for relatedness rested on the woman.

If our Religious Society is to continue we need to disentangle ourselves from the tyranny of our present arrangements. Freedom to carry out religious concerns should be neither old-fashioned nor modern; it ought to be a general human asset, [equally available to both men & women]. We must give way to the drawing which we feel to help one another, "to keep things sweet & savory in the family of Christ." No less training than that taught by the Holy Spirit is required to maintain our ideal of a "free gospel ministry exercised in its fresh life & power."

Inter-visitation/ That Unity, Love & Sweetness Might Prevail—[My family of origin] took naturally to migration [& religious visits] "traveling in love of Truth." In the Friends' 1st generation, Biblical precedent was cited for women called upon to leave home. George Fox observed that Moses & Aaron didn't say, "You are fitter to stay home to wash dishes." Religious travels required long forethought & weighty Friends' approval. Anna Braith- waite's biographer wrote: "Her 7 children were then at the ... age ... [when] a mother's influence is of great importance ... As she was persuaded that no duties, rightly understood, can ever conflict with one another, she was ... desi- rous that ... her duties to family shouldn't be neglected...

           The course which ... commended itself to her ... [divided] her American    engagements into 3 visits. She was led to cross the Atlantic 6 times, [involving    an average of 6 weeks each of] distressing sea-sickness ... Spending the    intervals between visits in the bosom of family ... [was] ample compensation    for additional suffering..." Inter-visitation created & preserved vitality among    scattered groups within a country & internationally; the horizon was enlarged   both for the visitors & the visited.
George Fox wrote letters to the: Emperor of China; Grand Turk; legen-   dary Prester John; & Roman Pope, calling for "unity, love, & sweetness." [Not    seeing] love & sweetness, he said: "Hearken mountains & give ear mighty    earth-foundations—all nations, ... tongues, ... scoffers, revilers—Your kings    tremble & your Princes... Captains, Spoilers; a voice of trembling is heard, &    not of peace; ye shall all melt away, beating down one another as you go." He    had good sight for things temporal [near & far]; his vision wasn't less clear for    things eternal. "Broad is the way that leadeth to destruction" is intended to    focus & intensify an over-expanded gaze.
  Limitations/ Conclusion—Within the wide horizon there are many    evil plights. Each must do what one feels called upon to do or, what one feels    free or content in undertaking. We aren't permitted to take a small view of   our Christian responsibility; we must profess only that which we possess; we    do what we can to increase the use of available ability for carrying out our mission. "Wherever the limit is beyond which we cannot see or think or aspire, that meeting place of the visible and invisible is our horizon. Beyond that we    should not try to push. Between the articulate few and the inarticulate many    there is a lag. We would like to surpass our ancestors, but it is unlikely that we    shall. "How much more like our parents we are than we ever intended to be."

There is still set before us an open door; because we look toward the wide horizon "the world's burden of suffering" is laid upon us. We pray that we may truly draw more upon Divine resources & order our lives to give the high- est claims precedence. "Let us return home, light our candle, sweep our house, & we shall find the zeal, power & purity of soul to make our worship acceptable & our lives blameless. If we are faithful, we shall gradually per- ceive unveiled in [the far view of the horizon] its full meaning for humanity, the mystery of relatedness.

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39. Christianity & Civilization (Burge Memorial Lecture, 1940, at

Oxford; by Arnold J. Toynbee; 1947)

[About the Author]—Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889–1975) was a British historian, philosopher, author of numerous books and research pro- fessor of international history. Toynbee in the 1918–1950 period was a lea- ding specialist on international affairs. He is best known for his 12-volume A Study of History (1934–1961). With his great volume of papers, articles, speeches and presentations, and numerous books translated into many languages, Toynbee was a widely read and discussed scholar in the 1940s and 1950s.

Introduction—In May of 1940, England was facing a crisis which was certainly not less formidable than the one that is confronting her now, in 1947. The crises of peace are in some ways more difficult to wrestle with than those of war; in war everything is simpler and clearer to the public interest at stake. It is as true in 1947 as it was in 1940 that nations like individuals can only be saved by themselves.

Western Europe's decline might still be as serious for the prospect of civilization as was the decline of Greece in the last century B.C. Our secular life in this world is only a fragment of some larger life of higher spiritual dimen- sions, and there is no reason for supposing that the spiritual welfare of the kingdom of God is jeopardized by our temporal misfortunes in this world.

We are at grips with something that transcends the limits of human understanding & experience. [Humankind cannot wait to act until they have attained that fullness of knowledge which is always beyond their reach. Advances in our understanding of [the workings of physical nature do not] appreciably diminish the infinite expanse of our ignorance. [It] has not been accompanied by any corresponding increase in spiritual enlightenment. The universe as we see it through Western eyes is not the true picture of the universe as it is. From God's eternal standpoint, we may be sure that it is no more than a mirage. We have to shift our attention from the physical nature to the life of the spirit; from the creature to the creator.

[Christianity: Destroyer of Civilization]—This university's motto [is]: Dominus Illuminatio Mea (The Lord is my Light). If the truth about this Uni- versity is told in those three Latin words, then we know for certain that the light by which we live will not go out. My subject this afternoon is the relation between Christianity and civilization. One of the oldest and most persistent views is that Christianity was the destroyer of the civilization within whose framework it grew.

In The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon’s writes: “I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion.” I believe there is a fallacy in this view. I think Gibbon’s initial error lies in supposing that the ancient civili- zation of the Graeco-Roman world began to decline in [the Age of the Anto- nines,] the 2nd century after Christ. I think it really began to decline in the 5th Century before Christ [and] it died, not by murder, but by suicide. The philo- sophies arose [in this decline] because the civic life of that civilization had already destroyed itself by turning itself in to an idol to which men paid an exorbitant worship.

From his peak in the 18th century Gibbon looks back to the Antonine peak in the 2nd Century. That view has been put very clearly by [Sir James Frazer]. It is the formal antithesis of the thesis . . . I want to maintain. He writes: “Greek and Roman society was built on the conception of the subordi- nation of the individual to the community, of the citizen to the state. . . All this was changed by the spread of Oriental religions which [instilled] the com- munion [& salvation] of the soul with God as the only objects worth living for.

Thus the center of gravity was shifted from the present to a future life . . . a general disintegration of the body politic set in. The state's & family ties were loosened. The revival of Roman law, of the Aristotelian philosophy, of ancient art and literature at the close of the Middle Ages [1,000 years later], marked the return of Europe to native ideals of life and conduct, to saner, manlier views of the world [& an ebbing of the tide of the Oriental invasion].” I would agree with Frazer that the tide of Christianity has been ebbing and that our post-Christian Western secular civilization . . . is of the same order as the Pre-Christian Graeco-Roman civilization.

[Christianiity & Transition of Civilization]—A 2nd possible view [is that] Christianity is a transitional thing which bridges the gap between one civilization & another. After an interval [of decline of over 700 years] you find in 9th Century Byzantium and the 13th Century West . . . a new secular civilization arising out of the ruins of its Graeco-Roman predecessor. [When you] take the other higher religions which are still living on in the world of today . . . you can see the role of Islam as a chrysalis between ancient Israel and Iran and the modern Islamic civilization of the Near and Middle East. Hinduism seems to bridge a gap . . . between the modern Hindu culture and the Aryas' ancient culture; Buddhism seems to play the same part as a mediator between the modern history of the Far East and the history of ancient China.

If you look at the histories of the ancient civilization of South-Western Asia and Egypt, you find there a rudimentary higher religion in the form of the worship of a god and a related goddess. I think you can see that this rudimen- tary higher religion . . . played the historical role of filling a gap where there was a break in secular civilization's continuity. However . . . this apparent “law” does not always hold good. Between the Minoan and Graeco civiliza- tions you do not find any higher religion corresponding to Christianity. If you go back behind the ancient civilization of Aryan India, you'll find a still more ancient pre Aryan civilization in the Indus Valley . . . but you do not seem to find any higher religion intervening between the two. It is between [the more recent] civilizations . . . that the intervention of a higher religion seems to be the rule.

[Christianity: Transcendence or Repetition of Civilization]—A 3rd possible view of the relation between civilizations and higher religion [is that] the breakdowns and disintegrations of civilizations [& the resulting suffering] might be stepping-stones to higher things on the religious plane. The Chris- tian Church has Jewish and Zoroastrian roots, & those roots sprang from an earlier breakdown of a Syrian civilization. [Abraham & Moses] were precur- sors of Christ; and the sufferings through which they won their enlightenment were Stations of the Cross in anticipation of the Crucifixion. The continuous upward movement of religion may be served and promoted by the cyclic movement of civilizations around the cycle of birth—death—birth.

Our own Western post-Christian secular civilization might at best be a superfluous repetition of the ancient Graeco-Roman one. We have obvi- ously, for a number of generations past, been living on spiritual capital, I mean clinging to Christian practice without possessing the Christian belief— and practice unsupported by belief is a wasting asset.
Our present view of modern history focuses attention on the rise of modern Western secular civilization as the latest great new event in world. If we can bring ourselves to think of it as one of the Gentiles' vain repetitions, then the greatest new event . . . will still be the Crucifixion & its spiritual con- sequences. On the old-fashioned time scale [where] creation of the world [took] place not more than 6,000 years, 1,900 years seems a long period of time. [On the longer geological time-scale] it is a very recent event.

[Christianity, Roman Empire, & Kingdom of Heaven]—At its 1st appearance Christianity was provided by the Graeco-Roman civilization with a universal state (the Roman Empire), [which aided] Christianity’s spread around the shores of the Mediterranean. Our modern Western secular civilization in its turn may serve its historical purpose by providing Christia- nity with a worldwide repetition of the Roman Empire.

Just as Clement’s and Origen’s work infused Greek philosophy into Christianity at Alexandria . . . so the present religions of India and the form of Buddhism practiced in the Far East may contribute new elements to be grafted onto Christianity in days to come. And if it is civilization that is the means and religion that is the end . . . then Christianity may be expected not only to endure [the end of West civilization], but to grow in wisdom and stature as the result of a fresh experience of secular catastrophe.

What is the relation of the Christian Church to the Kingdom of Heaven? As the primitive species of societies has given place to civilizations . . . local & ephemeral [civilizations] may perhaps give way to a single world- wide & enduring representative in the shape of the Christian Church. If this were to happen, would it mean that the Kingdom of Heaven would then have been established on Earth? Unless & until human nature itself under- goes a moral mutation which would make an essential change in its cha- racter, the possibility of evil as well as good will be born into the world afresh with every child. Human society on Earth will not be able wholly to dispense with institutions [from which comes the binding power of] partly habit and partly force.

The institutional element has historically been dominant in the Church herself. The Church in its traditional form thus stands forth armed with the spear of the Mass, the shield of the Hierarchy and the helmet of the Papacy. I think that the institutions created, or adopted and adapted, by Christianity are the toughest and most enduring of any that we know & are therefore the most likely to last. The institutional element in the traditional Catholic, however necessary it is to survival, [is of earthly origin] & keeps it forever [earthbound and] different from the Kingdom of Heaven.

[Christianity & Progress]—The last topic I am going to touch [is] that of the relation between Christianity and progress. Religious progress means spiritual progress, and spirit mean personality; religious progress must take place in the spiritual lives of individual personalities. Are higher religions essentially and incurably anti-social? Are spiritual and social values antithetical and inimical to each other?

The doctrine of the Trinity is the theological way of expressing the revelation that God is a spirit; the doctrine of the Redemption is the theologi- cal way of expressing the revelation that God is Love. Seeking God is a social act The human soul that is truly seeking to save itself is as fully social a being as the ant-like Spartan or the bee-like Communist. The Christian soul is a citizen of the Kingdom of God, and therefore the paramount aim is com- munion with, and likeness to God.

Relations with fellow humans are consequences of, and corollaries to, one’s relations with God. The social aims of mundane societies will be achieved much more successfully [in the Church Militant] than they ever have been or can be in a mundane society that aims at these objects direct, and at nothing higher. The aim and test of progress under a truly Christian dispensa- tion on Earth would be the spiritual life of individual souls in their passages through this earthly life from birth into this world to death out of it.
Until this Earth ceases to be physically habitable by Man, we may ex- pect that the endowments of individual human beings with original sin & with natural goodness will be about the same as they've always been. The matter in which there might be spiritual progress [in the long-term] is the opportunity open to souls, for getting into closer communion with God, & becoming less unlike God, during their passage through This World.

What Christ has bequeathed to the Church and what the Church has preserved for generations is a growing fund of revelation [illumination] as to God's true nature and the true end of humankind here and hereafter, and the inspiration [grace] to aim at getting into closer communion with God. Is the spiritual opportunity given by Christianity an indispensable condition for salvation? If this were so, then innumerable generations of humans would have been born & have died without a chance of the salvation which is the true end of humans and the true purpose of life on Earth.

[Christianity & Human Soul]—The hypothesis that individual human souls existed for the sake of society, and not for their own sake or for God’s is repugnant and inconceivable when we are dealing with the history of religion, where the progress of individual souls towards God and not the progress of society is the end on which the supreme value is set. We must believe that the possibilities of learning through suffering in This World have always affor- ded a sufficient means of salvation to every soul that has made the best of the spiritual opportunity offered to it here.

A soul which has been offered, and has [accepted] the illumination & the grace that Christianity conveys will be more brightly irradiated with light of the Other World than a pagan soul that has won salvation by making the best of the narrower opportunity here open to it. The Christian soul can attain, while still on Earth, a greater measure of humankind’s greatest good than can be attained by any pagan soul in the earthly stage of its existence. It is indivi- dual spiritual progress in This Word for which we pray when we say “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” It is for the salvation that is open to all men of good will—pagan and Christian—who make the most of their spiri- tual opportunities on Earth that we pray when we say “Thy Kingdom come.”

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40. Quaker Message (extracts of Quaker belief & practice & present

significance by Sidney Lucas; 1948)
The Inward Light--[Up to the mid-17th Century] Theologians had turned away from the revelation of life for the world here and instead constructed a plan or scheme of salvation for another world. Quakerism was a fresh attempt to recover the way of life revealed in the New Testament; to re-interpret it & re- live it in this world. It was part of a wider movement to restore primitive Christi- anity and to change the basis of authority from external things to the interior life and spirit of humans.

Friends made the fundamental truth of the Inward Light the actual foun- dation for their whole religious system. We believe that the religion of Jesus Christ is primarily spiritual in its essence, and that every follower [has available to them] direct personal intercourse with God through [God’s spirit acting] in the human heart. Some may have looked on Quakerism as an exalted type of social service. But it is our aim to call people back to the light of God in their own souls.
William Penn said: . . . “Quakers lay down as a main fundamental . . . that God through Christ hath placed a principle in every one to inform them of their duty, & to enable them to do it.” George Fox said: “Your teacher is within you: look not forth; it will teach you both lying in bed and going abroad, to shun all occasion of sin and evil. . . Preach freely and bring people off from these outward temples . . . and direct them to the spirit and Grace of God in themselves . . . [and to] Christ, their free teacher.” The significant watchword of the new discovery was the Universal saving light.

[Today] people may differ as to its explanation, but they cannot deny that there is something in human nature that responds to truth and beauty & love. The victory [over departures from the true way of life] comes from the consciousness of a strength not our own. The light that shines into the human heart isn't of man, & must be distinguished from the conscience & the natural faculty of reason. The Inward Light was a divine clearness which enlightened and gradually built up the conscience, & it taught an intuitive wis- dom beyond reasoned argument.

The Moral Sense, the realization of a clear distinction between right & wrong & of an imperative to choose the former if one is to be true to oneself is the most distinctive feature of the divine life within us. We speak now of the conscience as the faculty within us which discriminates between right and wrong . . . and we regard this faculty as constantly subject to divine illumi- nation.
The doctrine of the spirit's indwelling has been to Friends a practical faith embracing with its scope the whole of human life. Hence, little account is made of the popular distinction between things secular and things religious; every employment that isn't wrong may be accounted holy. Obedience to the Inward Light heightens & quickens personality enlarges the power of percep- tion, and renders possible things impossible before.

With readiness to go forward there must also be willingness to wait. The great tradition of guidance can only be maintained as we are enabled faithfully to wait on the God's voice. We do need the individual interpreta- tion of the facts of life, [but] it needs checking and criticizing & correcting by measuring it against the corporate community conscience. “The Spirit of Truth, “God,” “Christ,” “the holy spirit,” “The seed of God,” “the Light” ([i.e.] the principle of good in all) are metaphors used to express something too deep for words. We can make our faith in its existence the bridge in our approach to all whom we meet.

Communion with God—The more our engagements multiply, the greater is the call to watch unto prayer [and communion with God]. We be- lieve in prayer as a power in the world, & we need to pray in expectation of definite results. Prayer doesn't need many words. It is more often a case of an inner attitude, a lifting up of the work to be done & a surrendering of our will about it. Silence [instead of grace] may check our thought amid the rush of outward life, and call us to an inward act of devotion, by which the meal may be made a sacrament.

It is important to recognize the difference between private and public worship. The individual experience [is helpful] but not sufficient. In the Mee- ting for Worship . . . a corporate sense of the divine presence is reached. In a meeting for worship the worshipers are like the spokes of a wheel. The nearer they come to the centre of all Life the near they are to each other. Silence is one of the best preparations for such communion. It may be sheer emptiness, an absence of words . . .

But it may be an intensified pause, vitalized hush, a creative quiet, an actual moment of reciprocal correspondence with God. Though there be not a word spoken, yet is the true spiritual worship performed. The function of meeting is to bring lift to life, vision to the soul, fortification for tasks that are before us. George Fox was always anxious to bring men to “sit under their own vine; to ‘fix their eyes on Christ their teacher’ and not to depend on him self or any other preacher or leader.

True ministry is not simply the expression of views of truth or ideals of conduct. We need to wait for that sense of call that comes to us from God through the fellowship of hearts that are bound into harmony by the flowing through them of the tides of God’s living presence. We covet for our church, not only a ministry which springs up out of the life of the Meeting itself, but also the utterance of a message in apostolic power, which will triumph over spiritual deadness and opposition in the congregation. Fox said, “If any have anything upon them to speak, in the life of God stand up and speak, if it be but two or three words, and sit down again.”

The sacraments derive their origin from the Church and not from the mind of Christ, or from his clear commands. In Baptism we have the change from a convert's complete immersion, to the sprinkling of an unconscious infant. In the Eucharist we have the change from common meal to solemn rite. [The Biblical evidence for both sacraments aren't part of the original gos- pel content, but were later insertions]. Quakers find from their religious expe- rience that Communion and the cleansing and renewing baptism of his Spirit are possible without ritual. [We see] ritual as leading to confusion between outward sign and inward reality.

Neither a majority nor a minority should allow itself in way to overbear or to obstruct a meeting for church affairs in its course towards a decision. We are unlikely to reach truth or wisdom if one section imposes its will on an- other [as in taking a vote. We rely on] attaining a group consciousness of the course to take.

Our objection to forms is that they would confine us to that which is too little—they hamper and check the living exercise of the spirit which is neces- sary for real worship & inward growth. Some theology and some practice in common there is bound to be, though it may be left fluid & welcome change.

Conceptions of God—There is a vast difference between know- ledge about God and knowledge of God [i.e.] a recognition of God’s pre- sence in the experience of [one’s] own heart. The scriptures are unique and irreplaceable not because they are inspired as no other writings are, nor be- cause they are preserved miraculously free from . . . error, but because they record the main stages in the discovery or revelation of God's great truths. Friends accepted the Bible as inspired, but they wouldn't call it the “Word of God” because for them it was not the final rule of faith and duty. Early Quaker testimony had: freedom from literal acceptance of the scripture; new ideas on pre-Christian and non-Christian people; true following of the New Testa- ment Christianity. We highly value . . . the Scriptures . . . but we believe that the Light of Christ alone can implement and interpret them.

God can't be ethically present in the unethical; God can't be perso- nally present in the impersonal. God can only be entirely present in a being capable of containing & expressing God’s essential truth. The essence of religion appears to be the recognition of divine purpose in the world, and the endeavor to make that purpose our own. Faith is not being free of doubt, any more than courage is being free from fears. Faith is a determination to act on something we aren't quite sure about. The center of faith is belief in our- selves [what we can do spiritually]; belief in God is only its reasonable un- folding. Belief in God is an act of our whole nature by which we take hold of the unseen and the eternal and are able to have communion with it.

[Our] attempts to express the nature of God [are best described by] Maximus of Trye in the 2nd Century A.D.: “God, the father & fashioner of all that is, older than the sun or sky, greater than time and eternity, and all the flow of being; is unnameable by any lawgiver, unutterable by any voice, not to be seen by any eye. But we, being unable to apprehend his essence, use the help of sounds & names & pictures [of this world] . . . yearning for the knowledge of him, and . . . naming all that is beautiful in this world after his nature.” The creative power is in the world . . . and it is ceaselessly active. The God we have found is not omnipotent but evolutionary, progressive, growing in power and revelation of God’s self.

The central fact in the religious history of humankind is Jesus Christ's life & personality. The 1st thing we need to know is that God is like Christ, not that Christ is like God. [Some overemphasize Christ’s divinity; some overem- phasize Christ’s humanity]. Jesus shows us the divine life humanly lived and the human life divinely lived. The 1st Christians were conscious of his present guiding spirit; Christ’s authority for them was internal not external. Fox chal- lenged his hearers: “You will say ‘Christ said this, and the apostles say this’, but what canst thou say?” We shall believe many things because [Jesus] said them . . . But we must go on to something further if his work for and in us is to be completed; the Jesus of history must become the Christ of our experience.

War & Peace—Be faithful in maintaining our testimony against all war   as inconsistent with the spirit and teaching of “Christ. Live in the life & power that takes away the occasion of all wars. War & Christianity are contradictory ways of life. We utterly deny all outward wars and strife, & fightings with out-   ward weapons, for any end, or under any pretence whatever. . . The Spirit of    Christ . . . will never move us to fight and war against any man.
The 4 fundamental grounds for opposition to war are: New Testament    (external authority); Conscience (internal authority); Personality (transforming    power of love and the supreme worth of personal life; Irrationality (insanity of    war). We do not rest our witness for peace on isolated texts; war is a contra-   diction of the message, spirit, work, and life of Jesus Christ. It isn't consistent for anyone to claim that his Christianity as a way of life stops him from war,    unless he is prepared to adjust his entire life. Fox proposed to live in such a    spirit that no thought or word is sowing seeds of conflict. We probe into our lives, to search out seeds of war, which may find nourishment in our selfish-   ness or our clinging to material possessions.
The man who compromises day by day with his religious ideals can't    easily stand out suddenly for them in the moment of crises. When pacifism    becomes simply a refusal to fight it has lost the virtue [& ability to convert an    opponent]. It must be an active power that makes peace. Our conviction that    all war is unchristian prevents us from giving military service to the state, but    calls us to serve our nation in others way even at the cost of much personal    sacrifice. There is a right and possible way for the family of nations to live together at peace. It is the way exemplified in Jesus Christ's life & teaching.

There can be no great civilization, no enduring peace, no fellowship of nations . . . without the culture of the spirit & . . . the principles of life which lie at the heart of Christ’s message and way of life. Quakerism recognizes that religion has a definite ethical principle . . . for the guidance of humanity, a principle which strikes at the root of injustice, and should eliminate all the causes of war—that of the infinite worth of all human personality. We must care for the soul [by working] for conditions in which the spirit is free.

Quakerism and Society—In your daily work, & in your social & other activities, be concerned for the establishment of the Kingdom of heaven upon earth. While making provision for yourselves & your families, be not too anxious, but in quietness of spirit seek 1st the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness. To be able to transcend money, culture, & color bars, & free of all dividing prejudices, is the function of a Quaker. The foundation of Jesus' teaching of is the unlimited love of God to all. Religion is man’s response to that love.

The central thought in Quakerism, the thought of the indwelling spirit of God in all, must find an outward expression in service, [such as assuring] the opportunity of full development, physical, moral, and spiritual . . . to the whole community. True service is true worship's outward form. Finding God's Will in relation to society & industry is [done by]: stimulating members to experiment . . . with creating a standard higher than the conventional one; and educating public opinion toward a clearer understanding of the implication of Jesus' teachings, which haven't yet been worked out in the [larger community]. The thing that matters in our social structure is human personality; we shall not allow ourselves to lose this essential fact in abstractions. We shall go behind [them] . . . to the people who make them up and who are the only realities that give meaning to the words.

The great task of the future [in industry] is to see that deciding what is produced shall be done in the consumer’s interest, for whose ultimate benefit both Government & industry exist, with the profit motive occupying a place of small importance. We must accept our share of responsibility for finding a liberal, democratic, & Christian approach to the new society. Friends in their work try to be constructive, & therefore have never just given charitable relief, but have tried . . . to help men & women to a creative activity of their own— to restore their self-respect and help them to feel that they are wanted.

Not by exploiting and impoverishing our neighbor, but by strengthening them economically will we be able to reap personal benefits. Every individual needs to make their own contribution to [solving social problems through making] changes in themselves, their environment, and their personal rela- tionships. Jesus didn't work for people; he became as one of them & worked with them. Many evils arise from the inadequate systems for dealing with economic forces in industry. The Society of Friends asserts that [economic] evils around us are not inevitable; it is within human ability & power to order economic life on a rational and Christian basis.
We ask friends to be considerate as to the extent to which they make others work on the 1st day of the week. The 1st-day of the week should be a time for worship and religious service, fostering family life, rest and leisure, & intellectual and spiritual refreshment. We believe that all forms of gambling & all merely speculative means of obtaining money are contrary to Christ’s spirit; it is also a symptom of unrest, of a craving for excitement & relief from life’s tedium. John Woolman’s chief objection to consumption of spirituous liquors was that it hindered communion with God. We believe that the coun- try's social drinking customs are largely responsible for lapses into intempe- rance of many in all classes of society, who would otherwise be useful citizens.

We recognize it as our Christian duty to inform ourselves regarding those of other races & nationalities within our own country, & regarding other nations having a civilization different from our own, [in order to] establish a high standard of conduct toward them. Concern & cooperation with the Ameri- can Negro’s full attainment of civil liberties is the current focus of our work. No task is so fundamental or urgent as that of converting the brotherhood of man from a respected phrase to a living practice.

The terrible sufferings of our forefathers in 17th century prisons have given Friends a special interest in prison management and the treatment of crime. Society is in measure responsible for the criminal, a fact which empha- sizes the duty of meeting moral failure by redemptive care. While condemning unrighteous acts, we should also seek to have offenders treated in a manner conducive to strengthening moral character. We have often expressed our ob- jection to capital punishment; it fails as a deterrent. Many crimes are closely connected with property; it seems to many that most crime is traceable to possessing private property and unequal wealth distribution. Quaker principles applied to our life as citizens demand an unceasing care to see that the laws are good [and fair].

Social service as a vocation can best be undertaken by those especi-   ally qualified by training. But there remains for every individual an opportunity    for service in daily life and at special times. It is the duty of society consi-   dered a fellowship to help every citizen to gain the best life; it is the duty of    each citizen to do his part to create, maintain, and enrich that fellowship.
He is the truest patriot who benefits his country without diminishing    another’s welfare. One who works to improve the civic, economic, social, and    moral condition of his country is more truly patriotic than one who exalts one’s nation at the expense of others or supports and justifies its action irre-   spective of right or justice.
Friends recognize the obligation of obedience to the government or    else of submission to its authority, as the Inward Light leads: acceptance of the penalties of disobedience where conscience does not allow conformity;    efforts by non-violent means only, to change objectionable principles, practi-   ces, and laws. The something of God in all is the final court of appeal & not    the church, or the bible, or the state.

A living religious community ought to be from its very nature in some respects ahead of the State of which its members are citizens; there is at times a conflict between good and best. In political resistance emphasis is placed on citizen’s rights; in religious resistance the emphasis must rather be on duties. Early Friends didn't regard State policy as a non-religious matter. When called to serve in public office, Friends should consider the public good rather than personal preference and convenience.

Personal Witness for the Truth—Maintain that charity which suffe- reth long & is kind. Put the best construction upon the conduct & opinions one of another which circumstances will warrant. [When] it may be neces- sary to disclose the failings of others be well satisfied as to the purity of your own motives. Our attitude towards life should tend to free us from the bon- dage of material things, & make us concerned to give the first place to the things of the spirit.

Such service is hindered by the love of money [and possession]. Friends should seek to discern how much of their income or property can be spared & wisely distributed for the benefit of others. Simplicity doesn't mean that our lives shall be poor and bare, destitute of enjoyment and beauty, but the possessions or activities that capture the heart and lessen our simple & steadfast devotion to the cause of the Kingdom of God must go.

Business in its essence is a vast and complex movement of social ser- vices; however, some may abuse its methods for private ends. Sincerity of speech is closely allied to simplicity and has an emphasis on essentials and a suppression of the corrupt or false. Care is needed to avoid and discourage the insincerities and extravagances that are prevalent in the social world. Re- garding oaths, Pythagoras says: “Let no man call God to witness by an oath, no, not in judgment; but let every man so accustom himself to speak, that he may become worthy to be trusted even without an oath. We regard the taking of oaths as contrary to the teaching of Christ, and as setting up a double standard of truthfulness.

The completeness of the response of Friends to the Inward Light led to exceptional sensitiveness to moral issues. If we are possessed of a conside- rate and helpful kindliness, and by a gentle and graciousness which reflects the Christ life, our neighbors are at once made happier and stronger and more able to bear their own burdens.
Publishing the Truth—The aim of education is the full & harmonious development of the human spirit's resources. Seek for your children that full development of God’s gifts which true education can bring. Be zealous that education may be continued throughout life, & that its privileges may be shared by all. Education’s task is that of helping people at all stages of their lives to achieve an inner harmony, and a wholeness which will develop the creative possibilities of the individual to their fullest capacity. Quaker schools: provide for the education of children in a free and definitely anti-militarist atmosphere; give many opportunities for educational experiments; are an indispensable means of helping to maintain and spread our view of truth.

We come into the world endowed with a natural capacity for reaching out after all that's good, with an instinct for the things that give life & joy. Truth, being so much greater than our conception of it, we should ever be making fresh discoveries; complete knowledge is always beyond us. We must not overstress one aspect of truth to the exclusion of other truth.

George Fox wrote: “Let all nations hear the sound by word or writing. Spare no place, spare no tongue nor pen; be obedient to the Lord God; go through the world and be valiant for the truth upon earth; tread and trample all that is contrary under. Be patterns, be examples in all countries wherever you come.” While the Truth is eternal, our understanding of it should enlarge, and our expression of it must change.

Often we have been too modest to preach Quakerism outside our own meeting, and so we preach Christianity, but a Christianity that leaves a place for a certain kind of war in the hearts of the people we convert. The Christian missionary discovers God & humankind. In Publishing the Truth, our service lies in a world of humans, every one of whom has the divine seed within them. When noble impulses are stirred within, let us be quick to respond by word or deed. [If not responded to] such impulses deaden the conscience.

We hold that liberty of conscience is the common right of all men and essential to the well-being of society. When, therefore, the Government re- quires of any that which is prohibited by one’s conscience, the duty of civil disobedience ceases. Christianity requires the toleration of opinions not our own lest we should unwittingly hinder the workings of the spirit of God.
Penn reminds us that the humble, meek, merciful, just, pious, and devout souls are everywhere of one religion [e.g. heathens, Turks, Jews, all the several sorts of Christians]. Man is only truly man as he receives and obeys the inner voice. Many seeking men have experienced this through- out history,even before Christ. We believe that Jesus’ revelation of God as Love is the highest concep-tion of God possible. Our conception of God & of Christ is distinctly westernized, and to that extent partial & limited; we are increasingly coming to see that the East has its contribution to make to the full experience of God in Christ.

Can we not rise to the thought and the practice of a great Quaker brotherhood, organized to serve the world of God’s children by changing the unnatural anger and aversion which makes them enemies into that loving cooperation which will turn the whole world into a Society of friends?
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Sunday, July 24, 2016

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