USA > Ohio > Miami County > West Milton > Centennial anniversary of West Branch Monthly Meeting of Friends, 1807-1907 > Part 9
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The Puritans under Cromwell, and the Quakers un- der Fox, both resisted the tyranny of the king, the former with a carnal sword; the latter with the sword of the Spirit. The Puritans slew the soldiers of the king, and finally the king himself. They took control of the government, and while they had been fighting, ostensibly for religious and political liberty, they were little less tyrannous than the king.
The method of the Friends was to protest against the tyranny, boldly proclaiming a gospel that showed the iniquity of both royal and Puritan methods. They suffered continually fines, imprisonment and stripes, but never resisted by brute force. The Puritan meth- od failed utterly ; the Stuart line of kings was re- stored, and persecution went on. The Quakers con- tinued to preach a gospel of love, continued to pro- test and continued to suffer for their testimony, until the people, the magistrates and the crown became ashamed of the persecution of non-resistant persons, who were claiming political and religious liberty, not for themselves alone, but for all people alike. A de- cree abolishing religious persecution was issued, and the Quakers, without destroying a life, won for them- selves and for their belligerent Puritan brethren, who had failed to secure it by force, the inestimable boon of religious freedom.
William Penn was one of those suffering Friends who had won this great victory by peaceful protest and suffering. It was his belief that a government could be established and maintained upon the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Having received a grant of a splendid tract of land from the King in payment of a debt owed by the sovereign to Penn's father, he undertook what he was pleased to call his "Holy Ex-
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periment." The result was the development in Penn- sylvania of the most prosperous of the English colonies in America. Penn brought with him no troops, he built no forts. He tried to establish absolute justice for all men irrespective of race, color, or religion, and for seventy years, or as long as the Friends controlled the government of Pennsylvania it had no Indian wars, no oppressive trade monopolies, and was a dem- onstration of the practicability of the Quaker idea of government. After a time others than Friends ob- tained control, and Pennsylvania lost its distinction for peace and honesty.
While William Penn was founding his "Holy Ex- periment," Europe was in the throes of one of the bloodiest wars of the Seventeenth Century. Louis XIV. was on the throne of France. His ambition knew no bounds. He strove to add the Valley of the Rhine to his domains by force of arms without the least shadow of right, and from 1789 to 1797 Western Europe was embroiled in bloody strife.
It was in the midst of this period, in 1793, that William Penn published his plan for "the present and future peace of Europe." This was one of the most profound statements of the Quaker idea of the benefits of peace, and of the proper method of securing them that has ever been made. He first discusses the bene- fits of peace,-safety of possessions, growth of indus- try, freedom of trade, absence of the anxieties of war, investments are made for profit and pleasure, charity and hospitality are promoted as wealth increases ; he next recounts the evils of war,-withdrawal of capital from productive industry, the poor turn soldiers or thieves, or starve; no building, no manufactory, little hospitality or charity ; but what peace gave war devours.
He next asserts that the means of peace is justice, not armies and navies and war. Justice is a means of peace between magistrates and the people, between one man and another, and between different countries. "Peace is maintained by justice, which is a fruit of government, as government is from society, and society from consent."
Thirdly, he says government is an expedient against confusion, a restraint upon all disorder. Government is the means of justice, as justice is of peace.
Fourthly, having shown the desirableness of peace, its security through justice, and justice through gov-
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ernment, he next urges that the princes of Europe would, from love of peace and order, agree to meet, by their deputies, yearly, or once in two or three years at farthest, in a body to be styled the Imperial Diet or Parliament, or State of Europe, before which assembly should be brought all differences depending between one sovereign and another, he is assured that thus the harassed inhabitants of Europe would quietly obtain the so much desired and needed peace.
Penn then discusses the causes of international dif- ferences and the motives to violate peace, the grounds on which those differences may arise, the organization of the proposed international Diet or Parliament, the order of business in its sessions, and the rules and regulations for conducting the business.
He then skilfully sets up and overthrows the various objections that he is sure will be urged against his plan.
First, that the strongest and richest nation will not agree to it. To this he replies that the strongest is not stronger than all the rest, and for that reason the others should promote the proposition and hold the strongest in check. Again, he supposes the objection, that if the strongest and richest should agree, there would be the danger of corruption of the assembly through the riches. To this he replies that "if men of sense and honor and substance are chosen (as repre- sentatives of the other States) they will either scorn the baseness, or have wherewith to pay for the knav- ery (?)." At least they may so watch each other as to be checks one upon another ; and that in all great matters before finally coming to a final settlement. they should be obliged to refer back to their own home governments for final instructions.
The next great objection is that it will, by removing the necessity for fighting, produce effeminacy in the men. There can be no danger of effeminacy, he says, because each nation can introduce as temperate or as severe a discipline in the education of youth as it pleases. It can instruct them in the conquest of them- selves and of nature : in the practice of mechanics, and of natural philosophy, which would make them men, and not either women or lions. They could be trained to be useful to themselves and to others, and how to save and help. not injure or destroy. Further, he savs. the youth should be instructed in the knowledge of government in general, of that of their own country
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in particular, and be fitted for service in the govern- ment of the great international state under contempla- tion.
The objection that the members of the army will be out of employment, and must either become thieves or starve, he meets by saying that we shall need more merchants and farmers, and "ingenious naturalists," which, put into modern phrase, might mean practical biologists, chemists, geologists, electricians and engi- neers. And these will be produced, he says, if the governments are sufficiently solicitous of the education of their youth, "which, next to the present and imme- diate happiness of any country, ought of all things to be the care and skill of the government; for such as the youth of any country is bred, such is the next generation, and the government in good or bad hands."
The last objection mentioned is that by entering into the proposed union, the sovereign states would cease to be sovereign. To this he replies that it is not proposed to interfere with their sovereignty at home; their power over their own people and the revenues is not to be in the least diminished. It may be that the "war establishment" may be reduced or put to better use. "None of them have any sovereignty over one another, and if this be called a lessening of their power, it must be only because the great fish can no longer eat up the little ones, and that each sovereignty is equally defended from injuries, and disabled from committing them." "When it pleases God to chastise us severely for our sins, it is with the rod of war that, for the most part, he whips us : and experience tells us that none leaves deeper marks behind it."
Lastly, he discusses the real benefits that would flow from the adoption of his proposal. They may be sum- marized as follows :
I. It would prevent the inhuman and unchristian process of spilling so much blood.
2. It would relieve Christianity in the eyes of heathen and infidels, of the opprobrium and scandal of its unfaithfulness to the peaceable teaching of its founder.
3. It would save money that could be devoted to the promotion of education, charity, and industrial progress.
4. It would relieve towns, cities and countries from the danger of being laid waste by the rage of war.
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5. It would make travel and traffic easy and secure .. 6. It would promote the security of Christendom against the inroads of the Turks. ( In Penn's time this was a danger that we, in our day, cannot appreciate.)
7. It would beget and promote friendship between princes and states, and lead them to emulate one another in deeds of civility, kindness, goodness; and in the propagation of learning the arts and human laws and customs.
8. It would enable princes to choose wives for them- selves, such as they love, and not by proxy merely to. gratify political interest ; a motive that is ignoble, and often results in wars, feuds and desolations "because of unkindness between princes and their wives, and it has produced unnatural divisions among their children and ruin to their families, if not loss of their countries by it."
It is one of the glories of Quakerism, that while at the time Penn's proposal received scant attention, thoughtful statesmen have been gradually coming up to the highi plane of the Quaker conception of inter- national relations. The Hague Conferences and The Hague Court have followed closely, thus far, the plans outlined by Penn.
The calling of The Hague Conference by the Czar of Russia recalls the fact that a long line of Quaker influences has been at work upon the Czars, and there is little doubt that the convictions that led Nicholas II. to send out his rescript, have grown out of a series of religious visits made by "ministering Friends" to the royal palace of Russia.
The earliest of these was probably William Allen, who, as early as 1797, was in Russia, and later was a companion of Stephen Grellet in a religious visit to Alexander I. (1818-1820). Daniel Wheeler resided near St. Petersburg from 1817-1832 in the reigns of Alexander I. and Nicholas I. He was Superintendent of Agriculture for the Czars, and had many religious opportunities with these sovereigns.
Stephen Grellet laid before the Czar the great good that would come to the nations if the method of arbi- tration should be substituted for war in the settlement of disputes. The Czar was much impressed, and a number of things in his life show that the influence was not lost.
In 1824 Thomas Shillito also visited the Czar.
In 1854, during the Crimean war, a committee of 7.
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English Friends, consisting of Joseph Sturge, Robert Charleton and Henry Pease, visited Nicholas I., urging the end of the strife. Meanwhile John Bright, in the British Parliament, was striking some sterling Quaker blows against the unwisdom of the English participa- tion in the unholy war.
In 1878, Barnabas C. Hobbs, of Indiana Yearly Meeting, under the leading of the Spirit, made a visit to St. Petersburg to lay before Alexander II. a memo- rial praying for exemption from military duty of all Russian subjects who have conscientious scruples against war ; and urging upon the Czar the adoption of arbitration as a substitute for war.
s.The present Czar, Nicholas II., came to the throne in 1894, and on his marriage, in 1895, London Yearly Meeting of Friends sent a committee to congratulate him. It has been said that Nicholas had a Quaker nurse to watch his steps in his childhood. It would be difficult to suppose that the long line of Quaker influ- ences in the royal palace of the Czars had no effect in leading to the call for The Hague Conference in 1898.
on This is certainly true, that since the rise of the Society of Friends it has pushed to the front the doctrine of peace and arbitration in the face of oppo- sition and luke warmness, until to-day the attention of the world is so firmly fixed upon it, that there is little likelihood that it will not sooner or later be accepted by the nations of the world as the happy refuge from the burdens and the barbarities of war.
But the victory is not yet won, and Friends must not relax effort until the last battleflag is furled.
2 P. M. PERMANENT ELEMENTS OF QUAKERISM. J. EDWIN JAY, PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL INSTRUCTION, GUILFORD COLLEGE, NORTH CAROLINA.
20 MY FRIENDS: I perceive that you, with me, share peculiar sentiments, as we revolve here the reminis- cences of early days. We have no battlefield to hedge -"with evergreen or bedeck with memorials of fallen braves ; but we stand upon ground where heroes lived, & their immortal testimonies wrought deep into our lives, prompting the impulses of our own breasts, and stir- ring us to-day with peculiar emotions of patriotism, loyalty and faith.
They are sleeping, the pioneers; many of them in
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unmarked graves. It was their wish. But their spirits. live again. The vision of a noble people, with life's works well done, passes like a host before our imagina- tions. But we are not of their throng, the noble dead. We are the living, and the message we bear is not to those the honored past,-except to pay them tribute; but to the living, to mortal men and women who are yet in the midst of life's unfinished battles.
When one takes a broader look out upon the vast. arena of the historic past, he sees that where imperial cities once stood, there now remain but ruins of crum- bled bricks and drifted sands. He sees where temples stood, where deities were worshipped, and where proud man boasted of his achievements and carved their records in books of hardened clay and stone. One can hardly behold any more ominous sign than the spec- tacle of ruined empires, of buried cities, vanished popu- lations, extinct civilizations. Yet, such is the record. In the centers where civilization first came forward, flowered, and bore the fruits of human thought and affection, and attained to remarkable grandeur, we search now with pick and spade for the message they left us. We read, as it were, across milleniums to learn the story of ashes and heaps of clay. Are these empires dead? They have passed away ; but even in the morning of history, man's heart must have throb- bed with longing, yearning interests ; with instincts and impulses : with pain and fear and exultation and up- ward striving : with joy of triumph and fortitude of suffering. His cities and his works of art are gone to ashes: it is the tale of all ancient history. But are there no contributions out of all this life that was lived? Shall we look in vain to the past to find no sinews of strength to serve us in the present? Not so. The life that was lived in ancient Babylonia milleniums ago, and along the Nile in the equal distant past, and in the later but still ancient centers of the world's early striving after civilized manners, is indispensably linked to the present, tied to us with chains of human sym- pathy and interest that grow stronger as the centuries roll on. There are elements of permanency in all organized life, but these are not always so apparent to the actors themselves while they live. Kings sought to immortalize their pride and fame by printing their records and names on pillars and slabs and friezes within the massive temples of their gods. But these were not permanent. The elements that endure could
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not be carved in letters of stone; they can never be but vaguely symbolized in written speech. The speech of that which is vital and permanent has a language of the heart and mind, and there only in the fullest tones can it be spoken.
Where, then, is permanency to be looked for? Certainly not in the external, whether of forms of thought or of forms of matter. Laws and concepts vary with the progressive history of man, so that the forms of philosophy and dogma pass inevit- ably, with time, beyond their vital years. They serve but for a while. Still it must be remembered that truth of any age must have embodiment, but the body changes, grows old, and like the ancient tablets and friezes on the walls of temples it wears out and falls to decay. Resurrection is the rule of all life. The majestic oak that stands a monument of centuries is not permanent. But the seed-principle of the acorn is permanent. While acorns last and there is soil to receive them oaks will spring up and grow. But if acorns are no more, oaks will fail with the passing of the years, and the memory of their great dignity as kings of the forest will be written in the merest lines of nature's tracing of an extinct tree. It is very true : institutions, sects, however great, must perpetuate themselves in the seed-principle that reproduces through new forms and growths expressive of its kind, ever and anon bearing new fruit and passing on its history through the seed and not the bulk. To make the application to Quakerism, is it not pertinent here? We must not expend ourselves on casuistry of dress and speech, or any Quakerized specialties that have no longer a vital meaning. We must sift thor- oughly for the genuine and the real. We must reach earnestly and steadfastly after that which appears to us the permanent and the needful.
But I would guard myself and you from one proud error. Quakerism in itself, or as a name, has no in- herent permanency. Quakerism is no magic term; we cannot conjure with it. There is no constitutional permanency in our name or in our affiliation as Quak- ers, except in one respect. And it is this: wherein Quakerism has been or shall be the expression and the application of what is permanent in Christianity itself, in that and that alone is its claim for an inherent strength and a pledge for the future. Our aim, there-
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fore, is not to hold up some definitely conceived tenets, placards of belief, over and across which appears the words, "Private Property-Quakerism." But our aim shall be to try to find the permanent in Christianity itself and recognize there the points of Quaker contact and assimilation. To do this is to find those elements to which is due our permanency as an institution down to this hour, and to find that upon which rests the con- tinuity of our future.
Now I suppose there is no more prominent distinc- tion of Quakerism than its claim to be a religion of spirit; of inward illumination in respect to faith and conduct. A popular conception of a Quaker is sure to be some way involved in the general notion that he takes to himself a motto to act "as the Spirit moves." The tribute may not be always in honor, it may not always be true. For in these days we must confess Quakerism does not seem to be soundly unified on any of the great distinctive doctrines. Yet we shall surely find in these loosely floated ideas of ancient belief, such as "the moving of the Spirit," "the Hand of the Lord," "the Light," and many others, that we have in them the defining terms of a great and permanent element of religion. The verbiage may be open to misconstruction, but the actualities of experience which is sought to be described remain to us the choicest gems of all the sifted facts of our religious history. We can be glad to have the distinction to hold up this practical adaptation of the divine and the human elements of religion. The rationality and the potency of this doctrine are not half portrayed, though it was the day-star hope of Fox, the fitted lock and key of Gurney, the mystic lamp of Woolman, the guide and friend of Stephen Grellet.
That the Quaker had some experience in his soul which he regarded as a contact with Divinity, none will deny. Whether or not the Quaker was deceived and only believed that certain impulses of his own spirit were divinely originated, when in fact they were only the unknown psychic phenomena of his own soul, some may readily claim. But if I may modestly claim for myself, speaking of this doctrine, any faint draught from this artesian stream of Quaker life, I will choose no newer phrase than the one already so long chosen, viz., "The Leading of the Spirit": This we say enfolds the Quaker idea of a many sided and practical doctrine of genuine religion, But how shall we analyze it in
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the light of modern thinking and modern theology ? To be able to do this would certainly be a contribution to a larger world than Quakerism itself. It would en- rich the common Christianity of all.
Probably the best conception that defines God's rela- tion to the world is one in which the ideas of imma- nence and transcendance are united in one idea of God's paternal omnipotence and omnipresence. The world as an organism is used of God to express His divine purpose toward fulfilment and realization of a heavenly order, known in Biblical terms as the King- dom. To this end that particular relation in which we see God's power and influence extended to every crea- ture in a co-operating way is what, in theological par- lance, we may call immanence.
Let us hold the thought that seems both scientific and Christian, that God as the author and creator of all is inseparably related to all in a genuine co-oper- ating power, which is the cause of all growth toward perfection, beauty and fulfilment.
But this conception of immanence alone is inade- quate. God is related to His world in another im- portant way. The thought that God is independent and greater than His universe; that all His creation, as the product of His infinite thought and purpose, must also be pliant and obedient to His will. This is what we may include in the term transcendence. The world is not a mere machine running impersonally ac- cording to laws of ultimate fixture, but it is a world con- sistently working out an infinite purpose for good. It is a world of organized life and beauty in which all the laws of matter and spirit are but the expressions of His intelligent will. Mercy and sympathy are not sacrificed therefore to a rigid system of natural law, but the feel- ings of the heart of God may cause Him to intervene or preclude any apparent natural order wherever His higher feelings may prompt the need of special divine help. He would not be Father if He would not or could not do this. We have therefore a conception of God's character which seems nearest to that of Jesus, in which God as Father unites in Himself the power both transcendent and immanent. Now, if these ideas be a correct view, we come again to see another great permanent foundation in which Quakerism has intrenched itself in the doctrine of the inward leading of the Spirit. If we narrow our thoughts now from the consideration of life in its wide extent of all nature
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to the restricted study of man, we find the remarkable distinction here to reside in the fact that with man we have an individual heightened above all other creatures by the possession of personality. Personality implies the possession of spiritual powers, such as are capable of apprehending and receiving or of imbuing and im- parting faculties or functions which are perfectly normal to two or more personalities in fellowship.
The very highest conception of communion is dis- cerned in this very real possibility of fellowship be- tween personalities. To what extent the process of regeneration is related to this fact of communion and fellowship, it is not needful to propose, but as "the wind bloweth where it listeth and we cannot tell whether it cometh or goeth," somehow when we come into contact with the divine, there is more or less a spontaneous experience of fellowship, communion and inward change of affections ; our whole soul feels a new dynamic power. Some such experience as this Jesus made the very requisite of entrance to His kingdom. Communion, fellowship, contact with the divine per- sonality are expressive words though they come hard when we would desire to point out the absolute realities of religion.
Now, the Quaker thinks that he has some such real contact with God, in which there comes to him the good meat and the good drink by reason of the great divine personal influence which he receives unto him- self and to which he can also impart the deepest yearn- ings of his own heart. He can be comforted and also inspired to fortitude. To him thus claiming to sup with God in the real heavenly wine, all priestly types and symbols and empty memorials seem vain and meaningless indeed. He cannot engage in them. How I love the Quaker idea of religion, that rises to the highest enjoyments of personality in communion with the infinite divine personality of a Heavenly Father. Was this not Christ's teaching? How He besought the world to come to this fellowship. The Quaker has made a good advance. Let him keep on, let him lead all the way out of the sham of ritual and symbol and call the world to the higher principles of realities in communion and worship.
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